1999
The winner is listed first, in CAPITAL letters.
Filmsite's Greatest Films
of 1999
Best Picture
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![](http://www.filmsite.org/titles/americanbeauty-title.jpg)
AMERICAN BEAUTY (1999)
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![](http://www.filmsite.org/screens/ciderhouserules.jpg)
The Cider House Rules (1999)
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![](http://www.filmsite.org/titles/greenmile.jpg)
The Green Mile (1999)
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![](http://www.filmsite.org/screens/insider.jpg)
The Insider (1999)
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![](http://www.filmsite.org/titles/sixthsense.jpg)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
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Actor:
KEVIN SPACEY in "American Beauty," Russell Crowe in "The
Insider," Richard Farnsworth in "The Straight Story," Sean
Penn in "Sweet and Lowdown," Denzel Washington in "The
Hurricane"
Actress:
HILARY SWANK in "Boys Don't Cry", Annette Bening in "American
Beauty", Janet McTeer in "Tumbleweeds", Julianne
Moore in "The End of the Affair", Meryl Streep in "Music
of the Heart"
Supporting Actor:
MICHAEL CAINE in "The Cider House Rules", Tom Cruise
in "Magnolia", Michael Clarke Duncan in "The Green
Mile", Jude Law in "The Talented Mr. Ripley",
Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense"
Supporting Actress:
ANGELINA JOLIE in "Girl, Interrupted", Toni Collette
in "The Sixth Sense", Catherine Keener in "Being
John Malkovich", Samantha Morton in "Sweet and Lowdown",
Chloe Sevigny in "Boys Don't Cry"
Director:
SAM MENDES for "American Beauty", Spike Jonze for "Being
John Malkovich", Lasse Hallstrom for "The Cider House
Rules", Michael Mann for "The Insider", M. Night
Shyamalan for "The Sixth Sense"
Among
this year's varied Oscar contenders, British-London theatrical-stage
director Sam Mendes' debut feature film American
Beauty, a quirky, grim dark comedy/drama about the contemporary
American family from DreamWorks, was the top Oscar-winning
film (with eight significant nominations and five wins). With
an ensemble cast, the low-budget film viewed a dysfunctional
family's angst and crisis in suburbia. It was shot for roughly
$12.5 million in 55 days. Significant images included symbolically-used,
computer-generated rose petals, and the sight of a wind-tossed
plastic garbage bag. Its tagline was: "...look closer."
It was the first non-historical epic (or
non-period film) to win the top honor since Silence
of the Lambs (1991). Its five Oscars included Best
Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Cinematography (Conrad
L. Hall with his second Oscar following a previous win
for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
(1969)) and Best Original Screenplay (Alan Ball).
This was the fourth instance (in the past
five years) that the Best Picture-winning film was based on
an original screenplay. American Beauty lost
its three nominations for Best Actress, Best Film Editing,
and Best Original Score (Thomas Newman). Hilary Swank's win
as Best Actress for Boys Don't Cry (over Annette Bening)
kept American Beauty from sweeping the 'Big Five' honors.
The first of the other heavily-nominated Best
Picture nominees (below) was the only one that won Oscars:
- director Lasse Hallstrom's and Miramax's coming
of age story The Cider House Rules (with seven nominations
and two wins), set within a New England orphanage/abortion
clinic, with two Oscars, Best Adapted Screenplay (by John
Irving for his own 1985 novel) and Best Supporting Actor
(Michael Caine). Its other nominations included Best Picture,
Best Director, Best Score, Best Film Editing and Best Art
Direction
- director Michael Mann's scathing and compelling The
Insider (with seven nominations and no wins), a serious,
based-on-a-true-story film about tobacco-industry controversies
(Best Picture, Best Actor (Russell Crowe), Best Director,
Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film
Editing and Best Sound)
- India-born, 29 year-old director M. Night
Shyamalan's dark-horse favorite and most successful of the
nominees, the plot-twisting The Sixth Sense (with
six nominations and no wins), the immensely-popular, psychological
horror-thriller about a precocious young boy named Cole (Haley
Joel Osment) who saw visions of ghosts ("I see dead
people") and sought help from a child psychologist (Bruce
Willis) (Best Supporting Actor, two for M. Night Shyamalan
for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting
Actress, and Best Film Editing)
- writer/director Frank Darabont's The Green
Mile (with four nominations and no wins), a lengthy
film about a magical death-row inmate and his pet mouse
(Mr. Jingles) - the second of Darabont's versions of a
Stephen King adaptation set in a prison (Best Picture,
Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best
Sound)
Except for Lasse Hallstrom, who had a previous
Best Director nomination for My Life as a Dog (1988),
the other four Best Director nominees were all first-time contenders. The
Green Mile was the sole Best Picture-nominated film to
not have its director, Frank Darabont, nominated - he was replaced
by Spike Jonze for Being John Malkovich.
