Award Bait Song / Films — Live-Action

Examples of Award-Bait Song in live-action films. Sorted in chronological order.

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• The Ur-Example for films is likely "Over the Rainbow" from 1939's The Wizard of Oz, which won the Oscar and may well be the most famous movie theme song of all time.
• Dean Martin's "That's Amore", revived as the theme to Moonstruck, was originally composed for 1953's The Caddy, and subsequently nominated for an Oscar, but lost to "Secret Love" from Calamity Jane.
• The Righteous Brothers' 1960's hit "Unchained Melody", known in recent years as "the theme to Ghost", was introduced in an obscure 1955 film titled Unchained, and was nominated for an Oscar.
• To Kill a Mockingbird, from, well... To Kill a Mockingbird.
• "Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
• "The Morning After" from The Poseidon Adventure is, unusually, featured in the movie and not just as part of the soundtrack when the ship's singer performs it in the ballroom. It won the Best Original Song Oscar, beating Michael Jackson's "Ben".
  • The same songwriters and singer responsible for "The Morning After" re-teamed two years later for "We May Never Love Like This Again" from The Towering Inferno, which was once again performed in-film by a singer at a ballroom party, and once again won the Oscar.
• The Man from Hong Kong has "Sky High" by Jigsaw, which became a Breakaway Pop Hit, during both the opening and closing credits.
• Many James Bond theme tunes are called, but few are chosen for Oscar nominations and fewer still are this trope. But of those that are...
  • "Nobody Does it Better" from The Spy Who Loved Me, sung by Carly Simon.
  • "For Your Eyes Only", sung by Sheena Easton.
  • "All Time High" from Octopussy, sung by Rita Coolidge.
  • Adele's "Skyfall" from the film of the same name. The first James Bond anthem to win an Oscar.
  • The Spiritual Successor to "Skyfall" is "Writing's on the Wall" by Sam Smith, the theme from Spectre, which won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and by that time was already the favorite to win the Oscar in that category and become the second James Bond anthem to do so — it did.
  • A notable song that wasn't nominated is Patti LaBelle's "If You Asked Me To" from Licence to Kill. It didn't truly take off until Céline Dion got a hold of it and it became one of her first English-language hits.
• "You Light Up My Life" from the 1977 film of the same title was originally performed by Kasey Cisyk, but it was Debby Boone's Covered Up version that became a gigantic Breakaway Pop Hit. It wound up winning the Best Original Song Oscar.
• The Bee Gees' "How Deep Is Your Love", from Saturday Night Fever, won a Grammy for Best Pop Song Performed by a Group, and was nominated for a Best Original Song Golden Globe award, but lost the latter to "You Light Up My Life". No Oscar nomination for this or any of the other songs even as the soundtrack was one of the biggest albums of The '70s and three of the actual 1977 nominees were from little-loved family films (the fourth was "Nobody Does It Better"). Producer Robert Stigwood called out the Academy for being behind the times. The next Oscar ceremony acknowledged the embarrassing omission with a medley of songs that were not nominated, including three from this film.
• The Goodbye Girl has a Title Theme Tune, "Goodbye Girl", performed by David Gates (of the group Bread). Despite having a mellow start, big finish, heartwarming feel-good lyrics, and some electric guitar showboating — and coming out of the film that ended up winning the 1977 Best Actor Oscar — it wasn't nominated. The 2004 made-for-TV remake features a Cover Version performed by Hootie & the Blowfish.
• "Candle on the Water" from Film/{{Pete's Dragon|1977}} received an Oscar nomination, but lost to the title tune from You Light Up My Life (see Film — Live-Action).
• "Can You Read My Mind?", made for Superman: The Movie. Not nominated because it doesn't actually appear as a song in the film, but Maureen McGovern did record it as a single tying into it.
• "The Last Time I Felt Like This" from Same Time, Next Year was nominated for an Oscar in 1978, but lost to "Last Dance" from Thank God It's Friday.
• Barry Manilow's "Ready to Take a Chance Again" from Foul Play was also nominated in 1978.
• "The Rainbow Connection" from the original Muppet film was Oscar-nominated in 1979 and became the Bootstrapped Theme of The Muppets as a franchise. The Great Muppet Caper had an award bait parody "The First Time It Happens" which was then nominated for an Oscar for real.
