Revisiting the Academy Awards, 1986

 


As some of you know, I have been a frequent guest host on the Music City Drive In Movie podcast this summer. We've been looking at movies since 2000, re-nominating the Academy Awards. That got me thinking about the actual fields of the awards themselves. In a new weekly series, I'll be looking back at the last 40 years of Oscars and reviewing the choices at Best Picture, Best Director and the four acting categories.

1986:

Best Picture:
* Platoon
* Children of a Lesser God
* The Mission
* Hannah and Her Sisters
* A Room With A View

About: This was the year "Platoon" won the top prize. It was an interesting group of films competing. "Platoon" is a solid film. BUT I'm going with "The Mission" here. Call it my personal faith swaying me, but I thought that was a pretty amazing film.

Best Director:
* Oliver Stone
* Roland Joffe
* Woody Allen
* James Ivory
* David Lynch

About: The shock here was probably that Martin Scorsese was overlooked for "The Color of Money." There are some interesting options here, including Lynch for "Blue Velvet" and Joffe for "The Mission." Stone was the winner here, and I'd probably stick with him.

Best Actor:
* Paul Newman
* Dexter Gordon
* Bob Hoskins
* William Hurt
* James Woods

About: Newman won here for "The Color of Money," and I'm sticking with that pick.

Best Actress:
* Marlee Matlin
* Jane Fonda
* Sissy Spacek
* Sigourney Weaver
* Kathleen Turner

About: Matlin won here for "Children of a Lesser God," and it was certainly an achievement. It's tempting to stick with that. But Weaver was so good as Ripley. "Alien" is well regarded, but "Aliens" is a pretty great sequel. I'm going with Weaver here.

Best Supporting Actor:
* Michael Caine
* Tom Berenger
* Willem Dafoe
* Denholm Elliott
* Dennis Hopper

About: The fun trivia here is Caine missed out on receiving his award in person because he was filming "Jaws: The Revenge," which is a terrible film... Anyhow, I really liked Dafoe in "Platoon" here, so I'm going with him.

Best Supporting Actress:
* Diane Wiest
* Piper Laurie
* Tess Harper
* Maggie Smith
* Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

About: This was the year Wiest won for "Hannah and Her Sisters," same film Caine won for in Supporting Actor. I'm not a huge Woody Allen guy, so that might color things here. But I'm going with Mastrantonio for "The Color of Money."

That's a wrap on 1986, stay tuned for next week and a look at 1987!

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