12 Most Desperate Oscar Grab Movies Of 2016

12. Manchester By The Sea

Don’t get us wrong: by all accounts Kenneth Lonergan’s moving meditation on loss and grief, Manchester by the Sea, is an excellent movie.

Currently boasting six Golden Globe nominations, including nods for Lonergan as Best Director and star Casey Affleck for Best Actor, and recently listed amongst the American Film Institute’s best films of 2016, it looks like a shoo-in for the Academy Awards too.

But when an actor with as much experience as Samuel L. Jackson – who dismissed the hype around Manchester by the Sea as evidence of Oscar politics – calls a movie Oscar bait, you have to wonder.

It’s got a powerhouse performance from Affleck as a grieving father, a tear-jerker plot sad enough to make even the stoniest of souls cry and the critical praise to back it up.

And that's not to mention its cast and crew's history of Academy Award accolades too: Lonergan having received a Best Original Screenplay for his directorial debut You Can Count On Me, Affleck a Best Supporting Actor nod for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and his co-star Michelle Williams boasts three Oscar nominations for either Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress. Perhaps 2017 will finally be their year.