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Once a year, Hollywood’s crème de la crème gather for a night where tensions and fashions are high, and everyone wants to leave the party with the same man: Oscar. Hollywood’s Night of Nights has come a long way since the First Annual Academy Awards ceremony, which lasted fifteen minutes and charged $5 for tickets. While the losers may yearn for the days of a fifteen-minute ceremony, the now lavish awards night is nothing short of an extravaganza.
The glitz and glamour of the coveted event make the perfect playground for a writer’s imagination. With millions of eyes on the ceremony, and no shortage of controversial moments, the Academy Awards are the ideal setting for a high-stakes story. The culmination of years of work is judged, and hopes can be brutally dashed just as quickly as one can open an envelope. With a wealth of edge-of-your-seat moments, it’s clear why many films have explored the hope, excitement, drama and despair of the most anticipated evening on the Hollywood calendar.
‘Official Competition’ (2021)
A traditional immersive actor and a Hollywood hotshot walk into a rehearsal room. They are making a film adaptation of a popular novel, and the eccentric director employs methods that force both men out of their comfort zones in Official Competition.
Playing with the trope of rehearsing an Oscars acceptance speech in the mirror, this film features a brilliant monologue delivered by Oscar Martinez, who instead practices his rejection speech. Referencing the ego of award-winning and the artist’s attempt to divorce themselves from that ego, this satire is a clever and hilarious musing on the crafts of acting, film-making and award-winning.
‘California Suite’ (1978)
It’s Academy Awards week, and all the rooms are booked in a California hotel. California Suite follows the goings-on in four different suites, and four different versions of domestic disaster.
Adapted for screen by Neil Simon from his 1976 play, every scene is a sharp verbal tennis match. The film is full to bursting with talented actors who strike and parry with the masterful text. Brilliantly layered and heartfelt performances from Jane Fonda and Alan Alda, and tragicomic scenes between Maggie Smith and Michael Caine make California Suite an unmissable Oscar movie. Maggie Smith even gave an Oscar-winning performance, which serves as just retribution for her character, who lost out on her nomination in the film.
‘For Your Consideration’ (2006)
From the dream team that created This Is Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind and Best In Show, For Your Consideration follows a small production team working on the film Home for Purim. As more cast members hear of Oscar buzz around their performances, ego begins to take the wheel and the cast and production lose their way.
The writing (by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy) is both sad and silly, laying bare the ridiculousness of Hollywood hype. A darkly comedic satire of the industry, the ego and the hullabaloo that goes with the two most provocative words in show business: Oscar Buzz.
‘A Star Is Born’ (1954)
The second of four iterations of A Star Is Born features Judy Garland and James Mason as Esther and Norman. The film sees Norman crashing two ceremonies – the first with comedic results, the second tragic. When Norman drunkenly storms the stage during Esther’s Oscars acceptance speech, it spells the beginning of the end for the tragic figure.
Both Garland and Mason received Oscar nominations for their performances, as well as the incredible torch song “The Man That Got Away”. The film has the highest Rotten Tomatoes audience score of the four adaptations with a 98% rating, and is well worth watching for its real-life nominated performances and on-screen Oscars moment.
‘One of the Hollywood Ten’ (2000)
This biopic of director and screenwriter Herbert Biberman begins at the 1937 Academy Awards. It was the year that Triumph of the Will opened in New York, and the first year the Academy introduced the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role.
Exploring the House of Un-American Activities Committee’s witch-hunt for members of the Communist Party which lead to blacklisting in Hollywood, this true story tells of the imprisonment of the Hollywood Ten and Herbert’s attempt to rebuild his career. Starring Jeff Goldblum as Herbert, and Greta Scacchi as his wife, actress Gale Sondergaard, whose acceptance speech set the wheels in motion for suspicions about Herbert’s Communist allegiance.
‘The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult’ (1994)
In 1941, the Academy introduced a sealed envelope system to keep the winners a secret. This was in response to an embarrassing blunder the year prior, in which the winners were announced in the evening papers before the ceremony. Since then, the trusted envelope system has remained a staple of the ceremony.
In The Naked Gun 33 1/3, the envelope makes for a stealthy hiding spot for a bomb set by a terrorist organization. Cue Leslie Nielsen‘s bumbling accidental genius to stop the bomb from detonating. A farcical film noir caper, with plenty of references to important moments in Oscars history, such as Sally Field‘s iconic “You like me” speech and Sacheen Littlefeather‘s address on behalf of Marlon Brando (to whom the Academy was dismally late in apologizing to for the horrific response to her speech).
‘The Bodyguard’ (1992)
A hit-man is planning to take down his target, actor and singer Rachel Marron, when she accepts her Best Actress Oscar at the Academy Awards. Frank Farmer is engaged to protect Rachel at all costs, even if it means giving his life for her safety.
Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner make an unlikely cinematic pairing, but there are definitely times when it works. Equal parts thriller and romance, and featuring the romantic ballad to end all romantic ballads – any viewer who doesn’t shed a tear for the final “I Will Always Love You” is likely made of stone and not to be trusted.
‘Sunset’ (1988)
This murder mystery thriller is set in 1929 and follows an actor and the man he is portraying on-screen, as they battle crooked cops and dodgy dames while filming a Hollywood Western. The film culminates in a shoot-em-up showdown in the foyer of the First Annual Academy Awards Ceremony.
Starring Bruce Willis, James Garner, and eagle-eyed viewers will also see a young Dermot Mulroney in one of his first feature film roles. An interesting, if slightly odd nod to old Hollywood and early Westerns, with a hint of film noir flavor.
‘In & Out’ (1997)
In & Out is about Howard, a teacher who is outed as gay in an Oscars acceptance speech delivered by one of his former students. Viewers of In & Out will find their bingo card of damaging homophobic stereotypes quite full. It’s hard to remember these attitudes were prevailing so recently in history, and it makes the film feel older than it is.
The reductive descriptions of what makes a ‘man’ and what makes a gay man are painfully outdated, and though the film works towards a cathartic conclusion of acceptance, it takes a lot to get there.
‘The Oscar’ (1966)
Repugnant chauvinist Frankie Fane makes it big in Hollywood, despite only training in the ‘school of hard knocks’ and being a horrible person. As his career is waning, he’s nominated for an Oscar for his last film, relaunching his stratospheric ego. The final scene is a thing to behold: in a word, it’s bananas. The scene feels like a reference to the Frank Lloyd/Frank Capra debacle of 1934, in which the presenter said “Come on up and get it, Frank!” prompting the wrong Frank to run on stage.
Viewers of The Oscar will be required to stomach some heavy misogyny – while true to the realism of a story of Hollywood in the 1960s, it’s hard to watch given the decades of work done to eradicate such behavior. Introducing Tony Bennett and with many familiar faces like Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Ernest Borgnine and Jill St. John, it’s surprising that the film was such a flop. On a positive note, Edith Head gives great wardrobe and deservedly received a nomination for her work.
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