Every year at this time people start discussing award season and an oft talked about element of this is where/how historically based films fit into the debates.

This year we will have movies that seem to fit into three categories of historical movie. The first is biopic films like "Jackie" that will surely be discussed/win things come award time. There is an endless list of films like this: Milk, Lincoln, Schindler's List, Capote, Ghandi, etc. There is another brand of historical fiction, that relies heavily on a historical events and societies feelings toward the events: Saving Private Ryan, Titanic, Letters From Iwo Jima (Easy to put most World War films here), etc. There's even a third category of film that I would place in a category of it's own: movies based on historically famous and influential plays and books. Things like Fences, Chicago, Les Mis, etc. These works have such a long and widespread history that they have a huge societal impact even before the movies are produced. (I would not put things like "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" into this group)

All the above mentioned films won Academy Awards and are generally considered one of the major types of "Oscar bait" film.

Is it reasonable to compare these sorts of films and performances, that have such a large cultural and societal impact, to other sorts of films. Can we reasonably separate the actual history from the movies/performances and judge things on their own? Or should the gravity and importance of the history be a (major) part of the discussion? Would you like to see them eventually be judged in their own right? (i.e. have more award shows with "best historical fiction", "Best Biopic", etc.)

I will be upfront and say that I cannot stand awards and award shows and this probably biases my view on the matter. I really do think that we should recognize people for their hard work and I also fully acknowledge that winning these awards can really open doors for some wonderful people. However, there are legitimate criticisms that usually revolve around some of the following: voters not being qualified to vote, voters not watching the films they vote on, reflection of celebrity idolatry, vote splitting/process, etc. For me personally it usually comes down to placing so much money, influence, weight on the seemingly absurd statement that we can judge that one thing "art-ed" better than another.