Murder on the Orient Express

A woman is united with the adult daughter she never knew in this original and authentic comedy-drama from seven-time Oscar nominated writer-director Mike Leigh. Leigh created the script by his usual method, working with his top team of actors (assembled by casting directors Paddy Stern and Susie Parriss) to develop the characters and storyline, and the result earned nominations for stars Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste as the unlikely mother-daughter pair.

The cast includes Leigh regulars such as Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville, and the film was also nominated for Best Picture (Simon Channing-Williams, producer), Leigh’s direction, and the film’s original screenplay.

Julia Roberts won the Best Actress Oscar for her commanding performance as the real-life legal assistant taking on a power company that poisoned a small California town. The film received nominations for Best Picture (Danny DeVito, Michael Shamberg, and Stacey Sher, producers), Steven Soderbergh’s direction (he won that same year for Traffic, in competition with himself), Susannah Grant’s original screenplay, and the supporting performance of Albert Finney as attorney Ed Masry, part of the expert cast chosen by Soderbergh and casting director Margery Simkin. Additional inspired casting decisions came via Marg Helgenberger as an ailing plaintiff and Aaron Eckhart as Roberts’s biker love interest.

Paul Thomas Anderson won Oscars for Directing, Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture (along with fellow producers Adam Somner and Sara Murphy) for his epic comedy-thriller, loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, about a retired revolutionary (Best Actor nominee Leonardo DiCaprio) trying to protect his teenage daughter from a fanatical military officer (Supporting Actor winner Sean Penn). Anderson’s longtime casting director Cassandra Kulukundis won the Academy’s inaugural Oscar for Casting, her expertly chosen ensemble including past Oscar winners (including Supporting Actor nominee Benicio Del Toro), veteran character actors, comedy writers, and impressive newcomers such as Chase Infiniti, who plays DiCaprio’s daughter.

Daniel Day-Lewis reunited with his There Will Be Blood director Paul Thomas Anderson for this offbeat romantic drama set in 1950s England. Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, a brilliant clothing designer, who falls for a young waitress (Vicky Krieps) only to find their relationship moving in unexpected directions. Mark Bridges won the Oscar for his elegant costume designs, and the film’s six nominations included Best Picture, Directing, and the performances of Day-Lewis and Lesley Manville as Woodcock’s strong-willed sister. Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, a regular Anderson collaborator, received his first Oscar nomination for the score. Inspired by the kinds of artists Day-Lewis’s character would listen to, such as Nelson Riddle and especially Glenn Gould, Greenwood composed a score dominated by piano and what Anderson called “big-ass strings.”

A beleaguered farmer (James Craig) sells his soul to the devil only to enlist the help of famed attorney Daniel Webster (frequent Capra villain Edward Arnold) to break the contract in this stylish fantasy directed by Oscar nominee William Dieterle (The Life of Emile Zola, 1937) and based on the short story by Stephen Vincent Benét. Walter Huston was nominated for his lively performance as the Satanic Mr. Scratch, and Bernard Herrmann won an Oscar for his second film score; his first, Citizen Kane, was also nominated that same year. Herrmann incorporated classic folk songs such as “On Springfield Mountain” while using his typically inventive orchestrations to dazzling effect.

George Stevens (A Place in the Sun, 1951) earned his second Directing Oscar for this epic yet character-centered adaptation of Edna Ferber’s 1952 bestseller about a wealthy Texan (Best Actor nominee Rock Hudson), his blueblood bride (Elizabeth Taylor), and an ambitious ranch hand (Best Actor nominee James Dean, in his final performance). The film received 10 nominations including Best Picture, Supporting Actress (Mercedes McCambridge) and for Dimitri Tiomkin’s original score. For his only collaboration with Stevens, the Ukraine-born Tiomkin contributed authentic musical Americana, including the memorable theme song “This Then Is Texas” (lyric by Paul Francis Webster).

Yul Brynner plays a gunslinger leading a septet of strangers to defend a Mexican village against marauders in director John Sturges’ classic Western remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai—a remake that itself inspired three sequels, a TV series, and its own 2016 remake. Brynner’s fellow gunslingers include then-rising stars Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn. Elmer Bernstein received his second Oscar nomination for his rousing score, whose classic main theme became arguably his most popular and widely recognized melody.

The memoir of Danish author Karen Blixen (published under her pen name Isak Dinesen) was adapted by director Sydney Pollack and screenwriter Kurt Leudtke for this lavish romantic drama, focusing on the years Blixen (Best Actress nominee Meryl Streep) spent running a coffee farm in Nairobi and her relationship with hunter Denys Finch-Hatton (Robert Redford). Out of Africa was nominated for 11 Oscars and won seven including Best Picture, Directing (both for Pollack), Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Cinematography and Sound, with John Barry winning his fourth Oscar for an achingly romantic score.

Terrence Malick adapted James Jones’s 1962 novel, inspired by the author’s experiences serving in World War II’s Guadalcanal campaign, for his first film since his 1978 classic Days of Heaven. Malick assembled an all-star cast (including George Clooney, Nick Nolte and John Travolta) for his unusually contemplative war epic, which received seven Oscar nominations including Directing, Adapted Screenplay (both for Malick) and Best Picture. Nominated composer Hans Zimmer spent nine months working on his evocative score, which he termed the most challenging assignment of his career.

After the killing of Israeli hostages at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, a Mossad agent (Eric Bana) assembles a team to assassinate the men deemed responsible for the murders. Steven Spielberg’s fact-based international thriller is a thoughtful look at the moral costs of violence, with gripping suspense and an impressive supporting cast including Best Actor winner Geoffrey Rush (Shine, 1996), Supporting Actor nominee Ciarán Hinds (Belfast, 2021), and Daniel Craig, shortly before he debuted as James Bond. The film received five Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Directing, and, for John Williams’ music, his 22nd feature score for the director. Williams’s somber, restrained score focused on, in the composer’s words, “the enormous suffering and guilt, and eventually, paranoia” of Bana’s protagonist.

Natalie Portman was nominated for her uncanny performance as Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy in this unusual biopic directed by Pablo Larraín (Maria, 2024). The screenplay by Noah Oppenheim is structured around an interview by a magazine journalist (Billy Crudup) and focuses on key events in the First Lady’s life, especially the assassination of her husband. The film was also nominated for Madeline Fontaine’s authentic costume designs and the unsettling score by Mica Levi (Under the Skin, 2013), which used flutes and strings to evoke its heroine’s combination of vulnerability and resilience.

Four veterans return to the jungles of Vietnam in hopes of recovering a buried fortune in director/co-writer Spike Lee’s epic adventure drama, which pays homage to the classic The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (a favorite of the filmmaker’s) while exploring the rarely told experiences of Black soldiers in the Vietnam War. The top-notch cast includes Sinners supporting actor nominee Delroy Lindo as a proud Trump supporter; two stars of TV’s The Wire, Clarke Peters and Isiah Whitlock, Jr.; and Chadwick Boseman in one of his final performances. The film’s one Oscar nomination was earned by seven-time Grammy winner Terence Blanchard, a regular collaborator of Lee’s, whose bold orchestral score sits comfortably alongside the vintage Marvin Gaye songs that fill the film’s soundtrack.