To say that the biopic picture and performances have dominated the Academy awards over the years would be a bit of an understatement.
The Academy and cinema audiences seem fascinated with these real life stories and characters brought to life - and next years awards season looks set to be no different.
My Week With Marilyn and Moneyball, both of which are released this week, are already amongst the early Oscar favourites.
Michelle Williams looks set to bag a Best Actress nod while Brad Pitt will most likely receive a nomination for his central performance as Billy Beane in Moneyball.
Also keep an eye out for Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Land and Leonardo DiCaprio as J Edgar Hoover in J Edgar who you would also expect to be in the mix when the nominations start rolling in.
The Best Actress category has had major wins for this genre of film with six of the last eight winners being based on real-life stories and people.
Marion Cotillard was the surprise winner this year for her portrayal of French singer Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose in 2007, which looked at her career and her drug abuse.
The year before Helen Mirren dominated the award season with her role as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen, which was an account of the immediate events following the death of Diana Princess of Wales in 1997 and the turn of public opinion towards the monarch.
Other winners since 2000 include Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich, Nicole Kidman as troubled Virginia Woolf, Charlize Theron as Aileen Wuornos and Reese Witherspoon for her portrayal of June Carter in Walk the Line.
Similarly six of the last eleven Best Actors have been for taking on real life figures, as well as a string of nominations.
In 2002 Adrien Brody took on the role of musician Wladyslaw Szpilman, which was based on his autobiography, as he survived the German deportations of Jews to extermination camps, the 1943 destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising during World War II.
That same year Brody found himself going head to head with Nicolas Cage who starred as Charlie Kaufman and his struggle to adapt Susan Orlean's novel The Orchid Thief.
In 2004 biopic performances dominated the Best Actor category as Jamie Foxx, who took on the role of legendary singer Ray Charles, took many awards on the road to the Oscars as well as the main prize.
But joining him in that category was Don Cheadle for her role as hotelier Paul Rusesabagina during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 and Leonardo DiCaprio who played Howard Hughes in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator.
Just twelve months later Philip Seymour Hoffman too the Oscar for his role as Truman Capote in the film Capote, which followed the events during the writing of Capote's non-fiction book In Cold Blood.
But he was joined by Joaquin Phoenix for his role as Johnny Cash. 2006 made it a hatrick for the biopic as Forest Whitaker became Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland and Will Smith told the story of Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happiness.
In 2008 Sean Penn won his second Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of Harvey Milk in Gus Van Sant’s movie Milk.
And this year Colin Firth’s astonishing performance as King George VI in The King Speech, which also went on to take Best Picture.
And it was all about true stories this year as Jesse Eisenberg and James Franco also bagged nods as they took on the role of Mark Zuckerberg and Aron Ralston in The Social Network and 127 Hours.
And the 2012 Academy Awards could follow a similar path so don’t be surprised to see William and Streep go head to head while Pitt could well take on DiCaprio to win the most prestigious prize in film.
My Week With Marilyn & Moneyball are released 25th November.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
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