Word.ws English Dictionary

Oscar bait

Oscar bait noun: a film or films perceived to have been produced at least partially in order to be nominated for, and hopefully win, an Academy Award.

Noun

Oscar bait (uncountable)

  1. A film or films perceived to have been produced at least partially in order to be nominated for, and hopefully win, an Academy Award.
    • "O'Toole and Hepburn are memorable and matchless. You'll never see better performances. These are both Oscar bait outings.1968 December 16, New York Magazine, volume 1, number 37, →ISSN, page 5
    • Director Steven Soderbergh's Traffic was more typical Oscar bait, but the high-minded three-hour film about the drug trade along the US/ Mexican border was also inconsistent, and Soderbergh's fondness for mixing in grainy film stock and jerky handheld cameras didn't figure to endear him to older...2005, Steve Pond, The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards, page 261

Words formed from Oscar bait

Questions about Oscar bait

What does Oscar bait mean?
Oscar bait means a film or films perceived to have been produced at least partially in order to be nominated for, and hopefully win, an Academy Award.
What part of speech is Oscar bait?
Oscar bait is a noun.

Words near Oscar bait in the dictionary

  1. Osc.
  2. Oscan
  3. Oscans
  4. oscar
  5. Oscar Asche
  6. Oscar bait
  7. Oscar the Grouch
  8. Oscar-baity
  9. Oscared
  10. oscarellid
  11. oscarellids

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Oscar bait (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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