Four other films received fewer than expected
nominations and meager awards:
- Topsy-Turvy (with four nominations
and two wins), about Gilbert and Sullivan, lacked Best Director
and Best Picture nominations but scored two Oscar wins: Best
Costume Design and Best Makeup. Its other two nominations
were for director Mike Leigh's Best Original Screenplay and
Best Art Direction
- The Talented Mr. Ripley (with five
nominations and no wins) - Best Supporting Actor (Jude Law),
Best Adapted Screenplay (by writer/director Anthony Minghella),
Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume
Design
- the peculiarly weird and original Being
John Malkovich (with three nominations and no wins)
- Best Director (Spike Jonze), Best Supporting Actress
(Catherine Keener), and Best Original Screenplay (Charlie
Kaufman)
- Magnolia (with three nominations and
no wins) - Best Supporting Actor (Tom Cruise), Best Original
Screenplay (Paul Thomas Anderson), and Best Original Song
("Save Me" by Aimee Mann)
Kevin Spacey won the Best Actor Academy Award
for an inspiring performance in American Beauty (his
second career nomination and second Oscar win) - as rebellious,
beleaguered and doomed Lester Burnham, a casualty of suburban
family life who faced a mid-career crisis, dropped out from
his job for the advertising magazine Media Monthly,
worked at a fast-food joint called Mr. Smiley's, and lusted
after his daughter's best high-school friend and temptress
Angela (Mena Suvari). Spacey previously won the Best Supporting
Actor award for The Usual Suspects (1995). [Spacey became
the 10th performer to win Oscars in both the lead and supporting
categories, following after Helen Hayes, Jack Lemmon, Ingrid
Bergman, Maggie Smith, Robert DeNiro, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson,
Gene Hackman, and Jessica Lange.]
The other nominees in the Best Actor category
included:
- 79 year-old "Grey Fox" Richard Farnsworth
(with his second and last career nomination, and first Best
Actor nomination) became the oldest lead actor nominee
ever for his moving role as ailing, 73 year-old Iowan widower
Alvin Straight, who journeyed from Laurens, IA to Mount Zion,
WI on a riding lawn-mower for a reunion with his sick brother
in director David Lynch's low-key true story The Straight
Story
[Farnsworth's first nomination was as Best Supporting Actor
for Comes a Horsemen (1978)]
- Denzel Washington (with his fourth nomination),
the only nominee in director Norman Jewison's The Hurricane as
the falsely-accused middleweight boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter.
This was a widely-praised film that had been a leading contender
for Best Picture honors. Washington's fourth nomination established
a record for an African-American actor.
[Previous nominations and wins: Best Actor nomination for Malcolm
X (1992), Best Supporting Actor nomination for Cry Freedom
(1987), and an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Glory
(1989).]
- Sean Penn (with his second nomination) as
a womanizing, unreliable, but talented 1930s jazz guitarist
Emmet Ray in Woody Allen's minor semi-biographical Sweet
and Lowdown.
[His previous nomination was for Best Actor in Dead Man
Walking (1995)]
- New Zealand-born 35 year-old Russell Crowe
(with his first nomination) for playing a tortured 53-year
old tobacco company executive turned whistle-blowing crusader
Jeffrey Wigand in The Insider
In the Best Actress category, newcomer first-time
nominee (and ex-Beverly Hills 90210 star) Hilary Swank
won the Oscar for her audacious, gender-reversed role as doomed,
real-life Nebraskan 20 year-old Brandon Teena (nee Teena Brandon),
who was raped and murdered for cross-dressing in director Kimberly
Peirce's debut independent film Boys Don't Cry. She
played a member of the opposite sex, although she was a pre-operative
transsexual, biological female. [Note: Linda Hunt won Best
Supporting Actress for The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) for
playing a man - she was the first female actress to
win an Oscar for playing a gender-switched character role -
a character of the opposite sex.]
