A Century of Film

Columbia Pictures

The Studio

“Three men started it and they named it after themselves: C.B.C. Film Sales Company, for Jack Cohn, Joe Brandt and Jack’s younger brother, Harry Cohn.”  (Hail Columbia, Rochelle Larkin, p 11)  “The enterprise was growing in distinction, and hence it required a new name.  C.B.C. was now universally recognized in the trade by its sobriquet, Corned Beef and Cabbage.  A company could scarcely prosper under such a handicap.  On January 10, 1924, C.B.C. became Columbia Pictures.”  (King Cohn: The Life and Times of Harry Cohn, Bob Thomas, p 36)

“The movie business was divided into two unequal parts: The best film properties went to the major studios, the rest to the novices and dreamers on Poverty Row.  Harry Cohn was going to bridge that gap.”  (Larkin, p 12)  “Harry Cohn assumed the presidency of Columbia Pictures Corporation in 1932.  He retained his position as chief of production, becoming the only film company head to hold both positions.”  (Thomas, p 79)

In 1928, Columbia added what has now become famous as their logo, the torch lady.  Rather than quote some books for this one, I will point you here, where the person has already done an excellent job of summarizing the history of Columbia’s famous logo.  That site is also where I grabbed the logo above and there are several more versions through the years available in that fascinating piece.

“But what was Columbia’s specialty?  Three Stooges shorts?  Blonde movies?  Rita Hayworth musicals?  Or perhaps It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), All the King’s Men (1949), From Here to Eternity (1953)?”  (Columbia Pictures: Portrait of a Studio, Bernard F. Dick, ed., 1992)

Columbia was always known as a “major-minor” because it didn’t own its own chain of theaters.  Joe Brandt, president of the company, had decided against it, feeling it would eventually prove not to be an asset.  “Whether beneficent or not, Brandt’s decision was to establish the essential nature of Columbia as a movie company.  Columbia never enjoyed the cushion of guaranteed playing time.  It was required to gamble on quality films that would so engage the public that theaters would be forced to book Columbia movies.  And when the United States decreed separation of film making from theater owning in the 1940’s, Columbia escaped the paroxysms of those studios which could not function without the bulwark of their theater claims.”  (Thomas, p 42)

“Lacking a Clara Bow or a John Gilbert, Columbia relied on castoffs from the big studios: stars who had been let go because their box office appeal had seemingly been drained.  With the passé stars, Cohn combined newcomers, often borrowed at a bargain from major studios.”  (Thomas, p 45)  This is true; many of the stars of the studio’s biggest hits, people like Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart weren’t actually under contract to Columbia.  Jean Arthur was the biggest actress for the studio in the late thirties (she was under contract from 1934 to 1944) but the biggest star at the studio was Frank Capra.  Capra rose at the studio, eventually getting his name above the title and earned the studio its first Oscars.  In the 1930’s, 14 Oscars were won by Columbia films and all but three of them were directed by Capra.  He left the studio after Lost Horizon in 1937 but came back after being talked into it by Cohn, though he left for good after Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  The entire studio would win fewer in Oscars in the entire 1940’s than Capra’s films won in the 1930’s.

Thanks in a large part to Capra, “Columbia became the home of the sophisticated film, an eventuality that astounded the many people in Hollywood who considered Harry Cohn the compleat vulgarian.”  (Thomas, p 72)  But, “the 1940’s found Harry Cohn continuing his gamble on film subjects that other producers shunned, notably fantasy, musical biography and political realism.  It gave him pleasure to see his competitors rush to imitate his innovations, always with lesser success.”  (Thomas, p 167)

Then, after unsuccessfully trying to build up William Holden and only gradually making a minor star out of Glenn Ford, Cohn found what he was looking for: a star.  “The ascending stardom of Rita Hayworth provided a new and stimulating experience for Harry Cohn.  Never before had he been able to discover and develop – and then to profit from – a star of top rank.  Columbia had a sizable list of contract players, but they were serviceable actors and actresses who could be counted on to carry B pictures or to bolster the casts of the important product.  For stars, Cohn depended on loans from the big studios or multipicture deals with prominent free-lancers.  The latter were not entirely satisfactory, since they demanded huge salaries and were so independent in temperament that they resisted the dictation of Harry Cohn.  His faculty for alienation was such that Irene Dunne and Cary Grant, as well as Jean Arthur, refused to finish out their commitments for films with Columbia.”  (Thomas, p 217)

“Hollywood – where Elia Kazan once described Harry Cohn, Columbia’s founder, as ‘the biggest bug in the manure pile.’  Cohn boasted that he had a foolproof device for judging whether a picture was good or bad: ‘If my fanny squirms, it’s bad.  If my fanny doesn’t squirm, it’s good.  Just as simple as that.’  Writer Herman Mankiewicz’s response was, ‘Imagine – the whole world wired to Harry Cohn’s ass.'”  (Fast Fade: David Puttnam, Columbia Pictures and the Battle for Hollywood, Andrew Yule, p 207)  But Cohn knew success when he saw it and when he died in 1958, the studio started to founder a bit.  His death was a big deal: “Two thousand persons had come to Columbia that day, March 2, 1958.  It was the largest crowd ever to attend a funeral in Hollywood.  On his television program that week, Red Skelton made the comment that was to become legend: ‘Well, it only proves what they always say – give the public something they want to see, and they’ll come out for it.'”  (Thomas, p xvii-xviii)

“Columbia Pictures had lowly origins but it always managed to make pictures that transcended its humble beginnings.  The studio had been co-founded by Harry Cohn and his brother Jack in 1924. … Harry Cohn had been dubbed ‘His Crudeness’ by Frank Capra, whose films boosted Columbia’s status and earned it a slew of Academy Awards.  Cohn was paradoxivally both vulgar and discerning, and Columbia cranked out films from schlock to classics.  It never boasted a stable of glittering stars, although Rita Hayworth and glenn Ford made several pictures there. … In the fifties, Columbia had forged relationships with powerful independent producers such as Sam Spiegel, who was responsible for On the Waterfront (’54) and The Bridge on the River Kwai (’57) and Stanley Kramer, who made The Caine Mutiny (’54).  In the sixties, Otto Preminger, Sidney Lumet, Arthur Penn, Ted Kotcheff, Fred Zinnemann, Sydney Pollack, David Lean and William Wyler all made movies for Columbia.  By the end of the decade, when Peter Guber arrived, all of this was fading.  Despite the studio’s success in the late sixties, the venerable producers and directors were aging.”  (Hit and Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Gruber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood, Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters, p 67-68)

“From 1955 to 1964, [Mike Frankovich] was Columbia’s European production chief.  In 1964 he left London, where he had been based for nine years, and returned to Los Angeles as Columbia’s head of production … There is no doubt that Columbia’s succession of hits in the 1960s – Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Dr. Strangelove (1964), Cat Ballou (1965), The Professionals (1966), The Silencers (1966), and Casino Royale (which went sent Columbia’s stock soaring in 1967) – resulted, in great part from Frankovich’s ability to harmonize the talents of stars, directors and writers.  It is also not accidental that, during Frankovich’s tenure, Columbia films won thirty-five Oscars.”  (Dick, p 20-21)  But Frankovich was pushed out when Columbia was reorganized in 1968.  By the way, by my count, from 1955 to 1968, Columbia won 40 Oscars.

“In the early seventies, Columbia’s fortune had taken a turn for the worse.  After posting record profits of $21 million in 1968 on $243 million in revenues, the company lost $40 million in 1971.  Following a slight upturn in 1972, it lost $65 million again in 1973 and teetered on the verge of bankruptcy.”  (Griffin and Masters, p 72-73)  Those 1968 numbers include most of the gross of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (which opened in mid-December of 1967) as well as Funny Girl, two films that are both in the Top 200 all-time when adjusted for inflation.  There’s no big loser in 1971 but the studio released 37 films, its most after 1958 and The Last Picture Show was the only real hit.

“[Ray] Stark’s ties to Columbia had been close since the studio distributed Funny Girl, which opened in September 1968.  Columbia began losing money in 1971, and by 1973 the company’s very life was threatened by three expensive box office failures – 1776, Lost Horizon, and Young Winston.  Although Stark had produced none of these films, Columbia still owed him millions of dollars in deferred profits from Funny Girl and he feared that he might never get the money if the studio was forced into bankruptcy.” (Indecent Exposure: A True Story of Hollywood and Wall Street, David McClintock, p 88)   As a result, Stark would help shepherd in the group that would eventually take charge of Columbia, including Herbert Allen and Alan Hirschfield: “Stark had finally toppled the dynasty that had held Columbia Pictures in its grip for fifty years and replaced it was a ruling family of his choosing.”  (Griffin and Masters, p 77)  And what those quotes don’t mention is that Stark also produced Columbia’s biggest hit of 1973, in fact their biggest hit between 1968 and 1975: The Way We Were.

McClintock, ironically, in a footnote really hits on one of the reasons why the studio was in the state it was when the Begelman scandal hit and tore the studio apart: “Generally, the Columbia board was not particularly distinguished, containing not a single independent lawyer, banker or other voice staunchly independent of the corporation’s vested interests as represented by Herbert Allen, Matty Rosenhaus, and the others who tended to be loyal to them.”  (McClintock, fn, p 126-127)

Then came the Begelman scandal.  I won’t dedicate much of my own writing to that because McClintock’s book is so good on the subject, so see the Books list at the bottom.

“By 1981, Columbia’s management was looking good again.  The company was a well-drilled unit under Herbert Allen, Fay Vincent and Frank Price.  Columbia Pictures had returned to financial health.  Hits like California Suite, The Cheap Detective, and Midnight Express in 1978, Kramer vs. Kramer and The China Syndrome in 1979, Stir Crazy and The Blue Lagoon in 1980, and Stripes and Absence of Malice in the current year, 1981, had kept revenues from the film division flowing nicely.  Many of the earlier titles were a legacy from the Hirschfield-Begelman era.  Columbia had purchased Ray Stark’s Rastar Company – with Stark still running it – for 300,000 Columbia shares, each valued at $32.50, for a total of $9,750,000.  The stage was set for the entry of the Coca-Cola Company.”  (Fast Fade: David Puttnam, Columbia Pictures and the Battle for Hollywood, Andrew Yule, p 181)

Yes, Coke bought Columbia and for some films on Wikipedia, it actually lists Coca-Cola Company as the studio.  But they were mostly hands off and the studio kept moving forward, at least until Coke decided to hands the reigns over to independent British producer David Puttnam.  “For the six months before David’s arrival at the studio, Columbia had been slipping badly in the box-office stakes.  The total for the period was still reasonable – $291 million; however, Karate Kid II accounted for $110 million of that, leaving the balance, $181 million, split between thirteen other features.”  (Yule, p 212)  Again, the books really cover this era – see below for more.

“The marriage of Columbia and TriStar was the end of David Puttnam.  His job was eliminated, and he was paid handsomely to go away.  Fay Vincent, the man who had hired him, was exiled to a vaguely defined position overseeing bottling properties – Coca-Cola’s equivalent of Siberia.  Victor Kaufman took the reins amid reports that Columbia stood to lose tens of millions on upcoming Puttnam movies that America wouldn’t want to see.”  (Griffin and Masters, p 211)  This kind of sums up the finale of the Andrew Yule book, though I highly recommend reading more about it in the Yule book.  Interesting to note that even though their book was published in 1996, Griffin and Masters don’t bother to mention, even in a footnote, that Fay Vincent bounced back from that “Siberia” posting by becoming the Assistant Commissioner of Major League Baseball and then, upon the death of Bart Giamatti, becoming the Commissioner himself for almost three years.  A big job and it’s surprising that it got no mention at all.

“Castle Rock was one of [Columbia]’s key relationships.  The company, founded in 1987, was run by five partners, the most famous of whom was Rob Reiner, director of This is Spinal Tap and Stand by Me.  Columbia Pictures (then owned by Coca-Cola) had been a major investor and owned 44 percent of Castle Rock.  Columbia distributed Castle Rock films in exchange for a percentage of the domestic box office.  Castle Rock paid for and controlled its own marketing.”  (Griffin and Masters, p 314).  At the time that Sony was buying the studio, this was key, especially for hit Reiner films like When Harry Met Sally and Misery (an appropriate film, since Castle Rock was named after Stephen King’s fictional town in Maine which is where Stand by Me takes place, even if it moved the town to Oregon).

In the last little bit before Sony took over the studio, Andrew Yule published another book that dealt a lot with Columbia: Losing the Light: Terry Gilliam & the Munchausen Saga.  There is a prophetic quote in the book at the end from “a veteran journalist”: “You have to understand about Columbia Pictures.  My impression is of a company in a holding pattern.  They haven’t started production on a single new movie in 1989.  They’re waiting for a takeover or for Ghostbusters II to open, whichever comes first.”  (Losing the Light: Terry Gilliam & the Munchausen Saga, Andrew Yule, p 225)  But then came the actual takeover and Gilliam, who it was claimed may never work again after Munchausen and certainly wouldn’t work for Columbia was making The Fisher King for TriStar, which was part of Columbia.  Gilliam himself said “My theory is that Victor Kaufman was just trying to tidy up Columbia’s books to increase the price of the Sony sale and the last thing he wanted to succeed was something Puttnam had initiated.” (Losing the Light, p 230)

For a good look at how Sony managed to take over the studio in a bit that really can’t be adequately compressed, read Chapter 17 of Hit and Run.  In early August [1991], Columbia Pictures Entertainment was rechristened: It was now called Sony Pictures Entertainment.  (The two film studios were still TriStar and Columbia).  The studio’s name change caused some grumbling in Hollywood about cultural heritage – especially when the big sign at the entrance to the lot was changed.”  (Griffin and Masters, p 305)

One point in all of this is that there is a good argument to be made that TriStar, which was the first studio I wrote about in a Century of Film post really could have been included in this piece.

Sony / Columbia (depending on what you look at – BoxOfficeMojo / IMDb / Wikipedia – it may say one, the other or both, but really Sony owns the company and Columbia is the studio) continued to move through the 90’s, producing some major hits.  But if Ray Stark had been the fulcrum of success for Columbia in the 70’s, in the 90’s, it was Castle Rock.  Between the release of Ghostbusters II and Men in Black, an eight year stretch, Columbia only had five films make $90 million dollars and four of them were Castle Rock films (A Few Good Men, City Slickers, In the Line of Fire, When Harry Met Sally).  It was responsible for two of the studio’s Best Picture nominations and its only two acting Oscars (Misery, City Slickers) during that stretch.

It would be two stars and two franchises who would rise up and help Columbia become a major force in the 2000’s (it would be the biggest studio at the box office in 2002, 2004 and 2006).  The two stars would be Will Smith and Adam Sandler.  Of the 46 films released by Columbia to make over $100 million between 1997 and 2011, almost a third of them would star one or the other (with one more starring Smith’s son).  The two franchises would be the reason Columbia would be #1 in those three years – the first two had Spider-Man films and the third would have a James Bond film, which Columbia would have the domestic distribution rights to starting with Casino Royale.  Smith would be the bigger star (of the top nine films in that stretch, the only non Spider-Man and non Smith film was The Da Vinci Code) but Sandler would be the more consistent star (nine films with over $100 million).

Notable Columbia Films

note:  These are Columbia notables.  Unless stated otherwise, assume it’s the first Columbia film to do whatever is listed, not the first ever.

• Discontented Husbands  –  first Columbia film  (1924)
• The Lone Wolf Returns  –  first series film  (1926)
• That Certain Thing  –  first Capra film for Columbia, first film with 1928-36 logo  (1928)
• Submarine – first film with sound  (1928)
• The Donovan Affair  –  first all-talkie film  (1929)
• Call of the West  –  first of over 300 B-Westerns  (1930)
• The Criminal Code  –  first to earn an Oscar nomination  (1931)
• Lady for a Day  –  first to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Picture  (1933)
• It Happened One Night  –  first Oscar winner for Best Picture  (1934)
• The King Steps Out  –  first use of 1936-76 logo  (1936)
• Meet Nero Wolfe  –  first Rita Hayworth film  (1936)
• Blondie  –  first of 28 Blondie films  (1938)
• Mr. Smith Goes to Washington  –  last Capra film for Columbia  (1939)
• My Son is Guilty  –  first Glenn Ford film  (1939)
• The Desperadoes  –  first Technicolor film – Columbia was late in the game on this  (1943)
• From Here to Eternity  –  most successful film at the Oscars  (1953)
• Pushover  –  first Kim Novak film  (1954)
• The Revenge of Frankenstein  –  first Hammer film released by Columbia  (1958)
• Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round  –  known only for being Harrison Ford’s film debut  (1966)
• Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner  –  first film to gross over $50 million  (1967)
• Funny Girl  –  first (ever) Rastar film  (1968)
• Murder by Death  –  first use of 1976-81 logo  (1976)
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind  –  first film to gross over $100 million  (1977)
• Nice Dreams  –  first use of 1981-93 logo  (1981)
• Tootsie  –  first film to gross over $150 million  (1982)
• Ghostbusters  –  first film to gross over $200 million; highest grossing Columbia film until 1997  (1984)
• Winter People  –  first Castle Rock film  (1989)
• Last Action Hero  –  first use of 1993-2006 logo  (1993)
• Sense and Sensibility  –  last Oscar nominee for Best Picture until 2010  (1995)
• Men in Black  –  first film to gross over $250 million  (1997)
• Sour Grapes  –  last Castle Rock film  (1998)
• Spider-Man  –  highest grossing Columbia film through 2011; first film to gross over $400 million  (2002)
• The Social Network  –  first Oscar nominee for Best Picture in 15 years  (2010)

Head of Columbia, Harry Cohn, with his best director, Frank Capra.

The Directors

Frank Capra

• Films:  20
• Years:  1928 – 1939
• Average Film:  72.2
• Best Film:  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
• Worst Film:  Rain or Shine

The 20 films listed above for Capra don’t include several of his early films (pre 1933) which seem to be unavailable, all of which were also made for Columbia.  As mentioned above, Capra was extremely important to the studio.  He was the first director to ever earn an Oscar nomination, won Best Director three times in five years, helping Columbia’s reputation immensely and is responsible for almost every really good film that the studio made in the 1930’s.  As also mentioned above, of the 14 Oscars won by the studio’s film in the 1930’s, 11 of them were for Capra films and since three of them were for Capra, he by himself matched the rest of the studio.  His films also provided 39 of the studio’s 62 nominations during the decade.  Without him, it would take 13 years to match those 11 Oscars and it wouldn’t Best Director again until 1953.

Alexander Hall

• Films:  15
• Years:  1938  –  1947
• Average Film:  63.4
• Best Film:  Here Comes Mr. Jordan
• Worst Film:  Good Girls Go to Paris

For the most part, Hall was a fairly mediocre director.  I tried to see all of his films because he was once nominated for Best Director (for Here Comes Mr. Jordan, the only film of his to rank above ***) but there are some I still haven’t been able to get.  Of the 15 I have seen, only My Sister Eileen also manages to rise above a low ***.  Hall specialized in light Romantic Comedies (only two of his film do I not classify as Comedies).  Outside of Jordan, his whole oeuvre managed just one Oscar nomination (Best Actress for My Sister Eileen).

Charles Vidor

• Films:  8
• Years:  1941  –  1960
• Average Film:  65.6
• Best Film:  Gilda
• Worst Film:  The Loves of Carmen

Vidor was most known for working with Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford, directing Cover Girl, The Desperadoes, Gilda and The Loves of Carmen.  He was entrusted with a lot of Columbia’s first Technicolor films and his films are generally entertaining and worth watching at least once.

Edward Dmytryk

• Films:  10
• Years:  1941  –  1968
• Average Film:  61.0
• Best Film:  The Caine Mutiny
• Worst Film:  Anzio

The Caine Mutiny is miles above any of the other work that Dmytryk did for Columbia.  He made three mediocre films for Columbia in the early 40’s then was actually brought into the studio after he had already been blacklisted as one of the Hollywood 10, making seven more films for the studio from 1952 to 1968, though, outside of The Caine Mutiny, I really can’t recommend any of them.

David Lean

• Films:  3
• Years:  1957  –  1984
• Average Film:  98.3
• Best Film:  Lawrence of Arabia
• Worst Film:  A Passage to India

Lean only made three films for the studio, two for independent producer Sam Spiegel and then one much later.  But those films won 16 Oscars and earned 29 nominations, including two wins (and a nomination) for Lean himself and all are among the best Columbia films ever made and indeed in my Top 100 All-Time.

Rob Reiner

• Films:  7
• Years:  1986  –  1996
• Average Film:  71.7
• Best Film:  When Harry Met Sally…
• Worst Film:  North

I should note that Reiner’s average goes up to 82.8 if you don’t count North.  He made Stand by Me at the studio which gave birth to his Castle Rock Productions, which then was the home for all of Reiner’s films from 1989 to 1996, all of which, except for North, earned at least one Oscar nomination and included a Best Picture nominee (A Few Good Men) and a Best Actress winner (Misery).  Reiner’s decline took place mostly at other studios, after the Castle Rock distribution deal ended.

The Stars

Cary Grant

Grant only had a small contract with Columbia (with a simultaneous one with RKO) but it brought him one of his first major hits (The Awful Truth) as well as his first Oscar nomination (Penny Serenade).  In that time, he was also in one of Columbia’s most well-regarded hits (Only Angels Have Wings), one of Grant’s plumb roles (His Girl Friday) and another Best Picture nominee (The Talk of the Town).
Essential Viewing:  The Awful Truth, His Girl Friday, Penny Serenade

Jean Arthur

Arthur signed a five year contract in 1934.  During that time, she would be in a huge hit (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town), a Best Picture winner (You Can’t Take It With You) and the studio’s best film of the decade (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), all directed by Frank Capra as well as the highly regarded Only Angels Have Wings.  She would sign another five year contract and in the next five years would be in such films as Too Many Husbands and The Talk of the Town and would earn her only Oscar nomination for The More the Merrier.  After this contract expired she retired from filmmaking, only making two more films in later years.
Essential Viewing:  The More the Merrier, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Rita Hayworth

Hayworth was the studio’s first genuine, bone-fide star.  She would be in several Columbia films in the late 30’s before hitting stardom with Angels Over Broadway in 1940.  She then made a couple of musicals with Fred Astaire before color discovered her with Cover Girl.  She would go back to black-and-white for Gilda which made her possibly the biggest pin-up in the world (and with good reason).  She was Columbia’s biggest star when she took a break in 1948 but she would come back and be a big star for them again in the 50’s.  I’ve seen at least 14 Columbia films starring Hayworth and there are some still that are hard to find.  Sadly, her best acting performances (Separate Tables, The Story on Page One) would not be for Columbia.
Essential Viewing:  Gilda, Cover Girl, Miss Sadie Thompson

Glenn Ford

Ford is perhaps most famous for his roles opposite Rita Hayworth (The Lady in Question, Gilda, The Loves of Carmen, Miss Sadie Thompson) but he was also a star outside of working with her, most notably in The Big Heat.
Essential Viewing:  The Big Heat, Gilda, The Desperadoes

Kim Novak

After Hayworth was gone (and even after she came back), Harry Cohn desperately wanted a pin-up to replace her.  He eventually settled on Novak who wasn’t as beautiful or as talented.  But she became a big star in the mid to late 50’s, even if her most notable film, Vertigo, was for Paramount.
Essential Viewing:  Picnic, Bell Book and Candle, 5 Against the House

Jack Nicholson

All of Nicholson’s early Oscar nominations were in Columbia films (Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail).  After the mid 70’s, he wouldn’t make a film at Columbia again for a long time.  In the early 90’s, he earned another Oscar nomination for A Few Good Men and also starred in Wolf and then he starred in three $100 million+ films for the company (As Good as It Gets, Something’s Gotta Give, Anger Management).
Essential Viewing:  A Few Good Men

Will Smith

Smith first worked with Columbia on Bad Boys but after Men in Black he became their biggest star ever.  From 2002 to 2008 he made five films at Columbia that made a combined $900 million.
Essential Viewing:  The Pursuit of Happyness, Men in Black, Hancock

Adam Sandler

Artistically, Sandler is the worst thing to ever happen to Columbia.  The vast majority of his films have been critically derided (with Punch-Drunk Love the notable exception), they have earned multiple Razzie nominations for Worst Picture and Jack and Jill is the biggest film ever at the Razzies.  But it’s easy to see why Sandler is important to Columbia and his Happy Madison Productions is headquartered on their lot.  His films have almost never lost money and the top 8 have earned collectively, well over $1 billion.  I don’t blame Columbia for making his films; I blame the audiences for paying for them.
Essential Viewing:  Punch-Drunk Love, Reign Over Me

Genres

It could just be a reflection of what I have seen, but it seems that Columbia really doesn’t go in for Genre films.  They really focused on Comedies (especially once Screwball Comedies came around), Dramas and, after Rita Hayworth came along, some Musicals.  Even through their whole history they’ve never really branched out as much as a lot of other studios have.  They did make a lot of B-Westerns (the book The Columbia Story lists 331 of them) but not a lot of Westerns outside of that.

What they did do was series films.  In The Columbia Story, the series films are separated from the regular feature films at the end of the books.  It includes 111 films in 7 different series (Blondie, Boston Blackie, Crime Doctor, Ellery Queen, Jungle Jim, Lone Wolf, Rusty).  These films really were the bulk of Columbia’s genre films during the years of the series films (starting in 1926, but the vast majority of them from 1938 to 1955).  From 1938 to 1955, Columbia released 945 feature films but only 603 primary features (non-series, non-B Western).

In more recent years, Columbia has really started to go in for sequels in attempts to kick-start some franchises (Spider-Man, Men in Black) and remakes.  From 2002 to 2011, Columbia remade all of the following films: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, The Fog, Fun with Dick and Jane, The Pink Panther, All the King’s Men, The Taking of Pelham 123, The Karate Kid and they have also made films out of the following which all used to be television shows: Spider-Man, I Spy, Charlie’s Angels, S.W.A.T., Bewitched, The Green Hornet, Smurfs.

The Top 100 Columbia Films

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
3. The Bridge on the River Kwai
4. Seven Samurai
5. On the Waterfront
6. The Age of Innocence
7. A Passage to India
8. From Here to Eternity
9. The Shawshank Redemption
10. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
11. Sense and Sensibility
12. The Last Picture Show
13. Hamlet
14. The Social Network
15. Across the Universe
16. When Harry Met Sally…
17. The End of the Affair  (1999)
18. The Big Chill
19. Taxi Driver
20. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
21. A Man for All Seasons
22. His Girl Friday
23. Hope and Glory
24. Boyz N the Hood
25. Stand by Me
26. The Big Heat
27. Closer
28. Kramer vs. Kramer
29. Midnight Express
30. Adaptation
31. The Remains of the Day
32. Tootsie
33. Casino Royale  (2006)
34. It Happened One Night
35. In Cold Blood
36. Five Easy Pieces
37. A Few Good Men
38. Anatomy of a Murder
39. Tess
40. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
41. Spider-Man 2
42. In the Line of Fire
43. The Last Emperor
44. The Awful Truth
45. To Die For
46. The Professionals
47. The More the Merrier
48. You Can’t Take It With You
49. Stranger than Fiction
50. The Ides of March
51. Ghostbusters
52. Shampoo
53. Black Hawk Down
54. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
55. Picnic
56. Spider-Man
57. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
58. The Fifth Element
59. …And Justice for All
60. In a Lonely Place
61. The Collector
62. Moneyball
63. Our Man in Havana
64. All the King’s Men  (1949)
65. Roxanne
66. Hanussen
67. Groundhog Day
68. Absolute Power
69. Léon
70. Misery
71. The Guns of Navarone
72. Sundays and Cybele
73. Educating Rita
74. Still Crazy
75. King Rat
76. Here Comes Mr. Jordan
77. Little Women  (1994)
78. Arthur Christmas
79. Panic Room
80. Easy Rider
81. Death of a Salesman
82. The Big Easy
83. Big Fish
84. MacBeth  (1971)
85. The Front
86. The Caine Mutiny
87. Human Desire
88. The Pursuit of Happyness
89. A Raisin in the Sun
90. A River Runs Through It
91. Silverado
92. Fail Safe
93. Texasville
94. The Deadly Affair
95. The People vs. Larry Flynt
96. Awakenings
97. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
98. 3:10 to Yuma  (1957)
99. Twentieth Century
100. Absence of Malice

Notable Columbia Films Not in the Top 100

note:  Includes all films I have either already reviewed or have current plans to review in the future as well as all films I saw in the theater.

• Gandhi  (#101)
• Porgy and Bess  (#102)
• Quantum of Solace  (#103)
• Cash on Demand  (#106)
• Fat City  (#107)
• Men in Black  (#109)
• The Last Detail  (#110)
• Advise and Consent  (#111)
• The China Syndrome  (#112)
• Monster House  (#113)
• El Mariachi  (#114)
• A Soldier’s Story  (#115)
• Georgy Girl  (#116)
• The Last Hurrah  (#119)
• Zero Effect  (#120)
• Lady for a Day  (#121)
• Honeymoon in Vegas  (#122)
  ***
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula  (#123)
• Fly Away Home  (#124)
• La Bamba  (#125)
• The Lady from Shanghai  (#126)
• Bottle Rocket  (#127)
• The Buddy Holly Story  (#129)
• Punch-Drunk Love  (#130)
• The Go-Between  (#132)
• The Brothers Karamazov  (#137)
• To Sir With Love  (#139)
• Once Upon a Time in Mexico  (#142)
• Jason and the Argonauts  (#143)
• Gilda  (#144)
• Only Angels Have Wings  (#145)
• Cover Girl  (#146)
• Memoirs of a Geisha  (#148)
• California Suite  (#150)
• Oliver!  (#157)
• The L-Shaped Room  (#158)
• Andrei Rublev  (#159)
• The Way We Were  (#161)
• Images  (#164)
• The Member of the Wedding  (#165)
• Cactus Flower  (#167)
• You Were Never Lovelier  (#168)
• Claire’s Knee  (#170)
• Lost Horizon (1937)  (#174)
• The Criminal Code  (#181)
• 49th Parallel  (#184)
• The Dresser  (#188)
• I Never Sang for My Father  (#190)
• Theodora Goes Wild  (#191)
• The Prince of Tides  (#193)
• Othello (1995)  (#196)
• I’m All Right Jack  (#197)
• Hamlet (1969)  (#200)
• The Karate Kid (1984)  (#202)
• Hellboy  (#205)
• The Power of the Press  (#211)
• Pal Joey  (#212)
• A League of Their Own  (#214)
• All the King’s Men (2006)  (219)
• The Miracle Woman  (#220)
• The Talk of the Town  (#222)
• City Slickers  (#223)
• The Tall T  (#224)
• Two Rode Together  (#226)
• Too Many Husbands  (#228)
• The Pickup  (#229)
• Air Force One  (#230)
• Holiday  (#231)
• The American President  (#234)
• Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice  (#235)
• Crime and Punishment  (#238)
• Me and the Colonel  (#241)
• Angels Over Broadway  (#246)
• Together Again  (#247)
• Starman  (#256)
• Malice  (#259)
• The Taming of the Shrew  (#262)
• Bell, Book and Candle  (#263)
• Miss Sadie Thompson  (#268)
• You’ll Never Get Rich  (#271)
• The Desperadoes  (#278)
• Penny Serenade  (#283)
• The Da Vinci Code  (#285)
• The Happy Time  (#288)
• The Marrying Kind (1952)  (#290
• Platinum Blonde  (#296)
• Born Yesterday  (#300)
• Heavy Metal  (#303)
• The Solid Gold Cadillac  (#318)
• Golden Boy  (#320)
• Stripes  (#333)
• The Electric Horseman  (#339)
• Spider-Man 3  (#343)
• 84 Charing Cross Road  (#345)
• Gloria  (#370)
• The Wind in the Willows  (#372)
• Murder by Death  (#377)
• The End of the Affair (1955)  (#379)
• The 7th Voyage of Sinbad  (#386)
• The Revenge of Frankenstein  (#393)
• Les Miserables (1998)  (#394)
• A Song to Remember  (#399)
• The Bitter Tea of General Yen  (#411)
• Husbands  (#415)
• Funny Girl  (#417)
• Agnes of God  (#425)
• Butterflies are Free  (#442)
• Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner  (#464)
  **.5
• Suddenly, Last Summer  (#473)
• The Devil’s Own  (#475)
• Wolf  (#477)
• Postcards from the Edge  (#479)
• The Karate Kid Part II  (#481)
• The Tingler  (#489)
• Blondie  (#497)
• Julie and Julia  (#500)
• Radio Flyer  (#520)
• Jolson Sings Again  (#522)
• Saturday’s Hero  (#530
• The Loves of Carmen  (#535)
• City Hall  (#541)
• One Night of Love  (#553)
• Young Winston  (#566)
• Forget Paris  (#570)
• 1984  (#572)
• Ship of Fools  (#583)
• The Wild One  (#585)
• Flatliners  (#596)
• Body Double  (#612)
• Full of Life  (#617)
• The Cardinal  (#647)
• The Owl and the Pussycat  (#650)
• Superbad  (#663)
• The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)  (#664)
  **
• Charlie’s Angels  (#670)
• Tommy  (#678)
• Can’t Hardly Wait  (#707)
• Obsession  (#712)
• America’s Sweethearts  (#737)
• 40 Carats  (#751)
• The Karate Kid Part III  (#756)
• Last Action Hero  (#758)
• Godspell  (#771)
• The Terror of Tiny Town  (#774)
• Nicholas and Alexandra  (#800)
  *.5
• Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle  (#821)
• The Road to Wellville  (#822)
  *
• First Knight  (#837)
  .5
• Needful Things  (#846)
• Ishtar  (#848)
• Lost Horizon (1973)  (#858)
• 13 Frightened Girls  (#867)
• North  (#868)

The Bottom 10 Columbia Films, #875-884
(worst being #10, which is #884 overall)

1. Mr. Deeds
2. White Chicks
3. Spring Break
4. Big Daddy
5. Jack and Jill
6. Sour Grapes
7. Leonard Part 6
8. 2012
9. Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star
10. Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo

note:  The bottom three films are all zero stars.

