Past Oscar Bait Indies We Love

We at FilmBuff love to root for the underdog. We're not talking about the Mets or your high school football team that hasn't won a season since Joanie Loves Chachi was on the air. We're talking about the Oscar underdogs (we're a film site c'mon, you had to see that one coming...). The underdogs in the big Oscar race? The Indies. The big studios literally have whole departments dedicated to getting their hands on a couple of those glorious gold naked guys. We do not even want to think about how many donuts we could buy with the amount of money studios spend on the For Your Consideration Ads. Sometimes independent films are better than typical Oscar bait because the Academy was not even a glimmer in their director's eyes during production. Here is a collection of some of our favorite indie oscar bait from the past few years.

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Little Miss Sunshine

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So many indie movies since Little Miss Sunshine have tried to replicate it's success that it's hard to remember before this 2006 sleeper-hit the idea of a indie family comedy being nominated for Best Picture was basically unheard of. The darkly hilarious Little Miss Sunshine was nominated for 4 Oscars and won two: best original screenplay and best supporting actor. We all remember Olive's adorable talent portion of the titular beauty pageant but maybe you won't remember how the film's filled with surprisingly understated performances from great character actors. Steve Carrell playing a suicidal Proust scholar? Kinda genius.

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In the Bedroom

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Back in 2001, In the Bedroom made a huge impact on the independent film world. Todd Field's haunting family drama has the slow pacing and intricate performances we've come to expect from our favorite indie films. Premiering at Sundance, the film went on to be nominated for five Oscars, including the big kahuna itself, Best Picture. Watch it again, and you'll appreciate the completely Oscar-worthy performances from Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson and Marisa Tomei, and Field's masterful direction that refuses to make moral judgements on it's humanly flawed characters.

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My Left Foot

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The rise of Miramax and other specialty film heavyweights during the 90's has made indie films getting nominations the norm. But in the eighties independent film did not have as much traction or clout. My Left Foot was the exception to the rule. The debut film of Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan received five Oscar nominations and won 2 acting awards, most notably for Daniel Day-Lewis' genius turn as Christy Brown, a man who overcomes cerebral palsy to become an artist.

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Exit Through the Gift Shop

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This hilarious and insightful documentary by notorious street artist Banksy is one of those movies that surprises you when the Academy recognizes it's awesomeness. Oscar nominated documentaries are typically issue driven: smart, incisive docs that push for some kind of social change. Exit Through the Gift Shop is at its core a massively entertaining character piece that works as a true life satire of the art world and the hype of street art. And it started out as many indie success stories do: with a crazy guy holding a camera.

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The Hurt Locker

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Talk about the underdog. The Hurt Locker's Oscar run is a true David and Goliath story. Kathryn Bigelow's taut, suspenseful indie from 2009 was never predicted to get tons of nominations let alone win the biggest prize of all: Best Picture. Let's forget about Avatar for a second. It's not about the blue 3-D creatures it was up against, or how Bigelow used to be married to James Cameron. The biggest feat was that a indie war movie focused on character and narrative. Riding the Oscar buzz wave all the way to getting nominated for nine Academy Awards, it won a whopping six.

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