How much does an Oscar really help a movie career?

“Starring Academy Award winner…”

“From the Oscar-winning director of…”

Winning an Academy Award is generally considered to be one of the highest honours that an actor or director can earn. But is winning an Oscar all it’s cracked up to be? Can a gold trophy and a memorable acceptance speech really help take a Hollywood career to the next level?

In most cases, the answer is yes, an Oscar win and sometimes even a nomination can definitely give a performer or filmmaker a major career boost. Just look at Jennifer Lawrence's Best Actress nomination for "Winter's Bone": the nod sent her career into the stratosphere and led to her Academy Award-winning role in "Silver Linings Playbook" and Oscar nominated turn in "American Hustle," plus led to her headlining the massively popular "Hunger Games" franchise.

However, an Oscar win always comes with some major caveats. Sure, an Academy Award opens up a lot of doors, but a winner generally has to continue to work at a very high level in order to maintain the prestige that goes along with the coveted trophy. One or two stinkers or ill-advised career moves and all that Oscar esteem can go up in a puff of smoke.

Just ask Nicolas Cage.

Cage was once the toast of Hollywood, thanks to his incredible performance as a suicidal alcoholic in the 1995 film “Leaving Las Vegas” -- a role that, among other honours, earned him a Best Actor Oscar. The big win transformed Cage from an oddball leading man into an A-list superstar overnight.

The actor went from starring as weird characters in movies by critically-acclaimed directors like the Coen brothers and David Lynch to commanding multi-million dollar salaries in blockbuster action films like “The Rock,” “Con-Air,” and “Face/Off.” The movies were all huge hits, but a combination of tax problems and, well, being Nicolas Cage increasingly led the actor to pick his roles less carefully.

Cage’s career path is certainly not emblematic of all Academy Award winners, but his story is the most extreme example of a winner squandering Oscar prestige in the name of a quick buck. "Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage" is no longer a selling point when you make movies like "The Wicker Man" and "Drive Angry."

Obviously every Oscar winner enjoys a career bump for a while. The high profile afforded by a win almost always leads to better movie offers and a whole lot more money for actors, directors, and other filmmaking artists or craftspeople.

In the case of Cage, the eccentric actor may have only been paid $240,000 for his Oscar-winning role in "Leaving Las Vegas," But after his win? He was able to secure a $4 million paycheque for "The Rock" and subsequently command as much as $20 million on films like "Gone in Sixty Seconds" and "National Treasure."

Similarly, after her Best Actress win for 2001's "Monsters Ball" (for which she was paid only $600,000), Halle Berry earned a $4 million paycheque for "Die Another Day" and secured a monstrous $14 million payday on 2004's "Catwoman."

Starlet Jennifer Lawrence also saw a major jump in pay due to her Oscar successes. Lawrence was paid $3,000 per week for her nominated turn in "Winter's Bone," but after winning Oscar for "Silver Linings Playbook" she scored a $10 million payday for her second tour as Katniss Everdeen in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" and is set to make even more on the two "Mockingjay" films.

An Oscar always increases an actors asking price, but if a star isn't careful, the win will begin to lose its lustre after a while. How often do you see a movie trailer refer to Halle Berry or Reese Witherspoon as "Academy Award winner" anymore? Does Louis Gossett Jr.'s 1982 Best Supporting Actor win for "An Officer and a Gentleman" really still get him work? Does a multi-Oscar winner like Steven Spielberg even have to mention that he's won Academy Awards these days? At a certain point, an Oscar just becomes another notch in the belt for actors and filmmakers.

It's certainly a nice feather in the cap to have, but like any other kind of success in Hollywood its benefits are usually fleeting.