15 Oscar Bait Movies That Actually Won Oscars, Ranked

The term "Oscar-bait"—used to refer to films that are specifically designed, marketed, and distributed to try and ensure Academy Awards attention—has been around since the early 1940s. It wasn’t until the 1970s, though, that the kind of Oscar-bait films we know today began to appear, starting with the Best Picture-winning The Deer Hunter.

Sometimes those films are phenomenal; other times they’re so focused on trophies they forget to be good. Failed Oscar-bait isn’t rare, but it’s rarer still when such films actually pick up Academy Awards. Take The Theory of Everything (2014): a by-the-numbers biopic that earned five Oscar nominations including Best Picture and won Best Leading Actor for Eddie Redmayne, with Redmayne and Felicity Jones providing the performances that elevate the material.

The King’s Speech (2010) is similarly safe and well acted—Colin Firth won an Oscar—yet its Best Picture victory over films like Inception and The Social Network left many cinephiles unsettled.

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