Notes on Films

note:  These are just tidbits on some of the films.  The films are listed in alphabetical order.  Unless I have something specific to say, I don’t mention films that have full reviews elsewhere or films that I saw in the theater from 1989 to 2005 (they are all mentioned in those Nighthawk Awards).

• 3:10 to Yuma  –  A better film than I had remembered with a good villainous performance from Glenn Ford.
• Absence of Malice  –  A very good film that won’t get reviewed because it’s original.  Well worth seeing just for Newman’s performance.  Has one of my brother’s favorite film lines: “Boy, the last time there was a leak like this, Noah built hisself a boat.”
• Angels and Demons  –  My initial review of this upon seeing it was “So implausible that it makes The Da Vinci Code seems like established Catholic dogma.”
• Blondie on a Budget  –  None of the Blondie films are very good but if you see just one, see this one which has Rita Hayworth in it.
• Cash on Demand  –  I tried to see all the Hammer films released by Columbia (I’m close) and this was the best that I hadn’t seen before.  A tight little thriller with a strong performance from Peter Cushing.
• The Electric Horseman  –  Not worth mentioning except that it’s one of my mother’s favorite movies.
• A Few Good Men  –  Much higher on the list above than it would have been before but I have already re-watched it for the Best Adapted Screenplay project and it took a big jump up in my estimation this time.
• Fire Down Below  –  Should have been titled “Sorry, Jack Lemmon, but you’re no Robert Mitchum”
• Gilda  –  I want it to be a classic but even seeing it again didn’t raise it above high ***.  Definitely worth seeing though, just for Hayworth.
• The Green Hornet  –  Rich pothead douchebag becomes superhero because he’s bored.  Who thought this was a good idea?
• I Still Know What You Did Last Summer  –  Let’s make a movie starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and set it in the Bahamas and not put her in a bikini.  Who thought that was smart marketing?  Oh, and it totally stole its ideas from Scream 2.
• Ishtar  –  Just as bad as you think it’s going to be.
• Just Go With It  –  When you make me long for Goldie Hawn (this is a remake of Cactus Flower), you know you’ve done wrong.
• Just One of the Guys  –  The only thing I remember is that I think this was one of the first movies with a topless scene I ever saw.
• The Karate Kid (2010)  –  Totally pointless and unnecessary and Jayden Smith is too young.  But, there is one really good scene, which is when you realize what Jackie Chan does in the scene where he saves Smith from the bullies.
• The Man They Could Not Hang  –  Especially given that Columbia didn’t do much in the way of Horror, this one with Boris Karloff is well worth seeing.
• Mr. Deeds  –  If you thought the musical remake of Lost Horizon was the worst thing Columbia could do to a Frank Capra film you are in for a very unpleasant surprise.  What the hell is Oscar level talent like Winona Ryder, John Turturro and Steve Buscemi doing in this piece of shit?  This film seems like the filmmakers saw the episode of The Simpsons where Mel Gibson remakes Mr. Smith and thought that it was a brilliant idea.
• Murder by Death  –  Part of a wave of Mystery-Comedies in the mid to late 70’s.  I rewatched this a couple of years ago as a condition of being loaned some hard to find films from a regular commenter.  It’s funny in parts with its parody of other famous detectives (The Cheap Detective, two years later from Columbia would do the same) but doesn’t hold together well enough to be higher than a low ***.
• My Stepmother is an Alien  –  There was a girl named Sarah Borrey in my ninth grade class and I was desperately in love with her.  That same year this film, with a young actress named Alyson Hannigan who looked just like Sarah was released.  That’s all I remember and I spent years looking for her again before she finally became a household name almost a decade later with Buffy and American Pie.  Sarah transferred to a private high school after ninth grade and I never saw her again.
• Only Angels Have Wings  –  One of the Columbia films I re-watched for this post because it has such a high reputation.  I did bump it up a bit but it’s still at high *** and I’m not really certain why it’s ranked so high at TSPDT.
• The Other Boleyn Girl  –  Ironies abound.  Saw this in 2015, not long after Wolf Hall came out (in which some of the same events are told much better with Mark Rylance playing Cromwell instead of Thomas Boleyn) and right after Benedict Cumberbatch, who in this film, dies and his wife, played by Scarlett Johansson, ends up marrying Eddie Redmayne, lost the Best Actor Oscar race to, of course, Eddie Redmayne.  In spite of that cast, not worth seeing.
• Paul Blart: Mall Cop  –  In high school, a local mall had both Kindergarten Cop and Terminator 2 film scenes there.  This was filmed at my local mall in Massachusetts.  What a fall from my high school days.
• St. Elmo’s Fire  –  The Medium Sized Chill.  My best suggestion is to watch the video for the fantastic title song and skip the film.
• Still Crazy  –  A really good, fun movie with a fantastic soundtrack.  See it if you haven’t already.
• Stripes  –  One of the most ridiculous plots ever put on film but a fun film anyway with a pretty good score for a silly Comedy.
• The Terror of Tiny Town  –  Really has to be seen to be believed.
• Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story  –  Easily my favorite thing Judd Apatow has been involved with, namely because of Reilly’s goofy, endearing performance and a really good set of original songs.
• The War Lover  –  The film my parents saw on their first date which, for years, was described to me as “a film where Steve McQueen crashes into the White Cliffs of Dover at the end”.  Worth seeing namely for McQueen’s performance even if I just spoiled the end of it for you.
• Wholly Moses!  –  If you want a good example of why I can’t stand Dudley Moore, watch this terrible Biblical parody.
• Year of the Comet  –  My friend Tavis and I tried desperately to get this for years (I finally saw it years later) because William Goldman writes about in Which Lie Did I Tell, about how earnest he was about it and how no one cared.  Yeah, because it’s about a bottle of wine, Bill.  It’s not worth tracking down unless you’re obsessed with Penelope Ann Miller.
• Zookeeper  –  More crappy Kevin James filmed in Boston while we were there, this time at our zoo (Franklin Zoo).  A lot of CGI.  There is no spot in the zoo that gives you a view of the Boston skyline like this movie tries to show (more than once).

The 10 Most Under-Rated Columbia Films

These are all films that I rate at **** that have never appeared in TSPDT’s Top 1000 (now 2000) or their Top 250 21st Century Films (now 1000).  Also, I eliminated a few films that were nominated for Best Picture (The More the Merrier, Picnic, A Passage to India).  I present them in their rank order.

1. Hamlet
2. Across the Universe
3. The End of the Affair
4. In the Line of Fire
5. To Die For
6. The Professionals
7. Stranger Than Fiction
8. Ghostbusters
9. The Ides of March
10. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

The Best Columbia Films by Decade

• 1920’s:  no film above ***
• 1930’s:  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
• 1940’s:  His Girl Friday
• 1950’s:  The Bridge on the River Kwai
• 1960’s:  Lawrence of Arabia
• 1970’s:  The Last Picture Show
• 1980’s:  A Passage to India
• 1990’s:  The Age of Innocence
• 2000’s:  Across the Universe
• 2010’s:  The Social Network

The Worst Columbia Films by Decade

• 1920’s:  no film below **.5
• 1930’s:  The Terror of Tiny Town
• 1940’s:  A Thousand and One Nights
• 1950’s:  Invasion U.S.A.
• 1960’s:  13 Frightened Girls
• 1970’s:  Lost Horizon
• 1980’s:  Leonard Part 6
• 1990’s:  Sour Grapes
• 2000’s:  Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo
• 2010’s:  Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star

The Best Columbia Films by Genre

• Action:  Seven Samurai
• Adventure:  no film above ***
• Comedy:  Dr. Strangelove
• Crime:  Boyz N the Hood
• Drama:  Lawrence of Arabia
• Fantasy:  The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
• Horror:  Taxi Driver
• Kids:  Arthur Christmas
• Musical:  Across the Universe
• Mystery:  Anatomy of a Murder
• Sci-Fi:  Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Suspense:  The Big Heat
• War:  The Bridge on the River Kwai
• Western:  The Professionals

The Worst Columbia Films by Genre

• Action:  2012
• Adventure:  Sheena
• Comedy:  Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo
• Crime:  Buster and Billie
• Drama:  Invasion U.S.A.
• Fantasy:  Yor, the Hunter from the Future
• Horror:  Piranha II: The Spawning
• Kids:  The Smurfs
• Musical:  The Forbidden Dance
• Mystery:  Freedomland
• Sci-Fi:  Battle in Outer Space
• Suspense:  The Juror
• War:  The Patriot
• Western:  The Terror of Tiny Town

The Most Over-Rated Columbia Films

1. Superbad
   low **.5 for a film that’s really not that funny
2. Husbands
   low *** and not a classic like some would have you believe
3. Obsession
   I wish de Palma’s films were better but they’re not
4. Only Angels Have Wings
   quite a good film, actually, but not an all-time classic like its TSPDT rank would have you believe
5. The Lady from Shanghai
   again, a strong *** but not even the presence of Welles and Hayworth can make a solid film a great one

The Statistics

Total Films 1912-2011: 884  (4th)

Total Percentage of All Films 1912-2011:  6.59%

• 1912-1929:  5  (1.40%)  (13th – tie)
• 1930-1939:  63  (5.77%)  (7th)
• 1940-1949:  85  (7.57%)  (8th)
• 1950-1959:  122  (9.57%)  (3rd)
• 1960-1969:  132  (8.84%)  (2nd)
• 1970-1979:  125  (8.28%)  (2nd)
• 1980-1989:  108  (6.35%)  (3rd)
• 1990-1999:  121  (6.22%)  (3rd – tie)
• 2000-2009:  102  (4.16%)  (5th – tie)
• 2010-2011:  21  (4.43%)  (6th)

Percentage I’ve Seen of All Columbia Films 1924-2011:  35.84%  (41.79%)

note:  The second number in parenthesis for both the above line and the decade lines below refers to the percentage of major feature films by Columbia, thus not counting the various series films, the B Westerns or documentaries.  Except for documentaries (which are a very small percentage), those end by 1959 so I only include it for the first few decades.

Percentage I’ve Seen by Decade:

• 1924-1929:  4.84%  (4.96%)
• 1930-1939:  13.91%  (17.31%)
• 1940-1949:  15.36%  (21.04%)
• 1950-1959:  26.71%  (33.80%)
• 1960-1969:  49.62%
• 1970-1979:  62.50%
• 1980-1989:  70.59%
• 1990-1999:  73.46%
• 2000-2009:  65.58%
• 2010-2011:  83.33%

Biggest Years:

• 20:  1959
• 19:  1957
• 18:  1973
• 17:  1940
• 16:  1941, 1962

note:  Columbia has the most films of any studio in 1959, 1965, 1966, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975 and 1976.

Biggest Years by Percentage of All Films:

• 1959:  15.50%
• 1940:  14.29%
• 1941:  13.33%
• 1957:  12.84%
• 1954:  11.43%

Biggest Years by Percentage of Columbia Films I’ve Seen:

• 1983:  100%  (12 for 12)
• 1998:  92.86%  (13 for 14)
• 1994:  92.31%  (12 for 13)
• 1984, 1990:  85.71%  (12 for 14)

note:  The lowest year is any year before 1928.  I have seen none of the 69 films made before 1928.  1950 is the last year where I have seen less than 10%, 1953 is the most recent year I have seen less than 20%, 1968 is the only year since 1956 where I have seen less than 40% of the films.  1986 and 1988 are the only years since 1971 where I have seen less than half the films.  I have seen at least 60% of the films in all but six years since 1971.

Best Year:

• 1987, 1993:  4 films in the Top 20
• Columbia has never had more than 2 films in the Top 10 but has had two films 12 times, ranging from 1934 to 1995.  It had two Top 10 films and three Top 20 films each year from 1982 to 1984.

Eras:

• Top 10 most films every year except 1912-26 and 1927-28.

Columbia entered the Top 10 most films in 1932 and moved into 8th in 1934.  It passed Universal into 7th in 1938.  It caught RKO and moved into 6th in 1942 but moved back the next year and stayed in 7th until 1959.  It would stay in 6th until 1992 when it finally passed United Artists.  In 2008, it would catch MGM and move into 4th place among all studios.

The Top Films:

Columbia would be the last of the majors to win the Nighthawk, finally winning in 1953.  But by winning four in five years, it was the fourth studio to win four awards.  In 1962 it would become just the second to win five awards, after UA which did it the year before and two years later would be the first to win a sixth.  Because of the 31 year wait between awards it would only be the third studio to win seven awards and it still hasn’t won an eighth.

• Nighthawk Winner:  1953, 1954, 1956, 1957, 1962, 1964, 1995
• 4 Films in the Top 20:  1987, 1993
• Top 10 Films:  61
• First Year in the Top 10:  1934
• Latest Year in the Top 10:  2010
• Top 20 Films:  114
• Best Decade for Top 20 Films:  1980’s  (20)
• Worst Decade for Top 20 Films:  1920’s  (0)
• note:  Columbia had the most Top 20 films in the 90’s of any studio with 16.

Nighthawk Awards

• Number of Films That Have Earned Nominations:  163
• Number of Films That Have Won Nighthawks:  54
• Number of Films With Multiple Nominations:  97
• Number of Films With Multiple Wins:  24
• Best Picture Nominations:  36
• Total Number of Nominations:  576
• Total Number of Wins:  146
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Actor  (48)
• Director with Most Nighthawk Nominated Films:  Frank Capra  (7)
• Best Film with No Nighthawks:  The Shawshank Redemption
• Best Film with No Nighthawk Nominations:  Our Man in Havana
• Number of Films That Have Earned Drama Nominations:  85
• Number of Films That Have Earned Comedy Nominations:  70
• Number of Films That Have Won Drama Awards:  26
• Number of Films That Have Won Comedy Awards:  27
• Drama Picture Nominations:  28
• Comedy Picture Nominations:  26
• Total Number of Drama Nominations:  262
• Total Number of Comedy Nominations:  219
• Total Number of Drama Wins:  65
• Total Number of Comedy Wins:  65
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Actor  (43 – Drama  /  40 – Comedy)
• Best Drama Film With No Nominations:  Tess
• Best Comedy Film With No Nominations:  Still Crazy
• Most 2nd Place Finishes:  A Passage to India  (8)
• Most 6th Place Finishes:  The Remains of the Day  (4)
• Most Top 10 Finishes:  From Here to Eternity  (17)
• Most Top 20 Finishes:  From Here to Eternity  /  Lawrence of Arabia  (18)
• Films With at Least One Top 10 Finish:  243
• Best Film Without a Top 10 Finish:  Texasville
• Films With at Least One Top 20 Finish:  296
• Best Film Without a Top 20 Finish:  And Now for Something Completely Different

Most Nighthawk Nominations:

1. From Here to Eternity  –  15
2. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  15
3. Lawrence of Arabia  –  14
4. On the Waterfront  –  13
5. Seven Samurai  –  13
6. A Passage to India  –  13
7. Taxi Driver  –  12
8. A Man for All Seasons  –  11
9. The Last Picture Show  –  11
10. Close Encounters of the Third Kind  /  The Age of Innocence  /  Sense and Sensibility  –  11

Most Nighthawks:

1. Seven Samurai  –  13
2. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  13
3. Lawrence of Arabia  –  13
4. On the Waterfront  –  11
5. From Here to Eternity  –  10
6. Sense and Sensibility  –  9
7. Dr. Strangelove  –  5
8. Bram Stoker’s Dracula  –  4
9. six films  –  3

Most Nighthawk Points:

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  780
2. From Here to Eternity  –  755
3. On the Waterfront  –  750
4. Lawrence of Arabia  –  740
5. Seven Samurai  –  690
6. Sense and Sensibility  –  625
7. A Passage to India  –  485
8. Dr. Strangelove  –  480
9. Taxi Driver  –  445
10. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington  –  425

Most Drama Nominations:

1. From Here to Eternity  –  9
2. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington  –  8
3. On the Waterfront  –  8
4. The Last Picture Show  –  8
5. A Passage to India  /  Sense and Sensibility  –  7

Most Comedy Nominations:

1. Shampoo  –  8
2. Tootsie  –  8
3. The Big Chill  –  8
4. The Awful Truth  –  7
5. When Harry Met Sally  –  7

Most Drama Wins:

1. From Here to Eternity  –  6
2. On the Waterfront  –  6
3. Lawrence of Arabia  –  5
4. A Passage to India  –  5
5. Sense and Sensibility  –  5

Most Comedy Wins:

1. The Awful Truth  –  6
2. The More the Merrier  –  5
3. Dr. Strangelove  –  5
4. Tootsie  –  5
5. The Big Chill  –  5

Most Drama Points:

1. From Here to Eternity  –  560
2. On the Waterfront  –  520
3. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington  –  490
4. A Passage to India  –  465
5. Sense and Sensibility  –  460
6. Lawrence of Arabia  –  430
7. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  430
8. Five Easy Pieces  –  380
9. Seven Samurai  –  365
10. The Last Picture Show  –  345

Most Comedy Points:

1. The Awful Truth  –  500
2. Tootsie  –  490
3. The Big Chill  –  485
4. The More the Merrier  –  435
5. Dr. Strangelove  –  435
6. When Harry Met Sally  –  435
7. To Die For  –  370
8. Adaptation  –  365
9. Shampoo  –  355
10. Here Comes Mr. Jordan  –  335

All-Time Nighthawk Awards

note:  As always, films in red won the Oscar and films in blue were nominated.

• Best Picture

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. Dr. Strangelove
3. The Bridge on the River Kwai
4. Seven Samurai
5. On the Waterfront

Analysis:  The full list above, of course, is the full list.
The first three films are all 99 films.  There are only 23 “99” films in film history and to have three of them is remarkable.  The only other studios with more than two are Paramount and Warner Bros which both have four.  All five of the films on the list win the Nighthawk as do From Here to Eternity and Sense and Sensibility while The Age of Innocence is one of the highest #2 films in film history.  Another 29 Columbia films earn Nighthawk nominations including three in the 15 year stretch where Columbia had no Oscar nominee for Best Picture (Hamlet, The End of the Affair, Across the Universe).  Aside from the six Dramas that win Picture, three more win the Drama award, all of them #2 in their year (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Five Easy Pieces, A Passage to India).  Aside from Dr. Strangelove, eight others win the Comedy award, with two of them (The More the Merrier, To Die For) doing it without even finishing in the Top 5 for the year overall (the other Comedy winners are The Awful Truth, The Professionals, Tootsie, The Big Chill, When Harry Met Sally, Across the Universe).  Overall, 57 films finish in the Top 10 and 99 finish in the Top 20 and earn at least ***.5.
Columbia has won Best Picture at the Oscars 12 times, including three times in five years from 1953 to 1957 and 7 times in 20 years from 1949 to 1968.  Before that, it had only won twice (It Happened One Night, You Can’t Take It With You) and since then has only won three times (Kramer vs. Kramer, Gandhi, The Last Emperor).  It earned its first nomination in 1933, never skipped more than one year until 1944, when there was a gap until 1949, then never skipped more than two years in a row until 1972-1975.  From 1976 to 1995, there were two consecutive year gaps (1985-1986, 1988-1989) but most years had a nominee.  But then, after 1995, it would not be until 2010 that another Columbia film would earn Best Picture.  Overall, there have been 51 nominees from Columbia, including the 1st and 4th most successful Oscar films, points-wise (From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront).
Columbia has won Picture – Drama at the Globes 12 times, including five times from 1957 to 1966, though since 1979 it has only won twice (The Last Emperor, The Social Network).  It has also won Picture – Comedy three times (Oliver, Tootsie, Hope and Glory) as well as winning Picture – Musical twice in the stretch where Musical and Comedy were separate awards (Porgy and Bess, Song Without End).  In 1987, it became just the third studio to ever win both Drama and Comedy in the same year.  In addition, there have been 24 Drama nominees including two each in 1965, 1966 (three including the winner), 1967 and 1970 and it had three in the gap from 1995 to 2010 where it had no Oscar nominees (The People vs. Larry Flynt, The End of the Affair, Closer).  The studio has also had 37 more Comedy or Musical nominees including three in 1975 (Shampoo, Funny Lady, Tommy).  It has never gone more than 4 years between Comedy nominees.
The studio hasn’t been as successful at the BAFTAs.  It has won eight times (Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Strangelove, A Man for all Seasons, Gandhi, Educating Rita, The Last Emperor, Sense and Sensibility), the first four of which also won British Film.  It has earned an additional 29 nominations, though 11 of them were before 1968 when there were no limits on the number of nominees.  Since 1993, it only has three nominations (The End of the Affair, Big Fish, The Social Network).  It has earned six Best British Film nominations (in addition to the four wins) but Casino Royale is the only one since 1967.
Sense and Sensibility and The Social Network both won the BFCA while seven other films have earned nominations.  No Columbia film has won the PGA though 15 films have been nominated for it including 10 films in the award’s first 8 years and three films in 2011 (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Ides of March, Moneyball).
The Social Network is the only really big winner at the critics awards, sweeping all six while no other Columbia film has more than two.  That’s a little deceptive, though because Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, On the Waterfront and Bridge on the River Kwai all won both awards (NBR, NYFC) in an era where there were only two and A Man for All Seasons won those two in the first year of three awards so all of those were dominant winners.  In addition, five other films won two awards (Kramer vs. Kramer, Gandhi, A Passage to India, Hope and Glory, Sense and Sensibility).  Eight other Columbia films have won at least one critics award with It Happened One Night, True Glory (both NBR), All the King’s Men and From Here to Eternity (both NYFC) all doing it in an era where there were only two awards.  In 1971, Columbia had the NSFC winner (Claire’s Knee) and the NBR winner (Macbeth).

• Best Director

1. David Lean  (Lawrence of Arabia)
2. David Lean  (The Bridge on the River Kwai)
3. Akira Kurosawa  (Seven Samurai)
4. Elia Kazan  (On the Waterfront)
5. Martin Scorsese  (The Age of Innocence)

Analysis:  Scorsese doesn’t win the Nighthawk though the others do as do Zinnemann (From Here to Eternity), Kubrick (Dr. Strangelove) and Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility).  Including Scorsese, there are 30 nominees who don’t win while there are 62 total Top 10 finishers.  Capra (Mr. Smith) and Lean (Passage) win Drama awards in addition to those above while Columbia has had 10 Comedy winners.
Columbia has an interesting and distinguished history at the Oscars in this category.  All of its wins have been in bunches with large gaps in between.  From 1934 to 1938, it won four Oscars, the only studio to ever win four in five years and the first to win three in a row (1936-38), something no other studio would do for four more decades and has only been done the two times.  But then it was followed by a 15 year gap before three in five years, a 5 year gap before winning three in seven years, an 11 year gap before winning three in nine years and then a gap that has run since 1987.  Columbia is the only studio to win back-to-back director Oscars without either film winning Best Picture (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, The Awful Truth) and it’s even more incredible since both were Comedies.  In fact, Columbia’s first four Oscars in this category were all for Comedies and no other Comedy would win the award until 1952 and United Artists is the only other studio with more than one Director Oscar for Comedy (it has three).
Columbia has won 12 Globes but half of them were from 1949 to 1957 (including three in a row from 1953 to 1955: From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, Picnic) and only four have come since 1966 (Gandhi, Last Emperor, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Social Network).  In addition, it has earned 34 nominations including four in two years in 1992-93 (A Few Good Men, A River Runs Through It, Age of Innocence, Remains of the Day).
Columbia has only won three BAFTAs: Midnight Express, Gandhi and The Social Network.  In addition, it has earned 14 nominations.  At the BFCA, Ang Lee won and Tim Burton (Big Fish) earned a nomination.
Columbia has done well at the DGA which is much older than the PGA and coincides with Columbia’s strong era in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  It has won the award nine times, six of them from 1949 to 1966 and hasn’t won since 1987.  In addition, it has earned 35 nominations including eight in three years in the more extended nomination era of 1966-68.
David Fincher is the big critics winner, sweeping the awards in 2010.  Ang Lee won three awards in 1995.  David Lean won both awards in the era of two awards in 1957 and won the only award in 1962 (the NYFC had a strike going) and George Stevens won the award when there was only one award.  Aside from Lean, five other directors won two awards (including Lean in 1984) and 11 total directors won one award each, six of them before 1966 and two more when there were only three critics groups.  The most awards have been the NYFC (11) and the NBR (9).

• Best Adapted Screenplay:

1. Dr. Strangelove
2. The Bridge on the River Kwai
3. The Age of Innocence
4. The Shawshank Redemption
5. Adaptation

Analysis:  Nine films have won the Nighthawk, though only the top two listed here do (the other three are in very strong years).  The other winners are The Awful Truth, From Here to Eternity, Lawrence of Arabia, Midnight Express, Sense and Sensibility and The Social Network.  Another 28 films earn nominations and another 30 land in the Top 10.
Ten films win the Oscar including at least one film in every decade.  Another 41 earn Oscar nominations including 10 in the 60’s and three nominees in 1965 alone (Collector, Cat Ballou, Ship of Fools).  Six films win Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay (It Happened One Night, From Here to Eternity, The Bridge on the River Kwai, A Man for all Seasons, Kramer vs Kramer, Last Emperor).
Six films won the Globe that are also adapted (A Man for all Seasons, Midnight Express, Kramer vs Kramer, Last Emperor, Sense and Sensibility, Social Network).  Of those, only Man, Emperor and Social won the big three awards.  For the nomination numbers see the next category.
During the years before the category split at the BAFTAs six Columbia films that were adapted won Best Screenplay (Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Man for all Seasons, Go-Between, Last Picture Show, Last Detail).  Since the split (in 1983), The End of the Affair, Adaptation and Social Network have all won.  Before the split, six adapted films earned nominations and since the split 11 have earned nominations.
Four films have won the BFCA (Sense and Sensibility, Adaptation, Social Network, Moneyball) and one has been nominated (Big Fish).  All six of the Columbia WGA winners pre-split were adapted and seven more have won since the 1967 splits.  See below for more statistics.
Social Network won five critics awards (all but the NYFC) while Adaptation won four (not LAFC or NSFC).  Also, Sense and Sensibility and Moneyball each won three while four films won one award each, most importantly Anatomy of a Murder which did so when the NYFC was the only critics group that gave a Screenplay award.

• Best Original Screenplay:

1. When Harry Met Sally…
2. On the Waterfront
3. The Big Chill
4. Seven Samurai
5. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

Analysis:  Six films win the Nighthawk including four above (not The Big Chill), Five Easy Pieces and Tootsie.  Seventeen more films earn nominations and 13 beyond that are in the Top 10.  Lately, Columbia has been far stronger with adapted scripts (there are only two Nighthawk nominees since 1993 – Stranger Than Fiction and Across the Universe).
Six films win the Oscar, one of which also won another writing award (Here Comes Mr. Jordan) and two of which were nominated (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 49th Parallel).  The other three winners are On the Waterfront, Gandhi and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner with the first two the only Columbia films to win Picture, Director and Original Screenplay.  Columbia hasn’t had an Oscar nominee in this category since 1993.
The only two original scripts to win the Golden Globe Screenplay award are Gandhi and The People vs Larry Flynt.  There have been a total of 24 Globe nominees for Screenplay (not including winner), most of them adapted but the Globe doesn’t distinguish.  Columbia did score five nominations in two years in 1983-84 (Dresser, Big Chill, Educating Rita, Soldier’s Story, Passage to India) but none of them won and they had the winner (Gandhi) and another nominee (Tootsie) in 1982.
The only pre-split winner at the BAFTAs that was original was I’m All Right Jack.  Since the split, Columbia has won two awards (When Harry Met Sally, Groundhog Day).  There were four original films nominated before the split and there have been five nominees since the split though none since 1993.
The only BFCA nominee is Stranger Than Fiction.
Six Columbia films have won the WGA, all six of them between 1967 and 1983.  In total, 66 films have earned nominations (not including the 19 winners) though Stranger Than Fiction is the only original nominee since 1995.
Tootsie is the big winner among original scripts at the critics awards, winning New York, LA and the NSFC.  Two films won two awards each (Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Hope and Glory).  Shampoo and Stranger Than Fiction are the only original scripts to win one award.

• Best Actor:

1. Peter O’Toole  (Lawrence of Arabia)
2. Alec Guinness  (The Bridge on the River Kwai)
3. Marlon Brando  (On the Waterfront)
4. Robert De Niro  (Taxi Driver)
5. Anthony Hopkins  (The Remains of the Day)

Analysis:  Hopkins doesn’t win the Nighthawk though he does earn a perfect 9.  Actually, Columbia has six perfect 9’s because there is also Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  Aside from those four above and Stewart, Peter Sellers (Dr. Strangelove), Jack Nicholson (Five Easy Pieces) and Michael Caine (Educating Rita) all win the Nighthawk.  Including Hopkins and the winners, there are 48 Nighthawk nominees including three in 1979 (Dustin Hoffman, Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino).  This is by far the most dominant category at the Nighthawk Globes with seven Comedy winners, 40 total Comedy nominees, 7 Drama winners and 43 total Drama nominees including three films nominated twice (From Here to Eternity, The Dresser, Shawshank Redemption).
Nine performances have won the Oscar and another 39 have earned Oscar nominations (including two from The Dresser).  But, until 1973 (when Jack Nicholson earned his second nomination), there had been 7 winners and 17 nominees and there only duplicate actor was Jimmy Stewart (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Anatomy of a Murder).  That would finally change starting in the 70’s with Nicholson (Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail), Hoffman (Kramer vs Kramer, Tootsie) and De Niro (Taxi Driver, Awakenings) and even Will Smith (Ali, The Pursuit of Happyness).
Columbia has done decently in Drama at the Globes (10 wins, including back to back in 1982-83) and another 27 nominations.  In Comedy, while the nominations are spread out (30 over a space of almost 60 years with only one gap of more than five years), the winners are very much bunched: 1957 and 1958, then 1965 and 1968, then three straight from 1982 to 1984 with none since.  That also means Columbia won both Best Actor Globes in back-to-back years in 1982 and 1983, a rare distinction (it happened once before with United Artists).
Thirteen films have won the BAFTA while another 27 films have earned nominations while neither number includes the four films that earned two nominations (Seven Samurai, Prisoner, Dr. Strangelove, The Dresser) while the first number does include Lawrence of Arabia which did both.
With the BFCA coming around after the height of Columbia, only four performances have earned nominations (Ali, Pursuit of Happyness, Social Network, Moneyball).  The last three were all also SAG nominees as were The People vs Larry Flynt and Adaptation while Morgan Freeman won the SAG for Shawshank.
Five performances have won three critics awards: De Niro in Taxi Driver, Hoffman in Kramer, Kingsley in Gandhi, Eisenberg in Social Network and Pitt in Moneyball.  In addition, Awakenings won three awards, two for De Niro and one for Robin Williams.  Another eight films have won two awards with Guinness in Bridge on the River Kwai winning the only two in existence at the time and the two awards in 1965 being split for Ship of Fools (because Lee Marvin also won his for Cat Ballou).  Another 10 performances beyond that won one critics award each.