  • The Weezer and Hayley Williams cover from The Green Album, a tie-in for the 2011 Muppets film, sounds exactly like a Disney end-credits cover of the song would. Surprisingly, it isn't played over the movie's credits^note although Kermit and Piggy do sing the regular version of the song during the film itself, but the film does bring us "Man or Muppet", despite it not being played over the end credits either. And being the most award-baity, "Man or Muppet" even won the Oscar! (Against one other nominee, granted.)
• "The Rose" by Bette Midler, from The Rose, naturally. Wasn't nominated for the 1979 Best Song Oscar, but it did win the Golden Globe.
• A lower-key but still award-baity Oscar nominee from 1979 is "It's Easy to Say", from Ten. It's a mellow, piano-based Silly Love Song with touching lyrics — but it's also important to the story even though the film is not a musical. The main character (Dudley Moore) is a composer who has won awards for his film work in-universe, who comes up with the melody as the basis for a song to give to his at-the-time estranged girlfriend (Julie Andrews), a professional singer, to record. In the denouement, the now-finished song helps bring them back together when he performs it on a piano and she joins him, turning it into a duet. From there, the same actors perform a more polished version of the song over the end credits.
• Melissa Manchester performed not one, but two Oscar-nominated love songs in 1979: "Through the Eyes of Love" from Ice Castles and "I'll Never Say Goodbye" from The Promise. Both are sappy silly love songs created for maximum tearjerking, as befits a pair of romantic melodramas.
• And finally "It Goes Like It Goes" by Jennifer Warnes won the Oscar for 1979 (the film was Norma Rae) but may better be recalled now as the song that beat "The Rainbow Connection".
• Not to be confused with the later Mannequin song, there's "Nothing Can Stop Us Now" from Stir Crazy, performed by Kiki Dee.
• The title song from Xanadu, sung by Olivia Newton-John. Also a Breakaway Pop Hit, since the song and soundtrack album were far more popular than the film itself.
• "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" from Arthur was a stepping stone in this trope's evolution. It has a soothing mellow start, feel-good tone, buildup starting with the second chorus, a epic saxophone bridge (as opposed to electric guitar), and a Video Full of Film Clips. At the same time it defies eventual conventions of the trope: singer/co-writer Christopher Cross was just coming off of five Grammy Award wins, its lyrics openly reference the plot and characters, its melody turns up in the underscore, and it bookends the movie by playing under both sets of credits. It not only won the Best Original Song Oscar and Golden Globe (plus Grammy nominations for Record and Song of the Year) but was one of Cross's biggest hits, spending 3 weeks at Number One on the Billboard charts, and appeared in the Credits Medley at the end of the Academy Awards ceremony for years. The 2011 remake uses it in both instrumental and Cover Version forms (the latter by Fitz and the Tantrums).
  • The soundtrack Arthur — The Album contains three songs that aren't in the movie but work off of the underscore's themes. Stephen Bishop's "It's Only Love" fits the stereotypes of this trope even better than "Arthur's Theme" — mellow start, feel-good tone, non-specific lyrics, electric guitar solo, and heavy buildup, though the song has a mellow finish.
  • The 1988 sequel On the Rocks has "Love Is My Decision", performed and co-written by Chris de Burgh. This one's a straight-up Silly Love Song with sparkly synth and a BIG wrap-up — but still film-specific because the first-person lyrics are clearly from the perspective of the main character.
• "Endless Love" from the film of the same name. Nominated for the Best Song Oscar, but lost to "Arthur's Theme". It actually spent three times as many weeks (nine total) at Number One on the Billboard charts as the winner did, but probably lost because its source was not as well-liked, nor does the Silly Love Song match its tone. (The film is about a Stalker with a Crush.)
• The Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes duet "Up Where We Belong" from An Officer and a Gentleman was award-baity enough to win a Golden Globe, Oscar, BAFTA and a Grammy. All this after the producer tried to get the song cut, insisting that it was "no good and not a hit."
• "That's What Friends Are For" by Rod Stewart from Night Shift was later Covered Up by Dionne & Friends (Dionne Warwick, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Elton John).
• "Forbidden Colours" by Ryuichi Sakomoto and David Sylvian, from Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.
