10 Most Oscar Bait Movies From The 2015 Awards Season

10. Unbroken

What's Oscar Bait About The Idea? Hollywood has been trying to make a movie on the life of Olympian-cum-bombadier-cum-PoW Louie Zamperini since it was still a news-worthy event, which adds a nice extra layer of Oscar publicity to Unbroken, a film that already dealt with many of Oscar's favourite elements - period setting, Second World War, Christian-inflected redemption. What really made this World War II movie stand out from all the others, however, was its director, Angelina Jolie. Even though her debut feature, In The Land Of Blood And Honey, got mixed reviews, because no one saw that everyone was keen to see what the A-plus-lister would do behind the camera. Was It Any Good? Unbroken was incredibly high profile and features a star making turn from Jack O'Connell, but all that groundwork was wasted by Jolie. The actress gives some of the most pedestrian direction possible, simply letting the pseudo-inspirational story speak for itself, hilarious railway sleeper-holding and all. There's moments of attempted flourish, but they're all rather unadventurous - a clearly signalled shark jump scare and sappy run of real-life pictures make the film feel like it was made in 1950, when the project was first floated. What There Any Major Campaigning? Many had this pegged as an early front-runner in the whole awards season. Then people saw it and suddenly all that buzz went away, with the film only getting a handful of technical nominations. Will It Get Anything For Its Efforts? No - its three nominations are all in categories (Cinematograhpy, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing) with much worthier candidates.