• Best Actress

1. Emma Thompson  (The Remains of the Day)
2. Emma Thompson  (Sense and Sensibility)
3. Julianne Moore  (The End of the Affair)
4. Rosalind Russell  (His Girl Friday)
5. Judy Davis  (A Passage to India)

Analysis:  Both Thompson performances and Davis win the Nighthawk.  Aside from Moore and Russell, there are 28 Nighthawk nominees.  Columbia does much better at the Nighthawk Globes in Comedy (10 winners, 20 nominees with two each in 1934, 1936 and 1938) than Drama (4 winners, 21 nominees).
The Oscars and I are not in alignment in this category as none of the five Oscar winners (It Happened One Night, Born Yesterday, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Funny Girl, Misery) are in my Top 5 though all but Russell earned nominations (along with 29 other performances including two from Suddenly Last Summer).  Irene Dunne is notable for being nominated in back-to-back years for Theodora Goes Wild and The Awful Truth.
Columbia has a strange history at the Globes.  It won in Comedy in 1950 (for Judy Holliday who was also Drama nominated) then Drama in 1959, 1963 and 1965.  Since then, Columbia has won 8 Comedy awards and only one Drama award (Misery) and twice earned two Comedy noms (Shampoo, Annie).  Altogether, there have been 32 Comedy noms (from 30 films) and 28 Drama noms (from 27 films).  Streisand is the big Columbia actress here with a Comedy win, two more Comedy noms and a Drama nom.
There have been 9 BAFTA winners, mostly for British actresses (Katharine Hepburn, Woodward and Fonda are the exceptions).  There have also been 25 other nominees.  At the BFCA, Nicole Kidman (To Die For) and Meryl Streep (Julie and Julia) won while Diane Keaton (Something’s Gotta Give) was nominated.  No Columbia actress has won SAG though five have earned noms (Sense and Sensibility, End of the Affair, Something’s Gotta Give, Memoirs of a Geisha, Julie and Julia).
A Passage to India won three awards (two for Peggy Ashcroft, one for Judy Davis) and Streep won two awards for Julie and Julia.  Aside from that, only eight other performances have even won a single critics award.

• Best Supporting Actor:

1. Toshiro Mifune  (Seven Samurai)
2. Omar Sharif  (Lawrence of Arabia)
3. Claude Rains  (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington)
4. Karl Malden  (On the Waterfront)
5. Sterling Hayden  (Dr. Strangelove)

Analysis:  All five of these win the Nighthawk as do Frank Sinatra (From Here to Eternity), Sessue Hayakawa (Bridge on the River Kwai), George C. Scott (Anatomy of a Murder), Gene Hackman (I Never Sang for My Father), Ben Johnson (Last Picture Show), Jack Warden (Shampoo), Chris Cooper (Adaptation) and Clive Owen (Closer).  It’s a strong category for Columbia.  Mr. Smith and Waterfront get two other nominations and Bridge and Picture Show get one more each.  In total there are 47 nominations from 41 films.  All the Drama winners are listed above but there are also an additional six performances that win the Comedy award as well.  Like I said, a strong category.
Only five actors have won the Oscar: Sinatra, Johnson, Cooper, Charles Coburn (The More the Merrier) and Jack Palance (City Slickers) but Waterfront had three nominees and Picture Show, Anatomy of a Murder and Mr. Smith had two each.  That gives the studio 48 nominations from 43 films.
Nine of the Columbia films have won the Globe and another 23 have earned nominations.  Only four performances have won the BAFTA (Edward Fox for The Go-Between, Johnson, John Hurt for Midnight Express, Owen) but there have been 26 total nominations, including two each for The Go-Between and Gandhi.  At the BFCA, Cooper won the award while three others have earned nominations.  But Columbia has been mostly ignored by SAG, earning just three nominations (Kenneth Branagh for Othello, Cooper, Jonah Hill for Moneyball).
Edward Norton won three critics awards in 1996 with The People vs. Larry Flynt being one of the films listed.  Two awards each went to Jack Nicholson (Easy Rider), Johnson, Nicholson again (A Few Good Men) and Cooper while seven performances have won one award each.

• Best Supporting Actress:

1. Meryl Streep  (Kramer vs. Kramer)
2. Eva Marie Saint  (On the Waterfront)
3. Meryl Streep  (Adaptation)
4. Natalie Portman  (Closer)
5. Peggy Ashcroft  (A Passage to India)

Analysis:  Portman doesn’t win the Nighthawk but the other four do as do 10 others.  This is a strong category for Columbia.  Aside from the 10 winners, there are 34 other nominees.  The Last Picture Show manages a winner and two other nominees while Kramer vs. Kramer and Tootsie have a winner and a nomination.
Of the 12 films to manage an Oscar winner and an Oscar nominee only Columbia has done it three times: The Last Picture Show, Kramer vs. Kramer, Tootsie.  Columbia has also managed nine other Oscar winners and 21 other nominees.
Columbia managed the winner and nominee trick at the Globes with Kramer and Only When I Laugh.  It also managed ten other winners, a film with two nominees (Last Picture Show) and nine other nominees.  It did the winner and nominee at the BAFTAs with Last Picture Show, Gandhi, Age of Innocence and Sense and Sensibility.  Aside from those four films, it has three BAFTA wins and nine nominees.  Angelina Jolie (Girl Interrupted) won the BFCA while three others have earned nominations.  Kate Winslet (Sensibility) and Jolie won SAG while Cloris Leachman (Spanglish) was nominated.
Streep won four awards for Kramer while three awards each went to Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces) and Jessica Lange (Tootsie) while The Last Picture Show split three awards (two for Ellen Burstyn, one for Cloris Leachman).  Peggy Ashcroft won two awards (and three as lead) as did Courtney Love for The People vs. Larry Flynt.  Eleven other performances won one award each.

• Best Ensemble

1. On the Waterfront
2. From Here to Eternity
3. The Last Picture Show
4. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
5. Lawrence of Arabia

Analysis:  This is based on the total points for acting for all members of the cast.  It’s impressive that Lawrence of Arabia can make the list without a single speaking role for a female.  Eternity and Picture Show make the list here without making the Top 5 in any individual acting categories because they were often in the Top 10, just not in the Top 5 and because they have large excellent casts.

• Best Editing:

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai
2. Lawrence of Arabia
3. The Social Network
4. On the Waterfront
5. Seven Samurai

Analysis:  Social Network doesn’t win the Nighthawk but the other four do as does From Here to Eternity.  Aside from Social Network, 31 other films also earn Nighthawk noms.
Columbia has done well at the Academy Awards, winning 11 Editing Oscars including three in a row in the 50’s (From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, Picnic) and back-to-back in 2010 and 2011 (Social Network, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).  It has also earned 33 other nominations.  It has had three four year stretches with at least one nomination: five nominations in 1936-39, four from 1977-1980 and five again from 1982-85 but also had a 13 year drought between 1997 and 2010.
Columbia has only won twice at the BAFTAs (Midnight Express, Social Network) and has earned 12 nominations.  It won the BFCA with Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and earned a nomination for Social Network.  It has won the ACE four times (Gandhi, Last Emperor, Black Hawk Down, Social Network) and earned 17 other nominations, six of them since the group added a Comedy category.

• Best Cinematography:

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. The Bridge on the River Kwai
3. A Passage to India
4. Seven Samurai
5. The Last Emperor

Analysis:  There is a sixth perfect score for Cinematography: Age of Innocence though it doesn’t win the Oscar because (like with many categories) of Schindler’s List.  It is one of 32 Nighthawk nominees in addition to the five winners.  There are also 29 more Top 10 and 47 more Top 20.
Twelve films have won the Oscar, half of them during the split category years and six since though only Memoirs of a Geisha has won since 1992.  In fact, nine of the wins were in just 30 years from 1953 to 1982.  There have also been 48 nominees, again split almost evenly (22 during the split years).  In the first few years after the split (1967), Columbia did well (9 nominations in six years) but not that well (no wins).
Three films have won the BAFTA (A Man for All Seasons, Tess, Memoirs of a Geisha) and 23 other films have been nominated, seven of them during the “British Cinematography” years.  Columbia has been blanked at the BFCA.  At the ASC there have been three wins (Shawshank, Patriot, Geisha) and nine other nominees.  Last Emperor won three critics awards, Tess won two and Hope and Glory and Dracula won one each.

• Best Original Score:

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. The Bridge on the River Kwai
3. The Da Vinci Code
4. Silverado
5. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Analysis:  The first three all win the Nighthawk as do From Here to Eternity, On the Waterfront, Seven Samurai, The Professionals, Taxi Driver, Sense and Sensibility and The Social Network.  Another 17 films earn nominations.
Columbia films have won 15 Oscars in Score though several of them were in the Musical Score category and one was in Adapted Score / Song Score (The Buddy Holly Story).  Since 1987, though, the only winner is Social Network.  Between all the Score categories, there have been 77 nominees and while it might not have won an Oscar in the 90’s, 10 Columbia films were nominated from 1991 to 1997.
Six films have won the Globe (Guns of Navarone, Midnight Express, Passage to India, Last Emperor, Memoirs of a Geisha, Social Network) and 16 others have been nominated, although, only two of those were from 1991 to 1997, showing some disagreement with the Oscars.
Only two films have won the BAFTA (Taxi Driver, Memoirs of a Geisha) while 13 others have earned nominations.  Geisha and Social Network both won the BFCA while three others have earned nominations.  Social Network also won two critics awards while Taxi Driver and Midnight Express each won one.

• Best Sound:

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai
2. Casino Royale
3. Lawrence of Arabia
4. Black Hawk Down
5. Seven Samurai

Analysis:  Six films win the Nighthawk, which doesn’t include Black Hawk Down but does include From Here to Eternity and On the Waterfront.  Another 25 films aside from that (including Black Hawk Down) earn nominations.
Six films win the Oscar, though only two since 1968 (The Last Emperor, Black Hawk Down) but a whopping 44 have earned nominations, including 24 since 1968 and four in 2010 and 2011 combined.  It’s worth mentioning that 13 of those nominations are from 1934 to 1945 when every studio was guaranteed a nomination.
Casino Royale is the only BAFTA winner though ten other films have earned nominations.  The Social Network is the only BFCA nominee.  No Columbia film has won the CAS though eleven films have earned nominations.

• Best Art Direction:

1. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
2. The Last Emperor
3. The Age of Innocence
4. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
5. Memoirs of a Geisha

Analysis:  There are 9 Columbia films that earn a perfect score in Art Direction.  The other four, in chronological order, are Lawrence of Arabia, A Passage to India, Hamlet and Marie Antoinette.  Those are among 13 Columbia films that win the Nighthawk and another 17 that earn nominations.
Eleven films have won the Oscar but only The Last Emperor and Memoirs of a Geisha since 1982.  In addition, 36 films have earned nominations.  Five films have won BAFTAs (Dr. Strangelove, A Man for All Seasons, The Hireling, Close Encounters, Baron Munchausen) and 23 other films have earned nominations.  There have been no BFCA nominees.  The ADG missed a lot of great Columbia work by starting late but Memoirs of a Geisha, Casino Royale and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo all won awards while 13 other films have earned nominations.

• Best Visual Effects

1. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
2. The Fifth Element
3. Spider-Man 2
4. Casino Royale
5. Jason and the Argonauts

Analysis:  Columbia isn’t a big VE driven studio.  Only 34 films even make the Top 20 at the Nighthawks.  Eight films do win the award, all but two of them before the 1977 boom (Dracula and Fifth Element are the exceptions) and there are 24 total nominees (including the winners).  Of the winners, four of them have visual effects from Ray Harryhausen and of the nominees, two are Spider-Man films two are Bond films and seven of them are Harryhausen films.
There are three Oscar winners (Guns of Navarone, Marooned, Spider-Man 2) and nine more Oscar nominees though, appallingly, none are Harryhausen films.  The Fifth Element wins the BAFTA and there are 12 more nominees, including six in seven years from 2002 to 2008.  2012 earned a BFCA nom.  Spider-Man 2, Casino Royale and Stuart Little 2 each won VES awards and Spider-Man 3 earned four noms while 21 total films have earned a combined 40 nominations.

• Best Sound Editing

1. Casino Royale
2. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
3. The Fifth Element
4. Seven Samurai
5. Black Hawk Down

Analysis:  There are five Nighthawk winners (From Here to Eternity, Seven Samurai, Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Casino Royale) and 22 more nominees.
There are two Oscar winners (Close Encounters, Dracula) and five more Oscar nominees.  45 different films have earned MPSE noms for a total of 55 nominations as well as 10 awards.

• Best Costume Design:

1. The Last Emperor
2. The Age of Innocence
3. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
4. Marie Antoinette
5. Memoirs of a Geisha

Analysis:  There are actually 10 Columbia films that earn a perfect 9 in Costume Design.  The other five, in chronological order, are Seven Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Sense and Sensibility and Hamlet.  There are a total of 12 Nighthawk winners (Bridge on the River Kwai, A Man for All Seasons and Gandhi) but Munchausen doesn’t win.  Aside from Munchausen there are 12 other nominees.  Interestingly, Columbia has won six awards since 1989 but had no nominations that didn’t win.
Eleven films have won the Oscar including back-to-back winners in 1970 and 71 (Cromwell, Nicholas and Alexandra), 1992 and 93 (Dracula, Age of Innocence) and 2005 and 06 (Memoirs, Marie Antoinette).  There have been 26 other nominees including four in a row from 93-96 (the first two, Remains of the Day and Little Women, are #6 at the Nighthawks while the next two, Sense and Hamlet, are winners).  Eight films have won the BAFTA and there have been 19 nominees.  There have been no BFCA nominees.  Memoirs and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo both won CDG awards while seven others have earned nominations.

• Best Makeup

1. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
2. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
3. Memoirs of a Geisha
4. The Last Emperor
5. Hellboy

Analysis:  Because of weaker years, the Nighthawk winners, of which there are seven, aren’t the same as the list above (Seven Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia, Macbeth, Munchausen, Dracula, Fifth Element, Geisha).  There are 14 other Nighthawk nominees.
Dracula and Men in Black won the Oscar while five others have earned nominations.  Tootsie, Last Emperor and Munchausen won the BAFTA while nine others have earned nominations.  There have been no BFCA nominees.  The Patriot and both Charlie’s Angels films won MUASG awards while Ali, Spider-Man and Master of Disguise earned noms.

• Best Technical Aspects

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. The Bridge on the River Kwai
3. Seven Samurai
4. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
5. The Fifth Element

Analysis:  Simply adding up all the points in the technical categories.  Great, great technical work from these five films.

• Best Original Song:

1. “Against All Odds”  (Against All Odds)
2. “The Flame Still Burns”  (Still Crazy)
3. “El Cancion del Mariachi”  (Desperado)
4. “Separate Lives”  (White Nights)
5. “It Might Be You”  (Tootsie)

Analysis:  Columbia has had several films in which the song is the only aspect that earns a Nighthawk nom.  Of the five films to win the Nighthawk (which includes Pennies from Heaven and Georgy Girl but not White Nights or Tootsie), only Georgy Girl earns another nomination.  Of the 16 other films to earn nominations, nine of them earn no other nominations and only From Here to Eternity and Tootsie earn Picture noms.
Columbia wasn’t a big Song nominee at the Academy.  33 Columbia films have earned 34 nominations but outside of the stretch where every studio earned a nomination (1938 to 1945, when it earned seven noms) and the early to mid 80’s where Columbia did well in the category (nine noms), it only earned 17 nominations spread out over 53 years.  It has won the award only five times (Born Free, Way We Were, You Light Up My Life, Thank God It’s Friday, White Nights) though it won back-to-back in 1977 and 1978.  All of those except Born Free also won the Globe while it has earned an additional 22 nominations.  However, while it hasn’t earned an Oscar nom since 1993, it has earned five Globe noms since then.  The short lived BAFTA category came during the early 80’s when Columbia was strong in this category and it earned nominations all three years (Annie, Tootsie, Ghostbusters) and won the award with the latter song.  There have been five BFCA noms but no winner (none of which, of course, earned Oscar noms).

• Best Animated Film:

1. Arthur Christmas
2. Monster House

Analysis:  Columbia isn’t a big Animated Film producer.  I have seen 17 films over the years that are animated and were released by Sony.  There have been two mild Japanese films (Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon, Jack and the Beanstalk), two Hanna/Barbera films (Hey There It’s Yogi Bear, The Man Called Flintstone) and several random films through the years (1001 Arabian Nights, Heavy Metal, American Pop, Care Bears Movie II, Manuelita, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Eight Crazy Nights).  They released one Aardman film (Arthur Christmas) which earned Nighthawk, Globe, BAFTA, BFCA and Annie noms (and, of course, no Oscar nom).  Monster House was an Amblin film and it earned Nighthawk, Oscar, Globe, BFCA and Annie noms.  Then Sony began their own Sony Pictures Animation which, through 2011, has released Open Season, Surf’s Up, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and The Smurfs.  None of those films reach the ***.5 threshold for a Nighthawk nomination but they have, combined, earned one Oscar nom (Surf’s Up), one Globe nom (Cloudy), one BFCA nom (Cloudy) and three Annie noms (Open Season, Surf, Cloudy).

• Best Foreign Film:

1. Seven Samurai
2. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
3. Hanussen
4. Sundays and Cybele
5. El Mariachi

Analysis:  Columbia isn’t a big Foreign Film distributor either.  I’ve seen just 37 films released in the States by Sony with Seven Samurai being far and away the best.  Only six films make my cutoff (El Bruto is the other one).  The first two win the Nighthawk, the next two both finish fourth, El Mariachi finishes 12th and El Bruto doesn’t make the Top 20.
Two films win the Oscar and three earn noms (Electra and Brothers Karamazov are the other two).  Because of weird Globe rules and British films being distributed by Columbia, six films have won the Globe (The Best of Enemies, Young Winston, Lies My Father Told Me, Tess, Gandhi, A Passage to India) while eleven more (eight of them British) earn noms.  There have been no BAFTA or BFCA noms.  Of the five films to win critics awards (all of them the NBR), one is British (The Prisoner) and two are Jacques Cousteau documentaries (Silent World, World Without Sun) with the last two being Sundays and Cybele and Claire’s Knee.

• Best Film (by my points system):

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. The Bridge on the River Kwai
3. On the Waterfront
4. From Here to Eternity
5. Seven Samurai

Analysis:  The top four films here are among the top films of all-time, partially because of great technical work across the board and numerous great acting performances.  From Here to Eternity lands fourth here while not making the Top 5 in any of the individual categories.  It lands in the Top 10 in most categories but just can’t crack the Top 5 anywhere.

• Best Film  (weighted points system)

1. Lawrence of Arabia
2. The Bridge on the River Kwai
3. On the Waterfront
4. From Here to Eternity
5. The Age of Innocence

Analysis:  Age of Innocence passes Seven Samurai because of the acting which weighs more while A Passage to India finishes just three points short.

Best Films With No Top 5 Finishers:

• Hamlet
• Across the Universe
• A Man for All Seasons
• Stand by Me
• Hope and Glory
• Boyz N the Hood
• The Big Heat
• Midnight Express

Worst Film with a Top 5 Finish:

• Against All Odds

Nighthawk Notables

• Best Film to Watch Over and Over:  Dr. Strangelove
• Best Line  (comedic):  “You made a woman meow?’”  (Bruno Kirby in When Harry Met Sally…)
• Best Line  (dramatic):  “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”  (Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia)
• Best Opening:  Closer
• Best Ending:  The Bridge on the River Kwai
• Best Scene:  the approach of Sheriff Ali in Lawrence of Arabia
• Best Kiss:  Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity
• Best Death:  Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove
• Most Gut-Wrenching Scene:  Lawrence’s realization of who must die in Lawrence of Arabia
• Most Heart-Breaking Scene:  the end of Across the Universe
• Best Use of a Song (Dramatic):  “The Blower’s Daughter”  (Closer)
• Best Use of a Song (Comedic):  “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”  (The Big Chill)
• Best Original Song from a Bad Film:  “Better Days”  (Eat Pray Love)
• Best Soundtrack:  Across the Universe
• Best Non-Rock Soundtrack:  Lawrence of Arabia
• Watch the Film, SKIP the Book:  Sense and Sensibility
• Read the Book, SKIP the Film:  Lost Horizon  (1973)
• Funniest Film:  Dr. Strangelove
• Best Guilty Pleasure:  The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
• Most Over-Rated Film:  Superbad
• Worst Film by a Top 100 Director:  North  (Rob Reiner)
• Worst Film I Saw in the Theater:  Needful Things
• Worst Sequel:  Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo
• Best Sequel:  Casino Royale
• Worst Remake:  Mr. Deeds
• Best Remake:  Hamlet (1996)
• Performance to Fall in Love With:  Evan Rachel Wood in Across the Universe
• Performance for the 14 Year Old in Me to Fall in Love With:  Alyson Hannigan in My Stepmother is an Alien
• Sexiest Performance:  Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday
• Highest Attractiveness / Acting Ability Ratio:  Rita Hayworth in Gilda
• Most Surprisingly Good Performance in an Otherwise Terrible Film:  Janet Suzman in Nicholas and Alexandra
• Coolest Performance:  Daniel Craig in Casino Royale
• Best Opening Credits Sequence:  Casino Royale
• Best End Credits Sequence:  Across the Universe
• Best Tagline:  “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies”  (The Social Network)
• Best Trailer:  Casino Royale
• Best Cameo:  Joe Cocker in Across the Universe
• Sexiest Cameo:  Gemma Arterton in Quantum of Solace
• Funniest Cameo:  Bruce Campbell in Spider-Man 2
• Best Animated Character Performance:  Ashley Jensen in Arthur Christmas

note:  Some of the categories that are usually here (e.g. Best Ensemble) that are covered by lists elsewhere in the post aren’t here.
note:  Soundtracks I Own from TriStar Films (chronological):  Lawrence of Arabia, The Big Chill, Stand by Me, La Bamba, Across the Universe

At the Theater:  By the end of 2011, I had probably seen over 1000 films in the theater at some point or another and had definitely been to the movies over 1000 times.  I had seen 52 Columbia films in the theater, starting with The Karate Kid Part II and including City Slickers (three times), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (twice), Spider-Man (three times), Spider-Man 2 (three times) and Across the Universe which moved me so much I wrote my first piece on this blog about it, over 10 years ago.

Awards

Academy Awards

• Number of Films That Have Earned Nominations:  237
• Number of Films That Have Won Oscars:  68
• Number of Films With Multiple Nominations:  142
• Number of Films With Multiple Wins:  31
• Best Picture Nominations:  51
• Total Number of Nominations:  732
• Total Number of Wins:  152
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Score  (77)
• Number of Films with Nominations I Haven’t Seen:  1
• Directors with Most Oscar Nominated Films:  Frank Capra  /  Rob Reiner  (6)
• Best Film with No Oscar Nominations:  His Girl Friday

Oscar Oddities:

• Columbia has the biggest Oscar points film ever and the #4 film but only one more in the Top 20.
• The Last Emperor has the most awards for a Columbia film but only the 10th most nominations.
• The only two Columbia films with more than 2 Oscars to win all of their nominations both won Picture: The Last Emperor (9 for 9) and It Happened One Night (5 for 5).
• The Remains of the Day is the biggest loser, going 0 for 8 while six films for 0 for 7.  Of those six films five were nominated for Picture (Pepe wasn’t) and none were nominated for Director.
• While 52.49% of all Oscar nominated films earn just one nomination, only 95 of the 237 Columbia films nominated have done so (40.08%).
• While Frank Capra and Rob Reiner have both directed six Oscar nominated films at Columbia, Capra’s films went 11 for 39 while Reiner’s went 1 for 10.  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington earned more nominations (11) than all of Reiner’s combined.
• The two biggest Oscar winning directors are David Lean (16 Oscars with three films) and Fred Zinnemann (14 with three films).

Most Oscar Nominations

1. From Here to Eternity  –  13
2. On the Waterfront  –  12
3. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington  –  11
4. Oliver!  –  11
5. Gandhi  –  11
6. A Passage to India  –  11
7. Lawrence of Arabia  –  10
8. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner  –  10
9. Tootsie  –  10
10. Close Encounters of the Third Kind  /  Kramer vs. Kramer  /  The Last Emperor  –  9

Most Oscar Wins:

1. The Last Emperor  –  9
2. From Here to Eternity  –  8
3. On the Waterfront  –  8
4. Gandhi  –  8
5. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  7
6. Lawrence of Arabia  –  7
7. A Man for All Seasons  –  6
8. It Happened One Night  –  5
9. Oliver!  –  5
10. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  5

Most Oscar Points:

1. From Here to Eternity  –  675
2. On the Waterfront  –  655
3. Gandhi  –  565
4. The Last Emperor  –  530
5. Lawrence of Arabia  –  525
6. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  520
7. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  510
8. Oliver!  –  490
9. A Man for All Seasons  –  480
10. It Happened One Night  –  410

Oscar Nominated Films:

• Columbia has three streaks of a decade or longer of having at least one nominated film: 1933-1946, 1948-1973 and 1975-1997.
• Since earning its first nomination in 1931, Columbia has never gone back-to-back years without at least one nominated film.
• The high number for nominated films in one year is 7 in 1984.
• Columbia lead in 1959 with 5 films, the first year since 1933 that no studio had at least 6 films.  It lead again in 1967, again with 5 films.  In 1969 and 1975 it would tie for the lead (again with 5).  It would tie in 1983 with 4 and lead all studios in both 1984 and 1985 with 7 and then 6.  Its most recent lead was in 1993, again with 5.
• Because of the late start (its first nominated film wasn’t until 1931 and its second in 1933) and because Frank Capra could only make so many films (he directed over a third of the Columbia films nominated in the 30’s), Columbia would rise briefly to a couple of ties for 7th in most overall nominated films but would mostly stay in 8th until finally passing Universal in 1966 and moving into 7th and finally catching RKO for 6th in 1970, over a decade after RKO went out of business.  Even though, MGM and UA basically don’t make movies anymore, Columbia is still a ways behind both of them and mired in 6th place.

By Decade:

• 1920’s:  0
• 1930’s:  17  (7th)
• 1940’s:  29  (8th)
• 1950’s:  31  (5th)
• 1960’s:  32  (6th)
• 1970’s:  37  (2nd)
• 1980’s:  37  (2nd – tie)
• 1990’s:  29  (6th – tie)
• 2000’s:  18  (7th)
• 2010’s:  6  (4th – tie)
• Total:  236  (6th)

Oscar Nominations:

• Columbia has lead in the total number of nominations 8 times, all between 1954 and 1987.  The years were 1954 (21), 1959 (17 – tie with MGM), 1968 (19), 1971 (17), 1975 (14), 1982 (24), 1984 (24) and 1987 (15).
• It rose briefly to 6th place overall in the late 30’s but only because of tracking Fox and 20th Century-Fox separately.  By 1941, 20th Century-Fox had passed it (even though it started four years later).  It would stay in 7th until finally passing RKO in 1962.  Columbia would finally catch United Artists and move into 5th place in 2006.

Years with Most Total Oscar Nominations:

• 1982, 1984:  24
• 1954:  21
• 1968:  19
• 1965, 1967:  18
• 1959, 1966, 1971:  17

By Decade:

• 1920’s:  0
• 1930’s:  62  (6th)
• 1940’s:  76  (8th)
• 1950’s:  102  (5th)
• 1960’s:  126  (3rd)
• 1970’s:  109  (4th)
• 1980’s:  114  (2nd)
• 1990’s:  81  (5th)
• 2000’s:  36  (12th)
• 2010’s:  24  (3rd)
• Total:  728  (5th)

Oscar Wins:

• The longest streak of years with at least one Oscar win is 1965 to 1973.
• Since winning its first Oscar in 1934, Columbia has never gone three consecutive years without at least one Oscar.
• Columbia lead all studios in Oscars 11 times, starting in 1934 when its then 7 Oscars tied the most for a studio in a year and most recently in 1987.  It lead in back-to-back years in 1953 and 1954.
• The most Oscars it has won in a year is 9 in 1987, all of which were won by The Last Emperor.  The Last Emperor won as many Oscars as Columbia would win in the following 13 years combined.
• Because it didn’t win an Oscar until the 7th Academy Awards, Columbia has never ranked highest than a tie for 4th in total Oscars by studio and was usually 6th overall behind all the majors.  By the time it passed RKO, it had been passed by United Artists and it wouldn’t pass UA until it had basically ceased making films in the early 90’s.  By 1995 it had actually caught Warner Bros with 139 total Oscars but since then Warners has won 28 Oscars while Columbia has won only 15.

By Decade:

• 1920’s:  0
• 1930’s:  15  (3rd)
• 1940’s:  8  (8th)
• 1950’s:  29  (4th)
• 1960’s:  31  (2nd)
• 1970’s:  23  (3rd)
• 1980’s:  26  (4th)
• 1990’s:  9  (9th)
• 2000’s:  8  (11th – tie)
• 2010’s:  4  (4th – tie)
• Total:  157  (5th)

Critics Awards

• Number of Films That Have Won Critics Awards:  72
• Number of Films With Multiple Awards:  36
• Best Picture Wins:  32
• Total Number of Awards:  212
• Category With the Most Awards:  Actor  (44)

Most Awards:

1. The Social Network  –  22
2. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  12
3. Tootsie  –  10
4. A Passage to India  –  10
5. Sense and Sensibility  –  9

Most Points:

1. The Social Network  –  1682
2. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  876
3. Tootsie  –  706
4. A Passage to India  –  701
5. Sense and Sensibility  –  701
6. A Man for All Seasons  –  596
7. Hope and Glory  –  558
8. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  516
9. Adaptation  –  450
10. Moneyball  –  420

Highest Awards Percentage:

1. It Happened One Night  –  71.43%
2. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  63.08%
3. A Man for All Seasons  –  49.30%
4. The Social Network  –  41.48%
5. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town  –  37.34%
6. On the Waterfront  –  32.02%
7. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  30.83%
8. From Here to Eternity  –  27.48%
9. Tootsie  –  25.56%
10. All the King’s Men  –  24.36%

Most Points by Critics Group:

• NYFC:  Places in the Heart  –  80
• LAFC:  Bugsy  –  270
• NSFC:  Devil in a Blue Dress  –  110
• BSFC:  Donnie Brasco  –  70
• CFC:  Bugsy / The Fisher King / Husbands and Wives / Jerry Maguire  –  60
• NBR:  As Good as It Gets  –  130

Golden Globes

• Number of Films That Have Earned Nominations:  173
• Number of Films That Have Won Globes:  62
• Number of Films With Multiple Nominations:  104
• Number of Films With Multiple Wins:  22
• Best Picture Nominations:  78 (36 Drama, 42 Comedy)
• Total Number of Nominations:  417
• Total Number of Wins:  103
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Picture  (78)
• Best Film with No Globe Nominations:  Dr. Strangelove

Globe Oddities:

• Four films won Picture and Director before there was a Screenplay award (All the King’s Men, On the Waterfront, Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia) but only three have won Picture, Director and Screenplay (A Man for All Seasons, Last Emperor, Social Network).  All but the first and last went on to win Picture and Director at the Oscars.
• Gandhi, which was ineligible for Picture, did win Foreign Film, Director and Screenplay.
• A whopping 17 Columbia films have won Best Actor; of those one one Best Actress (Educating Rita) and one other was nominated (Cat Ballou).  On the other hand, two Columbia films have won both supporting awards and they did it two years apart (Adaptation, Closer).
• From 1965 to 1968, Columbia had eleven Picture nominees, seven in Drama, four in Comedy.
• Columbia has never gone three straight years without a Picture nomination.