• Romantic Comedy — yes, that's the actual title — has "Maybe" performed by Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack over its end credits after the melody turns up throughout the film as an instrumental. It's a Silly Love Song and Let's Duet, and has a soothing start, feel-good tone, gradual buildup in "bigness", and Truck Driver's Gear Change at the very end for the fade out.
• Irene Cara's "Flashdance (What a Feeling)", from, well, Flashdance was the 1983 Oscar winner.
• Phil Collins first brushed with this trope with "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" from Against All Odds. Oscar-nominated but lost to "I Just Called to Say I Love You"; notoriously Collins was not asked to perform this song at the Oscars...even though, as co-writer of the song, he was going to be at the ceremony anyway. Ann Reinking performed it instead.
• "Together in Electric Dreams", by Giorgio Moroder and Philip Oakey of The Human League fame, is the ending theme from Electric Dreams but ended up outshining the film it was supposed to complement.
• The Never Ending Story has the eponymous theme by Limahl.
  • The third film has "Shortcut to Forever" by Phillip Ingram & Siedah Garrett.
• Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome has "We Don't Need Another Hero".
• Micki + Maude has "Something New in My Life". It bookends the film by playing first as an instrumental under the opening titles, while the end titles feature a Stephen Bishop vocal. It has a mellow start and epic finish, with non-specific lyrics that could be about romance and/or impending fatherhood and a feel-good tone.
• The Breakfast Club has "Don't You (Forget About Me)" by Simple Minds. Despite how popular it was, it wasn't nominated for any awards.
• "Christmas All Over the World" was performed by Sheena Easton for the end credits of Santa Claus: The Movie (1985). The link is to the full-length version of the song; the first verse doesn't appear in the film, which means it skips past the "soothing and mellow" part. New Edition recorded their own version of this for their 1985 Christmas album, and it adds tons of sparkly synth to the mix.
• The Phil Collins-Marilyn Martin duet "Separate Lives" from White Nights was nominated but lost to another song from the movie: "Say You, Say Me" by Lionel Richie, which isn't as award-baity of a song.
• "Glory of Love" by Peter Cetera was intended to be this for Rocky IV. It was passed over and ended up in The Karate Kid Part II, getting an Oscar nomination for its trouble.
• OMD's required prom song "If You Leave", from Pretty in Pink.
• Think Queen is immune to this?! Try "Who Wants to Live Forever?" or "One Year of Love", both from Highlander.
• "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin, featured in Top Gun, was the 1986 Best Original Song Oscar winner. The Cantonese Translated Cover Version, as featured in Wong Kar-wai's As Tears Go By also qualifies.
  • In the sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, there's the also Oscar-nominated "Hold My Hand" by Lady Gaga, with some considering it to be a Spiritual Successor to the above song.
  • Honorable mention goes to "Heaven in Your Eyes" by Loverboy.
• "Loving on Borrowed Time" from Cobra, sung by Bill Medley and Gladys Knight.
  • From the same film, "Two Into One" by Medley and Carmen Twillie.
• Before the award was retired at the Turn of the Millennium^note Though it was revived one last time in 2002, The Razzies had a Worst Original Song category. While most of the nominees/winners were simply bizarre and tacky, there are three fascinating cases of songs being nominated for both an Oscar for Best Original Song and a Razzie for Worst Original Song!
  • "Life in a Looking Glass" from That's Life! Lost to "Take My Breath Away" on the Oscar side.
  • Trisha Yearwood's version of "How Do I Live" from Con Air lost to "My Heart Will Go On" on the Oscar side.
  • "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" from Armageddon )ost to "When You Believe" on the Oscar side. The song also stands as Aerosmith's sole #1 in the US.
    • It's worth noting that it was nominated for both the Razzie and the Oscar!
• The title song from Absolute Beginners (1986), written and performed by David Bowie (who has a One-Scene Wonder role), is a feel-good love song that bookends the musical via the credit sequences. The full-length version linked to above — with a video that doubled as the movie's theatrical trailer in the U.K. — is almost eight minutes long, with a long, dramatic instrumental finish.
  • Bowie also contributed "As the World Falls Down" to Labyrinth the same year. Although the song itself fits the criteria, underscoring a ballroom dance, its actual meaning is more subversive— Jareth has fallen for Sarah and is attempting to seduce her into giving up her quest. She realizes she's fallen into a trap, and shatters the illusion to prove the Goblin King has no power over her.
