10 Performances That Pretty Much Screamed “Give Me an Oscar!”

Published Oct 14, 2026, 5:39 AM EDT

Diego Pineda has been a devout storyteller his whole life. He has self-published a fantasy novel and a book of short stories, and is actively working on publishing his second novel.

A lifelong fan of watching movies and talking about them endlessly, he writes reviews and analyses on his Instagram page dedicated to cinema, and occasionally on his blog. His favorite filmmakers are Andrei Tarkovsky and Charlie Chaplin. He loves modern Mexican cinema and thinks it's tragically underappreciated.

Other interests of Diego's include reading, gaming, roller coasters, writing reviews on his Letterboxd account (username: DPP_reviews), and going down rabbit holes of whatever topic he's interested in at any given point.

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Ever since the very first Academy Awards were held back in 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been recognizing what they deem to be the best performances of each respective year in four categories: Best Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress. What started as a relatively small, private industry party, however, soon grew into the most prestigious and coveted awards ceremony in the entire film industry.

As such, ever since the Oscars became many actors' biggest goal in life, many performers have offered what has come to be called as an "Oscar bait" performance. These are not necessarily bad pieces of acting—in fact, many of them are nothing short of exceptional—, but it's hard to deny that everything about them screams "please give me an Oscar!"

10 Hilary Swank — 'Amelia' (2009)

Image via Fox Searchlight Pictures

Winning one Oscar is already more than prestigious enough for many actors. Winning two? That's pretty much guaranteed to make you a legend. But winning three Academy Awards—and all in the Leading Actress category, no less? Now, that's the kind of achievement that makes you an undeniable pillar of screen acting. Back in 2009, Hilary Swank tried to go for that treble when she starred as Amelia Earhart in Mira Nair's Amelia.

With Swank taking on the role of executive producer and working very closely on the project with Nair, it's abundantly clear that this was a project aimed at earning her the same kind of award prestige that she'd earned with her Oscar victories for 1999's Boys Don't Cry and 2004's Million Dollar Baby. Alas, Amelia ended up being both a critical and commercial failure, and Swank's career hasn't really been the same since.

9 Brendan Fraser — 'The Whale' (2022)

Image via A24

Of course, the Academy certainly does care about the quality of a performance when considering whether to reward it with an Oscar; but if there's one thing that they care about even more, it's a strong narrative. Comeback narratives are among the most effective in an actor making their way to Academy gold, and that's precisely the kind of story that fueled Brendan Fraser's campaign for Darren Aronofsky's The Whale.

Watching Fraser return to the silver screen in such a powerfully dramatic, absolutely transformational role was an utter delight, which meant that virtually no one complained when his name was called to the Dolby Theatre stage in 2023. But though it's almost undeniably a great actorial display on Fraser's part, we're also talking about a flashy role and a melodramatic project that check almost every classic box on the "Oscar bait" checklist.

8 Eddie Redmayne — 'The Danish Girl' (2015)

Image via Focus Features

Following The King's Speech and Les Misérables, director Tom Hooper was on a hell of an awards run throughout the 2010s. And even though The Danish Girl didn't receive nearly as much praise, it still made its way to four Oscar nominations. While Alicia Vikander's undeniable co-lead role winning Best Supporting Actress is one of the worst category fraud examples in Oscars history, it's Eddie Redmayne that's the topic of a conversation about Oscar bait performances.

For one, the concept of a famed cisgender male actor playing the role of a real-life trans woman has aged like milk over the course of just a little over a decade. Specifically talking about Redmayne's performance, however, the Oscar-bait formula of a biopic star vehicle for an actor to showcase their chameleonic abilities was all very clearly there.

7 Tom Cruise — 'Digger' (2026)

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

There's no getting around it: Oscar-winning Mexican auteur Alejandro G. Iñárritu's latest, Digger, has been a controversial film. Where some see a pretentious tonal mess, others see an absolutely brilliant character-driven epic with profoundly timely themes. One point, however, has been the subject of nothing but near-universal praise all across the board: Tom Cruise's performance as the titular character.

Cruise is one of those quintessential Hollywood stars who have been actively hunting for an Academy Award for decades, the first of his three acting nods so far coming all the way back in 1990. Digger is nothing if not a multi-hyphenate film, but one of its biggest qualities is that it's undoubtedly a star vehicle with the goal of earning Cruise an Academy Award nomination. Will it achieve that goal in spite of being such a divisive movie? Only time will tell.

6 Renée Zellweger — 'Judy' (2019)

Image via 20th Century Studios

Going into the 2010s, Renée Zellweger already had three Oscar nominations under her belt, and one win for 2003's Cold Mountain. For actors of her caliber, however, one is never enough. Zellweger aimed for that second one with Rupert Goold's Judy, one of the most forgettable movies ever to win an Oscar. Indeed, Zellweger succeeded at earning the Academy's favor for a performance that hasn't aged the best.