Most Globe Nominations:

1. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  7
2. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner  –  6
3. Midnight Express  –  6
4. Sense and Sensibility  –  6
5. Adaptation  –  6
6. The Social Network  –  6

Most Globes:

1. All the King’s Men  –  4
2. A Man for All Seasons  –  4
3. Midnight Express  –  4
4. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  4
5. Gandhi  –  4
6. The Last Emperor  –  4
7. The Social Network  –  4

Most Globe Points:

1. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  415
2. The Social Network  –  385
3. A Man for All Seasons  –  370
4. Midnight Express  –  370
5. The Last Emperor  –  355
6. All the King’s Men  –  345
7. Lawrence of Arabia  –  320
8. Tootsie  –  315
9. Sense and Sensibility  –  315
10. The Bridge on the River Kwai  /  The People vs. Larry Flynt  /  Adaptation  –  290

Guild Awards

• Number of Films That Have Earned Nominations:  163
• Number of Films That Have Won Guild Awards:  40
• Number of Films With Multiple Nominations:  75
• Number of Films With Multiple Wins:  14
• Best Picture Nominations:  17
• Total Number of Nominations:  347
• Total Number of Wins:  60
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Screenplay  (85)
• Best Film with No Guild Nominations:  Seven Samurai
• Best English Language Film with No Guild Nominations:  Across the Universe

Most Guild Nominations:

1. The Social Network  –  12
2. Memoirs of a Geisha  –  9
3. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  –  9
4. Adaptation  –  8
5. Spider-Man 2  –  8
6. The Shawshank Redemption  –  7
7. Black Hawk Down  –  7
8. Moneyball  –  7
9. The Patriot  –  6
10. Spider-Man 3  –  6

Most Guild Wins:

1. Memoirs of a Geisha  –  4
2. All the King’s Men  –  3
3. The Patriot  –  3
4. Spider-Man 2  –  3
5. The Social Network  –  3
6. nine films  –  2

Most Guild Points:

1. The Social Network  –  450
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo  –  295
3. The Shawshank Redemption  –  280
4. Memoirs of a Geisha  –  275
5. Sense and Sensibility  –  270
6. Adaptation  –  270
7. All the King’s Men  –  250
8. Black Hawk Down  –  235
9. Spider-Man 2  –  220
10. Moneyball  –  220

Highest Guild Awards Percentage:

1. The Last Emperor  –  18.30%
2. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  16.83%
3. From Here to Eternity  –  16.50%
4. On the Waterfront  –  16.50%
5. All the King’s Men  –  15.72%
6. Tootsie  –  12.82%
7. Close Encounters of the Third Kind  –  12.40%
8. The China Syndrome  –  12.38%
9. Gandhi  –  11.97%
10. The Shawshank Redemption  –  11.07%

note:  There have been so many added guild awards that it’s useful to have this list for historical comparison.  Of note, All the King’s Men, the only film on both lists has a lower percentage than several films that come after it for the same reason it has more points – there were a lot more WGA nominees at that time than in later years and it won two separate awards.  The Last Emperor is tenth all-time in percentage.  The Social Network, on the other hand, isn’t even in the Top 35 in points.

The BAFTAs

• Number of Films That Have Earned Nominations:  124
• Number of Films That Have Won BAFTAs:  44
• Number of Films With Multiple Nominations:  75
• Number of Films With Multiple Wins:  21
• Most BAFTA Wins:  Terminator 2: Judgment Day  (2)
• Best Picture Nominations:  37
• Total Number of Nominations:  382
• Total Number of Wins:  86
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Actor  (44 films, 49 nominations)
• Best Film with No BAFTA Nominations:  The Shawshank Redemption

Most BAFTA Noms:

1. Gandhi  –  15
2. Hope and Glory  –  13
3. Sense and Sensibility  –  12
4. The Go-Between  –  11
5. The Last Emperor  –  11
6. The End of the Affair  –  10
7. Close Encounters of the Third Kind  –  9
8. Tootsie  –  9
9. A Passage to India  –  9
10. Casino Royale  –  9

Most BAFTA Wins:

1. A Man for All Seasons  –  7
2. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  4
3. Lawrence of Arabia  –  4
4. Gandhi  –  4
5. 10 films  –  3

Most BAFTA Points:

1. Gandhi  –  590
2. A Man for All Seasons  –  470
3. Sense and Sensibility  –  470
4. The Go-Between  –  440
5. Hope and Glory  –  400
6. Lawrence of Arabia  –  385
7. The Last Emperor  –  360
8. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  350
9. Dr. Strangelove  –  350
10. The End of the Affair  –  340

Broadcast Film Critics Awards
(Critic’s Choice Awards)

• Number of Films That Have Earned Nominations:  26
• Number of Films That Have Won BFCA Awards:  9
• Number of Films With Multiple Nominations:  10
• Number of Films With Multiple Wins:  3
• Most BFCA Noms:  The Social Network  (8)
• Most BFCA Wins:  The Social Network  (4)
• Best Picture Nominations:  9
• Total Number of Nominations:  49
• Total Number of Wins:  14
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Picture  (9)
• Best Film with No BFCA Nominations:  Across the Universe

BFCA Points:

1. The Social Network  –  430
2. Adaptation  –  220
3. Sense and Sensibility  –  180
4. Big Fish  –  170
5. Moneyball  –  165

All Awards

Most Nominations:

1. The Social Network  –  62
2. Sense and Sensibility  –  41
3. Gandhi  –  37
4. Tootsie  –  37
5. A Passage to India  –  37
6. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  36
7. The Last Emperor  –  33
8. Adaptation  –  33
9. A Man for All Seasons  –  29
10. Hope and Glory  /  Moneyball  –  29

Most Awards:

1. The Social Network  –  39
2. A Man for All Seasons  –  26
3. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  23
4. Gandhi  –  23
5. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  22
6. The Last Emperor  –  22
7. Sense and Sensibility  –  19
8. On the Waterfront  –  18
9. Tootsie  –  17
10. Lawrence of Arabia  /  A Passage to India  –  16

Total Awards Points

1. The Social Network  –  3429
2. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  2101
3. Sense and Sensibility  –  2070
4. A Man for All Seasons  –  1923
5. Gandhi  –  1881
6. Tootsie  –  1748
7. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  1699
8. A Passage to India  –  1661
9. The Last Emperor  –  1554
10. On the Waterfront  –  1476

Highest Awards Percentage:

1. It Happened One Night  –  22.35%
2. A Man for All Seasons  –  18.90%
3. Kramer vs. Kramer  –  18.49%
4. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  18.37%
5. On the Waterfront  –  17.45%
6. From Here to Eternity  –  17.44%
7. Gandhi  –  16.31%
8. The Social Network  –  16.26%
9. Tootsie  –  15.16%
10. All the King’s Men  –  14.90%

Lists

Lists for studios are harder because I have to come up with them myself.  There are no books that rank the best films by studio and no way to sort through them on the IMDb or TSPDT.

The TSPDT Top 25 Columbia Films

1. Seven Samurai  (#10)
2. Taxi Driver  (#15)
3. Lawrence of Arabia  (#33)
4. Dr. Strangelove  (#48)
5. His Girl Friday  (#141)
6. On the Waterfront  (#150)
7. Close Encounters of the Third Kind  (#195)
8. Only Angels Have Wings  (#234)
9. In a Lonely Place  (#269)
10. Husbands  (#289)
11. The Last Picture Show  (#306)
12. It Happened One Night  (#329)
13. The Bridge on the River Kwai  (#379)
14. The Shawshank Redemption  (#387)
15. The Awful Truth  (#408)
16. Five Easy Pieces  (#424)
17. Punch-Drunk Love  (#442)
18. The Lady from Shanghai  (#449)
19. Tootsie  (#481)
20. The Big Heat  (#513)
21. The Age of Innocence  (#622)
22. Fat City  (#628)
23. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington  (#653)
24. Claire’s Knee  (#678)
25. When Harry Met Sally…  (#742)

note:  The numbers in parenthesis are the position on the most recent (2018) TSPDT list.  This list would have been different in any other year.  When Harry Met Sally only made the Top 1000 this year after eight years off the list.  Back when the list was reconfigured in 2013, Bridge on the River Kwai dropped over 100 spots while Husbands went up over 200 spots.  The Last Detail was in the Top 25 for a long time (sometimes quite high) but has dropped to #27 (The Last Emperor is above it).

The IMDb Top 10 Columbia Films

1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. Seven Samurai
3. Dr. Strangelove
4. Lawrence of Arabia
5. Taxi Driver
6. The Bridge on the River Kwai
7. On the Waterfront
8. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
9. It Happened One Night
10. Stand by Me

Top 10 U.S. Domestic Box Office  (1984-2011)

1. Spider-Man  –  $403.70 mil
2. Spider-Man 2  –  $373.58 mil
3. Spider-Man 3  –  $336.53 mil
4. Men in Black  –  $250.69 mil
5. Ghostbusters  –  $229.24 mil
6. Hancock  –  $227.94 mil
7. The Da Vinci Code  –  $217.53 mil
8. Men in Black II  –  $190.41 mil
9. Hitch  –  $179.49 mil
10. Tootsie  –  $177.20 mil

note:  I have seen every Columbia film in the Top 50 (and every Columbia film that has made over $80 million).

Top 10 U.S. Domestic Box Office (all-time, adjusted to October 2018)

1. Ghostbusters  –  $651.95 mil
2. Spider-Man  –  $636.48 mil
3. Spider-Man 2  –  $551.05 mil
4. Tootsie  –  $521.24 mil
5. Close Encounters of the Third Kind  –  $512.25 mil
6. Lawrence of Arabia  –  $507.31 mil
7. Men in Black  –  $500.28 mil
8. The Bridge on the River Kwai  –  $498.30 mil
9. Spider-Man 3  –  $448.05 mil
10. The Caine Mutiny  –  $406.59 mil

Books

Have there been more good books about film published about Columbia than any other studio?  I’m not even talking about books about Frank Capra (of which there are multiple good ones) or other people who spent time at the studio, but about what was actually going on at the studio itself.

King Cohn: The Life and Times of Harry Cohn, Bob Thomas, 1967

A fascinating book in terms of its subject and a wildly entertaining book that is full of anecdotes that made Harry Cohn seem larger than life.  A must read for anyone who is seriously interested in film history, it gives a very good, very detailed history of the studio from its founding through the death in 1958 of its head, Harry Cohn.  While I was reading it, there were numerous anecdotes that were so good that I simply had to read them aloud to Veronica and there are too many good ones to include here.  Long out of print but easy to find used online.

The Name Above the Title, Frank Capra, 1971

As the best director associated with the studio, the one who helped it to rise to an Oscar winning studio instead of just barely existing above the other Poverty Row studios, Capra is indelibly linked with Columbia.  That’s evidenced in the index where Harry Cohn takes up 11 lines of references, the same amount as taken up by Capra’s wife.  Cohn and Columbia don’t come in until page 79 but it dominates the action for 200 pages.  Capra’s book is helpful for getting the inside take on the making of the biggest Columbia films of the 1930’s.

The Films of Rita Hayworth: The Legend and Career of a Love Goddess, Gene Ringgold, 1974

The kind of guide to a star’s film that used to be so popular and has tailed off considerably in the last couple of decades, this is useful since the majority of Hayworth’s films were made for Columbia and she was the studio’s biggest star.  The introductory part, before the details of each film, talks much about her career at Columbia.  There are also a lot of stills and a detailed look at all of her films which included more than two dozen at Columbia, most notably Only Angels Have Wings, Angels Over Broadway, Cover Girl, Gilda and The Lady from Shanghai.

Hail Columbia, Rochelle Larkin, 1975

There are three things that limit this book.  First, it is over 40 years old now and thus way out of date.  Second, it has a variety of errors (it’s one thing to disagree with another source on a release date, quite another to just be way wrong, such as having correct months and days but wrong years).  Third, though it is styled in the manner of a coffee-table book, it is not of that size (it’s a little taller than an average hardcover book).  All of that said, this is actually a fantastic resource on Columbia Pictures and well worth looking at.  First, it provides an ample history of the studio.  Second, it groups things together and at the end of each chapter gives detailed information about a variety of important Columbia films that fit the chapter (example chapters: “The Capra Years”, “The Stars”, “The Oscars”).  Third, the reason it resemble a coffee-table book is that it is filled to the gills with stills (at one point eight pages in a row are full page stills of Rita Hayworth – although that brings up a different flaw in the book since they’re all in black-and-white).  It’s a nice companion book to The Columbia Story, listed below, because this does do those chapter groupings and allows you to think of the films as groups instead of just individual films across the years.  Long out-of-print but easy to find used, cheap.

Rita Hayworth: The Time, the Place and the Woman, John Kobal, 1978

Not the most authoritative biography, as it was published in 1978 but mostly ignores anything Hayworth did after leaving Columbia in 1979.  Useful for learning more about Columbia as is evidenced by the index.  The only person with more listings in the index than Harry Cohn (who first appears on page 15 and runs all the way until the end) is Hayworth herself.

Indecent Exposure: A True Story of Hollywood and Wall Street, David McClintock, 1982

This a hard back to read and that is not a dis on McClintock, his writing style or his reporting.  The book is fascinating and well-researched and well-written.  The problem is that, even if you don’t know the back history of the story, halfway through the book you still to realize with a sinking stomach what is going to happen and it just make you nauseous.  This is the story that rocked Columbia in the late 70’s when the head of the studio, David Begelman, a former agent, was discovered through a string of circumstances (namely having to do with Cliff Robertson) to be embezzling tens of the thousands of dollars from the studio.  In the end, while Begelman was bounced, he was actually brought back and Alan Hirschfield, the president of the company ended up being ousted instead even though he was the only one who was actually acting properly.  You realize halfway through that the board is more interested in loyalty and perceptions than that the man who was overseeing the studio had committed embezzlement and fraud and had been lying to them from the start.  McClintock would eventually write a very good piece on Begelman after he killed himself in 1995 in the midst of more financial problems.  It’s interesting to note that as I write this, in August of 2018, nothing about the scandal, even though it bounced the head of the studio and the company is currently listed on the Wikipedia page for Columbia Pictures.  There are few books that give you such a good idea what a screwed up place Hollywood can be.

Fast Fade: David Puttnam, Columbia Pictures, and the Battle for Hollywood, Andrew Yule, 1988

A fascinating book, mostly about Puttnam and his rise in the movie industry but it also deals, of course, with his very tumultuous year running Columbia which didn’t work out well for him.  It spares nothing in its look at Puttnam but it also recognizes his strengths as well and I get the feeling that if Puttnam really was allowed to just deal with the movies as they came up and not have to deal with people like Ray Stark like he was promised he wouldn’t have to, then he could have survived and the studio could have thrived.  But he couldn’t and he didn’t.  A very good book that helps you understand exactly how loathsome Hollywood is.  There is a quote towards the end that, in retrospect, is hilarious: “Several films that David left in the can have interesting potential, perhaps none more than Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.  Will this teller of tall tales ride to the rescue of David’s beleaguered state?  Only time will tell.”  Oh, time told on that one.  The answer was no.

Out of Focus: Power, Pride, and Prejudice – David Puttnam in Hollywood, Charles Kipps, 1989

So why would we need another book about Puttnam and his time at Columbia so soon after the first one?  The easy answer is that this is the hit job.  Kipps never flat out says that this is a reaction book to Yule’s designed to show more of the other side of the story (even though Yule’s book was very good in its objectivity).  Kipps got full access to Ray Stark, who didn’t like being interviewed and this is the book that came out of that.  It became obvious to me on page 58 when Kipps denigrates Puttnam for always taking the credit for his films and not giving credits to directors like Hugh Hudson and Roland Joffe.  Well, since Puttnam produced the only films from either that ever received serious Oscar consideration (an Oscar win, two more nominations) and since Hudson sank kind of fast after Puttnam and Joffe sank even faster (his film work outside of Puttnam is an unmitigated disaster), to make that criticism is rather weak.  Then to read all the access he had to Stark, it was clear this was a book with an agenda.  I was also irritated by Kipps’ criticism of Puttnam on page 154: “To most studio heads, having an actor the status of Kevin Costner volunteering to do a film would be looked upon as manna from heaven.  But David didn’t see it that way.”  That scene takes place in the spring of 1987, before The Untouchables opened, when Costner had yet to be the lead in a film and was mostly unknown.  It’s Kipps trying to use later hindsight knowledge to try and criticize Puttnam and it’s clumsy and stupid.   What wasn’t clumsy and stupid because Kipps didn’t have hindsight is his criticism on Puttnam not giving the greenlight to Ray Stark’s production of Revenge.  That film opened in 1990, after the book was published, and was terrible and sank like a rock.  This out-of-print book can be found really cheap and it deserves it.

Losing the Light: Terry Gilliam & the Munchausen Saga, Andrew Yule, 1991

Yule’s follow-up book was a great inside look at the making of one particular film that was such a financial disaster.  Yule had great access to all of this involved in making the film and it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read about making a specific film with some especially interesting insights from Eric Idle (“Up until Munchausen, I’d always been very smart about Terry Gilliam films.  You don’t ever be in them.  Go and see them in the cinema by all means – but to be in them, fucking madness!!”).  Given the little bit about the film that had ended Yule’s previous book, this was a fantastic follow-up.  Deals less with Columbia (because they are mostly in the background saying, “No, we won’t give you more money.”) but still important and fascinating.

Columbia Pictures: Portrait of a Studio, Bernard F. Dick, ed., 1992

A fascinating book.  The first 60+ pages are a detailed history of the studio that could have formed the entire top part of this post.  After that, the book moves into an academic study (it was published by a university press) with 13 different essays, some of them on specific films produced by the studio but others about periods in the studio’s history (for instance, one is entirely on Capra, another on Rita Hayworth).  Finally, the book ends with a 55 page list of all the Columbia releases by year, which also mentions which ones weren’t produced but were rather just distributed by the studio, a really helpful list to compare to other lists online.

Hit and Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Gruber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood, Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters, 1996

A fascinating book about the years in which Peter Gruber (and, for a stretch, Jon Peters) ran Columbia, which also happened to overlap with the same period in which Sony purchased Columbia.  I distinctly remember Billy Crystal making comments at the Oscars about Sony buying Columbia.  Peters was a disaster but Gruber did some important work for the company and really helped it rise to the top.  It also discusses Mark Canton, the publicity desperate man who was responsible for Last Action Hero and who had some very successful films for the studio that didn’t get released until after he had been fired.  I think of this as kind of the third book in this trilogy, along with McClintock and Yule for the history of the real troubled times that rocked Columbia for some 20 years.

The Columbia Story, Clive Hirschhorn, 1999

The kind of great coffee-table book that us film buffs love.  Almost every studio has at least one of these and this is a good one.  It has a brief history of the studio, then goes through all of the films, year by year.  It even has sections in the back for various series (all of the information on series listed above came from this book), serials, British films and foreign films.  It isn’t great for figuring out the important films, for example, in 1938, just flipping through, you’d never realize that You Can’t Take it With You is a key film, only their second Best Picture winner (though there is an Oscar appendix).  It’s also a British book, so it’s aimed more towards British aspects (including film titles changes and a list of films Columbia made but didn’t distribute in Britain) which is a bit odd for a book about an American film studio.  But it’s definitely a great book for anyone who likes this kind of book and was an invaluable resource as I was going through the list of Columbia films and deciding which ones I still should try to see before completing this post.  Like so many on this list, sadly out-of-print, but available easily used.

Reviews

The Best Columbia Film I Haven’t Yet Reviewed

In the Line of Fire  (1993, dir. Wolfgang Petersen)

When I was growing up, my first thought of Clint Eastwood was the crusty guy who played Dirty Harry.  I didn’t even know he was a director.  Then I saw White Hunter Black Heart and then Unforgiven was released and I began to reassess my views on him (as a filmmaker).  Then came 1993 and following up his Oscar triumph was one of his best film performances followed a few months later by one of his best films as a director.  The latter, A Perfect World, I have written about before, partially because I feel it is so criminally under-rated.  But while that film was overlooked, this film wasn’t.  It was actually, not adjusting for inflation, the biggest he hit had ever been in and it would earn Original Screenplay, Supporting Actor and Editing nominations from both the Oscars and the BAFTAs.  It only earned a Screenplay nomination at the Nighthawks but in a very, very competitive year it also finished in 6th in Supporting Actor, Sound and Sound Editing and 7th in Director and Editing.  Not only that, but it has one of the most enjoyable performances from Clint Eastwood in his very long film career and is one of two films that make you think that Wolfgang Petersen should have had a much better career than he did (Das Boot is the other one).

Eastwood plays Frank Horrigan, a Secret Service agent who works on cases like forgery as he is clearly nearing retirement.  He used to work the presidential detail but he has never forgiven himself for not taking a bullet for JFK back in 1963 (a good use of both Eastwood’s age, who would have been 33, and of digital editing to place him in photos).  But, through chance, he stumbles across a plan to kill the president from a deranged maniac who turns out to be a former CIA assassin named Mitch Leary who is played by John Malkovich.  Malkovich had been a solid star for almost a decade at this point in films like The Killing Fields, Places in the Heart, Empire of the Sun and Dangerous Liaisons.  He could play dark and deceiving (Dangerous Liaisons) or gentle and dumb (Of Mice and Men).  But this film really moves him much closer to an edge that he would be more associated with in the years since.  I have long associated him with Tommy Lee Jones in that both of them can so easily straddle that fine line between a really brilliant performance and pure ham.  In later films like Con Air and Eragon he would err on the wrong side of the line but here, like with Jones, also this year in The Fugitive, he really pushes it brilliantly and comes up with a truly menacing performance.  He sinks into this role and chews it to shreds, always convinced he is the smartest person in the film (and he may not be wrong).

There is some action in this film, like the way we see what would happen if an assassination attempt happened aimed at the president and some chasing around, but this is really more of a thinking man’s thriller-mystery.  It’s a thriller because we’re on the edge of our seat but it’s a mystery because of where and how Leary is going to try and kill the president.  In the middle of all of this is Horrigan, who is trying to solve this case mostly on instinct (he often tells people about he can read people’s eyes) and what few clues he can pick up on (he brilliantly impounds a car because Leary placed his hand on it and they can get the prints).

This film really is firing on almost all of its cylinders.  It has Eastwood, not only in one of his most enjoyable roles, but also giving him a witty script to deal with:

Frank Horrigan: Oh, he’ll call again. He’s got, uh, “panache.”
Lilly Raines: Panache?
Frank Horrigan: Yeah, it means flamboyance.
Lilly Raines: Mm, I know what it means.
Frank Horrigan: Really? I had to look it up.

Petersen knows precisely when to throw in a bit of action to really get the audience on the edge of its seats and when to sit back and just let the detective work speak for itself.  We know a bit more than Frank does, of course, because the film has to give us more of Malkovich’s performance so we can see how deranged he is.  We even get some strong supporting work from the likes of John Mahoney and Fred Thompson.  Rene Russo provides a nice May-December romance for Eastwood that, while in spite of being obvious romantic fodder, does provide at least some nice moments on its inevitable move in that direction.

It’s not a perfect film, certainly.  There is a younger agent played by Dylan McDermott and not only can you telegraph that he is going to die, but you even have the annoying trope that he decides the night before that he’s going to resign because he can’t take the work.  But it more than makes up for that heading into the final act when we see how things play out, how Frank gets the brilliant line that leads to the climax (“Aim high”) and then even a final little coda with an unnerving voice from the grave on an answering machine and two people who decide to go find one of the single best spots in the entire country to go enjoy some ice cream.

The Worst Columbia Film I Haven’t Yet Reviewed

Bucky Larson: Born to be a Star  (2011, dir. Tom Brady)

I don’t know where to start with this review because I don’t really want to write about anything having to do with this film.

We could start with the director, I suppose.  His name is Tom Brady.  Not the great Tom Brady, the one who is on the five member short list for being the greatest quarterback of all-time (Unitas, Montana, Favre, Peyton, Brady).  The shitty director who has made three films that go beyond bad and right into appallingly bad (The Hot Chick, The Comebacks, Bucky Larson).  Taste is clearly a problem for both Bradys (Uggs?) but this one tries, I guess, to be funny, and fails spectacularly in every attempt.

Maybe I could start again with the star.  His name is Nick Swardson and he’s supposedly funny.  He hasn’t always been in bad films (he was the guy yelling “It’s Bowie!!!” in Almost Famous) but after Reno 911 he hooked up with Happy Madison Productions and it’s been hard to see any evidence of being funny.  He also turned out to be kind of an obnoxious dick when his response to the complete critical shredding of this film (at a 9 on Metacritic, it was the lowest scoring film of 2011, lower even than record Razzie winner Jack & Jill, also a Happy Madison Production released by Columbia) was that the critics just didn’t like the acting and directing and weren’t prepared to laugh.  It never seemed to occur to him that his film not only wasn’t funny but went beyond that to being completely offensive.

So let’s get to the plot of the film.  A dim-witted man still living at home (he does seem to be just dumb, not suffering from any specific disability) discovers his parents are porn stars from the 70’s and decides to move from Iowa to Hollywood to become a porn star and once there, does become one because his penis is so small that in films, it makes the female star realize she was happier with who she already had.  That’s the plot and the film doesn’t even do it well.

I am reminded of Roger Ebert’s maxim about people doing funny things aren’t funny but people trying to be serious and failing are funny.  The people who wrote this script thought “let’s write a story about an idiot with a small dick who somehow manages to become a porn star anyway” and thought that was funny.  Isn’t it funny how dumb he is?  Isn’t it funny how little endowed he is?

I’m not surprised that Adam Sandler had a hand in writing this.  I saw Anger Management as one of the numerous Columbia films I watched for this post and the premise of that film is that he’s not really that angry but gets send to anger management anyway.  Yet, there is a strong core of anger that runs through all of Sandler’s films and not just that, but a strong core of meanness.  Sandler clearly just isn’t nice or at least thinks that being unpleasant is a sure comedic way of going about things.  His films aren’t simply not funny but they are also mean and petty and small-minded and this is just about the worst of them, the rare kind of Comedy that earns zero stars from me.

Bonus Review

City Slickers  (1991, dir. Ron Underwood)

Some films you return to and you think, “what was I thinking, liking this film?”  But others hold up and stand the test of time.  Take City Slickers.  I saw City Slickers, or parts of it, four times in the theater in the summer of 1991.  The first time, I saw it, I think, with just John and Jay.  We laughed a lot and John found it so endearing that he named his car Norman (and he still uses the Billy Crystal, “Hellllooooooo” which I can hear in my head).  The second time, we brought Sean and he laughed so hard at the line “We’ll jump off that bridge when we come to it” that I actually had to take him out of the theater so he could regain his composure and go back in.  The third time, John and I popped in and watched it for a while before going to see Boyz N the Hood (John worked at the theater, so we could get in for free).  The fourth time, I had gone to see Dying Young and, in spite of Julia Roberts, it was so awful I left when I knew the next showing of City Slickers was about to begin.

It had been a long time since I had seen it.  I don’t think it had really been 27 years.  I’m sure I saw it in college at some point.  But I remembered basically everything in it (well, except that Billy’s son is played by a very young Jake Gyllenhaal, because of course, no one knew him in 1991, as it was his film debut after all).  There wasn’t a single moment that I had forgotten and the only really funny lines I had forgotten (when Crystal has the line about the Picasso, with the brilliant line “No, if she was a Picasso, she’d have three tits.”) weren’t because I had forgotten the lines or that they weren’t funny but that the whole point Crystal is making is about how when you’re married you might admire something else but you stick with what you have is one I have often made, but using the ordering food analogy that Garry Shandling made which made me forget the piece of art analogy that Crystal makes here.  What’s more, not only did I remember all of the lines, but in spite of remembering them, they still made me laugh.  Especially among those (which is referenced here in a great skit) is the great scene where one character tries to get another to understand how to program his VCR, something in all the years she had a VCR I was never able to get my mother to be able to do and there were times where others wanted to scream, just like the third character, “He doesn’t get it!  He’ll never get it!  It’s been four hours.  The cows can tape something by now!”

City Slickers, if you have never seen it, is a film about three guys at age 39 who are a bit lost in their lives.  One of them is so miserable in his marriage that he describes the best day of his life as his wedding day and feeling like a grownup and when asked what the worst day was says “Every day since is a tie.”  The second is trying to curb his straying ways and stick to the young, beautiful wife he has.  Those two are played with great comedic support by Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby.  Stern, of course, had a voice that was calm and reassuring because he was the narrator on The Wonder Years and Kirby had already been great comedic support for Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally (“You made a woman meow?”).  Then there is Billy Crystal as a man who has lost his smile.  He’s 39 years old and he loves his wife and kids but he hates his job and needs to find something that will make him happy.

When I was a kid and I kept watching this, I watched it for Crystal’s lines, for brilliant lines that spoke truths like “Women need a reason to have sex.  Men just need a place.” or just funny lines like “Have you noticed the older you get, the younger your girlfriends get?  Soon you’ll be dating sperm.”  I watched the film because it made me laugh.  This time, watching it as I sit here trying to find a job, trying to find my own smile, a 43 year old man trying to figure out where I have been, thinking about the scene where Daniel Stern talks about how when he wasn’t getting along with his father, they could still talk about baseball, the film speaks to me in a way that the 16 year old me who kept going back to the movie theater never could have imagined.

City Slickers isn’t a great film and no matter how much it speaks to me, it never will be.  But it is a better film than I had ever realized, even while I was continually laughing.  It may have a lot of characters that aren’t very well drawn and it may rely on cliches and have some moments that seem too easily telegraphed and could have been written by any writer.  But it has a very real person, a wiseass who is trying to remember why likes to smile instead of just making smartass comments, it is genuinely funny and of course, it has a performance from Jack Palance, that, while I don’t think was the best of the year, certainly was one of the best and did win an Oscar for a solid, dependable actor who had been in the industry for almost half a century and had first been nominated almost 40 years before.

Post-2011

Genre:  Since 2011, the sequels and remakes haven’t stopped.  There have been been 7 films released in that time with the number “2” in the title (which don’t include the new Jumanji film or three of the Spider-Man films or third Men in Black film or the fourth coming soon) and remakes from previous films or television include 21 Jump Street, Total Recall, RoboCop, Annie, The Equalizer, Ghostbusters, The Magnificent Seven, Flatliners.

The Films:

note:  I am listing these in rank order.  The ranks are approximate.  These are not all the post-2011 films I have seen, but ones I have reviewed, think are notable or want to list.