• "Storybook Love" from The Princess Bride didn't fail to earn an Oscar nomination in 1987.
• "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now", performed by Starship for 1987's Mannequin and nominated for an Oscar; lost to the next entry...
• Jennifer Warnes had another Oscar-winning duet when she teamed up with Bill Medley for "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" from Dirty Dancing.
• Bette Midler's Cover Version of "Wind Beneath My Wings" was prominently featured in Beaches and became one of her biggest hits.
• "After All" from Chances Are by Cher and Peter Cetera. Oscar-nominated but lost to "Under the Sea".
• "Surrender to Me" from Tequila Sunrise. Performed by Cheap Trick's Robin Zander and Music/Heart's Ann Wilson; co-written by Richard Marx.
• Home Alone has "Somewhere in My Memory", sung in the background by a Christmas choir, and a full version sung by Bette Midler in the sequel's end credits. Oscar-nominated, but lost to "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)".
  • John Williams strikes again in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York with "Christmas Star". The film's soundtrack won a BMI Film Music Award.
• Bryan Adams started to do a lot of these starting with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves's "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" in 1991. It was nominated for an Oscar and was one of the biggest hits of its year, but lost to the title song of Beauty and the Beast.
  • Two years later, Adams performed "All for Love" with Sting and Rod Stewart from The Three Musketeers. Both of these films were scored by Michael Kamen — and after Kamen died in 2003, Adams went suspiciously silent...
  • "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" from Don Juan De Marco was nominated for Best Original Song at the 1995 Academy Awards, but lost to "Colors of the Wind" (Pocahontas).
  • In 1996, Adams joined forces with Barbra Streisand for "I Finally Found Someone", which played over the end credits of The Mirror Has Two Faces and didn't fail to get Oscar-nominated. When Streisand chose not to perform it at the Oscars, Celine Dion (herself stepping in for Natalie Cole) stepped in!
  • Also in 1996, Adams contributed "Star" to Jack.
  • See Films — Animated above for more Adams examples.
• One of the most famous live-action examples is Whitney Houston's cover of "I Will Always Love You" from The Bodyguard. It wasn't nominated for the Oscar because it was a cover of a Dolly Parton song from the 1970s. Parton herself sang it in the 1982 film version of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
  • "Run to You" and "I Have Nothing" from this film also count and were both nominated...but lost to Aladdin's "A Whole New World".
• The Last of the Mohicans had "I Will Find You" by Clannad.
• White Men Can't Jump has "Let Me Make It Up to You" by Jody Watley, and "If I Lose" by Aretha Franklin.
• Annie Lennox contributed "Love Song for a Vampire" from Bram Stoker's Dracula.
• By the time Robin Hood: Men in Tights was made in 1993, this trope was ubiquitous enough to be parodied with an end-credits reprise of "Marian". It was most directly a parody of "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You", from that other '90s Robin Hood movie (see above). In any case, future tropers tended to laugh harder at that than most other people in the theater.
• Super Mario Bros, being a family film released in the '90s, naturally had one of these: "Almost Unreal" by Roxette, as well as "I Would Stop the World" when Mario and Big Bertha dance. They were some of the few songs written for the film, while most of its soundtrack was composed of other popular songs, including a cover of "Walk the Dinosaur".
• Street Fighter had "Something There" by Chage and Aska, which played during the credits, as well as "Worth Fighting For" by Angelique Kidjo, which played when Guile remembered happy times with Charlie.
• "The Day I Fall in Love" from Beethoven's 2nd, performed by James Ingram and Dolly Parton, was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy for Best Song from a Motion Picture. The lyrics are from the first-person perspective of dogs.
• A Leagueof Their Own had "This Used to Be My Playground" by Madonna with the theme of nostalgia tying into the film.
• The Crow featured "It Can't Rain All the Time" by Jane Siberry as its end credits song.
• Michael Jackson's hit "Will You Be There" was featured in 1993's Free Willy. Ineligible for an Oscar because it was originally from his 1991 album Dangerous.
  • And much earlier than that: 1972's "Ben" — a heartstring-tugging song about the friendship between a boy and his killer rat as depicted in Ben. And it was Oscar-nominated!
  • Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home has the Jackson original "Childhood (Theme from Free Willy 2)", which was simultaneously released on his album HI Story Past Present And Future Book I. It underscores an otherwise expendable sequence involving a secondary character. No nominations.