This is a textbook example of Oscar bait: An exceptional actress long overdue for a second Oscar, starring in a tragic biopic about an actress who's undeniable Hollywood royalty. Though Zellweger's transformation into Judy Garland is admirable in many respects, the script doesn't really give her much emotional depth or very many thematic nuances to work with.

Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite

🌀Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

🐦Birdman

🪙No Country for Old Men

FIND YOUR FILM →

01

What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind.

ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours?

AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.

AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?

AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?

AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible.

AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.

AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.

ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.

NEXT QUESTION →

09

How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.

AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action.

NEXT QUESTION →

10

What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?

AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days.

REVEAL MY FILM →

The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about.

Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

5 Rami Malek — 'Bohemian Rhapsody' (2018)

Image via 20th Century Studios

Plans for a film about the story of Queen, one of the biggest rock bands in history, were revealed all the way back in 2010, with Sacha Baron Cohen initially attached as Freddie Mercury himself. After a stint in development hell, the project evolved into what we eventually got: Bohemian Rhapsody, a stale Bryan Singer biopic that has kept aging like milk as the years have continued to pass.

There are those who would criticize Malek's performance for feeling more like a cartoonish impression than a true transformation.

This is one of those movies where the music is the best part, though there was another element that the Academy very clearly loved: Rami Malek's take on Mercury. There are those who would criticize Malek's performance for feeling more like a cartoonish impression than a true transformation, but one thing is undeniable, and that is that taking on transformational roles like this typically equates to a piece of acting being Oscar bait.

4 Gary Oldman — 'Darkest Hour' (2017)

Image via Focus Features

Few actors were as overdue for an Academy Award going into 2017 as much as Gary Oldman, one of the biggest legends of modern-day British screen acting. From the moment audiences saw trailers for Darkest Hour, a Joe Wright biopic about Winston Churchill's early days as Prime Minister of the UK during World War II, it was immediately evident that Oldman was chasing that Oscar like his life depended on it.

The good part? Oldman's turn as Churchill does, indeed, see the actor at his most admirably unrecognizable, which is why he managed to fulfill the goal of making it onto the Dolby Theatre stage. The bad part? That victory came for one of the most mediocre movies of all time, a war drama that isn't really worth watching for any other reason than Oldman's performance.

3 Meryl Streep — 'The Iron Lady' (2011)

Image via TWC

It pretty much goes without saying that Meryl Streep, one of the only actors ever to have won three Academy Awards, is one of the biggest legends in the history of the big screen. The film that earned her her third Oscar was Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady. Alas, it's one of the worst movies ever to have won multiple Oscars, a completely lifeless biopic that audiences have mostly forgotten about 15 years later.

Though critics and members of the industry adored Streep's performance back in 2011, the consensus with the benefit of hindsight has become that her take on Margaret Thatcher is almost every bit as dull and shallow as the screenplay itself. Even still, this represents one of the most classic Oscar-bait archetypes in the history of the Oscars: the legacy narrative, where a legendary actor is given an Academy Award not only because of the merits of their performance, but also simply because of their overall trajectory.

2 Will Smith — 'King Richard' (2021)

Image via Warner Bros. Pictures

Rolling into the 2020s, there were few actors who were as constantly and actively hunting for an Academy Award as Will Smith. Going into the 2021-22 race, Smith became the clear frontrunner with Reinaldo Marcus Green's King Richard, a classic "give me an Oscar already!" inspirational biopic that made the 2022 Oscar for Leading Actor Will Smith's to lose.

Part legacy win, part Oscar bait win, Smith's victory has unfortunately not aged all that well—in no small part due to the infamous slap incident involving Chris Rock at the actual 2022 Academy Awards ceremony. Analyzing Smith's work in a vacuum, however, nevertheless reveals a performance that, while undeniably strong and emotionally complex, clearly had prestigious awards as its primary target.

1 Sean Penn — 'I Am Sam' (2001)

Image via New Line Cinema

There's a certain quote spoken by Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder that encapsulates the full implications of Sean Penn's performance in I Am Sam better than any line anyone could ever come up with. After two nominations, Penn was seriously in want of an Academy Award, and this was the melodramatic project that he felt could carry him to that highly-coveted Oscar gold.

Alas, the years' passage have maintained the general perception that this is one of those Oscar-nominated performances that low-key deserved a Razzie instead. It's the most shamelessly transparent "give me an Oscar!"-shouting performance in the Academy's history, a piece of acting so heavily associated with calculated emotional manipulation for awards that pop culture has spent 25 years poking fun at it.

I Am Sam

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  Sam Dawson

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  Rita Harrison Williams

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  Annie Cassell

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  Lucy Diamond Dawson