I have decided to go through all the films, acotrs and directors who won Academy Awards in the 1990's to see what was the best of the decade.

NOMINEES FOR BEST PICTURE
1990- Dances With Wolves
1991- Silence of the Lambs
1992- Unforgiven
1993- Schindlers List
1994- Forrest Gump
1995- Braveheart
1996- The English Patient
1997- Titanic
1998- Shakespeare in Love
1999- American Beauty

AND THE WINNER IS: Very tough call. I'm going to give it to Forrest Gump. I consider it to be a brilliantly made film. It just narrowly beat Schindlers List, then Braveheart. It could've gone to any of those three. Had Saving Priavte Ryan and The Shawshank Redemption been there it would've made it a lot harder.

NOMINEES FOR BEST ACTOR
1990- Jeremy Irons (Reversal of Fortune)
1991- Anthony Hopkins (Silence of the Lambs)
1992- Al Pacino (Scent of a woman)
1993- Tom Hanks (Philidelphia)
1994- Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump)
1995- Nicholas Cage (Leaving Las Vegas)
1996- Geoffrey Rush (Shine)
1997- Jack Nicholson (As Good As It Gets)
1998- Roberto Benigi (Life is Beautiful)
1999- Kevin Spacey (American Beauty)

AND THE WINNER IS: Bearing in mind my view on this one is somewhat irrelevant because I am yet to see Shine, Life is Beautiful or Reversal of Fortune, I am going to give the award to Nicolas Cage for his role in Leaving Las Vegas. Other great performances were Pacino's, Nicholson's and both of Hank's.

NOMINEES FOR BEST DIRECTOR
1990- Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves)
1991- Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs)
1992- Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven)
1993- Steven Spielberg (Schindlers List)
1994- Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump)
1995- Mel Gibson (Braveheart)
1996- Anthony Minghella (The English Patient)
1997- James Cameron (Titanic)
1998- Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan)
1999- Sam Mendes (American Beauty)

AND THE WINNER IS: Steven Spielberg for Schindlers List. He narrowly beat his other win, Saving Private Ryan. Others in the mix were Eastwood, Zemeckis and Gibson.

Well those are my picks for those three categories. (Although they are sure to change from week to week) I'd do another category (Actress, Supporting, Writer, etc) but I cant be bothered. Maybe someone else would like to write up the nominees and then we can do a whole new decade.
Feel free to share your favourites and tell me why I'm wrong.

Sounds like some good picks, I agree with a lot of them...but uh...what are your credentials that could make these picks significant? Not that I care, I'm just wondering. Yeah, Shakespear in Love beating Saving Private Ryan for best picture is an OUTRAGE.

quote:

---

Yeah, Shakespear in Love beating Saving Private Ryan for best picture is an OUTRAGE.

---

Man, The Thin Red Line is 10 times the film SPR and SIL are...and how did Malick not win best director? It's reasons like this that I hate the academy.

Yeah, I LOVED The Thin Red Line, great cinematography, great music, great everything. It definately should have won best director and best music (it was Hans Zimmer's best). I don't really see SPR as being better or worse, I think the two have very distinct qualities about them.

The only thing I agreed with you on was Best Director to Steven Spielberg.

I think Schindler's List is the best movie out of the 90's Oscar winners. Forrest Gump should not have even won that year. Shawkshank Redemption should have. If Private Ryan was on there, that would be my pick. It's my favorite movie. Schindler's List may be better, but SPR is just my favorite.

Oh, and HDK, I LOVED the thin red line and all, but to say that it is "10 times better than saving private ryan"? I mean, you can have any opinion you want. If you liked thin red line better, that's fine. I can see where you are coming from. But to say that is was ten times better than saving private ryan? like trespasser said, they are two very distinct movies. you can't really judge them in the same way, you know?

Back to my picks...

For best actor, I would pick Tom Hanks in either of those roles rather than nick cage. Pacino was awesome in Scent of a Woman too. And Kevin Spacey was also awesome for American Beauty. They all beat nick cage in my opinion.

In my opinion, the Academy Awards are one of the worst ways to determine the quality of a film or its talent, considering the kinds of films they favor and the fact that some films each year aren't even eligible. The majority of these recent winning films are epics on some level, thus showing a leaning towards a certain kind of filmmaking, while other more modest, subdued films are overlooked, sometimes entirely. Again, that's my opinion.

I also agree with GNHoward, the academy is really ****ty, I mean they seem to put that foreign category in just so they can justify how few foreign films they honor in all of the other categories, they have major major problems with subtitles, they always vote with their hearts (Julia), have problems giving people more than one win (unless absolutely necessary) to people who deserve it leaving them to win an award for a ****ty performance (Sean Penn in Mystic River IMO) and think that because every year a Miramax, multi million budget film is nominated for best picture exemplifies their openess to independant films. these ppl are too lazy to go see a film in theatres and rely on dvds sent to them in order to see it. I don't know who makes up this academy, and i really dont care cause I disagree with most of their decisions, and of course its a subjective artform. but the fact that after this year they will change the date of the ceremony so it doesnt coincide with the olympics shows that without a red carpet and high ratings, the academy is little more than every news paper in america that releases its list of top films for a year. I don't like a foundation that is based on $$$ and is so falsely believed to be the absolute of film critique.

I agree with the whole anti-acedemy thing, but not to be hypocritcal, i wouldnt mind one.

My favourite widely distributed, and heavily marketed american films of the 1990's are:

Fight Club, a superb effort by fincher.
American Beauty by Mendes.( i also loved road to perdition)

I think what we all must realise is, as with most forms of art, there is no means of objectivly judging a film. Everything is subjective, and based off opinions that are largely affected by the discourses that we are operating/have operated within.

i love writing acedemically.

quote:

---

I agree with the whole anti-acedemy thing, but not to be hypocritcal, i wouldnt mind one.

---

I should make a mold of a real oscar and sell them on ebay, I bet I could make a killing, and I could like have them personalized for a certain category and u could get ur name on them, or get something stupid like "best lay of the year 2004." But first i need to get my George W. Bush likened toilet paper pitch off the ground

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hill Dawson Kane:
have problems giving people more than one win (unless absolutely necessary) to people who deserve it leaving them to win an award for a ****ty performance (Sean Penn in Mystic River IMO)

---

Well said.

I hate it when the academy gives someone an oscar for a role they don't deserve. Like, Russel Crowe should have won for The Insider, not Gladiator. Tom Hanks should have won for Cast Away. Hanks was amazing in that movie as a solo act. But he had already won two others, so they pushed it to someone who didn't deserve that year. So what if Hanks has three oscars! He's one of the best actors of all time. He SHOULD be getting oscars for such amazing performances.

ugh. I hate these academy posts because I always get furious over how much I hate the awards (yet watch them every year).

quote:

---

I hate these academy posts because I always get furious over how much I hate the awards

---

Yeah it seems to do that alot. Personally, I like the Academies. I like the whole fan fair around it and the red carpet and the night in general. However I do agree they get it whorribly wrong sometimes. I guess you can't cater for everyones opinion though.
Anyway I think most people on this site are smart enough to know not to judge a film by how many academies it has one. The academies are just a bit of fun and personally I enjoy it. Most of the time I dont even care who wins, I'm just happy to watch the stars show off to the cameras.