The other Best Actress nominees were:
- Meryl Streep (with her twelfth career
nomination, 20 years after her first Oscar (for Best
Supporting Actress) and 17 years after her second Oscar
(for Best Actress), and 21 years after her first nomination,
and tying Katharine Hepburn's record of 12 for the most acting
nominations), as East Harlem elementary school music-violin
teacher Roberta Tsavaras in director Wes Craven's critically-disparaged Music
of the Heart
[Note: This was Streep's 10th Best Actress nomination, and fourth Best
Actress nomination in the 90s.]
- Annette Bening (with her second career nomination)
as the 'perfect' bitchy suburban, real-estate agent wife
Caroline Burnham in American Beauty
[Bening's first nomination was Best Supporting Actress for The
Grifters (1990)]
- British actress Janet McTeer (with her first
nomination) as the saucy, single mother/divorcee Mary Jo
Walker in Gavin O'Connor's mother-daughter drama Tumbleweeds
- Julianne Moore (with her second career nomination)
as the obsessed, philandering mistress-lover Sarah Miles
in the film adaptation of Graham Greene's WWII romantic drama The
End of the Affair
[Note: Moore's first nomination was Best Supporting Actress
for Boogie Nights (1997)]
The Best Supporting Actor category was won by
Michael Caine (with his fifth career nomination and
his second Oscar win in the category - he never won
a Best Actor Oscar!) as the St. Cloud Orphanage's kind, ether-addicted
abortion-gynecologist Dr. Wilbur Larch in The Cider House
Rules. In his performance, he was noted for his encouraging
farewell words, in a New England accent, to the children at
bedtime each night: "Good night, you Princes of Maine,
you Kings of New England." Caine won the same award for Hannah
and Her Sisters (1986). [Four Britons were nominated for
acting in this year: Caine, Law, Morton, and McTeer.]
The other Best Supporting Actor nominees included:
- Michael Clarke Duncan (with his first nomination)
for his role as the giant, simple-minded, miracle-working
healer, and wrongly-convicted rapist/killer prison inmate
John Coffey in a 1935 Louisiana prison in the fantasy-drama The
Green Mile
- Tom Cruise (with his third career nomination
and no previous Oscars) for his uninhibited role as crass,
misogynistic, self-help sex promoter/speaker-guru and co-star
Jason Robards' estranged son Frank "T.J." Mackey
in writer/director/producer Paul Thomas Anderson's character
study of lives intertwined one day in San Fernando Valley,
California - Magnolia
- Jude Law (with his first nomination) for his
performance as Dickie Greenleaf, the wealthy, carefree, decadent
and victimized boyfriend/playboy of co-star Gwyneth Paltrow
in The Talented Mr. Ripley
- 11 year-old Haley Joel Osment, the youngest
of the nominees for his precocious performance as Cole Sear
- a nine year-old boy with secretive psychic powers who can
see spirits of dead people ("I see dead people"),
in the surprise blockbuster The Sixth Sense
All were first-time nominees in the Best
Supporting Actress category:
Angelina Jolie won her first Oscar for
her stunning performance as Lisa, a disturbed and rebellious
mental hospital patient in director James Mangold's Girl,
Interrupted (the film's only Oscar). [Her father,
Jon Voight had won the Best Actor Oscar a generation ago as
a crippled Vietnam veteran in Coming Home (1978). They
joined the only other father-daughter Oscar winners
from the past: Henry Fonda (for On Golden Pond (1981))
and Jane Fonda (for Klute (1971) and Coming Home
(1978)).]
The other first-time Best Supporting Actress
nominees were:
- Australian actress Toni Collette for her role
as struggling, single working mother Lynn Sear with a troubled
child in The Sixth Sense
- Catherine Keener as John Malkovich's aloof,
bewitching office co-worker Maxine Lund in the under-nominated Being
John Malkovich
- Samantha Morton for her role as the shy, waifish,
mute laundress Hattie - abandoned by her boyfriend and befriended
by a disillusioned jazz guitarist (co-star Sean Penn), in
Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown
- Chloe Sevigny as co-star transvestite Hilary
Swank's love-struck, teenaged romantic partner Lana in the
dramatic, low-budget independent film Boys Don't Cry
[Note: Four other actresses were previously
nominated and won an Oscar (both lead and supporting)
for mute roles, including: Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda
(1948), Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker (1962),
Marlee Matlin in Children of a Lesser God (1986),
and Holly Hunter in The Piano (1993).]