• Zero Dark Thirty  –  #23
• American Hustle  –  #24
• Skyfall  –  #31
• Spider-Man: Homecoming  –  #65
• Passengers  –  #67  –  a really under-appreciated film.
• SPECTRE  –  #78
• Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle  –  #86  –  Dwayne Johnson is giving me serious reason to add him to this post.
• Captain Phillips  –  #88
• The Amazing Spider-Man  –  #102
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits  –  #112
• Ghostbusters (2016)  –  #135  –  I still think it should have been a sequel rather than a remake but pretty good for all of that.
• Goosebumps  –  #154  –  really fun Jack Black performance
• The Amazing Spider-Man 2  –  #156
• The Monuments Men  –  #158
• The Magnificent Seven (2016)  –  #407
• Aloha  –  #710  –  just to prove there are Cameron Crowe films I don’t like
• Sex Tape  –  #713  –  stop following me Jake Kasdan!  or follow me with Karen Gillan around!
• Hotel Transylvania  –  #765  –  this film and its two much worse sequels make the Ice Age films look new and inspired
• The Dark Tower  –  #817  –  I’m coming for you with a rubber hose, Akiva Goldsman!  I warned you!
• Inferno  –  #842  –  makes Angels and Demons look good
• Grown Ups 2  –  #880  –  lands in the bottom 10  –  in fact, the bottom 4 Columbia films since 2011 are all Comedies, three of them Sandler (That’s My Boy, Pixels, Grown Ups 2), the other James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2)

Statistics:  I have seen 54 of the 69 films since 2011 (78.26%), including all 8 films from 2013 and all 11 from 2017.

All-Time Awards:  “Skyfall” makes the Top 5 for Song; it also lands in the Top 5 for Sound Editing.

Nighthawk Awards:  Since 2011, six Columbia films have combined for 31 nominations but 28 of those are for American Hustle (11), Zero Dark Thirty (8) and Skyfall (9).  The last three go to The Pirates: Band of Misfits (Animated Film), Captain Phillips (Sound) and SPECTRE (Sound Editing).  The only wins are Actress for Zero Dark Thirty and Sound Editing for Skyfall.  In Drama, Zero Dark Thirty goes 1 for 5 (winning Actress), Skyfall goes 0 for 6 and Captain Phillips goes 0 for 2 while in Comedy, American Hustle goes 0 for 8 and The Pirates goes 0 for 1.

Nighthawk Notables:  Skyfall wins Best Sequel.  Chris Evans wins Funniest Cameo for Spider-Man: Homecoming.  The Dark Tower wins Read the Book, SKIP the Film.

At the Theater:  I have seen six Columbia films in the theater since 2011: Skyfall, Zero Dark Thirty, American Hustle, The Monuments Men, SPECTRE and Spider-Man: Homecoming.  What’s more surprising, since I often go to the movies by myself these days, I saw the last four of them with Veronica.

Academy Awards:  American Hustle earned 10 Oscar nominations, including the big seven but failed to win any.  Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall both earned 5 noms and both won Sound Editing while Skyfall also won Song.  Captain Phillips earned 6 nominations including Picture.  Aside from those, The Pirates was nominated for Animated Film, SPECTRE won Song, Passengers was nominated for Score and Art Direction and Roman J Israel was nominated for Actor.  In 2013, Columbia would finally pass MGM and move into 4th place all-time.

Golden Globes:  Since 2011, 11 Columbia films have combined for 24 nominations and 6 wins.  American Hustle is the biggest film, earning 7 nominations and winning Picture – Comedy, Actress – Comedy and Supporting Actress.  Zero Dark Thirty earned 4 noms, including Picture and Director and won Actress – Drama.  The two Bond films both won Song.  The biggest categories have been Actor (one in Comedy, three in Drama), Actress (three in Comedy, one in Drama) and Song (four).  American Hustle was the first Picture – Comedy winner in 26 years.  Columbia hasn’t had a Picture nominee since 2013, the first time ever it has gone more than two straight years without a nominee.  That might end in 2018 with The Front Runner.

The BAFTAs:  Since 2011, only four Columbia films have earned BAFTA nominations but all of them were nominated for at least five awards and the only one not nominated for Best Film was Skyfall which won Best British Film.  The four films (the other three are Zero Dark Thirty, American Hustle and Captain Phillips) earned a combined 32 nominations and while there was no category where all four were nominated, three of them were nominated in Film, Supporting Actor, Director, Screenplay and Editing.  Skyfall also won Score, American Hustle won Original Screenplay, Supporting Actress and Makeup and Captain Phillips won Supporting Actor.

BFCA:  Again, the big four films earned a combined 24 nominations (while SPECTRE was nominated for Song).  ZDT, AH and CP were all nominated for Picture, Director and Screenplay.  ZDT won Actress and Editing, Skyfall won Song and AH won Makeup.

The Critics:  Zero Dark Thirty is second in wins (14), second in points (1002) and 10th in percentage (24.85%) while American Hustle wins four awards and Skyfall wins one.

Box Office:  The Spider-Man franchise now has the #2, 3, 4, 5 (Homecoming) and 7 (Amazing) spots on the list.  Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is the #1 film, by less than $1 million over the first Spider-Man but falls $2 million short of Caine Mutiny for making the Adjusted list.  Skyfall is #6 on the list.

Surprisingly enough, there are no Knights Who Say Ni in the original Malory. Neither is there a Black Knight who says “It’s only a flesh wound”, a witch being weighed against a duck, a holy hand grenade or a killer rabbit.

My Top 10

1. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
3. Barry Lyndon
4. The Man Who Would Be King
5. Three Days of the Condor
6. Jaws
7. The Sunshine Boys
8. Hester Street
9. The Story of Adele H.
10. The Day of the Locust

note:  Originally, Hester Street was reviewed as a WGA nominee.  But, my reaction to the film bumped it up the list and it displaced French Connection II (which still gets reviewed because it was also a WGA nominee).

Consensus Nominees:

1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest  (264 pts)
2. The Sunshine Boys  (192 pts)
3. Jaws  (112 pts)
4. Barry Lyndon  (80 pts)
5. The Man Who Would Be King  (80 pts)
6. The Story of Adele H.  (80 pts)

note:  Cuckoo has the highest Consensus total in six years, although, because of a lot more Globe and BAFTA nominees, actually a lower Consensus percentage than The Godfather Part II from the year before.

Oscar Nominees  (Best Screenplay – Based on Material from Another Medium):

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• Barry Lyndon
• The Man Who Would Be King
• Scent of a Woman
• The Sunshine Boys

WGA Awards:

Adapted Drama:

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• Barry Lyndon
• Jaws
• Man in the Glass Booth
• The Man Who Would Be King

Adapted Comedy:

• The Sunshine Boys
• Hester Street
• Prisoner of Second Avenue

Original Drama:

• French Connection II

Original Comedy

• Return of the Pink Panther

note:  Yes, they are “Original” according to the WGA even though both are sequels.  In fact, the following year, the next Pink Panther film will win the Adapted Comedy award, so the WGA clearly hadn’t decided on a firm policy yet.

Golden Globe:

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• Jaws
• The Sunshine Boys

Nominees that are Original:  Dog Day Afternoon, Nashville

BAFTA:

• Jaws
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest  (1976)
• The Sunshine Boys  (1976)

note:  Eligible 1975 films that were nominated that are Original are Dog Day Afternoon and Nashville.

My Top 10

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The Film:

Should this film even be listed?  Does it even really count as adapted?  Ostensibly, I suppose, it comes from the Mallory, by way of numerous adaptations along the way.  Certainly the Pythons didn’t create the characters of Arthur, Launcelot or Galahad (though they did for brave, brave Sir Robin) or the quest for the Holy Grail.  But that’s just about it in this film because everything else in it, from the hilarious opening credits to the utterly ridiculous yet perfectly appropriate ending was all an invention of those six brilliant men.  It still stands up as the funniest film ever made.  I can’t imagine anything will ever catch it, even if these men are running away while banging coconuts.  I, of course, have already reviewed it as one of the five best films of the year.

The Source:

Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory  (1485)

I will not get into the long history of Malory’s work on this book and its eventual publication, 14 years after he died in prison.  I won’t even discuss whether you should read it, because, honestly, there are a lot of versions that are much easier to read (I grew up reading the Illustrated Junior Library edition that was edited by Sidney Lanier and my bookshelf also contains The Quest of the Holy Grail, The Arthurian Companion, Tennyson’s Idylls of the King and White’s The Once and Future King).  I’ve owned this film on DVD for 15 years or so and I have made it clear to Veronica that I want a Blu-Ray copy of Excalibur before I get to 1981 (I got rid of my VHS copy before we left Boston).

The Adaptation:

In the original Malory, there is an Arthur who is king, a Launcelot who is brave, a Galahad who is pure and a Bedivere.  There is a quest for the Grail.  Other than that, it’s made up by the Pythons.  There is not even a mention of Malory (or another other version of the Arthur legend) as a source, but given what I already had to type for the credits, that’s fine.

One interesting tidbit is that after they had written some of the more amusing and absurd things in the film, they discovered that there was actually some historical precedent for them:  “Wednesday, November 28th [1973].  Met at TG’s later.  He has been reading various fine-looking books on mediaeval warfare, and found that much of the absurd stuff that has already been written for the Holy Grail film has healthy precedents (e.g. taunting one’s opponents and, as a last resort, firing dead animals at them during a siege – both quoted as mediaeval tactics by Montgomery).”  (Diaries: 1969-1979, The Python Years, Michael Palin, p 146)

The Credits:

Directed by 40 Specially Trained Ecuadorian Mountain Llamas, 6 Venezuelan Red Llamas, 142 Mexican Whooping Llamas, 14 North Chilean Guancos (Closely related to the llama), Red Llama of Brixton, 76000 Battery Llamas from “Llama-Fresh” Farms Ltd. near Paraguay, and Terry Gilliam & Terry Jones.  Written and performed by: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin.

One flew over the cuckoo’s nest

The Film:

I have already reviewed this film as the Best Picture winner for 1975.  It’s a tricky thing when a film continually loses awards as time goes on.  There was a time when I think this might have been my Best Picture winner.  When I did my awards several years ago, it was still the winner for Adapted Screenplay and Actress, both of which have now gone to other films.  But that’s a re-thinking of other films, not a reflection on the quality of this film, which is still an outstanding film with magnificent acting.  What it isn’t, is a particularly realistic film.  I said as much in my review of it and one commenter noted that it’s really a reflection of the times, but that actually backed up what I had said about it being a parable (also strengthened by director Milos Forman saying that Ratched reflected the communist rulers in Czechoslovakia that he had left behind).  But that’s not to the film’s detriment, as long as you know what you are looking for in this film.  It’s an anti-authoritarian film that is kind of masquerading as being about mental illness.  But, slip down into the performances and let them flow and try not to think too hard about that.

One nice little tidbit about this film I learned just recently and isn’t found in the IMDb, TCM, Wikipedia or in the book Inside Oscar.  Pretty much everyone knows that this film won the big five Oscars, the first film to do so since It Happened One Night.  What isn’t as well known is what Forman got the next day: “The next morning, there was the pile of telegrams.  The most moving one came from Frank Capra, whose It Happened One Night was the only other picture ever to win all five major Oscars.  WELCOME TO THE CLUB, it said.”  (Turnaround: A Memoir, Miloš Forman and Jan Novak, p 225)

The Source:

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

Kesey has always struck me as an over-rated writer.  I read this years ago and thought it had some power to it but wasn’t on the same kind of level that many others placed it at (Time Magazine had it on their Top 100 list) and I’m actually a little surprised that I still have the novel after all this time.  The interesting thing, if you’ve seen the film first (which, for many people, is probably the case nowadays), you’ll be surprised that not only is it a first person narrative, but it’s actually Chief who gives the narrative.  That gives you a specific kind of insight that you can’t really get in a stage or film version and I’m not entirely certain how well it works for me.  It can be a powerful novel and it’s certainly miles above Kesey’s massively over-rated Sometimes a Great Notion but I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t take the dive into it, even at less than 300 pages.

The Adaptation:

A surprising amount of the film comes straight from the book, even if it has to cut a lot of the book to get to that.  Basically, anything that wasn’t really furthering what we see in Randall P. McMurphy and his stand-off against the oppressive Nurse Ratched is eliminated from the film though there isn’t any specific scene that springs to mind that was eliminated.  It just seems like there’s a lot of the book that is just killing time.  Nicholson and Dourif are fantastic but I really wish I could have seen the original stage version with Kirk Douglas and Gene Wilder.  That must have been a hell of a play.

Forman himself worked on the script: “I worked on the first draft of our screenplay with Larry Hauben and later rewrote it with another very fine screenwriter, Bo Goldman.”  (Forman, p 207).  That was after Kesey himself had done a draft: “Zaentz and Douglas already owned a screenplay of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when they hired me.  They didn’t like it, even though it had been written by Ken Kesey himself, and I had to agree with them.  The script was too faithful a transcription of the novel.” (Forman, p 207)

The Credits:

directed by Milos Forman.  screenplay by Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman.  based on the novel by Ken Kesey.

Barry Lyndon

The Film:

As I mentioned in my original review, the film had to grow on me over time.  But, that happened with general opinion as well.  It is held up by some as one of the greatest of Kubrick’s films while the reviews at the time were more mixed, in spite of the Oscar nominations.  I am still not willing to place it on the list of greatest Kubrick films, not when we’re talking about the man who directed Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, 2001 and A Clockwork Orange, but it is definitely a great film and most definitely a beautiful looking film, between the costumes, makeup and cinematography, one of the most beautiful films to look at ever made.

The Source:

The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. of the Kingdom of Ireland by William Makepeace Thackerey (1844)

The original title of the book when it appeared serially throughout all of 1844 was The Luck of Barry Lyndon; A Romance of the Last Century. By Fitz-Boodle.  Even the title I list above, which became the title of the book upon its revision in 1856 is incomplete as it has a very long subtitle of what it contains.  It was the first major work of Thackerey, who was only 33 when it was published, preceding Vanity Fair by three years.  I struggled reading it even though it isn’t actually all that long (the Oxford Classics version, which contains the passages cut for the revised edition only runs 349 pages and that’s with 30 pages of notes).  Like many Victorian novels, the style runs contrary to the kind of narratives that I prefer.  But, in Barry, Thackerey gives us a fascinating narrator (and one who is extremely unreliable) and that alone makes the work worth reading.

One interesting thing to note: the book doesn’t seem to be widely read.  Unlike most great Victorian novels (including Thackerey’s own Vanity Fair), it was never published by the Modern Library and doesn’t seem to have ever had a Bantam or Signet edition.

The Adaptation:

“To create an adaptation that conveys the director’s vision, Thackerey’s original text has been both compressed and expanded.  Kubrick has altered the narrative of the novel in at least four significant respects: He has made a large number of deletions … Significant scenes have been added to the film … Equally important, a number of scenes have been focused by condensation … These changes also alter the proportion of the narrative, shifting our attention to scenes in which Barry is a victim and hence more sympathetic.  Although less than a tenth of Thackerey’s novel is devoted to Barry’s downfall, Kubrick devotes more than a quarter of the film to his ‘misfortune and distress.’  In Thackerey’s text Barry encounters Lady Lyndon three quarters of the way through the narrative; however half the film is devoted to the consequences of Barry’s marriage of convenience and rise in class.  Finally, Kubrick, in adapting Thackerey’s text, has made a significant alteration in point of view.” (“Narrative and Discourse in Kubrick’s Modern Tragedy” by Michael Klein in The English Novel and the Movies, p 97-98)

“Kubrick wrote a bare-boned 243-page script that removed the more outrageous coincidences.  Redmond Barry’s family are no longer the ancient and rightful owners of the Lyndon estates, sold generations before to an Englishman.  Nor does the Chevalier de Balibari, the professional gambler on whom Barry is sent to spy, and whose associate he becomes, turn out to be his uncle in disguise.  Kubrick also truncated Barry’s courtship of Lady Lyndon, which occupies much more time in the book.  Originally Barry won her only by out-manoeuvring the many candidates who, as old Sir Charles tells Barry apoplectically just before his death, ‘have always turned up to apply for the situation’.  The antipathy between Barry and Viscount Bullingdun assumes greater importance, culminating in a duel where Barry, succumbing to his Irish sentimentality and taking pity on the terrified young man, fires into the ground, only to have Bullingdon use his second shot to smash his leg, which has to be amputated.  Many linking scenes were also inserted, some of them eccentric.  To cover Barry’s desertion from the British army, Kubrick wrote in a comic sequence where two gay officers stage a tearful parting waist-deep in a river while Barry steals the horse and despatches of one of them.  He also extracted two incidents from Vanity Fair: the reading of Sir Charles Lyndon’s obituary (Lord Steyne’s in the novel), and Lord Wendover’s speech about his friends (said of Becky Sharp in the novel).”  (Stanley Kubrick: A Biography by John Baxter, p 279)

Both of those quotes do a solid job of summing up the differences between the novel and the film although I would disagree with the use of the word “sentimentality” in describing Barry’s actions in the duel.  It seems to me that Barry, for once, does the right thing, and then is punished for it, an appropriate result given the other actions in his life.  In the book, Bullingdun is sent to America to fight in the war and presumed killed and the reaction among others to that is really what brings about Barry’s downfall and the Viscount’s return just culminates it, not suddenly slamming him down with the duel.  Frankly, I much prefer what Kubrick does in the film.

One interesting note: the film has narration and while the narrator in the film is a third person narrator, some of the lines are definitely straight from the novel, which means that it was Barry’s narration originally.  One particular line (“Lady Lyndon, always vapourish and nervous, after our blessed boy’s catastrophe became more agitated than ever and plunged into devotion with so much fervour that you would have fancied her almost distracted at times.”) is placed in the film almost exactly and I had the oddness of reading it on the page and hearing it said in the film at the exact same time.

The Credits:

Written for the screen, Produced and Directed by Stanley Kubrick.  Based on the Novel by William Makepeace Thackerey.

The Man Who Would Be King

The Film:

I have already reviewed this film as one of the five best films of 1975.  What confuses me is that Oscar voters didn’t think of it as one of the five best films of 1975.  It is one of the all-time great Adventure films and was, in conjunction with Fat City, the sure sign that John Huston had bounced back from the weak films that he had been making in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

The Source:

“The Man Who Would Be King” by Rudyard Kipling  (1888)

While not setting aside the casual racism and overt imperialism that runs through a lot of Kipling’s writings (which, ironically, is not the most objectionable thing about his physical books, since many older editions have a swastika on the front from a time when the symbol had a much different meaning), it’s worth remembering that there is a very good reason that Kipling was the first English language writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.  This is a great story (running 40 pages in The Portable Kipling, so a decent length story) about two British adventurers who decide to go conquer the land of Kafiristan with a couple of rifles, with the thought that the natives will have never seen a gun (correctly).  However, things go badly because they are greeted as gods and then when one of them is scratched (after deciding he would get married), the natives revolt against them.  We only get the story secondhand, with an introduction to the main two characters from a Kipling stand-in and then returning to one of them to tell the tragic story.  It’s a fantastic adventure story that shows both British arrogance and what can be the results of such arrogance.

The Adaptation:

John Huston wanted to make this film for a long time.  He had a number of early drafts, working with Aeneas MacKenzie, Steve Grimes and Tony Veiller when it was still planned as a film for Bogie and Gable, though when Bogie started to get sick, Huston realized he would never get to make the film with them.  As mentioned in my review, he had other considerations over the years for others who could play Dravot and Peachy.

“So Gladys Hill and I went down to Cuernavaca and, incorporating a number of good things out of the other scripts, wrote yet another screenplay, sticking this time a little closer to the story by Kipling.  The original story was too short to be adapted in itself, but it struck themes that lent themselves to expansion – for instance, the Masonic motif, reflected through the emblems on Kipling’s watch fob, the altar stone and the treasure.  Using such material as springboards, we did a lot of invention, and it turned out to be a good invention, supportive of the tone, feeling and spirit underlying the original short story.” (An Open Book, John Huston, p 351)

Huston really does take almost everything in the original story and simply expands on it.  He even keeps the framing device of Peachy telling the story to Kipling back in the newspaper office (though it actually begins with that while the story only gets to that in chronological order and Peachy explains everything that has happened since he left).  There isn’t a lot of dialogue in the story so most of the dialogue, especially between Dravot and Peachy when they are off on their adventure was created by Huston.  As an extra little tidbit, what the character of Kipling is writing at the start of the film are actual lines from the Kipling poem “The Ballad of Boh da Thone”.

The Credits:

Directed by John Huston.  Screenplay by John Huston and Gladys Hill.  Based on the story by Rudyard Kipling.

Three Days of the Condor

The Film:

Alan J. Pakula made three films in the 70’s that are often viewed as his Political Paranoia trilogy: Klute, The Parallax View and All the President’s Men.  This film, though directed by Sydney Pollack, a solid filmmaker who I never thought of as being Pakula’s equal (in spite of Pollack having an Oscar and Pakula not having one) fits right in with those three films.  The film that this most fits alongside with is The Parallax View.  Both films starred major matinee stars in solid acting roles as men on the run from those who want to kill them who have stumbled upon conspiracies that involve high levels of government.  Because this film is directed by Pollack and not filmed by Gordon Willis (and, let’s face it, Beatty is a better actor than Redford), this one isn’t quite on the same level.  But it is a solid, taut, political thriller about a poor CIA drudge whose jobs is reading books (he is insistent upon telling people that throughout the story) who manages to stumble upon a conspiracy contingency plan involved with seizing the world’s oil in an emergency.

Joe Turner works at something called The American Literary Historical Society.  It’s an old house in New York and he reads books for a living.  Well, that’s what he does, but you can see something is different given the camera and lock on the door and the man with the gun.  That’s because this is really a research division of the CIA and Turner reads those books as he feeds them into computers and looks into CIA details being released.  He stumbles upon a book that has been translated into an odd assortment of languages which, it will turn out, are all languages of oil producing countries.  When he sends this information along to his superiors, he comes back from lunch one day (he snuck out through a back entrance of the building) to discover that his co-workers have all been killed.  He grabs a gun from the office and suddenly he’s on the run, afraid to come in out of the cold, especially when the attempt he does make almost gets him killed (the top head of his division is actually the person behind the killings).

Turner suddenly has to use all his wits to survive.  These turn out to be some army training, mostly in the signal corps (which allows him to rewire some telephones so that when he calls in again, he can keep the line from being traced) and a sympathetic (and of course beautiful) woman that he kidnaps at first, to get away from the man trying to kill him, but who quickly begins to believe him, especially after the mailman comes in with an automatic machine gun and some karate moves and tries to kill them both.

Pollack and Redford had already made several films together by this point (they would also later collaborate on the Best Picture winning Out of Africa) but neither of them had ever made a thriller.  Redford, of course, makes a compelling man on the run (in Out of Sight, Clooney and Lopez’s characters will discuss the speed with which the girl believes him but it’s always been widely assumed that she starts to believe him because he’s Redford).  He manages to survive thanks to some luck and some quick wits (he realizes that he’s in an elevator with the killer and he manages to arranged to leave the building with several other people to keep himself from being an easy target).  He’s not a super-hero on the run, but just a bookish, learned man who is doing what he can to survive.  This film makes it easy to understand the kind of political paranoia that went on during the 70’s, especially when you consider the actual events that America was involved in around the world.  It’s not all about Redford, of course.  Max von Sydow makes a sinister assassin, cold-heartedly moving along his path, Faye Dunaway makes a compelling accomplice once Redford convinces her and Cliff Robertson gives one of his better performances as the head man of the CIA trying to discover what has gone wrong while also trying to explain away his own agency’s moral lapses.  At a time, post-Watergate, when a lot of people had lost faith in their government, they still had faith in what they could see on screen, and the results were solid.

The Source:

Six Days of the Condor by James Grady

This is a solid, if undistinguished first thriller from a young author.  It’s about a bookish CIA analyst whose division is killed because of a small discovery that they make which is actually about a crate of books that never arrived (because there weren’t any books, but rather drugs in those crates).  Ronald Malcolm has the good luck of having been out getting lunch for the office when his division is wiped out and has to spend almost a week on the run, trying to let the CIA know what is going on while keeping himself from getting killed by the moles in the agency who are part of the conspiracy.

Grady hints in the “confession” in the 2016 reprint of the book (which discusses how the Russians actually bought into his ludicrous idea of the CIA reading books to discover if their plots had been released to the public after seeing it in the movie) that his hero is supposed to be a John le Carre type of hero but his Malcolm is actually ridiculously competent and is able to do anything the plot needs him to do, including fighting off a man who can kill with a single blow.  It could have been made into a much less realistic, more action oriented film if other people had gotten hold of it.

The Adaptation:

Aside from the name change to the main character as you can see from the above, and the name and time period changes to the film as you can see from the source name, there are a few other important changes which Grady himself notes in the “confession”:

Already the plot had been shifted from Washington D.C., to New York because, I was told, Robert Redford had to shoot two movies that year: Three Days of the Condor and All the President’s Men.  He and his family lived in New York and he didn’t want to have to uproot them to move to Washington for the year.  Of the two movies’ plots, only Condor could be moved to New York.  More important was the MacGuffin.  Just before I left Montana for Washington, the United States got hit with its first oil embargo.  The invisible world of petroleum politics suddenly dominated the way we all lived.  That change in America’s reality, that change in Americans’ consciousness, was too creatively cool to ignore, so that MacGuffin’s addictive narcotic went from heroin to oil.  And instead of my noir ending, the brilliant screenwriters came up with an even more chilling, culturally impactful Lady or the Tiger? climax.  (xxxiii)

Grady doesn’t mention little things that get changed (like how it’s what languages a book is translated into that’s the clue rather than missing crates, which is actually a much better idea) or bigger ones (the Dunaway character is shot 2/3 of the way through the book and though she doesn’t die (that was forced on him by the publishers), she is taken out of the story).  It’s a moderately faithful adaptation, with some major things kept but a lot of smaller details changed.

The Credits:

Directed by Sydney Pollack.  Based on the novel “Six Days of the Condor” by James Grady.  Screenplay by Lorenzo Semple, Jr. and David Rayfiel.

Jaws

The Film:

I have, of course, already reviewed the film.  It is easily one of the greatest Horror films of all-time, if not the greatest Horror film ever made and is my #1 film of 1975, a rare thing for a Horror film.  Unlike films that had come before this by directors who weren’t great (Victor Fleming, Robert Wise), directors who would fall from greatness (William Friedkin) or directors whose later films would be greatly reduced in popularity (Francis Ford Coppola), it established Steven Spielberg as the foremost popular great director in film history.  He has directed 11 Best Picture nominees yet his films have grossed twice as much as any other director in history.

The Source:

Jaws by Peter Benchley (1974)

I included this book on the list of “Great Films, Unreadable Books” many years ago.  I didn’t even remember that I had actually read the book before, but apparently I had.  It’s not good.  There are some moments of real suspense, particularly late in the book after the three men have gone out to look for the shark.  But, most of the time, the book gets bogged down in subplots (like Brody’s wife sleeping with Hooper).  I was especially annoyed at the way the book keeps referring to the shark as a fish: “Now the fish turned again, homing on the stream of blood rushing from the woman’s femoral artery, a beacon as clear and true as a lighthouse on a cloudless night.”  Veronica asked why this annoyed me so and I replied, “if this were a book about a killer lion, would you like it if it just keep calling it a mammal?”  Every use of the word “fish” in regards to the shark I just found off-putting.  It’s a damn shark.  Use that word.  It’s much more menacing.

The Adaptation:

“The book disturbed me but didn’t really scare me.  It began with a real burst of speed and all of a sudden the middle section got weighted down by this terrestrial sociology, this provincial moralizing about a town without pity.  I didn’t want to make any kind of moral judgment with the movie . . . The only time the book really frightened me was in the last hundred pages, when Benchley stopped describing what the shark looked like and began concentrating on how the barrels were moving through the water and hitting the boat.  They could only see the barrels, not the shark, and that terrified me.”(Steven Spielberg interviewed in Conversations at the American Film Institute with The Great Moviemakers: The Next Generation, ed. George Stevens, Jr, p 613)

“I supervised every draft of Jaws, and just about every scene in the movie is from my own head, as set down on paper by five different people.  I should have been brave and sat down and written the screenplay myself, but I felt I needed a sounding board, someone to come in and play with my ideas and make them better and give me ideas back that I never would have imagined myself.  As such, Jaws had six screenplays and five writers, including three uncredited writers.  The script changed daily.  The actors really supplied most of their own dialogue.” (Stevens, p 618)

Part of the reason that Hooper survives in the film is because of a bit of lucky circumstance.  Shooting live shark footage in Australia, they managed to get great shots of a shark, but with no diver in the cage.  So, Spielberg, Verna Fields and William S. Gilmore Jr. decided to allow Hooper to survive partially so they could use the magnificent shark cage footage (information courtesy of Steven Spielberg: A Biography by Joseph McBride).

“The [Indianapolis speech] came from a book that Howard Sackler found in a library. He thought it was a great opportunity to have a flashback.  I didn’t want a flashback but thought it would work if we just had someone say it.”(Stevens, p 620)

That last bit was a bone of contention.  Sackler wrote the original Indianapolis speech, but then John Milius changed and extended it (how much it was changed is the bone of that contention, with Spielberg saying a lot and Carl Gottlieb saying not much) and then Robert Shaw actually adding to it himself (Shaw was also a playwright as you can see down below).  And yet, for all of that, what is probably the most famous line in the film (“You’re gonna need a bigger boat”) was actually an ad-lib by Roy Scheider.

Pretty much everything done for the film is an improvement over the book.  We no longer have to worry about the ridiculous affair, we don’t have to have Hooper dying, we don’t have to wonder about the criminal business partners that are behind the mayor’s decision to keep the beaches open and most importantly, we don’t get that ridiculously let down of an ending (“Nothing happened. The fish was nearly touching him, only a foot or two away, but it had stopped. And then, as Brody watched, the steel-grey body began to recede downward into the gloom. It seemed to fall away, an apparition evanescing into darkness.”).  Wait, you think to yourself, that’s it?  The shark just suddenly, finally dies just before eating Brody?  Blowing it up was definitely the way to go.  That provides a real climax.

The Credits:

Directed by Steven Spielberg.  Screenplay by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb.  Based upon the Novel by Peter Benchley.
note:  Clearly there are uncredited writers including Howard Sackler, John Milius and Robert Shaw.

The Sunshine Boys

The Film:

“You mean to tell me you haven’t spoken to him eleven years?”  “I haven’t seen him in eleven years. I haven’t spoken to him in twelve years.”

That’s Willie Clark.  He’s talking about Al Lewis, who for over 40 years was his partner in comedy, a vaudeville act called, of course, Lewis & Clark and also known as The Sunshine Boys.  They broke up years ago because, well, it depends on which one you ask.  Or not.  Willie claims he was tired of being spit on and being poked in the chest, both of which we clearly see Al Lewis does to him when they reunite.  But Willie is also a massive pain in the ass and unreasonable in almost every scene he appears in, so it’s easy to see why Al would want out as well.  They are two old Jewish men who worked together for a long time and can’t stand each other.  They also can’t really deal without each other.  In a sense, they live for their arguments and without those they have both felt lost.

Willie is played by Walter Matthau in one of the best performances of his career.  He doesn’t just look older (with some solid makeup), he absolutely acts like the lost older man he is playing, the kind of man who would come into a garage, defying the notion that he has the wrong address and wonder if the potato chip commercial might be being filmed in the back.  He hits every line perfectly, even if the lines make us wince.  Or make his nephew wince.  That’s poor Ben, who is also an agent and sadly, he is Willie’s agent and that’s tough work because Willie can’t remember things, can’t hear things and is, as I said, a massive pain in the ass.  Ben is played by Richard Benjamin and this again might be a career best performance (and I wonder if I ranked him too law, putting him in 7th in my Best Supporting Actor list for the Nighthawk Awards).  He’s frustrated with his uncle, trying to keep his career alive, but there’s not much you can do with a man who can’t even remember the name of the potato chip he’s supposed to be doing a commercial for.

But Ben has lined up a reunion between the two old partners and that’s where things get really interesting.  That’s because Herbert Ross and Neil Simon decided to bring in George Burns, who hadn’t made a film in over 30 years to play Lewis.  Burns gives a perfectly understated performance, reacting exactly as he needs to, giving just the right amount of drollness to the lines and managing to win an Oscar years after everyone had forgotten he even existed (and over a decade after his longtime wife and partner Gracie Allen had died).  This gave a new life to his career and by the time I was growing up in the 80’s, Burns was looked on fondly as the old career comic who just wouldn’t die (he would die, in 1996, just a few weeks after he turned 100).