• "Christmas Will Return" from The Santa Clause, performed by Brenda Russel and Howard Hewett.
• R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly" from Space Jam.
• "Anyone Can Be a Hero" from Blankman, preformed by Lalah Hathaway.
• "Kiss from a Rose" by Seal didn't take off until it was recycled into the Batman Forever soundtrack. But since it had already been released as a single, it was ineligible for awards.
  • "Foolish Games" by Jewel from Batman & Robin is a subversion, as the song was written and released two years prior to the film, but became ubiquitous enough to become the second best-selling single of 1997.
  • Speaking of Batman & Robin, "Gotham City" by R. Kelly was a blatant attempt at cashing in on this trope, hoping to repeat the success of "Kiss from a Rose" as well as Kelly's previous hit "I Believe I Can Fly". The song was a modest hit, reaching Number 9 on the pop charts, and unlike previous Batman examples it was actually eligible for Best Original Song. Nonetheless, it wasn't even nominated.
• The Muppets did it again in Muppet Treasure Island with "Love Led Us Here"...which is first sung by Piggy and Kermit as they dangle off a cliff edge by their ankles, and is largely Played for Laughs. The song is given a sincere reprise in the end credits by John Barry and Helen Darling.
• Céline Dion's "Because You Loved Me" from Up Close and Personal didn't win the Oscar it was up for, but it did win a Grammy in 1996.
• Dion also has the case mentioned atop the page, "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic. James Cameron originally didn't want a pop song finishing the movie feeling it would be inappropriate, and considering his usual behavior, composer James Horner had to find him in a really good mood to present the demo, with Cameron eventually giving approval, also thinking that after such a Troubled Production, "a hit song from his movie could only be a positive factor in guaranteeing its completion".
• The Mask of Zorro took multiple cues from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, including an award-bait song of its own. It gave us "I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You" by Marc Anthony and Tina Arena. And written by James Horner and Will Jennings, the team responsible for the Titanic theme, to boot.
• The infamous Patch Adams had "Faith of the Heart" by Rod Stewart, three years before it was Covered Up by Russell Watson and became the most polarizing Star Trek theme ever written. (See Star Trek: Enterprise.)
• Bicentennial Man: "Then You Look at Me", sung by Céline Dion, and written by the same team behind "My Heart Will Go On", no less. It doesn't describe any specific moment in the story, but is used as the love song between Andrew and Portia (with Little Miss substituting for her childhood years). The official music video takes clips from the relationship and displays them in a monitor in the background.
• Man on the Moon has R.E.M.'s "The Great Beyond", which rocks harder and has more obscure lyrics than most examples of this trope — though they make sense in context of being an Image Song for the film's subject matter, Andy Kaufman; it doubles as a sequel to their song about Kaufman that the film's named after. But it is extremely touching, builds to a huge finish via string instruments coming in during the bridge, and has a Video Full of Film Clips that lampshades the huge finish by having more and more guitars and microphones turn up out of nowhere in the recording studio. No nominations, but became a gigantic Breakaway Pop Hit for the group in Europe; years later, a documentary about the film's production would be Titled After the Song (Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond).
• "You're Where I Belong" from Stuart Little.
  • "I'm Alive" by Céline Dion from Stuart Little 2.
• Faith Hill's "Where Are You, Christmas?" from the live-action How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's "A Love Before Time" was Oscar-nominated in 2000.
• Bizarrely, The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle - which is significantly heavier on cartoon humor than most works that warrant an Award Bait Song - has one called "Through the Eyes of a Child" (not to be confused with the ones from Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa or ESPECIALLY South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut).
• Pearl Harbor's "There You'll Be" by Faith Hill (nominated for Oscar).
• Much of Moulin Rouge!'s soundtrack consists of covers, but it naturally has its own Big Damn Love Song: "Come What May". Ineligible for the Oscar because it was written for Baz Luhrmann's previous Red Curtain film, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet).
  • From the other Moulin Rouge (1952), Zsa Zsa Gabor as Jane Avril has "The Song from Moulin Rouge", also known as "Where Is Your Heart?"
• "Never Too Far" by Mariah Carey from Glitter.
