Oscar films win at box office

Catherine Zeta-Jones: Heavy Traffic at the box office

Some Oscar-nominated films are already winners - at the box office.

Three of the best picture nominations - Traffic, Chocolat and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - have seen big jumps in box office receipts ahead of the Academy Awards on Monday.

Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations called it "the watercooler effect - come Monday the 26th, if you haven't seen those films, you can't talk about them and you feel left out."

Juliette Binoche serves up a hit with Chocolat

The Oscar effect has been limited to these three films, however, as the other best picture nominations Erin Brockovich and Gladiator are already out on video and playing in only a handful of cinemas.

Expectations

Jack Foley, senior vice president of Traffic distributor USA Films, said: "The fact that only three of the competing films are in the marketplace in any significant way means the pie's bigger for the rest of us."

Traffic and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had already confounded expectations to become big commercial successes.

Traffic, a complex drug-war drama with a huge cast and three intertwining plots had made $71 m (£51m) at the box office by the weekend before the Oscar nominations.

Mandarin

On the same weekend, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon hit the $60m (£43m) mark and passed Life is Beautiful as the United States' biggest ever foreign-language hit.

The Mandarin film has even played many American small towns, Michael Barker, co-president of the Sony Pictures Classics has observed.

"It played in my hometown, Kerrville, Texas, where a foreign-language film had never played," he said.

"There's no way that would have happened if the best picture nomination had not happened."

By 18 March both Traffic and Crouching Tiger had exceeded the $100m (£72m) mark.

Prize

Chocolat, a tale of newcomers in a repressed French village, has also experienced an Oscar boost, doubling its gross revenue since nominations to $56m (£40m) by 18 March.

But the ultimate prize remains the best picture victory on Oscar night.

Last year, best-picture winner American Beauty increased its take by $55m (£39.5m) after the nominations, climbing to $130m (£94m) at the box office.