The film works so well (it’s ****), not just because of the magnificent chemistry between the three stars, not just because of the fantastic lines that Simon gives them, but also because of the way the film is constructed (more on that below). It continually makes you laugh and it’s a reminder of just how very good Neil Simon could be.

The Source:

The Sunshine Boys: A Comedy in Two Acts by Neil Simon (1972)

I have written numerous times about the trinity of American playwrights, those three who stand above the others: O’Neill, Miller and Williams.  But there might not be a more successful playwright in American history than Neil Simon.  He has won three Tonys, has won a Pulitzer, has been extremely successful at adapting his plays for film (earning multiple Oscar nominations and winning several WGA awards).  He has earned 17 Tony nominations, once had four plays running at the same time on Broadway and is the only playwright to have a New York theatre named after him while still alive.  And this might just be his best play.

It works so well for a variety of reasons.  The first, is that while these characters are severely flawed, Simon has nonetheless created them with loving care.  They are real people with real flaws and they interact with each other in hilarious, but realistic ways.  He has an understanding of the history of Comedy and how it would lead to such an act that would hate each other so much and yet need each other so much.

note:  I decided to leave the present tense in the paragraphs above.  I wrote this before Neil Simon died in August.

The Adaptation:

As I mentioned above, the construction of the film is a key reason why it is so good.  In that, I am not just talking about the play (almost all of which ends up in the film exactly as it is written) but the things that are added to the play.  Look at the way that the opening scene in the play (between Ben and Willy in Willy’s apartment) is expanded in the film.  We get the scenes we only heard about in the original scene (the commercial, Willie at the garage) but we also get the scene divided into multiple segments.  We get to see Ben’s frustration around the scene before we get any conclusion.  Simon continues to do this throughout the film (the screenplay is credited to him without any actual mention of his original play in the credits), as Simon adds new scenes around the originals that keep with the themes of the play, such as the small little scene where we find out that Lewis and Clark are stuck in their dressing room.  It’s a hilarious little scene that follows on Willie’s inability to work the lock on his apartment that wouldn’t have worked on stage (a small little scene in a different setting) but is easy to add in to the film and is edited perfectly as we jump from one cut to another.  The whole script is like that and once again, I wonder if I have ranked it too low in this year, though, to be fair, this is actually quite a strong year for adapted scripts.  This adaptation is just another reminder of what a funny and enjoyable film this is and how it shouldn’t be missed, perhaps the best of all the Neil Simon films.

The Credits:

Directed by Herbert Ross.  Screenplay by Neil Simon.

Hester Street

The Film:

It was hard enough in the 70’s being a woman director.  Joan Micklin Silver had been a screenwriter and had made several short films but she couldn’t get a job as a director.  Small wonder in those days when still not a single female director had ever been nominated for the Oscar.  So, when Silver couldn’t get a studio to back her film she and her husband raised the money themselves and created their own distribution company.  Would any studio have backed this film even if it hadn’t had a female director?  It’s made in black-and-white, is about Jewish immigrants around the turn of the century and it implicitly rejects the American concepts of assimilation and capitalism. It was, shall we say, not bankable.  But what it was, was quite good.

Yekl has been in America trying to earn some money to bring over his wife and child from Europe.  He’s enjoying his new home, peppering his Yiddish with English expressions (the film is in both Yiddish and English), going by the name Jake and having an affair with Mamie, a dancer in New York where he has settled.  So, when his wife finally does arrive he’s not certain how he feels.  Perhaps the best scene in the film is the one where he has to convince the immigration official that this really is his wife and child (the child doesn’t much look like him).  He wants to appear American but here is his old world wife who doesn’t speak English and the official gives him dubious looks when he insists this is his wife and child.  Finally he is able to provide his marriage license but since it’s entirely in Yiddish and the official can’t even figure which end is up (literally), they are finally passed through.  But the damage is done.  Jake doesn’t really know what kind of life he wants now.  His wife can’t even believe he’s shaved his beard while he can only see how much he reminds her of the lives they left behind.

The film isn’t great.  It’s hampered a bit by the budget though it does well with the costumes and the art direction.  The bigger problem is that most of the cast is only okay and they don’t really carry the weight of the story.  The story gets a bit melodramatic as Jake and his wife eventually divorce as he wants to be with Mamie but she wants to be with the more traditional man who lives in their building.  But when his wife ends up with much of Mamie’s money to make the whole thing work, he’s not certain what he wants to do.  In one sense, America has liberated him from his old life but it also doesn’t seem to have all the answers if things are going to be much more difficult than he imagined.

But what really makes this film work is Carol Kane as Geitl, Jake’s wife.  Kane had already appeared in The Last Detail but this gave the 23 year old a starring role and she made the most of it, giving one of the best performances (in an admittedly weak year) and earning an Oscar nomination.  Her growing independence comes as much from her performance as it does from the script and it shows the power that has made Kane such a talented performer across multiple acting platforms through the years right up through to today.

Silver no longer makes films, though she is still alive and in her eighties.  She would continue to thrive though for well over a decade in an industry that valued neither her nor her gender.  Eventually she would get a bit more of a box office breakthrough with the charming Crossing Delancey and she would continue to work in television well into this century.  Just imagine what she could have done if just given the chance.

The Source:

Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto by Abraham Cahan (1896)

There are a couple of different ways to read this novella (at 89 pages that seems the right description).  The first is simply to read it as the story of immigrants and how their lives change as part of the American experience.  Yekl comes to America and eventually becomes Jake and ends up dating Mamie even though he is in the process of bringing his wife and child over from Europe.  Eventually, after his wife arrives they end up divorcing so that he can be with Mamie and so that she can be with the more traditional man who also lives in their building.

But that ending can also be looked at in a different way.  Because of the circumstances of the divorce, Mamie ends up paying his wife, Geitl, a considerable amount of money and her financial situation is much more shaky and Jake isn’t certain he wants to be with her.  If this is a look at the immigrant experience, it is also a critical look at America and the way that people come and are assimilated.  In fact, Cahan was a socialist and this can also be looked at as an implicit criticism of capitalism.  Sticking to tradition doesn’t necessarily work but neither does embracing the capitalistic view of America.  You have to read the story with a critical eye to get this viewpoint but it does add another fascinating layer to what was already quite a good story.

The story is quite well respected and as a result is actually still quite easy to get hold of with a Dover printing still in print for almost 50 years.

The Adaptation:

Most of what we see on film comes from the original story though the story itself was quite light on dialogue so most of the dialogue in the film comes from Silver herself.  Most notable, at least for me, is that the fascinating scene with the immigration official wasn’t in the original story in any way and that’s all written by Silver.  That speaks well for her adaptation that she does a faithful adaptation of a good story and still manages to come up with the best scene in the film.

The Credits:

Directed by Joan Micklin Silver.  Screenplay by Joan Micklin Silver.  Based on “Yekl” by Abraham Cahan.

L’Histoire d’Adèle H.

The Film:

Isabelle Adjani wasn’t brand new to the screen; she had been playing some small roles in films for a few years and had done television and stage work.  But here, at the age of nineteen (she would turn 20 a couple of months before the film was released) she emerges as a full-blown star actress.  When I first saw this film, years ago, I had her in a very distant second to Louise Fletcher but when I went back to watch it again, going through all the Truffaut films for my Top 100 Directors project, I moved her considerably up, passing Fletcher.

It is a tricky thing asking a beautiful young actress to play someone who is being rejected.  They have to be able to convey precisely what it is about the person that is being rejected because there will always be some question in the background over why such a beautiful young woman is being rejected.  It’s also a tricky thing because you get into questions of mental instability.  How do you play someone with severe mental problems that only become gradually recognizable?  That’s what is at the heart of this film, not just in Adjani’s performance but in the way that Truffaut writes and directs the film as well.

Adèle Hugo was a real person.  She was the daughter of Victor Hugo.  Because writers have never really received the same kind of recognition here that they have in other countries, it’s hard to really grasp how important a figure Victor Hugo was in France during the mid 19th Century.  Adèle was the fifth and final child of the great writer, the only one to actually outlive him and was in her early 30’s when she left France (Hugo himself was living in exile) and travelled to Nova Scotia in pursuit of a soldier that she was obsessed with (it’s more credit to Adjani’s performance that she plays much older than her actual age – usually actresses are expected to play in the other direction).  The film downplays the connection to her father until the end, even going so far as to not use his last name in the title (partially at the request of his heirs), but here we have the daughter of the most famous person in her country, living in destitution and obsession on the opposite of the ocean.  Yet, we only gradually become aware of everything that has happened and the breakdown in her life and her sanity.

Adjani is one of those great French actresses who never made the transition to acting in English, so she is not as well known in America as some of her contemporaries like Isabelle Huppert or Juliette Binoche.  But she is among the very best and, in spite of a later Oscar nomination for Camille Claudel, this is quite probably her best performance and one not to be missed.

The Source:

Le Journal d’Adele Hugo (1863)

The date of 1863 is because that’s when the diaries were written, as Adèle Hugo was living these events.  They weren’t published until well into the 20th Century and unfortunately have never been translated into English.

The Adaptation:

Obviously since the journals have not been translated into English, I can’t compare what she actually wrote in the journals (and lived through) with what Truffaut put up on screen.

The Credits:

Mise en Scene: François Truffaut.  Scenario Original de François Truffaut, Jean Gruault, Suzanne Schiffman.  Avec la collaboration de Frances V. Guille Ayant Publie Le Journal d’Adele Hugo Aux Editions “Lettres Modernes” Paris.

The Day of the Locust

The Film:

I had heard of the film before 1998 when the novel landed on the Modern Library’s list but I had not yet seen it and I’m not certain I knew it was based on a novel.  I’m fairly certain I was able to read the book (I used to own a copy with it and Miss Lonelyhearts paired together) before I was able to see the film.  Either way, I had a similar reaction to both the book and the novel.  I thought both were quite good but not really on the level high enough to be included in my own lists.  The film itself sits at a 75, the highest level of *** but still too low to be included on my Best Picture list.

I think perhaps part of what keeps the film from reaching greatness is precisely what makes the original novel reach for it (see below).  This is a film of grotesques.  It is not really a character study in that none of the people in it, with the possible exception of Homer Simpson (yes, one of the main characters is named Homer Simpson and Matt Groening has at least, at times, claimed that the name came from either the novel or the film) are actual characters.  They are grotesque depictions of the kind of people that you would find in Hollywood back during the era when the Depression wasn’t yet over but there was still a lurid, outlandish society out West where you could ignore the misery in the rest of the country.  Just imagine if the Joads had headed straight west after crossing the border instead of turning north towards Central Valley where all the farms are.  Tom could have been one hell of a Hollywood leading man, looking like Henry Fonda like he did.

But this film isn’t about the stars, it’s about the hangers-on.  It’s about men like Tod, the art director who comes from Yale and lusts after Faye.  Faye is just an extra on a Napoleon film, the kind of empty-headed blonde that you could find on any block in Southern California and that seemed to populate my entire high school.  There is Harry, Faye’s father, who is a cast-off of the old vaudeville days (and, played by Burgess Meredith, gives the best performance in the film, which earned him his first Oscar nomination at the age of 68).  There is Abe, the grotesque dwarf whose misery could rise to any height.  There is Earle Shoop, the cowboy living up under the Hollywoodland sign in the hills.  And the worst is Adore Loomis, the horrifying child actor who wants to make it big and taunts anyone who doesn’t respond to him.  What is Homer, the poor miserable hotel clerk who has come out west for his health, supposed to do when presented with all of this grotesqueness?  Perhaps to respond precisely as he does which brings about the tragic conclusion of the film.

This film is fairly well-made with an interesting script, some good acting and magnificent sets and costumes (some of which show the times in Hollywood and others which show the desperation of those who were working there).  It can’t quite overcome though, a feeling of emptiness at its heart. Perhaps that’s only right. It is a story about Hollywood, after all.

The Source:

The Day of the Locust by Nathaniel West (1939)

In the previous year, I reviewed The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and I compared it to The Adventures of Augie March.  I didn’t need to read of any comparisons to make that one and indeed I didn’t find many other examples of that comparison online (though there definitely were some).  Now, I’m going to up the ante, which in some ways isn’t fair because The Day of the Locust is an even better book than Duddy Kravitz and in some ways is perfectly fair because it seems like Nathaniel West invited this comparison upon himself.  Again, this is something I have come up with on my own and there are a few examples online that shows that I’m not the first person to make this comparison.

“It is hard to laugh at the need for beauty and romance, no matter how tasteless, even horrible, the results of that are. But it is easy to sigh. Few things are sadder than the truly monstrous.”  That quote, from page 24, is the last paragraph of Chapter One.  If you aren’t seeing where I’m going with this, then you need to read Winesburg, Ohio, one of the great novels of all-time.  The entire prologue to that book deals with The Book of the Grotesque and the way that all people are grotesque.  I don’t know for certain that West read Winesburg but I suspect he was inspired by that because he seems to explicitly give us a book of the grotesque, made even more so by the outlandish world of Hollywood.

Is this the best book ever written about Hollywood?  I included it in my Top 200 novels of all-time and I didn’t include The Last Tycoon, What Makes Sammy Run or The Loved One, though I could include The Pat and Hobby Stories, the wonderful Hollywood stories that Fitzgerald continually wrote in the last couple of years of his life while also working on Tycoon.  It really gets to the heart and grotesqueness of Hollywood.

The Adaptation:

“The biggest problem of the script was the character of Tod.  In Waldo’s notes to John, he pointed out that Tod had been a literary device in the novel, ‘little more than a cipher, without motivation or dramatic thrust,’ a function that would be next to impossible to translate to the screen.  ‘The poetic vision and compassion expressed in Tod’s observations in the novel are lost in a literal translation of the Tod Hackett character,’ Salt wrote, ‘leaving only the fragmented, freaky and fascinating but peripheral characters and events of the book.’  It would be necessary, Salt believed, to turn Tod from ‘an observer to a participant – or further even – not only to make Tod a participant in the various schemes and dramatic action but to make the incidents and characters participants in Tod’s story.’  Salt’s final script made attempts in that direction, but while Tod was placed centrally in the narrative the character still felt peripheral.” (edge of midnight: The Life of John Schlesinger by William J. Mann, p 401)

That’s a pretty good description of how the book comes to life on the screen.  It’s a good adaptation but it’s true that Tod isn’t much of a character in the original book.  The film does give him more of a personality, especially because it’s needed to counteract the (deliberate) total lack of personality in Homer.  But almost everything else we see on the screen was exactly how it was described in the book.  The differences are in tone and in the way that Tod is portrayed and made more of a character.

The Credits:

directed by John Schlesinger.  based on the novel by Nathaniel West. screenplay by Waldo Salt.

Oscar Nominees

Profumo di donna

The Film:

This film is a bit mediocre.  I give it a 62, which is the highest ranking of **.5.  That isn’t a great recommendation for this film, especially given that it was Oscar nominated for its script, but when you consider how much I loathe the remake of it (it’s the very lowest of **), well, then, it could be a lot worse.

The strength of this film lies in the performance of Vittorio Gassman.  He gives some depth to a character that is otherwise really difficult to bear – the blind Italian soldier who is determined to kill himself by the end of the film.  There is a poignancy to the fact that he doesn’t want to see his long-lost love because he can’t bear to have her see him in this condition.

The problem with the film lies partially in the character of Giovanni, the young aide who has been assigned to the blind soldier, and partially in the performance by Alessandro Momo in the role.  I feel bad criticizing his performance because he was only 17 and he died almost immediately after filming was completed in a motorcycle accident.  It’s not entirely his fault that he’s put in the role of being the narrator of a film that really needs to be narrated more by the soldier himself.  But, like in the original book, they seem to feel the need to have a guide for both the soldier and the audience.  Yet, Momo’s performance is also a problem and I just wanted to reach through at times and strangle him.

I can not honestly recommend this film.  I saw it the first time because it was Oscar nominated and I was glad that it was so much better than the remake it inspired.  But I had to go back to it again for this project and I’m just too worn down by this story to care much.  So, in the end, it’s got a good performance, but it’s still a mediocre film.

The Source:

Il buio e il miele by Giovanni Arpino (1969, tr. 2011)

First of all, this novel is not called Scent of a Woman, in spite of the current Penguin Modern Classics edition pictured to the right (which also states that the Italian film was made in 1979 and directed by “Diho Rissi”).  The original Italian title translates into “The Dark and Honey”.  It is a dark little novel, powered forward by the embittered loneliness of its main character, an army vet who was blinded in a training exercise.  With an assistant provided for him, he embarks on a weekend trip that he intends to cap off with a suicide, but things start to get in the way.  Though we get a feeling for the loneliness that engulfs Fausto (the main character), it is diluted somewhat by the first-person narration by the young assistant and by the ending, in which the suicide doesn’t come off and there is actually a chance for something more in his lonely life.

The Adaptation:

The ending of the film is considerably lighter than in the book – he has much more than a chance for something more in life.  But the key difference is the old lover.  That character didn’t exist at all in the book and was added simply for the film.

The Credits:

Regia di Dino Rissi.  Sceneggiatora di Ruggerio Maccari, Dino Risi.  dai roman “Il buio e il miele” di Giovanni Arpino.

WGA Nominees

French Connection II

The Film:

Ah, sequels.  When people talk about how the 70’s was the last great era for moviemaking and how Jaws and Star Wars ruined it, they often leave out a few things.  Let’s look at sequels.  Of the 50 films nominated for Best Picture in the 60’s, only four of them would get sequels, three of them much, much later (a decade or more) and only one Best Picture winner would get one (the only one, as it turned out, that arrived before too long).  Now let’s look at the 70’s.  I count at least 14 of the 50 nominees from the 70’s that received sequels including six Best Picture winners and the first five winners of the decade.  What’s more, many of those sequels arrived long before The Empire Strikes Back.  French Connection II is one of the better sequels to a Best Picture nominee or winner but it does bring up some of the problems that would plague later films.  For instance, other than financial considerations, what was the point?

The easy comparison, of course, is The Godfather Part II.  Much of the blame could be laid on that film because it was the first of those picture winners to spawn a sequel and it was an unqualified success (and is widely regarded as the greatest sequel ever made).  So it was easy for people to look at that and see that you could get a good return on the investment.  Thus, we get French Connection II, a film that is fairly good but made less than a quarter what the first one made and is not a film that anyone thinks is nearly as good as the first one.  The first one had a brilliant ending in good part because it was an ambiguous ending (although you are told that the mastermind wasn’t caught).  What’s more, it was based on a true story (though with some considerable changes).  The second Godfather was continuing the story of a character, Michael Corleone, who had earned a film to continue to his story.  But The French Connection wasn’t the story of Popeye Doyle, it was just the story of a bust that he did.  We didn’t need to see what came next.

So, with all of that out of the way, knowing that this film didn’t need to be made, what can be said about the film itself?  Well, it’s actually quite a good film, surprisingly.  It had several strikes against it, obviously, including the lack of the original director and one of the stars and the completely unnecessary aspect to it.  But it does give us an entertaining, thrilling film that is anchored by another really good Gene Hackman performance.  It might not be at the same level of his Oscar winning performance in the first film but Hackman has always been one of the consummate pros of the film industry and he seems incapable of giving a bad performance.

Hackman is again playing Popeye Doyle, this time as a fish out of water.  He’s in Marseillaise, working with the French police, straining against his constraints (he has no legal authority, he’s not allowed to carry a gun) in the hopes of catching the mastermind behind the heroin trade that he was chasing in the first film.  But he manages to get spotted and captured and we get an agonizing middle section (for him and to watch, not a comment on the quality of the film or its speed) in which the criminals get him addicted to heroin in an effort to get him to talk.  Eventually he is freed and we get a really thrilling conclusion that involves a shootout, a chase and a spillway with water rushing in to kill everyone.  It’s a reminder that while John Frankenheimer may have never hit the highs of William Friedkin, he was a professional who made a lot of really thrilling films like The Manchurian Candidate, The Train and Ronin, a list where French Connection II fits right in. It’s thrilling and it’s got a solid performance from Hackman.  If it’s not great, it’s at least really good for what it does.

The Source:

characters from The French Connection, written by Ernest Tidyman  (1971)

There really isn’t a source.  The WGA nominated it, as I mentioned above, as an original screenplay.  But the character of Popeye Doyle and Charnier (the drug mastermind) as they exist on film really were creations of Tidyman and much different than the real people as written about in the original book.

The Adaptation:

This film doesn’t change either character very much from how they were depicted in the original film.  The story itself, of course, is completely original.  While the first film had at least been based in fact, this one is not.

The Credits:

Directed by John Frankenheimer.  Screenplay by Alexander Jacobs and Robert Dillon & Laurie Dillon.  Story by Robert Dillon & Laurie Dillon.

The Man in the Glass Booth

The Film:

Arthur Goldman is starting to achieve Howard Hughes status.  He’s not that rich, of course, though he has a box in his Manhattan penthouse with over two million dollars in cash inside.  It’s the paranoia that I’m talking about, the sense that everything is conspiring against him.  With Hughes, it was a sign of mental illness that consumed him.  For Goldman, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, it’s the idea that he is being followed, that men are coming after him to take him away.  Except, while Hughes’s paranoia was a construction of the illness in his mind, Goldman, who at times seems even crazier than Hughes, turns out to be right.  Men are coming to get him and it turns out they are Israeli agents who are going to drag him back to Israel to stand trial as Dorff, the horrific camp commandant that Goldman rails against and whom the Israelis claim is the real identity of Goldman.

This story was supposedly inspired by the hunt to catch Eichmann and to bring him to justice (ironically, a film of which has just been released) but while that was a real situation, what Robert Shaw did with this in his play that was a hit on Broadway was much more a question of symbolism than history.  Symbolism, which often works on stage much better than it does on film, is still the heart of this film because once Goldman arrives in Israel and is placed in the glass booth of the title (to prevent him from being assassinated), the real question of who he is becomes only the background to who any of us are and what we bear responsibility for.

The American Film Theatre program was begun to take great plays and put them on film and make them available (though, only to subscribers, which was an odd thought, because they also allowed reviewers and Academy members to see them which meant that Maximilian Schell earned an Oscar nomination for this film that very few people saw).  This was an odd choice, given that the first year of the program had included such playwrights as O’Neill, Chekhov, Pinter and Ionesco.  Robert Shaw and his play were hardly in that category.  But then we just get to the play itself which actually isn’t all that strong.  It uses too much symbolism and really just ends up relying on the lead performance.  I wish I could have seen Donald Pleasance’s performance on stage that earned a Tony nomination.  Schell gives a strong performance but also seems like a pale echo of the prosecutor he played in the film that made him an international star: Judgment at Nuremberg.  The idea in this play is that we have to question who we hold accountable for the Holocaust, if anyone.  Again, a strange idea to come out of the Eichmann trial given his obvious culpability.

This film, like the play, wants to do too much and there just isn’t enough to sustain it.  What’s worse, for a long time it was unavailable (because of the way the AFT had designed their program) and so the hype around it was kind of built up because Schell did earn that surprise Oscar nomination.  If you’re an Oscar completists, you absolutely have to see it, of course, but I can’t really recommend it as anything more than a curiosity.

The Source:

The Man in the Glass Booth: a play by Robert Shaw  (1968)

“Robert Shaw is as well-known as an actor as he is as an author.”  That’s what it says on the dust jacket of the play.  Given that he was coming off an Oscar nomination a Best Picture winning film (A Man for All Seasons), that’s kind of an understatement.  This play was a success on Broadway, earning several Tony nominations but it’s a strange play that tries to get at the heart of who is responsible for the Holocaust, of all the people are responsible just for being there, I guess.  I never really figured out precisely what it was trying to say and didn’t think it was all that effective in how it was saying it.

The novel is actually less effective than the play.  It is strange for the title to be used in the novel because it is such a visual image in both the play and the film that you wonder why Shaw even bothered, especially since the novel and the play were released in the same year.  If Goldman seems like a crank through the first half of the play, it’s even worse reading it in the novel.

The Adaptation:

There were considerable changes as noted in this piece from the AFI entry on the film:

A 12 Feb 1975 Var news item revealed that playwright Robert Shaw, author of The Man in the Glass Booth , requested that his name be removed from the film adaptation because “he was unhappy with Edward Anhalt’s script.” AFT insisted that the changes to the play were minor. According to a 22 Jun 1975 LAT article, AFT offered Shaw the opportunity to adapt his play, which opened on Broadway in 1968, starring Donald Pleasance, directed by Harold Pinter. In an interview quoted in the LAT article, Shaw stated, “I had written the novel, I had written the play, I had had enough.” Anhalt explained that he “found it necessary to adjust the thematic emphasis” to have “Arthur Goldman” take on the guilt of both Jews and Germans, then forgive them their guilt. Shaw responded, saying, “There are whole new speeches now that run totally counter to what I originally wrote. I would stop it if I could,” and asked for his name to be removed from the film’s credits. The LAT article observed that with the changes made to Shaw’s play, AFT had shown itself “less interested in preserving performances and productions than in recasting well-known plays into self-sufficient films.”

It is definitely true that there were a lot of changes made.  Much of the early dialogue in the play especially any scene that doesn’t involve Charlie before the Israelis come to arrest Goldman is different from the original play (there are almost no other characters on stage during the first act other than Charlie and Goldman until the Israelis arrive).  The ending is very different, not only in the speech that is given but that in the play it is attested by witnesses that Goldman really isn’t Dorff after which he declares that he is still guilty.  The play ends with Goldman, having stripped himself naked, standing in the glass booth, staring at the judge.  The ending of the film is very different, we’ll just go with that.

The play was based on Shaw’s novel of the same title even though the actual first edition of the play printed by Grove Press states that the play was adapted from Shaw’s novel The Flag (which apparently preceded this novel in a loose trilogy).

The Credits:

Director: Arthur Hiller.  Screenplay: Edward Anhalt.
note:  Even though this is an American Film Theatre production, which were all film versions of plays, there is no mention of the source in the opening credits.  This is because of Shaw’s objection (see above).

The Prisoner of Second Avenue

The Film:

If The Sunshine Boys is an example of Neil Simon at his best, this is him at his most annoying.  Or at least creating his most annoying character.  The Odd Couple worked so well not because Felix Unger is so ridiculous (though he is) but because of the way his annoying anal personality played off against Oscar Madison.  But this time Simon has given another Unger like character, complete with a performance from Jack Lemmon that reminds you of the most aggravating of Felix’s characteristics, and gives him nothing to play off against.

Lemmon plays Mel Edison, who has just lost his job and is about to lose his mind given the noisy flight attendants living next door and the garbage strike that brings a stench all the way up to his 14th floor apartment.  He’s got a wife, played well by Anne Bancroft, and you wonder why she puts up with Mel who can’t stop complaining about noises she can’t hear, stenches she can’t smell and anything else he can put voice to.

Having someone who is a mess and can’t stop complaining about everything is certainly nothing new for Simon.  But here he just can’t seem to find enough of a story to hang around it.  Because he has just lost his job, we’re supposed to feel some measure of sympathy for him but the constant complaints without a good foil just start to wear thin and I found myself just wishing the damn movie was over so I could be done listening to him.  Of course it has to end on a ridiculous punchline to sum up all the things that have been going wrong for him but even that didn’t work for me.

The Source:

The Prisoner of Second Avenue: A New Comedy by Neil Simon (1971)

This was, of course, yet another hit for Simon, like everything else.  It ran for 798 performances and did well at the Tonys, earning a nomination for Best Play.  Is it perhaps because Peter Falk doesn’t seem like such a whiner, that it worked better?  Maybe I just like Jack Lemmon too much and didn’t want to listen to him reduced to such a role?  Perhaps the staging from Mike Nichols, one of the great all-time stage directors, did something more for the play than what Melvin Frank was able to do with the film?

The Adaptation:

As is so often the case, Simon adapted his own play.  And like with so many of his plays, he takes the single location setting and expands it to many different places (a taxi, Mel’s work, the big suburban house of Mel’s brother) while also adding in extra scenes.  Almost everything that was in the original play is also in the film while a number of scenes have been added.  Which makes me wonder, since the film only runs 98 minutes, how long did the original play run each night?  It’s only 87 pages, so I imagine it wasn’t that long.

The Credits:

Produced and Directed by Melvin Frank.  Screenplay by Neil Simon.

note:  The only mention of the source is in the opening: A Melvin Frank production of a Neil Simon play.

The Return of the Pink Panther

The Film:

Because the WGA has always had more lenient rules on whether a film is original or adapted, this film was actually nominated by the WGA for Best Original Comedy (while the sequel the next year was the winner in the Adapted category, so go figure).  That means the voting members of the WGA thought this was a better written film than Love and Death and The Great Waldo Pepper which is just insane.

Let’s be clear about this: there are some aspects of the Pink Panther films that I heartily enjoy which is why I have seen all of the Sellers Clouseau films multiple times.  In college, my roommate Jamie and I would enjoy watching these films just for the moments of Cato leaping out from some ridiculous place to attack Clouseau and watching the utter mayhem that would unfold.  I had this film at a 61 (high **.5) before watching it again with Veronica for this review and it’s clear I had it considerably too high.  It’s a low **.5 film at best.  We watched it just a couple of nights after watching Sellers in The Mouse That Roared, a film where the Americans are all really badly acted and the plot just gets preposterously silly and that was a much better film.

The thing about these films, especially the three made in the mid 70’s is that they have a few things can be counted upon in every film and those are the things that make the film enjoyable.  First, there will be the opening credits sequence with that utterly fantastic Mancini score complete with animated versions of the Pink Panther himself taking us through the credits.  In this era, they would rival the Bond films for the most enjoyable credits sequences.  The other thing, of course is Cato’s propensity for attacking his master at any moment, whether it be leaping out from a freezer or handing him a fortune cookie dressed as a Japanese waitress that says “Beware of the Japanese waitress.”  The amount of destruction from those battles always makes the scenes worth watching.

The problem, especially with this film, is the rest of the film.  There are too many scenes that take far too long to unfold and keep going with simple gags that aren’t particularly funny.  But that’s emblematic of all of these films.  This film in particular basically has two almost completely separate plots going at the same time.  There is the Clouseau plot, where he is following Lady Lytton, trying to see if she knows anything about the theft of the famous Pink Panther diamond.  The other involves Lord Lytton trying to track down the actual thief (who, you could figure out very early on, is actually Lady Lytton).  The two plots are connected at the core but run basically side by side without intersecting through most of the film. As Veronica pointed out, “I want more of the Christopher Plummer scenes”.  When the humor is all in the Sellers scenes and you want less of it, that’s a really bad sign.

There just isn’t enough of a film here to hang all the trappings on.  Or maybe there would have been if the film had been considerably shorter.  One thing about The Mouse That Roared was that it ran less than 90 minutes.  This film runs an agonizing 114 minutes and by the time we finally get to that last attack by Cato everything has dragged on for so long that we’re lucky if we’re not asleep.

I should point out, I suppose, that this film was a huge box office hit, grossing what would be the equivalent today of $200 million, reviving the careers of both Edwards and Sellers and leading to two more films in the following three years, both of which were also considerably successful.  But then again, box office has never been a measure of the quality of a film.

The Source:

characters created by Blake Edwards (1963)

There is no real source, of course.  It’s just that, by Academy rules (and current WGA rules), because Inspector Clouseau is a pre-existing character, this entire screenplay would be considered adapted even though there is nothing other than the characters of Clouseau, Lytton, Cato and Dreyfuss that existed before.

The Adaptation:

So, there’s not really much to adapt.  Lytton is changed slightly in that he is now played by Christopher Plummer instead of David Niven, is now married (at the end of the first film he had run off with Clouseau’s wife).  Dreyfuss still hates Clouseau, who is still incompetent (although his ridiculous French accent is even more ridiculous now) and Cato is attacking him as usual.