• The Lord of the Rings films gave us some stellar Tear Jerker examples: "May It Be" from Fellowship of the Ring and "Into the West" from Return of the King. Both were nominated for Oscars, with the latter even winning.
  • Subverted in Two Towers with "Gollum's Song", which has a somewhat similar style but a minor key and a much darker tone and sung by Emiliana Torrini.
• The Hobbit, the prequel trilogy to The Lord of the Rings, continued where those movies left off.
  • "Song of the Lonely Mountain" by Neil Finn from An Unexpected Journey.
  • "I See Fire" by Ed Sheeran from Desolation of Smaug.
  • "The Last Goodbye" by Billy Boyd from Battle of the Five Armies.
• The Sum of All Fears has "If We Could Remember" by Yolanda Adams.
• "Only Hope" from A Walk to Remember has the original version by Switchfoot over the end credits and a very award-baity cover by Mandy Moore during the film. Ineligible for awards since the song had already been on one of Switchfoot's albums a few years prior.
• The 2002 supernatural thriller Dragonfly starring Kevin Costner has Star by the band Zoo Story.
• The 2003 film Daredevil had "For You" from The Calling. It didn't really catch on.
  • "My Immortal" by Evanescence also qualifies.
• "Learn to Be Lonely" from The Phantom of the Opera. Nominated for but lost the Oscar.
• The 2004 live-action Devilman film has "Hikari no naka de" by Hiroko Shimabukuro.
• "Eien no Motto Mate Made" by Seiko Matsuda, from the Japanese dub of Pan.
  • She also has "I'll Fall in Love" from the 2005 Bewitched film.
• "Shine Your Light" from Ladder 49.
• The Princess Diaries 2 brings us Kelly Clarkson's "Breakaway", co-written by Avril Lavigne.
• Troy: "Remember" sung by Josh Groban and composed by James Horner.
• "A Place Called Home" from A Christmas Carol: The Musical is a rare TV movie example.
• The Chronicles of Narnia series:
  • Imogen Heap's "I Can't Take It In" from "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe".
  • Alanis Morissette's "Wunderkind" from the same film. As current Academy rules insist that among songs that appear only in a film's credits, only the first song can be considered for an Oscar, this went un-nominated as the second song ("I Can't Take it In" qualified but wasn't nominated. "Wunderkind" was nominated at the Golden Globes, which are less fussy. Should've put Alanis first?).
    • Other Morissette examples are "Still" from Dogma and "I Remain" from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
  • Regina Spektor's "The Call" from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.
  • Switchfoot's "This Is Home", also from Prince Caspian.
  • Carrie Underwood's "There's a Place for Us" in the third film, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
• Parodied in the 2005 version of The Producers with "The Hop-Clop Goes On", a stylized reprise of "Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop".
• "Fly Away" by Nelly in The Longest Yard remake.
• Avril Lavigne's "Keep Holding On" from Eragon.
  • "Alice" from Alice in Wonderland was more popular.
• In Dreamgirls, the Movie Bonus Song "Listen" stands out as an attempt to give Beyoncé a big showstopping number to rival "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" (itself not eligible for Best Song since it's from the original musical). The fact that it was so blatant, and featured Beyonce straining against her usual range, is probably why the song flopped (though the Glee cover by Charice was much better received). The end credits reprise of "When I First Saw You" also hits some of the notes of this trope (though it was likewise ineligible).
• Enchanted had not one, not two, but three songs nominated: "Happy Working Song", "That's How You Know", and "So Close". Of the three, the last one fits this trope the most. That didn't keep it from losing to the analogous song, "Falling Slowly", from Once. The loss may or may not have been due to vote splitting among the Enchanted songs; after this, the Academy limited a single film's song nominations to just two.
• GACKT's "Returner", featured in the Japanese release of The Prestige, is similar to the above-mentioned "Gollum's Song" in that it has a much darker sound than most other examples of this trope (though it's fitting for a Visual Kei artist). The song itself, coincidentally, was made as a theme song for the NHK historical drama Fūrin Kazan. At least, the genre itself warranted the hamminess and wide sweep of the song.
• Yet another Alternative Foreign Theme Song example: "Shiawase no Chikara" by Sowelu, from the Japanese dub of The Pursuit of Happyness.
• John Mayer's "Say" from The Bucket List is more low-key than most award bait songs, but it counts too.
