For folks left wondering how a cringe-inducing film such as American Beauty would emerge the best-picture victor in the banger movie year that was 1999, remember that Dreamworks was out for blood. (Why? See the next item on this list.) Sam Mendes’s film about suburban ennui driven to icky extremes shot like a cannon out of its TIFF premiere, earning rave reviews and a zeitgeisty edge. Audiences at the time connected to what Variety’s Todd McCarthy called the film’s “acerbic, darkly comic critique of how social conventions can lead people into false, sterile, and emotionally stunted lives.”
Shakespeare in Love – 1999
Released 1998
Alamy
The Miramax film’s surprise defeat over Saving Private Ryan, now reassessed in light of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault convictions, has become Oscar legend. Spielberg’s WWII blockbuster was the perceived frontrunner heading into the season. Then Weinstein and co. flung an aggressive offense against camp Dreamworks, including claiming that Ryan’s only value was in its opening D-Day sequence. Shakespeare in Love’s campaign is now seen as an Oscar campaign blueprint, even if the historical romance is remembered as a lesser film than Ryan.
Titanic – 1998
Released 1997
Cue the “My Heart Will Go On” pan flute: We have come to James Cameron’s epic romantic tragedy Titanic! Winner of a record-tying 11 Academy Awards, Titanic won not only Oscars, but the hearts of the entire world after months of bad press over its fraught production and colossal budget. Cameron’s film also shares the record for most nominations (14) with All About Eve and La La Land (the most nominated film not to win best picture). Yet even with a nomination haul that suggested universal industry support, the writers branch of the Academy denied Titanic a screenplay nomination. It was the most recent best-picture winner since The Sound of Music to earn that dubious distinction. Though Titanic has relented its all-time top box office spot to other films, its $600-million-dollar original run (it made even more money after multiple rereleases) means it remains the top-grossing best-picture winner of all time.
The English Patient – 1997
Released 1996
In a year where only one film among the best-picture nominees was released by a major studio (Jerry Maguire), the Weinsteins’ Miramax finally earned the Oscar glory they’d chased for years with The English Patient. Critics hailed Anthony Minghella’s romantic epic with comparisons to the work of David Lean—including Janet Maslin, who wrote in The New York Times: “The film has so many facets, and combines them in such fascinating and fluid style…that its cumulative effect is much stronger than the sum of its parts.” But let’s not forget the Seinfeld episode where Elaine ripped it to shreds.
Braveheart – 1996
Released 1995
Earning just over $75 million in the US and Canada, Braveheart was the lowest-grossing best-picture winner of the 1990s in the domestic box office. Mel Gibson’s war epic was perceived as the beneficiary of the momentum lost by its chief competitor, Apollo 13, when Ron Howard failed to be nominated for best director. Apollo 13 had already won top honors from both the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild, long considered top predictors for the Oscars. In fact, Braveheart is the only Oscar best-picture winner to not receive a nomination for the Producers Guild’s best picture since that prize was first awarded in 1990. Braveheart was also released during the first year of the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and became the first of only four ensuing Oscar best pictures not to be nominated for the SAG’s top prize: outstanding cast.
Forrest Gump – 1995
Released 1994
Robert Zemeckis’s Americana fantasy about a southern man who figures into several of the 20th century’s major cultural touchstones was as critically divisive in its day as it is now. Rex Reed claimed that Forrest Gump “may just revive your faith in the human race.” Anthony Lane cringed, “This movie is so insistently heartwarming that it chilled me to the marrow.” The film famously faced off against Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, a movie that was its opposite in nearly every way.
Schindler’s List – 1994
Released 1993
After being denied best-picture and directing wins for nearly two decades worth of nominated films, Steven Spielberg was finally welcomed into the Academy history books for his Holocaust drama, Schindler’s List. “This is the best drink of water after the longest drought in my life,” he joked when accepting the award for best picture, which was presented to him by his Raiders of the Lost Ark star Harrison Ford. The director continued his speech by imploring educators to teach about the Holocaust in schools. Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, released six months prior to List, also swept up three awards that night. To date, Schindler is Spielberg’s only best-picture winner.
Unforgiven – 1993
Released 1992
“Unforgiven is both a dark look into a bad man’s soul and a hard reckoning over a growing country’s bloody innards,” hailed The Hollywood Reporter of Clint Eastwood’s return to Westerns. In his best-picture acceptance speech, the ever political Eastwood included a nod to the name that 1992 earned after several women were elected to the US senate that year: “In the Year of the Woman, the greatest woman on the planet is here tonight. That’s my mother, Ruth.”
The Silence of the Lambs – 1992
Released 1991
Jonathan Demme’s unlikely awards favorite, The Silence of the Lambs is the most recent film to take all of the Academy’s “big five” prizes: best picture, director, lead actor, lead actress, and screenplay. Released on Valentine’s Day (LOL), no other best-picture winner has hit screens so early in the Oscar eligibility window in the 30 years before or since. The film’s Oscar night was a bittersweet one for distributor Orion Pictures, which had filed for bankruptcy the December prior to that ceremony. That year, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was nominated alongside Silence of the Lambs as the first animated film to land a best-picture nomination.
Dances With Wolves – 1991
Released 1990
The story of a Union soldier who lives with the Lakota people in 19th-century America, Dances With Wolves was a labor of love for Kevin Costner, who forfeited part of his salary to keep the production under budget. It was a surprise hit despite divisive reviews—“magnificently told,” said Roger Ebert; “made by a bland megalomaniac,” said a retiring Pauline Kael—and the first Western in nearly 60 years to win the Academy’s top prize.
Driving Miss Daisy – 1990
Released 1989
This film forever holds a special place for Oscar-stat obsessives. Director Bruce Beresford was not nominated himself, despite the film receiving more nominations than any other film that year. That had not happened for a best-picture winner in almost 60 years, and would not happen again until 2012’s Argo. Daisy is also the most recent best-picture winner to be adapted from a Pulitzer Prize winner for drama, and the first such adaptation to win since You Can’t Take It With You. The film has received lingering criticism for its depiction of interracial dynamics, as has the Academy for awarding it while ignoring Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing in the same year.
Rain Man – 1989
Released 1988
Everett Collection