The Credits:

Produced and Directed by Blake Edwards.  Screenplay by Frank Waldman and Blake Edwards.

Other Screenplays on My List Outside My Top 10
(in descending order of how I rank the script)

• none  –

Other Adaptations

(in descending order of how good the film is)

• And Now for Something Completely Different  –  This compilation of sketches from Monty Python was released originally in 1971 in the U.K., in the states in 1972 and again in 1974 but apparently, according to the Academy, didn’t have an L.A. run until 1975.  A 75 (highest ***), because the sketches are brilliant, but it’s hardly an actual film.
• Sandakan no. 8  –  The 1974 Japanese submission for Best Foreign Film (and nominated), this was based on a story by Tomoko Yamazaki.
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show  –  Based on the long running stage musical, this, of course, became the ultimate midnight movie.  Along with Holy Grail, one of two films on this list that I’ve actually seen in the theater.  Good fun, some good songs and one really great song (“The Time Warp”).
• Special Section  –  A Costa-Gavras film about Vichy France based on the book by Hervé Villeré.  It was also a Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Film.
• Bugs Bunny Superstar  –  Technically a Documentary, but also a clip show movie (just like And Now) which is what makes it adapted.  Narrated by Orson Welles.
• Crime and Punishment  –  Solid 1970 Soviet film version of the great novel.  Fully reviewed here.
• Just Before Nightfall  –  A 1971 Claude Chabrol Thriller based on the novel The Thin Line.
• Lancelot du Lac  –  Robert Bresson does his take on the Arthurian legend.  Given my love of Arthurian legend, I always want this to be great but, in spite of its reputation, it isn’t.
• The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum  –  West German film based on the novel by Henrich Böll.  Solid Drama from an often over-rated director (Volker Schlöndorff).
• The Four Musketeers  –  It’s actually the second half of The Three Musketeers, split into two films.  Because everyone was signed for one film, this sparked the “Salkind clause” which stipulates that a contract must say how many films are being made.  Fun but far from great.
• The Magic Flute  –  Ingmar Bergman basically films his stage version of Mozart’s opera and filmed it for television no less, but it was released to theaters and earned an Oscar nomination, so it’s eligible on my list.
• Farewell, My Lovely  –  Robert Mitchum in his first go around as Marlowe is a solid film with an Oscar nominated performance from Sylvia Miles.
• Battles Without Honor or Humanity: Final Episode  –  The fifth and obviously final film in the film series.  Solid conclusion to a strong Japanese Crime film series.
• Stardust  –  A sequel to the 1973 film That’ll Be the Day.
• Betty Boop Scandals  –  This is an odd one, since you can tell by the link there’s no page for it on the IMDb.  Yet, it exists, the third compilation film on this list (made up of old Betty Boop cartoons from the 20’s and 30’s) and the Academy listed it when they had the old oscars.org database.  Damn, I wish they would put that back up.  It was so amazingly valuable.
• Nazareno Cruz and the Wolf  –  The Argentine submission for Best Foreign Film, a werewolf story based on the myth from Guarani mythology.
• The Eiger Sanction  –  A Clint Eastwood film (star and director) about an assassin dragged back for one more job.  Adapted from the novel by Trevanian.
• La Rupture  –  Another Chabrol Thriller, this one from 1970 and based on the novel The Balloon Man.
• The Nada Gang  –  More Chabrol, this one is from 1974 and is based on the novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette.
• The Castle of Sand  –  A Japanese police procedural based on the novel Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto.
• Dr. Syn  –  This is a 1964 compilation of episodes of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color about the character who is the subject of a series of novels by Russell Thorndike.  The film was released in Europe in 1964 and eventually released, re-edited in the States in 1975.  It’s just okay as we’re down to low *** films now.
• Dick Deadeye  –  A British animated version of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, directed by Bill Melendez, better known for directing the various Peanuts films.
• Gulliver’s Travels Beyond the Moon  –  A 1965 Japanese animated film that puts Gulliver in outer space and was released in the States in 1975.
• Give ’em Hell, Harry!  –  If I’m going to count this, I should be able to count the National Theatre Live production of Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch.  But I don’t because it wasn’t Oscar eligible and this really shouldn’t have been but it was an odd year for the Academy, nominating numerous things that really shouldn’t have been eligible.  This is actually a literally filmed one-man play with James Whitmore as Harry Truman.  Does that mean it’s not adapted because the play itself was original?  Not all that good and Michael Caine, Warren Beatty, Gene Hackman (twice), Robert Redford and Sean Connery all were more deserving.
• Escape to Witch Mountain  –  Sci-Fi Kids film from Disney based on the 1968 novel by Alexander H. Key.  Example #1 (the Erik example) of why you shouldn’t re-watch films you remember fondly from childhood.  Did not hold up well and barely holds on the bottom of a *** rating.  My whole family were big fans when we were kids, though.
• One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing  –  Another Disney Kids film, this one based on The Great Dinosaur Robbery.
• Moses and Aaron  –  Filmed version of the opera by Arnold Schoenberg.
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream  –  Now we’ve hit **.5.  Given the cast (Ian Holm as Puck, Judi Dench as Titania, Helen Mirren as Hermia, Diana Rigg as Helena) of this 1968 adaptation of my favorite Shakespeare play, I desperately want to like it, but Peter Hall just mucks it up.
• Return of the Street Fighter  –  Sonny Chiba in the sequel to Street Fighter, so the fights are worth watching.
• Valerie and Her Week of Wonders  –  A 1970 Czech surrealist Horror film based on the novel by Vítězslav Nezval.
• Donkey Skin  –  A 1970 French Musical from Jacques Demy.  Based on the Perrault fairy tale.
• Galileo  –  Another AFT film, this one of the classic Brecht play with Topol in the lead.  Too bad it never really comes to life.
• Funny Lady  –  The sequel to Funny Girl.  Funny Girl wasn’t that great and was kind of too long.  Definitely didn’t need another 136 minutes of it, especially since Streisand’s performance isn’t nearly on the same level with Herbert Ross directing instead of William Wyler.
• Conduct Unbecoming  –  Former Oscar nominee Michael Anderson directs an adaptation of the play by Barry England about British soldiers in 19th Century India.
• Hedda  –  Trevor Nunn is a great theatre director but has not been very successful on film.  A lackluster film version of the magnificent Ibsen play has a strong performance from Glenda Jackson but nothing else to really recommend it.
• L’Emmerdeur  –  Directed by French director (and future Oscar nominee) Edouard Molinaro, this Crime Comedy is based on the play Le contrat by Francis Veber.
• The Drowning Pool  –  Paul Newman returns as Harper in this sequel (based on the novel by Ross Macdonald) and even adding Joanne Woodward doesn’t keep it from being a dud that gets too wrapped up in its plot.  We’re into low **.5.
• The Other Side of the Mountain  –  The true story of a ski racing champion who was paralyzed in an accident.  Based on the book A Long Way Up and has a rather terrible Oscar nominated song.
• Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold  –  Cleopatra Jones returns in this sequel.
• The Land That Time Forgot  –  An adventure film based on the Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp novel.
• Friday Foster  –  More Blaxploitation, this one at least has Pam Grier.  Based on the comic strip.
• Journey Back to Oz  –  An animated sequel, sort of based on the second Oz book (The Marvelous Land of Oz) but it’s not very good.
• Tommy  –  The original album is great.  The film soundtrack is okay, with all-star musical performers in for various songs (the best being Elton John doing “Pinball Wizard”).  The film itself is kind of a mess, a high ** with a decent performance from Ann-Margret.
• Rooster Cogburn  –  Terrible sequel to True Grit with one of John Wayne’s last performances.
• Aladdin and His Magic Lamp  –  A French animated version of the classic Arabian Nights tale but it’s a total dud (mid **).
• Happy Birthday, Wanda June  –  The original play is one of the weakest things Kurt Vonnegut ever published (until they started mining all his unpublished work after his death) and the film, originally released in 1971, was such a dud that it didn’t play L.A. until 1975 apparently.
• The Hindenburg  –  Ridiculous plot based on a book by Michael M. Mooney about sabotage aboard the famous zeppelin.  One of the first films I ever got from Netflix as it was released on DVD around the time I joined in early 2006 and I needed to see it because it won two Oscars (both special – Visual Effects, Sound Effects Editing).
• Mr. Quilp  –  A terrible Musical version of Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop.  It focuses’ on the dwarf Quilp, who I described here as a character “who might just be Dickens’ best villain (yes, even better than Madame DeFarge)”.  But, played by Anthony Newley, he’s just boring.
• The Reincarnation of Peter Proud  –  Based on the novel by Max Erlich, this isn’t quite really bad J. Lee Thompson but we’re starting to get there.
• Breakout  –  And here’s the star of those terrible Thompson films: Charles Bronson in a terrible Action Comedy.  Based on the book by Eliot Asinof who wrote one of the seminal books about baseball: Eight Men Out.
• The Apple Dumpling Gang  –  Example #2 of why you don’t re-watch the movies from childhood, the Veronica example.  She used to watch this film (and others like it) with her grandmother so we recently got it to watch with Thomas and good lord is it dumb, even for a silly Disney Kids film.  Based on the novel by Jack Bickham and both the novel and film might have been inspired by the much better The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin.
• A Boy and His Dog  –  We’re into low ** with this Sci-Fi Comedy based on a novel by Harlan Ellison.
• The Happy Hooker  –  Based on the best-selling book by Xaviera Hollander, this might seem like it should be listed at the bottom but it’s actually really tame with a decent performance from Lynn Redgrave as Hollander in an otherwise terrible film.
• Rollerball  –  Originally a short story in Esquire, then this crappy film before being remade a couple of decades later into another crappy film.
• Man Friday  –  Dreadful (*.5) version of Robinson Crusoe that reverses the roles in part.  A waste of Peter O’Toole and Richard Roundtree.
• Once is Not Enough  –  I refuse to use the full title of Jacqueline Susann’s Once is Not Enough.  I had to see it because Brenda Vacarro was (in my view, wrongly) nominated for an Oscar and actually won the Globe for Supporting Actress.  High *.
• Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze  –  Michael Anderson again, this time doing a film version of the pulp hero Doc Savage.  Low *.
• Mandingo  –  A .5 film.  This film, based on the novel by Kyle Onstott, show that Doctor Dolittle wasn’t Richard Fleischer’s low point as a director.
• Caged Virgins  –  Known by a lot of different names, this French erotic Horror film is loosely based on Carmilla, the same novella that inspired Vampyr.
• Death Race 2000  –  Another shitty movie based on a short story (“The Racer” by Ib Melchior) that would later be remade into a shitty movie.

Adaptations of Notable Works I Haven’t Seen

• The Black Bird  –  A Comedy sequel to The Maltese Falcon with a low reputation.
• Ophelia  –  Claude Chabrol’s take on the Shakespeare character.

Adult Films That Are Also Adaptations

• Emmanuelle
• The Passions of Carol  –  Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
• The Story of O
• Venus in Furs

A Century of Film

Actress

Lead actresses, of course, have been a part of film since its history began and certainly since feature films began.  Indeed, Lilian Gish was the big star of D.W. Griffith, the first director who focused on American feature films.  She had already proven that while there was a definite market for sex appeal (dating all the way book to Theda Bara and continuing on through to any number of sex symbols such as Clara Bow, Louise Brooks, Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield and any number of others, with variable rates of acting return with their sexuality.  But Gish, quite distinct looking, was not particularly sexual and there was always a market for those who were not as traditionally beautiful but could act like Bette Davis or actresses who aged out of their explicit sexuality like Rosalind Russell, Katharine Hepburn, Anne Bancroft or Meryl Streep.

The Oscars began with Best Actress in its first year.  The New York Film Critics would start their own award in 1935 with the NBR catching up in 1945.  The Golden Globes began with Best Actress in their first year (1943) but it took the BAFTAs a few years before they added acting (though they added two categories).  Strangely enough, it would take all the way until 1994 before SAG finally giving out their own awards.

Today, it’s the premiere award, of course, among actresses.  It’s rare for a major notable actress to not win the award, though there are those who didn’t, dating all the way back to the Silent Era (Lilian Gish, Barbara Stanwyck, Rosalind Russell, Deborah Kerr).

I’ll close about this category with a word about Meryl Streep.  It’s true there are more awards now than there used to be.  But, it doesn’t matter.  Her consistency and ability (especially with accents) is for beyond anybody else, that’s it almost unreal.  If there are groups where she does not currently hold the record (through 2011), she will eventually.

note:  A note on the years.  Because I use the Academy calendar for all of my awards but often have people asking about the actual release year of a film, any film with two dates listed, the first is its original release date and the second is the year it was Oscar eligible and thus Nighthawk eligible.  Down below, I only use one date when referencing awards and that’s the year the film was eligible for that award, which might not be its original release year or its Oscar year, depending on the award in question.

note:  Critical Acclaim.  That’s a phrase I will use below several times.  So that I don’t have to keep repeating what it means, it’s based on the Consensus Awards that I do.  My feelings don’t play into those awards except by the percentages I assign.  60 points for a win, 30 for a nomination.  100% for the Oscars, SAG, BAFTA, NYFC, LAFC, 90% for the BSFC, CFC, NSFC, 80% for the BFCA, NBR, 70% for the Globes.  Then, I calculate percentage of the total points.  That’s because in 1943 (the first year of the Globes) there were 228 total points and in 2017 there were 1176 total points, so the percentage of the total points is the best way to account for historical changes in scores.  So, the performance with the highest percentage of the year’s total points has the most critical acclaim under the definition I am using (it’s Mary Steenburgen, 1980, Melvin and Howard).

My Top 5 Actress Performances in Film History:

1. Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice, 1982
2. Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
3. Gloria Swanson, Sunset Blvd., 1950
4. Bette Davis, All About Eve, 1950
5. Liv Ullmann, Cries and Whispers, 1972/73

The other 9 Point Performances (chronological by Nighthawk eligibility):

• Vivien Leigh, Gone with the Wind, 1939
• Ingrid Bergman, Gaslight, 1944
• Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment, 1960
• Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961
• Harriet Andersson, Through a Glass Darkly, 1961/62
• Elizabeth Taylor, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, 1966
• Faye Dunaway, Bonnie and Clyde, 1967
• Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter, 1968
• Ingrid Thulin, Cries and Whispers, 1972/73
• Faye Dunaway, Chinatown, 1974
• Diane Keaton, Annie Hall, 1977
• Mary Tyler Moore, Ordinary People, 1980
• Diane Keaton, Reds, 1981
• Shirley MacLaine, Terms of Endearment, 1983
• Holly Hunter, Broadcast News, 1987
• Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs, 1991
• Emma Thompson, Howards End, 1992
• Emma Thompson, The Remains of the Day, 1993
• Holly Hunter, The Piano, 1993
• Emma Thompson, Sense and Sensibility, 1995
• Frances McDormand, Fargo, 1996
• Annette Bening, American Beauty, 1999
• Sissy Spacek, In the Bedroom, 2001
• Nicole Kidman, The Hours, 2002
• Helen Mirren, The Queen, 2006

note:  I rate all aspects of film on a 9 point scale.  They also correspond to the 100 point scale for Best Picture.  Films above *** (76-99) all land on the scale.  1 point is for 76-79, just worth mentioning.  2 points is for 80-83, a weak mention, 3 points is for 84-87, near great, 4 points is for 88-89 (which is ****), a solid nominee, 5 points is for 90-91, a very solid nominee, 6 points is for 92-93, a weak winner, a 7 points is for 94-95, a worthwhile winner, 8 points is 96-97, the kind of winner you can’t complain about even if it’s not your #1 choice and 9 points is for 98-99, the very best of all-time.  The above list are my 9 point films for Actress through 2011, listed chronologically.

Best Performances All-Time by Decade:

• 1920’s:  Janet Gaynor, Sunrise, 1927/1928
• 1930’s:  Vivien Leigh, Gone with the Wind, 1939
• 1940’s:  Ingrid Bergman, Gaslight, 1944
• 1950’s:  Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
• 1960’s:  Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter, 1968
• 1970’s:  Liv Ullmann, Cries and Whispers, 1972/1973
• 1980’s:  Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice, 1982
• 1990’s:  Annette Bening, American Beauty, 1999
• 2000’s:  Helen Mirren, The Queen, 2006
• 2010’s:  Natalie Portman, Black Swan, 2010

Best Performance All-Time by Age:

note:  Age is based on subtracting the year they were born from the year the film was originally released.  I’m not going to try to figure out when the birthday is or when the film was made.

• pre-teen:  Keisha Castle-Hughes, Whale Rider, 2002/2003, 12
• teenager:  Isabelle Adjani, The Story of Adele H., 1975, 19
• 20’s:  Vivien Leigh, Gone with the Wind, 1939, 26
• 30’s:  Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice, 1982, 33
• 40’s:  Bette Davis, All About Eve, 1950, 42
• 50’s:  Gloria Swanson, Sunset Blvd., 1950, 53
• 60’s:  Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter, 1968, 61
• 70’s:  Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal, 2006, 72
• 80’s:  Jessica Tandy, Driving Miss Daisy, 1989, 80
• 90’s:  Lillian Gish, The Whales of August, 1987, 94

Best Performance All-Time by Genre:

• Action:  Michelle Yeoh, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, 2000
• Adventure:  Katharine Hepburn, The African Queen, 1951
• Comedy:  Diane Keaton, Annie Hall, 1977
• Crime:  Frances McDormand, Fargo, 1996
• Drama:  Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice, 1982
• Fantasy:  Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004
• Horror:  Natalie Portman, Black Swan, 2010
• Kids:  Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins, 1964
• Musical:  Judy Garland, A Star is Born, 1954
• Mystery:  Faye Dunaway, Chinatown, 1974
• Sci-Fi:  Sigourney Weaver, Aliens, 1986
• Suspense:  Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs, 1991
• War:  Tatyana Samojlova, The Cranes are Flying, 1957/1960
• Western:  Julie Christie, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, 1971

The Actresses

Janet Gaynor

The (rightful) winner of the first Oscar for Best Actress and the best actress at all during the first decade of the sound era.  She would only earn one more Oscar nomination but at the Nighthawks she would be in first place in points from 1930 through 1941 and is still in the Top 10.
Key Films:  Sunrise, A Star is Born, 7th Heaven

Bette Davis

For a long time, the leader in oscar nominations and points (she lead in points from 1941 to 1967).  Quite probably the best actress of the 1930’s.  She was nominated an astounding five years in a row at the Oscar (1938-42).  In my mind, none of her five best performances are among the two that won her Oscars.  She earned her 7th Oscar nomination in 1944 (seven in a decade!) at a time when no one else had more than six; by the time anyone else got to six, she was up to nine.  She’s also #1 at the Nighthawks from 1941 to 1967.
Key Films:  All About Eve, The Little Foxes, The Letter

Katharine Hepburn

For over 40 years, the all-time leader in Oscar noms (12) and still the all-time leader in Oscars (4).  A great actress who could easily jump between Drama and Comedy.  Unlike Davis, one of her four Oscars was among her greatest work but most of her best work went nominated but unrewarded.  She’s #1 at the Nighthawks from 1967 to
Key Films:  The Lion in Winter, The Philadelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby

Ingrid Bergman

Earned three Oscar noms in a row from 43-45 and won the one in the middle.  Picked up a second Oscar over a decade later after being forced from Hollywood.  Earned six lead nominations in all and is the first on this list who was also a great supporting actress, winning an Oscar there as well.
Key Films:  Gaslight, Autumn Sonata, Anastasia

Deborah Kerr

The great unrewarded actress, at least at the Oscars where she was nominated six times in just 12 years but never won.  She did win three NYFC awards and won a Golden Globe.  A bizarre career in that she did great work in the 40’s, came to Hollywood and was beautiful but not very good in two Best Picture nominees (King Solomon’s Mines, Quo Vadis) and then went to become the best actress of the 1950’s.  At the Nighthawks she earns eight nominations (and a win) in just 14 years.
Key Films:  I See a Dark Stranger, From Here to Eternity, The King and I

Liv Ullmann

The Oscars never fully appreciated her (just two nominations) but the critics did.  She won four awards each from the NFYC and NSFC and three from NBR.  I appreciate it her as well as she earns more points than any other actress in the 70’s.
Key Films:  Cries and Whispers, Scenes from a Marriage, Persona

Jane Fonda

Has any other actress with so few lead performances (especially after she stopped being a sex kitten and really became an actress) earned so many plaudits?  She was tied for the most Oscar points in the 70’s and is in the Top 5 all-time (not even including her one nomination in supporting).
Key Films:  Klute, They Shoot Horses Don’t They, Coming Home

Meryl Streep

Meryl, of course, is the queen of all actresses.  In 2011, she would finally catch Hepburn for #1 at the Oscars and that’s not even including her supporting points.  She has given, far and away, more good and great performances than any other actress in history.
Key Films:  Sophie’s Choice, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Silkwood

Emma Thompson

It’s astounding how much someone can dominate a decade.  She only won one Oscar (for acting) at the Oscars while earning three nominations but she wins three Nighthawks (just for acting) and earns three other nominations, all in the space of just eight years.
Key Films:  Howards End, Sense and Sensibility, The Remains of the Day

Cate Blanchett

My favorite actress of all-time, hands down.  She hasn’t risen that far yet at the Oscars because of her work in supporting (a win and two other nominations) and because they didn’t nominate her for Oscar and Lucinda or give her the award for Elizabeth like I do.  The best actress at work today.
Key Films:  Elizabeth, Oscar and Lucinda, Elizabeth: The Golden Age

The Academy Awards

Summary:

This category began in the initial Oscars with Janet Gaynor winning the award and earning nominations for two other films.  Most of the major stars of the time would win the award with Mary Pickford, Norma Shearer and Marie Dressler following suit in the next three years with only Garbo going unrewarded.  Norma Shearer would be the biggest star and by 1938, she had six nominations (and a win) while no one else had more than three (technically, Janet Gaynor had four, but three of this were in the first year).

But 1938 would also be a turning point.  Bette Davis would win her second Oscar and earn the first of five straight nominations.  The next year, Greer Garson would earn her first nomination and after a year off would also earn five straight noms, the last three of which she would compete against Ingrid Bergman.  In 1941, Joan Fontaine would win an Oscar over her sister, Olivia de Havilland.  In 1943 and 1945, Garson and Bergman would face off against Jennifer Jones.  In the 1940’s there would be eight different actresses who would earn at least three Oscar nominations.

The 1950’s would not have the same level of domination; the only actresses with four nominations in the decade (Katharine Hepburn, Deborah Kerr) would both fail to win.  And there was less direct competition; 1954 was the only year in the decade where Hepburn, Kerr and Bette Davis all failed to be nominated but 1956 was the only year where two of them competed against each other (Hepburn and Kerr and they both lost).  Liz Taylor did rise at the end of the decade, earning three straight noms from 57-59 and then winning in 1960.

In the 60’s, there were a lot more actresses who would rise for just a moment.  Over 1/3 of the nominated actresses in the decade (14 out of 37) earned just a single nomination in the sixties and three more earned multiple nominations in the decade but not before or since.  Indeed, aside from final nominations for Deborah Kerr (1960) and Bette Davis (1962), it was mostly new actresses until late in the decade when Liz Taylor won a second Oscar and Katharine Hepburn won her second and third (making Hepburn the only actress to date to lead multiple decades in Oscar points).

The 70’s would be lead by Jane Fonda and Glenda Jackson, both of whom would win two Oscars and earn two other nominations as well.  The 80’s would be all about Meryl Streep.  Her 245 points would tie for the most for any actress in any decade (Norma Shearer earned that much in the 30’s) and like Shearer it would only involve one win (out of six nominations).  The decade would also see one final Oscar for Hepburn as well as two actresses finally winning: Shirley MacLaine in her fifth nomination and Geraldine Page in her fourth (as a lead) while also seeing Marlee Matlin, the youngest winner (21) and Jessica Tandy the oldest (80).

Streep would continue in the 90’s (four more noms) and would tie with Emma Thompson (three noms, one win) for second while Susan Sarandon, earning four nominations (and a win) would finish on top.  It would also begin a trend of young, beautiful winners (Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Charlize Theron).  Streep continues to dominate in the 00’s, becoming just the second actress to earn 100+ points in three different decades (the first to do it in three straight decades) even though again, she only finishes in second (Kate Winslet wins the decade with 140 points).  Amazingly, with all the young winners, Judi Dench is the only other actress with three nominations.  In 2011, after over 40 years, Meryl catches up to Kate in total Oscar points for a lead with 560.

Multiple Nominations:

Like with all acting categories, a film can earn multiple nominations in this category.  Only one film, Terms of Endearment, has managed to win the Oscar and earn a second nomination.  Four other films (All About Eve, Suddenly Last Summer, Turning Point, Thelma & Louise) earned two nominations with the first one likely costing Bette Davis an Oscar.  Interestingly, those four films run the gambit from Picture winner to nominee to Director nominee that was snubbed for Picture to a film that only earned a Tech nom to go with the two actress noms.

Directors:

A number of directors have directed five Best Actress nominees all of them going either 0 for 5 or 1 for 5.  Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed two films nominated for Best Actress but four nominees (All About Eve, Suddenly Last Summer).  Then there is George Cukor who directed 2 winners (Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight, Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday) and a total of 9 nominees.  That doesn’t include Gone with the Wind, which Cukor directed part of.  What’s most remarkable perhaps is that those were nine different actresses.  The grand winner, William Wyler, also directed nine total nominees, though three of them were Bette Davis.  But Wyler directed a massive five Oscar winning performances in this category: Davis in Jezebel, Garson in Mrs. Miniver, de Havilland in The Heiress, Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday and Streisand in Funny Girl.

Sequels:

The Bells of St Mary’s was the first sequel to earn a nomination but Ingrid Bergman hadn’t been in the first film so it only kind of counts.  After that, it’s a 40 year jump to Aliens which is really the first film that belongs here.  The only other nominee is Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which is notable since Cate Blanchett was nominated both times.

Genres:

Drama dominates Actress even more than it did Supporting Actress.  Almost 70% of the nominees are from Dramas and over 70% of the winners (62 of 87).  The only other genre with more than 10% is Comedy (16.50% of the nominees and 12.64% of the winners).  In fact, throw in Musicals and the three non-genre categories combine for 91.5% of the nominees and 90.8% of the winners.  Action doesn’t have a nominee at all and War (For Whom the Bell Tolls), Fantasy (Eternal Sunshine) and Sci-Fi (Aliens) have one each while none of those have a winner, nor does Mystery, Adventure or Western.  The only Crime winner is Fargo and the only Kids winner is Mary Poppins while the only two Horror winners are Misery and Black Swan.

Best Picture:

Twelve films have won the Oscar for Best Picture and Actress starting with Sunrise in the first year.  However, there was a massive gap in the middle (no film won both between 1942 and 1975) and it hasn’t happened often recently either (two films since 1991).  Sixteen more Picture winners have earned Actress nominations including the two for All About Eve.  Even that had a big gap between The Sound of Music and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (a gap by the way in which every Picture winner in that stretch was at least nominated for Actor).  There have only been two stretches of more than two consecutive Picture winners with at least an Actress nom (1975-77, 1996-99) while Actor had a 14 year streak at one point.  The category has done better lining up with Picture nominees: 43 films have won Actress with a Picture nomination and another 75 have been nominated in both categories.  In total, 146 films have been nominated in both categories, almost exactly the same as Supporting Actress, though this category has been around almost a decade longer.  In 1939, 1940 and 1977 all the Actress nominees were from Picture nominees (though in 1977 two of the Actress nominees were from the same film) but in 1952, 1962, 1963, 1990, 1994, 2003 and 2005 none of them were and in spite of the Picture expansion, less than half of the nominees since 2009 have been from Picture nominees.

Foreign Films:

Foreign Films have done better here than in any other acting category.  Sophie Loren and Marion Cotillard both won Oscars and there have been a total of 16 nominees from Foreign language films, two of which won best Foreign Film (A Man and a Woman, Indochine) and three others of which were nominated.

Single Nominations:

There have been 86 films to earn an Actress nomination with no other nominations, by far the most among the acting categories.  This includes 12 winners, six of them before 1936 then only two more until 1988 and then four from 1988 to 2003.  This includes four nominees in 1935 and three each in 1964 and 1975 and at least in every year from 1983 to 2004.  The worst was the 90’s when 16 of the 50 nominees were the film’s only nomination.

Other Categories:

The category most often nominated with Actress is Picture (146) followed by Director (126), Adapted Screenplay (113) and Cinematography (112).  It combines with Supporting Actress (105) a lot more than Actor (78) or Supporting Actor (76).  It’s least likely to overlap with Sound Editing (4), Foreign Film (5), Visual Effects (8) or Makeup (11).  Of the 81 films nominated for 10 or more Oscars, only 35 of them were nominated for Actress.

The Academy Awards Top 10:

1. Katharine Hepburn  –  560
2. Meryl Streep  –  560
3. Bette Davis  –  420
4. Greer Garson  –  280
5. Ingrid Bergman  –  280
6. Jane Fonda  –  280
7. Norma Shearer  –  245
8. Elizabeth Taylor  –  245
9. Sissy Spacek  –  245
10. 10 actresses  –  210

note:  Every actress listed above has at least one Oscar and six of them have more than one.  Of the 10 with 210 points, only Deborah Kerr doesn’t have an Oscar.
note:  Though Bette Davis lead in total points from 1941 to 1967 she didn’t have the most points in any single decade.

Top 5 Oscar Winners:

1. Meryl Streep  (Sophie’s Choice)
2. Vivien Leigh  (A Streetcar Named Desire)
3. Katharine Hepburn  (The Lion in Winter)
4. Elizabeth Taylor  (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf)
5. Emma Thompson  (Howards End)

Worst 5 Oscar Winners:

1. Loretta Young  (The Farmer’s Daughter)
2. Ginger Rogers  (Kitty Foyle)
3. Mary Pickford  (Coquette)
4. Judy Holliday  (Born Yesterday)
5. Susan Hayward  (I Want to Live!)

Worst 5 Oscar Nominees:

1. Ali MacGraw  (Love Story)
2. Elizabeth Hartman  (A Patch of Blue)
3. Jennifer Jones  (Love is a Many-Splendored Thing)
4. Grace Moore  (One Night of Love)
5. Irene Dunne  (Cimarron)

10 Best Performances Not Nominated for an Oscar:

1. Liv Ullmann  (Cries and Whispers)
2. Harriet Andersson  (Through a Glass Darkly)
3. Meryl Streep  (The Hours)
4. Ingrid Thulin  (Cries and Whispers)
5. Cate Blanchett  (Oscar and Lucinda)
6. Rosalind Russell  (His Girl Friday)
7. Cecelia Roth  (All About My Mother)
8. Barbara Stanwyck  (The Lady Eve)
9. Eva Dahlbeck  (Smiles of a Summer Night)
10. Winona Ryder  (The Crucible)

5 Most Acclaimed Performances to not Win the Oscar (based on Consensus Awards percentage):

1. Ingrid Bergman, 1945, The Bells of St. Mary’s
2. Olivia de Havilland, 1948, The Snake Pit
3. Michelle Pfeiffer, 1989, The Fabulous Baker Boys
4. Liv Ullmann, 1976, Face to Face
5. Julie Christie, 2007, Away from Her

note:  I didn’t count three performances that would have landed on this list between Pfeiffer and Ullmann from the late 30’s and early 40’s when there were only two awards, for people who won the NYFC and earned an Oscar nom but not the win: Great Garbo (1937, Camille), Margaret Sullavan (1938, Three Comrades), Katharine Hepburn (1940, The Philadelphia Story).

