Oscar Game Night

Not about playing Oscar bingo or drinking games or anything... looking at the Best Picture nominee stories for plot hooks.

The tricky part here is looking at all the real-life stories and not just going with Doctor Who. I will admit I have once. (Best Animated Picture is so much easier there...)

American Sniper
A soldier gains a fearsome reputation, to be challenged by the opposition and questioned by his own side. See also Enemy At The Gates for more snipers, and the story of Samson for an early example of the kind of trouble fame in combat can bring you. A PC could easily be talked up in a conflict.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance)
An actor starts to unravel emotionally, stalked by his most famous character. It could make a great Unknown Armies one-shot with hardly any work, and in a game with a high enough Weird Level the character could manifest to others as well as just the actor. A Changeling and his Fetch? A Mage and his Avatar? A Wraith and his Shadow?

Boyhood
A child grows up in a small town, in a story spanning years in just two hours. A one-shot about a character’s origins and how much they define them, perhaps?

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Eccentric millionaires, even more eccentric hotel staff, a priceless stolen painting... This is a Fiasco playset waiting to happen.

The Imitation Game
Alan Turing and his team struggle to crack the Enigma code. Could be done straight (with delays and conflicts cranking up the tension) or inspire a plot about discovering a vital wartime secret in any setting. I dropped a TARDIS and an alien computer into the era in The Door In Time, before Turing showed up in the Doctor Who Magazine comics.

Selma
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fights to get a civil rights march through against opposition from President Johnson. A peaceful stand against injustice can do more than a violent revolt - have the PCs ever founded one, or protected a pacifistic leader?

The Theory Of Everything
Stephen Hawking and his wife try to cope with his motor neurone disease worsening as his scientific theories forge ahead. I got nothing here, except maybe to look at where the heroes’ mentors come from...

Whiplash
How far will you go in the pursuit of excellence? Can you avoid becoming obsessed, a monster? What if it’s for something vitally important... or not?