• The Wrestler has, appropriately enough, "The Wrestler" by Bruce Springsteen. Unfortunately, the Springsteen solo album it also appeared on arrived first, disqualifying the song from an Oscar nomination even though it was specifically written for the movie.
• Slumdog Millionaire had an award-bait song and Bollywood dance routine over the end credits. Subverted with "Dreams on Fire", which seems like the primary Oscar Bait song from the soundtrack. It didn't get nominated, but "Jai Ho" won, and the collaboration with M.I.A. got a nom too).
• "The Climb" from the Hannah Montana movie was ineligible for the Oscar because it wasn't written for the film. Also noteworthy for being the X-Factor Winner's Song for 2009 in the U.K., which was known to always win the Christmas Number One standing on the charts. Not this year though — it lost to "Killing in the Name" by Rage Against the Machine.
• Avatar brings us "I See You", a Spiritual Successor to "My Heart Will Go On" co-written by James Horner and performed by Leona Lewis.
  • Avatar: The Way of Water has "Nothing is Lost (You Give Me Strength)" by The Weeknd, which incorporates Simon Franglen's traditonal Na'vi score and pop elements by Swedish House Mafia.
• High School Musical 3 features an Award Bait reprise of "We're All in This Together from the first film.
  • For an original song, there's the Troyella duet "Right Here, Right Now".
• "All the Love in the World" from Gooby, sung by Anne Morrone and musical duo RyanDan (aka former b4-4 members Ryan & Dan Kowarsky)
• Dido and A.R. Rahman's "If I Rise" from 127 Hours was nominated for an Oscar but lost to Randy Newman's "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3.
• Miley Cyrus sings another award bait song in the form of "When I Look at You" from The Last Song.
• "Love Lives" by Steven Tyler (a solo effort by the Aerosmith frontman), written for the Japanese film Space Battleship Yamato, adapted from the anime series. It feels a good deal like "I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing", and is so shamelessly sappy it's utterly fantastic.
• "The Living Proof" from The Help.
• "A Real Hero" by College, featuring Electric Youth, from Drive, was nominated for Best Song from a Movie by the MTV Movie Awards.
• Bridge to Terabithia has "I Learned from You" by Miley Cyrus, "Try" by Hayden Panettiere and "Keep Your Mind Wide Open" by AnnaSophia Robb. The Japanese dub adds "To Be in Love" by MISIA.
• "A Thousand Years" from The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1.
  • The duet version from Part 2.
• "Calling for Your Love" from Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away.
• 2012 has "Time for Miracles". It's especially jarring, after seeing a film about death, destruction and sacrifice, to hear a Céline Dion-esque song performed by someone from American Idol. And it's Adam Lambert at that!
• Songs from eco-documentaries such as Chasing Ice and Racing Extinction are generally this in order to repeat the Best Song win for An Inconvenient Truth. Weirdly enough, the nommed songs for both mentioned films ("Before My Time" and "Manta Ray" respectively) lost to James Bond themes.
• Les Miserables's Movie Bonus Song "Suddenly" fits this trope to a T.
• "Safe and Sound" by Taylor Swift, from The Hunger Games.
• "Almost Home" from Oz the Great and Powerful, performed by Mariah Carey. Ineligible for the Oscar because it wasn't the first song played during the credits.
• "Oblivion" from the likewise named Oblivion. That opening is just so sparkly.
• "Young and Beautiful" by Lana Del Rey and "Over the Love" by Florence + the Machine from The Great Gatsby.
• Annie has at least two movie bonus songs that qualify for this trope.
  • "Opportunity", the song the title character sings to wow the crowd (and Stacks) at the Guggenheim event. Nominated for Golden Globe and shortlisted for the Oscar.
  • "Who Am I" is a lesser example, but it still counts.
• "Not About Angels" by Birdy, from The Fault in Our Stars.
• "Miasto" from the Polish film Miasto 44.
• "Eien no Motto Mate Made" by Seiko Matsuda, from the Japanese dub of Pan.
  • She also has "I'll Fall in Love" from the 2005 Bewitched film.
• Furious 7 has "See You Again" by Wiz Khalifa. Despite being a huge hit on the Billboard charts when it came out, the bait didn't take with most awards groups –- it got a Golden Globe nomination but failed to get recognized by the Oscars.
