9 Obvious Oscar Bait Movies That Didn’t Even Get A Nomination

With the exception of a few outliers, movies nominated for an Academy Awards usually don’t bring in cash by the barrel. That’s what Transformers and Fast and Furious are for. But if you look closely at the movies that have been nominated, you’ll notice a couple things stand out harder than Asher Roth at Black Bike Week: most of them feature at least three heavy hitters and the subject matter being exploited is something super heavy like the Holocaust, slavery or the plight of a mentally challenged person. But it doesn’t always work.

Take Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr’s latest movie The Soloist. First scheduled to drop in theaters on November 21, 2008, just in time for Oscar consideration, the movie about a mentally troubled, homeless musician got the Joe Budden treatment and was pushed to March and then, finally, to this Friday. Weird, right? A movie with two award winning actors being pushed back twice? Well, not really. Keep reading and check out a couple other flicks that missed the Oscar mark…

Radio
Released: October 24, 2003
Why It Didn’t Work: After Snow Dogs, Boat Trip and the Fighting Temptations it was pretty obvious Cuba was itching for some Oscar love, hence this half baked sentimental mash up of Rudy and I Am Sam.

Australia
Released: November 26, 2008
Why It Didn’t Work: This World War II “epic” turned out to just be an epic failure after everyone realized they cared less about Nicole Kidman than they do about the country of Australia.

August Rush
Released: November 21, 2007
Why It Didn’t Work: Anyone who could sit through a movie with Robin Williams and Terrance Howard together deserves a gift of some sort. Maybe the option to never watch another Robin Williams or Terrance Howard movie ever again.

1984
Released: December 14, 1984
Why It Didn’t Work: If you’re going to make a movie called 1984 in 1984, shouldn’t you adjust it to actually reflect 1984?

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Released: October 10, 2007
Why It Didn’t Work: We’re still unsure of how Brad Pitt managed to make the life of one of the most storied figures in American history less entertaining than Roll Bounce.

Alexander
Released: November 24, 2004
Why It Didn’t Work: Admittedly, were we on the Academy board, we would have let this one slide off the strength of Angelina Jolie sliding her clothes off. But, god damn, Colin Farrell and his continually-perplexed-lookin’-ass went and messed it all up.

Amazing Grace
Released: February 23, 2007
Why It Didn’t Work: It’s basically a story about slave abolitionists that find love but fail to end slavery and write a great song. Wompity, womp, womp.

Seven Pounds
Released: December 19, 2008
Why It Didn’t Work: Note to Will Smith: Just because you look intense all throughout the movie doesn’t mean you’re acting seriously.

Once Upon A Time in America
Released: June 1, 1984
Why It Didn’t Work: Sergio in the ’80s was like LL Cool J in the Aughts. Just going through the motions.