The Matrix won
four Oscars in all its nominated categories (all technical-achievement
areas) - Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Effects
Editing and Best Visual Effects. In the three technical categories
it was nominated in, the year's biggest box-office blockbuster
and most vacuous film - Star
Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace lost to The
Matrix. Sleepy Hollow won Best Art Direction
(its other two nominations were Best Cinematography and Best
Sound Effects Editing).
Oscar Snubs and Omissions:
Best Director nominee Spike Jonze was denied
a Best Picture nomination for his first feature-length film Being
John Malkovich, while director Frank Darabont's Best Picture
nominee The Green Mile was denied a Best Director nomination.
Directors Mike Leigh, Anthony Minghella and Paul Thomas Anderson
- for Topsy-Turvy, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Magnolia respectively,
were also lacking Best Director nods. The End of the Affair, Magnolia,
and Being John Malkovich were all deprived of a Best
Picture nomination.
The most notable oversight of the year was for
Jim Carrey who impersonated the late comic Andy Kaufman in Man
on the Moon - he was a Golden-Globe winner for the role
but was snubbed by the Academy for the second year in a row
in a lead acting role - the previous year the insult revolved
around his performance in The Truman Show. [Even the
smutty cartoonish South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut edged
out Man on the Moon with its sole nomination For Best
Original Song.]
Other omissions included
- perennial Oscar favorite Tom Hanks for his
role as head guard Paul Edgecomb in The Green Mile
- Emily Watson for her role as an Irish mother
in Angela's Ashes
- Thora Birch as Kevin Spacey's sullen daughter
Jane and Mena Suvari as seductive cheerleader (and Spacey's
love interest) Angela in American Beauty
- Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore
for performances in Magnolia
- Natalie Portman as a sensitive teenager in Anywhere
But Here
- Bruce Willis for his role as psychologist
Dr. Malcolm Crowe in The Sixth Sense
- Reese Witherspoon as overachieving high-school
student Tracy Enid Flick, and Matthew Broderick as an underpaid,
resentful HS teacher in director Alexander Payne's Election -
a film that received a sole Best Adapted Screenplay nomination
- Liev Schreiber for his role as a dull but
decent husband named Marty, with a straying, unfaithful wife
(Diane Lane) in A Walk on the Moon
Six films were completely denied nominations:
the late Stanley Kubrick's last movie Eyes Wide Shut,
Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock, the Internet-hyped The
Blair Witch Project, Three Kings, Spike Lee's Summer
of Sam, and Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge's comedic
satire Office Space (with an unnominated performance
by Gary Cole as the office boss).
The Talented Mr. Ripley was shut out of
many categories: Best Picture, Matt Damon (as jealous and then
treacherous Tom Ripley) and Gwyneth Paltrow (as Jude Law's
girlfriend Marge Sherwood) for acting nominations, and Best
Director. The Insider's Al Pacino and Christopher Plummer
(as CBS newsman Mike Wallace) were also denied nominations. Being
John Malkovich's John Cusack (as puppeteer Craig Schwartz),
Cameron Diaz (as Cusack's dowdy, pet-obsessed wife Lotte) and
John Malkovich (as Himself) were equally ignored. Toy Story
2, a beautifully-crafted computer-animated film was only
able to secure a Best Original Song nomination ("When
She Loved Me" by Randy Newman), and the animated adventure
fantasy The Iron Giant went completely unnominated.
Another major omission was the intriguing, bewildering,
trend-setting and plot-twisting Spanish psychological drama Open
Your Eyes (1997, Sp.) (aka Abre Los Ojos),
released in the USA in 1999, with nominations lacking for Best
Picture, Best Director (Alejandro Amenábar), Best Actor
(Eduardo Noriega), Best Supporting Actress (Penelope Cruz),
and Best Original Screenplay (Amenábar and Mateo Gil).
(The possible years for the film to be submitted as Spain's
Foreign Language Film nominee were taken by Secrets
of the Heart (1997, Sp.) (aka Secretos del
corazón) in 1997, The Grandfather (1998,
Sp.) (aka El Abuelo) in 1998, and
this year's Best Foreign Language Film Winner, Pedro Almodóvar's
superb All About My Mother (1999, Sp.) (aka Todo
sobre mi madre)).
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