• Pitch Perfect 2 has the uplifting "Flashlight" sung by Jessie J. Despite this version being perfect for the credits treatment, it only appears on the film's soundtrack. The song does still appear in the film, although it's sung by the Bellas as part of their A Cappella World Championship performance. ^note Within the film's context, new member Emily Junk wrote the song herself and sang it for her audition. Hailee Steinfeld also recorded an official cover for the soundtrack, and released her own acoustic version following the film's release.
• "Just a Wish", from the biopic Walt Before Mickey.
• La La Land has "City of Stars" and "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)", both of which were nominated for Oscars. The former won both the Oscar and the Golden Globe.
• Star Trek Beyond has Rihanna's "Sledgehammer" over the end credits.
• "Go Now" was Sing Street's attempt at this, but the bait sadly didn't take.
• "To Be Human" from Wonder Woman, sung by Sia and Labrinth.
• A chunk of the songs in The Greatest Showman qualify, namely "A Million Dreams" (which gets the Falling-in-Love Montage honor), "Never Enough" (showboating diva solo), "This Is Me" (won the Golden Globe and nominated for the Oscar), "Rewrite the Stars" (the love duet for the Beta Couple), and the eleventh-hour number "From Now On".
• Black Panther has the melancholic and somber "All the Stars" by Kendrick Lamar and SZA. Nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and several Grammys.
  • The sequel, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, has "Lift Me Up" by Rihanna.
• "Ashes". A serious Tear Jerker of a Power Ballad by Titanic crooner Céline Dion herself. Which makes it completely apropos it's on the soundtrack to raunchy superhero comedy Deadpool 2. Parodied in the music video, where Deadpool's criticism is that it's too good for the film and asks her to dial it down.
• If anyone in the current pop music industry could be called the modern equivalent to Celine Dion in terms of Oscar bait-y songs written for film soundtracks, it's Ellie Goulding, with a whopping four examples of this, all written for different films: "How Long Will I Love You?" from About Time, "Beating Heart" from Divergent, "Love Me Like You Do" from Fifty Shades of Grey, and "Still Falling for You" from Bridget Jones' Baby. However, none of them managed to score an actual Oscar nomination; in "Love Me Like You Do"'s case, despite it being the song from the soundtrack to get the Video Full of Film Clips treatment, it was passed over in favor of The Weeknd's much darker "Earned It".
• Almost all of DisneyNature's Green Aesop documentary films since 2010 have one of these:
  • "Make A Wave" by Joe Jonas and Demi Lovato, from Oceans (2010). The Japanese release of the same film replaces "Make A Wave" with "Sailing My Life" by Hirahara Ayaka and Fujisawa Norisama.
  • "The World I Knew" by Jordin Sparks, from African Cats (2011).
  • "Rise" by the McClain sisters, from Chimpanzee (2012).
  • "Carry On" by Olivia Holt, from Bears (2014).
• Cinderella has "Strong" by Sonna Rele. Chimes? Check. Upbeat message about inner strength and holding onto your dreams? Check. Chorus at the end? Check.
  • The Fifty Shades series also has a slew of other examples, with Fifty Shades Darker having "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" by Zayn and Taylor Swift, and Fifty Shades Freed having "For You" by Rita Ora and Zayn's former One Direction bandmate Liam Payne, as well as a slightly rearranged reprisal of "Love Me Like You Do".
• "How Does a Moment Last Forever?" and "Evermore" from the live-action ''Beauty and the Beast. The former's end credits version is even sung by Céline Dion, as with the title song from the original, while Josh Groban does the same for "Evermore". And of course the previously mentioned title song wound up with a cover by Ariana Grande and John Legend.
• Aquaman has "Everything I Need" by Skylar Grey.
• The live-action remake of Aladdin has "Speechless", with lyrics by Alan Menken, music by Pasek And Paul, and performed by Naomi Scott. It is both an "I Want" Song and a proud "I Am" Song as Jasmine first voices, then asserts her desire to be the leader her kingdom needs.
• Mary Poppins Returns has "The Place Where Lost Things Go".
• The Sia film Music has "Together", a song about The Power of Friendship and how Children Raise You.
• There's No Such Thing As Vampires has "I'll Wait" by NINA.
• Lampshaded by "Now You Know", the the end credits song for Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.
  "This song is technically eligible for Oscar consideration!"

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