5 Least Acclaimed Performances to Win the Oscar (based on Consensus Awards percentage):

1. Elizabeth Taylor, 1960, BUtterfield 8
2. Cher, 1987, Moonstruck
3. Susan Sarandon, 1995, Dead Man Walking
4. Helen Hunt, 1997, As Good as It Gets
5. Marlee Matlin, 1986, Children of a Lesser God

5 Least Acclaimed Performances to Earn an Oscar Nomination:

1. Laura Linney, 2007, The Savages
2. Winona Ryder, 1994, Little Women
3. Meryl Streep, 1987, Ironweed
4. Shirley MacLaine, 1977, The Turning Point
5. Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor, 1957, Peyton Place / Raintree Country

5 Most Acclaimed Performances to not earn an Oscar nomination (based on Consensus Awards percentage):

1. Liv Ullmann, 1973, Cries and Whispers
2. Sally Hawkins, 2008, Happy-Go-Lucky
3. Scarlett Johansson, 2003, Lost in Translation or The Girl with a Pearl Earring
4. Nicole Kidman, 1995, To Die For
5. Kathleen Turner, 1984, Romancing the Stone

note:  I didn’t include any 1940’s actress (NYFC winner before most other awards groups) or Liv Ullmann in Scenes from a Marriage, who was ineligible at the Oscars (she would have been #2).

Top 5 Oscar Years:

1. 2006  (Helen Mirren (The Queen), Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal), Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada), Kate Winslet (Little Children), Penelope Cruz (Volver))
2. 2007  (Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), Julie Christie (Away from Her), Ellen Page (Juno), Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age), Laura Linney (Savages))
3. 1983  (Shirley MacLaine (Terms of Endearment), Debra Winger (Terms of Endearment), Meryl Streep (Silkwood), Julie Walters (Educating Rita), Jane Alexander (Testament))
4. 2004  (Hillary Swank (Million Dollar Baby), Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake), Annette Bening (Being Julia), Catalina Sandina Moreno (Maria Full of Grace))
5. 2010  (Natalie Portman (Black Swan), Annette Bening (The Kids are All Right), Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone), Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine), Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole))

Top 5 Oscars Years by Oscar Score:

1. 2006  –  100  (Helen Mirren (The Queen), Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal), Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada), Kate Winslet (Little Children), Penelope Cruz (Volver))
2. 2010  –  100  (Natalie Portman (Black Swan), Annette Bening (The Kids are All Right), Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone), Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine), Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole))
3. 1951  –  100  (Vivien Leigh (A Streetcar Named Desire), Katharine Hepburn (The African Queen), Shelley Winters (A Place in the Sun), Eleanor Parker (Detective Story), Jane Wyman (The Blue Veil))
4. 1972  –  100  (Liza Minnelli (Cabaret), Liv Ullmann (The Emigrants), Diana Ross (Lady Sings the Blues), Maggie Smith (Travels with My Aunt), Cecily Tyson (Sounder))
5. 1977  –  100  (Diane Keaton (The Goodbye Girl), Jane Fonda (Julia), Marsha Mason (The Goodbye Girl), Shirley MacLaine, Anne Bancroft (The Turning Point))

note:  The difference between this list and the previous one is that the first one is a flat total based on my 9 point scale.  In this one, it’s comparing my top five performances to the ones the Oscars actually nominated.  So, in the first one, it’s how good are the nominees.  In this one it’s how good are the nominees compared to who else was eligible. I listed them in descending order of how good I think the Top 5 are, since they all have the same score.  Actually, the last three even have the same score, so they went chronologically.
note:  Also, a perfect score of 100 doesn’t guarantee that those are also my nominees.  My #5 might have the same score as an actress who was nominated.

Worst 5 Oscar Years:

1. 1928-29  (Mary Pickford (Coquette), Ruth Chatterton (Madame X), Jeanne Eagels (The Letter), Corine Griffith (The Divine Lady), Bessie Love (The Broadway Melody), Betty Compson (The Barker))
2. 1931-32  (Helen Hayes (The Sin of Madelon Claudet), Marie Dressler (Emma), Lynn Fontanne (The Guardsman))
3. 1947  (Loretta Young (The Farmer’s Daughter), Rosalind Russell (Mourning Becomes Electra), Dorothy McGuire (Gentleman’s Agreement), Joan Crawford (Possessed), Susan Hayward (Smash Up))
4. 1935  (Bette Davis (Dangerous), Katharine Hepburn (Alice Adams), Merle Oberon (The Dark Angel), Claudette Colbert (Private Worlds), Elisabeth Bergner (Escape Me Never), Miriam Hopkins (Becky Sharp))
5. 1930-31  (Marie Dressler (Min and Bill), Marlene Dietrich (Morocco), Norma Shearer (A Free Soul), Ann Harding (Holiday), Irene Dunne (Cimarron))

Worst 5 Oscar Years by Oscar Score:

1. 1928-29  –  44.4  (Mary Pickford (Coquette), Ruth Chatterton (Madame X), Jeanne Eagels (The Letter), Corine Griffith (The Divine Lady), Bessie Love (The Broadway Melody), Betty Compson (The Barker))
2. 1947  –  44.4  (Loretta Young (The Farmer’s Daughter), Rosalind Russell (Mourning Becomes Electra), Dorothy McGuire (Gentleman’s Agreement), Joan Crawford (Possessed), Susan Hayward (Smash Up))
3. 1934  –  45.0  (Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night), Norma Shearer (The Barretts of Wimpole Street), Grace Moore (One Night of Love))
4. 1931-32  –  50.0  (Helen Hayes (The Sin of Madelon Claudet), Marie Dressler (Emma), Lynn Fontanne (The Guardsman))
5. 1943  –  65.4  (Jennifer Jones (The Song of Bernadette), Ingrid Bergman (For Whom the Bell Tolls), Greer Garson (Madame Curie), Joan Fontaine (The Constant Nymph), Jean Arthur (The More the Merrier))

Oscar Scores by Decade:

• 1920’s:  74.0
• 1930’s:  74.7
• 1940’s:  74.2
• 1950’s:  82.8
• 1960’s:  82.2
• 1970’s:  88.9
• 1980’s:  89.2
• 1990’s:  86.9
• 2000’s:  89.1
• 2010’s:  98.6
• All-Time:  85.2

Top 5 Films to win the Oscar (based on quality of film not the performance):

1. A Streetcar Named Desire
2. The Silence of the Lambs
3. Sunrise
4. Annie Hall
5. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf

Worst 5 Films to win the Oscar  (based on quality of film not the performance):

1. BUtterfield 8
2. I Want to Live!
3. Coquette
4. The Farmer’s Daughter
5. The Iron Lady

Worst 5 Films to earn an Oscar nomination (based on quality of film not the performance):

1. The Bad Seed
2. BUtterfield 8
3. Fatal Attraction
4. Tom & Viv
5. Resurrection

Years in Which the Worst of the Nominees Won the Oscar:

• 1950:  Judy Holliday (Born Yesterday) over Gloria Swanson, Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Eleanor Parker
• 1958:  Susan Hayward (I Want to Live!) over Elizabeth Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Shirley MacLaine, Rosalind Russell
• 1973:  Glenda Jackson (A Touch of Class) over Ellen Burstyn, Joanne Woodward, Barbra Streisand, Marsha Mason
• 2009:  Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side) over Carey Mulligan, Gabourey Sidibe, Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren

Oscar Oddities and Tidbits:

• Mary Pickford, Coquette, 1929
  • The first actress to lobby for an Oscar, in just the second year.  She had decided, after the first awards, that she really wanted an Oscar.
• Jeanne Eagels, The Letter, 1929
  • The first posthumous acting nomination, Eagles died in October of 1929, six months before the ceremony.
• Bette Davis, Of Human Bondage, 1934
  • Davis, on loan to RKO isn’t nominated (Warners, her studio, didn’t like the idea of her being nominated for a different studio) and a write-in movement started but she finished in third.
• Luise Rainer, The Good Earth, 1937
  • The first back-to-back winner, this was also basically the end of her career in Hollywood.
• Fay Bainter, White Banners, 1938
  • The first actress nominated in both lead and supporting in the same year, winning the latter.
• Joan Fontaine, Suspicion, 1941
  • Fontaine wins over her sister, Olivia de Havilland, kicking off a life-long feud.  Fontaine would later say “I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia did, and if I die first, she’ll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to it!”  Fontaine died in 2013 while de Havilland is still alive.
• Rosalind Russell, Sister Kenny, 1946
  • The first actress to win the Globe and lose the Oscar, also the first of five Glove wins for Russell who never won an Oscar.
• Judy Holliday, Born Yesterday, 1950
  • The biggest surprise winner in Oscar history, Holliday beats NBR and Globe winner Gloria Swanson and NYFC winner Bette Davis.
• Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday, 1953
  • The first actress to sweep the Oscar, Globe and BAFTA.
• Grace Kelly, The Country Girl, 1954
  • Though many protest that Judy Garland should have won, Kelly is the first actress to win four awards (Oscar, Globe, NYFC, NBR).
• Dorothy Dandridge, Carmen Jones, 1954
  • The first black actress to earn an Oscar nomination.
• Anna Magnani, The Rose Tattoo, 1955
  • The first actress to sweep all the existing awards (at this time that’s the Oscar, Globe, BAFTA, NYFC, NBR).  No actress will match her awards total until 1977 and there won’t be another sweep until 1992 when there are nine awards.
• Doris Day, Pillow Talk, 1959
  • The first actress to earn an Oscar nomination while losing the Globe – Comedy when the Globe – Comedy winner (Marilyn Monroe) wasn’t nominated.
• Elizabeth Taylor, BUtterfield 8, 1960
  • Taylor almost died just before the awards (she had an emergency tracheotomy) and her husband had died in a plane crash in 1956.  Widely believed to gain her a sympathy vote as she is the first Oscar winner since 1947 to win without winning any other award and she beats out Globe / BAFTA winner Shirley MacLaine, Globe / NBR winner Greer Garson and NYFC winner Deborah Kerr.  MacLaine would have to wait 23 years to win and Kerr, in her final nomination here, would never win.
• Sophia Loren, Two Women, 1961
  • The first Foreign language performance to win an acting Oscar.
• Katharine Hepburn / Barbra Streisand, The Lion in Winter / Funny Girl, 1992
  • The only acting tie in Oscar history.  Made even more notable in that Streisand had been offered Academy membership even though this was her film debut and she voted for herself.
• Glenda Jackson, Women in Love, 1970
  • The first (and until 2001, the only) performance to win an Oscar after earning nominations for both the BAFTA and Globe but failing to win either.
• Cicely Tyson / Diane Ross, Sounder / Lady Sings the Blues, 1972
  • The first year where two black actresses were nominated.
• Emma Thompson, Howards End, 1992
  • The first actress to sweep all the existing awards since the NSFC began in 1966.
• Frances McDormand, Fargo, 1996
  • The first actress to lose the Globe – Comedy but go on to win the Oscar.
• Halle Berry, Monster’s Ball, 2001
  • The first black actress to win Best Actress.
• Helen Mirren, The Queen, 2006
  • The unanimous year.  Mirren sweeps all 11 awards.  The other four actresses are unanimous choices of all awards groups.

Kudos to the Oscars – the best post-1949 performances nominated by the Oscars but no one else

1. Anne Baxter, All About Eve, 1950
2. Katharine Hepburn, The African Queen, 1951
3. Deborah Kerr, From Here to Eternity, 1953
4. Julie Christie, McCabe & Mrs Miller, 1971
5. Winona Ryder, Little Women, 1994
6. Isabelle Adjani, Camille Claudel, 1989
7. Laura Linney, The Savages, 2007
8. Maggie McNamara, The Moon is Blue, 1953
9. Eleanor Parker, Caged, 1950
10. Carol Kane, Hester Street, 1975

The BAFTAs

Summary:

The BAFTAs didn’t give out acting awards for the first few years.  They began in 1952 with four awards, split by gender and split into British and Foreign.  With no supporting awards, many performances deemed supporting by other groups would be pushed into the regular category.  They would also be inconsistent with who qualified under the British categories (see the Top 5, below).  Until 1967, this would be how the awards would be given out with Audrey Hepburn the top among British actresses (even though Hepburn’s mother was Dutch, her father was only a British subject and hadn’t been born there and Hepburn herself was born in Belgium) and Simone Signoret for Foreign actresses (though one of her wins and two of her other nominations were for English language films).

In 1968, the BAFTAs would drop the distinction between the two categories and add Supporting Actress as a category and set the number of nominees at four where it would stay, with a couple of exceptions, until 2000.  The award would often go to British actresses (Maggie Smith would win three awards just in the 80’s alone).  At the end of that decade, the BAFTAs would start to align more with the Oscars (only one BAFTA winner since 1989, Scarlett Johansson in 2003, has failed to earn an Oscar nom) although the winners would still often be different.  The BAFTAs often didn’t compliment the Oscars though (six Oscar winners since 1989 weren’t nominated for the BAFTA).

Genres:

Drama  (59.64% noms, 68.35% winners) and Comedy (21.36% noms, 15.19% winners) account for over 80% of all the nominees and winners.  Adventure and Sci-Fi have never had a nominee and Action, Fantasy and Kids have never had a winner while Mystery (Charade) and Western (Butch Cassidy) have only one winner each.

Best Picture:

Room at the Top is the biggest film, winning Picture, British Film and Foreign Actress.  Fifteen other films have won Picture and Actress including seven in the 1970’s, including the only two to pull this off at both the Oscars and the BAFTA’s: One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Annie Hall.  Eleven films have won Picture and earned a nomination for Actress, most prominently The Sound Barrier and Tom Jones, both of which won Picture and British Film.  A whopping 39 films have won Actress and been nominated for Picture, most notably The Divided Heart which won both Foreign Actress and British Actress.  There are another 83 films nominated in both categories with a grand total of 150 films to earn at least a nomination in both Picture and Actress.

Multiple Nominations:

Because of the long stretch (1952-1967) of the British Actress and Foreign Actress categories there are a lots of films that earned multiple nominations (also because there was no supporting category at the time and many performances that might have been deemed supporting were nominated as lead).  The Divided Heart is the biggest film because it won both categories but five films have won Actress and earned a second nomination, two of them earning both in Foreign Actress (The Rose Tattoo, Viva Maria), one earning both in British Actress (The Nun’s Story) and one splitting the two (Room at the Top) while the final one, The Hours, simply earned two Actress nominations.  Also, two films earned two British Actress nominations without either winning (Court Martial, Charade) and one earned two Foreign Actress (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane).

Single Nominees:

Of the 337 films nominated for Actress, 94 of them earned no other nominations with only seven of those winning the award though the only one since 1988 is The Client.  While the majority of these (50) were during the two-category years, it continued strong through the first 20 years of the single category.  From 1968 to 1985 there were 31 films that earned no other nominations while since 1985 (including two winners) while since 1985 there have only been 13 in a longer stretch of time.

Foreign Films:

The Foreign Actress category that existed from 1952 to 1967 was mostly filled with American actresses rather than performances in foreign language films.  There were, by my count, 29 films during that stretch and only four winners came from those films (Casque d’Or, Crucible, Viva Maria, A Man and a Woman).  There have been 16 foreign language nominees since the 1968 combination into one category, with several in the 70’s (five from 1972 to 1976) and then a more recent resurgence (six from 2004 to 2010).  Since 1988, every foreign language film nominated for Actress has also been nominated for Best Foreign Film.

Other Categories:

Picture is the category that most often lines up with Actress (see above).  Next up is Screenplay (in all of its permutations) with 138 films nominated for both though only 11 films have managed to win both and Secrets & Lies is the only one to win both since 1978.  The only other category match-up to reach triple digits is Actor, with exactly 100 films being nominated for both awards.  Sixteen films have won both Actor and Actress, almost half of them during the years when there were multiple Actor and Actress categories and only three films managing it since 1983 (Silence of the Lambs, American Beauty, Lost in Translation).  Eight films have managed to win Picture, Actor and Actress, three of them before there was a Director category (Room at the Top, The Apartment, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf), two of them failing to win Director (Educating Rita, American Beauty), two of them winning Director but not Screenplay (Sunday Bloody Sunday, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and one winning the big five (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid).

The BAFTA Top 10:

1. Meryl Streep  –  455
2. Maggie Smith  –  385
3. Anne Bancroft  –  350
4. Simone Signoret  –  315
5. Shirley MacLaine  –  315
6. Jane Fonda  –  280
7. Audrey Hepburn  –  245
8. Katharine Hepburn  –  245
9. Judi Dench  –  210
10. Kate Winslet  –  210

note:  Maggie Smith lead from 1988 all the way up until 2010.

The BAFTA Top 5  (British Actress, 1952-1967):

1. Audrey Hepburn  –  245
2. Rachel Roberts  –  140
3. Deborah Kerr  –  140
4. Anne Bancroft  –  140
5. Edith Evans  –  140

note:  Both Leslie Caron and Elizabeth Taylor earned 140 points during this stretch but the BAFTAs were inconsistent.  Caron’s first award and Taylor’s first nomination were in Foreign Actress while Caron’s second award and Taylor’s award and third nomination were in British Actress.

The BAFTA Top 5  (Foreign Actress, 1952-1967)

1. Simone Signoret  –  315
2. Shirley MacLaine  –  210
3. Patricia Neal  –  140
4. Katharine Hepburn  –  105
5. Anna Magnani  /  Ava Gardner  /  Jeanne Moreau  /  Anouk Aimee  –  105

Top 5 BAFTA Winners:

1. Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
2. Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter, 1968
3. Helen Mirren, The Queen, 2006
4. Emma Thompson, Howards End, 1992
5. Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs, 1991

Top 3 BAFTA Years  (British Actress, 1952-1967)

1. 1964  (Audrey Hepburn (Charade), Edith Evans, Deborah Kerr (The Chalk Garden), Rita Tushingham (Girl with Green Eyes))
2. 1965  (Julie Christie (Darling), Julie Andrews (The Americanization of Emily / The Sound of Music), Maggie Smith (Young Cassidy), Rita Tushingham (The Knack and How to Get It))
3. 1953  (Audrey Hepburn (Roman Holiday), Celia Johnson (The Captain’s Paradise))

Top 3 BAFTA Years  (Foreign Actress, 1952-1967)

1. 1958  (Simone Signoret (Room at the Top), Tatyana Samoljva (The Cranes are Flying), Elizabeth Taylor (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof), Joanne Woodward (No Down Payment), Giuletta Masina (Nights of Cabiria), Anna Magnani (Wild is the Wind), Ingrid Bergman (Inn of the Sixth Happiness))
2. 1962  (Anne Bancroft (The Miracle Worker), Harriet Andersson (Through a Glass Darkly), Natalie Wood (Splendor in the Grass), Geraldine Page (Sweet Bird of Youth), Melina Mercouri (Phaedra), Anouk Aimee (Lola), Jeanne Moreau (Jules and Jim))
3. 1964  (Anne Bancroft (The Pumpkin Eater), Joan Crawford, Bette Davis (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane), Lee Remick (Days of Wine and Roses), Daniela Rocca (Divorce Italian Style))

Top 5 BAFTA Years  (4 Nominees, 1968-1998):

1. 1980  (Judy Davis (My Brilliant Career), Meryl Streep (Kramer vs. Kramer), Shirley MacLaine (Being There), Bette Midler (The Rose))
2. 1991  (Jodie Foster (The Silence of the Lambs), Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis (Thelma & Louise), Juliet Stevenson (Truly, Madly, Deeply))
3. 1995  (Emma Thompson (Sense and Sensibility), Elizabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas), Nicole Kidman (To Die For), Helen Mirren (The Madness of King George))
4. 1968  (Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter / Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner), Anne Bancroft (The Graduate), Catherine Deneuve (Belle de Jour), Joanne Woodward (Rachel Rachel))
5. 1993  (Holly Hunter (The Piano), Emma Thompson (The Remains of the Day), Debra Winger (Shadowlands), Miranda Richardson (Tom & Viv))

Top 3 BAFTA Years  (5 Nominees, 1999-2011):

1. 2006  (Helen Mirren (The Queen), Judi Dench (Notes on a Scandal), Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada), Kate Winslet (Little Children), Penelope Cruz (Volver))
2. 2007  (Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), Julie Christie (Away from Her), Ellen Page (Juno), Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age), Keira Knightley (Atonement))
3. 2002  (Nicole Kidman (The Hours), Meryl Streep (The Hours), Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball), Renee Zelwegger (Chicago), Salma Hayek (Frida))

Years in Which the Worst of the Nominees Won the BAFTA:

• 1989:  Pauline Collins (Shirley Valentine) over Glenn Close, Jodie Foster, Melanie Griffith
• 1994:  Susan Sarandon (The Client) over Linda Fiorentino, Uma Thurman, Irene Jacob

Kudos to the BAFTAs – the best performances nominated by the BAFTAs but no one else:

1. Harriet Andersson, Through a Glass Darkly, 1962
2. Tatyana Samojlova, The Cranes are Flying, 1958
3. Eva Dahlbeck, Smiles of a Summer Night, 1956
4. Audrey Tautou, The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain, 2001
5. Catherine Deneuve, Belle de Jour, 1968
6. Judy Davis, My Brilliant Career, 1980
7. Michelle Yeoh, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, 2000
8. Wendy Hiller, Sons and Lovers, 1960
9. Giuletta Masina, Nights of Cabiria, 1958
10. Juliet Stevenson, Truly Madly Deeply, 1991

note:  Not a surprise that none of these actresses are American and not a coincidence that several are foreign actresses from before 1968, given the BAFTA category of Best Foreign Actress.

The BAFTAs Being Different

• Shirley Booth, 1952, Come Back Little Sheba  –  sweeps 4 of 5 existing awards, doesn’t win BAFTA
• Glenda Jackson, 1969, Women in Love  –  goes on to win four awards but even though she’s British, loses the BAFTA (in a different eligibility year)
• Sally Field, 1979, Norma Rae  –  wins 6 awards, not even nominated at BAFTAs
• Sissy Spacek, 1980, Coal Miner’s Daughter  –  wins 6 awards, loses BAFTA
• Meryl Streep, 1982, Sophie’s Choice  –  first performance to win 7 Best Actress awards, loses BAFTA
• Shirley MacLaine, 1983, Terms of Endearment  –  wins 5 awards, loses BAFTA
• 1986  –  No Oscar or Globe nominees earn BAFTA noms
• Holly Hunter, 1987, Broadcast News  –  wins 4 awards, earns 6 noms, snubbed by BAFTA
• 1987  –  BAFTAs nominate 7 performances among Consensus in this year, only Cher (Moonstruck) nominated by either Oscar or Globes
• 1990  –  As BAFTAs start to get closer to Oscar and Globe schedule, only one Consensus eligible performance nominated by BAFTAs (two are from 1989, one is supporting)
• Julianne Moore, 2002, Far From Heaven  –  7 noms, 4 wins, BAFTA snub
• Charlize Theron, 2003, Monster  –  6 wins, loses BAFTA

The Golden Globes

Summary:

The Golden Globes are known for their split into two – Drama and Comedy / Musical.  That wasn’t actually always the case, as all their awards until 1950 were just one category (Actress).  Even then, things weren’t how they were now.  From 1943 to 1948, there was just a winner (although all were from Dramas).  In 1949, there was a winner and a nominee.  Starting in 1950, they were split into Drama and Comedy, though in 1951 for Comedy and in both from 1953 to 1955, there were no nominees, only winners.  After that, with a few exceptions (most notably 1962 and 1963 in Drama when there were a lot), there would be five nominees in each category.

Multiple Nominations (Films):

Eight films have won the Globe for Best Actress and earned a second nomination.  Four of them have been in Comedy (Les Girls, Gypsy, Chicago, The Kids are All Right) and four have been in Drama (Anastasia, Suddenly Last Summer, Terms of Endearment, The Hours) while Born Yesterday managed to win Comedy Actress and earn a nomination for Drama Actress for the same performance.  In addition, one Drama films has earned two nominations (Thelma & Louise) while four Comedies have done it (Come Blow Your Horn, Shampoo, Freaky Friday, Annie).

Multiple Nominations (Actresses):

In 2009, Sanda Bullock became the first actress to win Drama and earn a Comedy nomination in the same year and Meryl Streep would beat herself in Comedy.  Diane Keaton (1977) and Nicole Kidman (2001) previously had won Comedy when nominated for Drama.  Judy Holliday did win Comedy when nominated for Drama but it doesn’t really count because it was the same performance.  In addition, 8 actresses have earned nominations in both categories in the same year.

Genres:

Ah, the joy of what you consider a specific genre.  There have been 289 films nominated in the Comedy / Musical category with 191 on my list as Comedies and 67 of them Musicals.  The other 31 are a variety of genres (Kids is the most with 8) including four which I consider Dramas, with two winners (Diary of a Man Housewife, Tumbleweeds) and two other nominees (This Could Be the Night, Miss Potter).  There are 300 films nominated in the Drama category, 259 of which I list simply as Drama.  Tied for second with 8 are Suspense and, surprise, Comedy.  The Comedy list includes three winners (Roman Holiday, A Man and a Woman, Cinderella Liberty) and five nominees (Baby Doll, Lolita, The Conjugal Bed, Such Good Friends, Volver).  There are even two films I list as Musicals: Lady Sings the Blues (depending on your definition – but they did put Ray and La Vie en Rose in this category) and Dancer in the Dark (definitely a Musical).

Best Picture:

The lead categories line up with Picture a lot more at the Globes, of course, because of the Drama / Comedy distinction for both.  Actress tends to be much more successful in Comedy than in Drama; there have been more films to win both Picture and Actress in Comedy than to win Picture in Drama with an Actress nomination.  There have been 25 films to win both Picture and Actress in Comedy.  There has never been a big gap but there have only been two streaks of more than two years (1955-61, 1996-98).  Another 13 films have won Picture with a nomination for Actress.  In total, there have been 148 films nominated for Picture and Actress in Comedy while only 141 have been nominated for Actress and not Picture and only 16 films have won Actress without a Picture nomination (though four films have earned two Actress nominations without a Picture nom).  The numbers are much lower in Drama.  Only nine films have won both Picture and Actress in Drama and The Hours is the only one to do it since 1983.  Only 15 more have won Picture while earning an Actress nomination.  In total, 104 films have earned both Picture and Actress nominations in Drama while 35 films have won Actress without a Picture nom and 196 films have earned an Actress nom without a Picture nom.  While there have been several years where only Comedy Picture nominee earned an Actress nomination, there has never been a year without a Comedy film nominated for both Picture and Actress (not counting the years in the 50’s that only had winners and nominees) and 1961 and 1962 every Picture nominee was nominated for Actress.  In Drama, on the other hand, in 1971, 1989 and 1990 there were no Actress nominees among the Picture nominees and since 1996 there have been no years with three Actress nominees among the Picture nominees and only twice have there even been two.

Foreign Films:

There have been 16 Foreign language films to earn Best Actress nominations with (surprisingly to me) only two of them in Comedy (Marriage Italian Style, La Vie en Rose).  Three of them have won the Globe (Cotillard as well as Anouk Aimee for A Man and a Woman and Liv Ullmann for The Emigrants).  Ullmann earned three of the nominations (Scenes from a Marriage and Face to Face are the other two).  Since 1970, all of the films except (surprisingly) La Vie en Rose earned Foreign Film nominations and five of those won.

Single Nominations:

There have been 203 films nominated for Actress and nothing else with 29 of those winning the Globe (19 in Drama, 10 in Comedy).  Both categories had huge gaps between a film winning the Globe with no other nominations (in Comedy it didn’t happen between 1969 and 1993 and in Drama it didn’t happen between 1964 and 1987).  There have been 90 films nominated for Comedy Actress with no other nominations including two films with two nominations for Actress (Annie, Carnage).  The worst stretch was 1993-95 when 11 nominees and all three winners earned no other nominations.  In Drama, it’s even more prevalent; in both the 90’s and the 00’s, 21 of the Actress nominees (close to half) came from films with no Picture nomination.  Drama also has two films (Anastasia, Suddenly Last Summer) that had a win and a nomination for Actress but no other nominations.  Only three times in the last 30 years have all the Actress – Drama nominees come from a film with other nominations (1982, 1991, 1995).

Other Categories:

Picture crushes everything by a long way.  It’s not just the Comedy / Drama divide either because 252 films have been nominated for Picture and Actress but only 154 have been nominated for Actor and Actress (104 of them in Comedy).  Only three films have managed to win Actor and Actress in Drama, all of them in a four year stretch (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Network, Coming Home – and all three won both Oscars as well) but a dozen films have done it in Comedy with only As Good as It Gets repeating it at the Oscars.  The other two categories with triple digit overlaps are Director (113) and Supporting Actress (100) while Foreign Film has by far the fewest (25).

The Golden Globes Top 10  (Drama):

1. Meryl Streep  –  560
2. Ingrid Bergman  –  280
3. Jane Fonda  –  280
4. Geraldine Page  –  280
5. Faye Dunaway  –  245
6. Jodie Foster  –  245
7. Katharine Hepburn  –  210
8. Anne Bancroft  –  210
9. Shirley MacLaine  –  210
10. Sally Field  /  Joanne Woodward  /  Jessica Lange  /  Nicole Kidman  –  210

The Golden Globes Top 10  (Comedy / Musical):

1. Julie Andrews  –  385
2. Shirley MacLaine  –  385
3. Barbra Streisand  –  315
4. Meryl Streep  –  315
5. Bette Midler  –  245
6. Goldie Hawn  –  245
7. Renee Zellweger  –  245
8. Rosalind Russell  –  210
9. Kathleen Turner  –  210
10. Diane Keaton  /  Annette Bening  –  210

The Golden Globes Top 10

1. Meryl Streep  –  875
2. Shirley MacLaine  –  595
3. Julie Andrews  –  420
4. Jane Fonda  –  385
5. Barbra Streisand  –  385
6. Rosalind Russell  –  350
7. Audrey Hepburn  –  350
8. Anne Bancroft  –  350
9. Diane Keaton  –  350
10. Nicole Kidman  –  350

Top 5 Globe Drama Winners:

1. Meryl Streep  (Sophie’s Choice)
2. Gloria Swanson  (Sunset Blvd.)
3. Helen Mirren  (The Queen)
4. Emma Thompson  (Howards End)
5. Jodie Foster  (The Silence of the Lambs)

Top 5 Globe Comedy Winners:

1. Diane Keaton  (Annie Hall)
2. Shirley MacLaine  (The Apartment)
3. Judy Garland  (A Star is Born)
4. Anne Bancroft  (The Graduate)
5. Liza Minnelli  (Cabaret)

Worst 5 Globe Drama Winners:

1. Ali MacGraw  (Love Story)
2. Susan Hayward  (I Want to Live!)
3. Greer Garson  (Sunrise at Campobello)
4. Elizabeth Taylor  (Suddenly Last Summer)
5. Jane Wyman  (The Blue Veil)

Worst 5 Globe Comedy Winners:

1. Twiggy  (The Boy Friend)
2. Raquel Welch  (The Three Musketeers)
3. Taina Elg  (Les Girls)
4. Kay Kendall  (Les Girls)
5. Ethel Merman  (Call Me Madam)

Worst 5 Globe Drama Nominees:

1. Ali MacGraw  (Love Story)
2. Virginia McKenna  (Born Free)
3. Farah Fawcett  (Extremities)
4. Melina Mercouri  (Promise at Dawn)
5. Dyan Cannon  (Such Good Friends)

Worst 5 Globe Comedy Nominees:

1. Twiggy  (The Boy Friend)
2. Angelina Jolie  (The Tourist)
3. Goldie Hawn  (The Banger Sisters)
4. Glenn Close  (101 Dalmations)
5. Shelley Long  (Irreconcilable Differences)

10 Best English Language Drama Performances Not Nominated for the Globe:

1. Anne Baxter  (All About Eve)
2. Winona Ryder  (The Crucible)
3. Judy Davis  (A Passage to India)
4. Naomi Watts  (Mulholland Dr.)
5. Katharine Hepburn  (The African Queen)
6. Elizabeth Taylor  (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)
7. Naomi Watts  (21 Grams)
8. Cate Blanchett  (Oscar and Lucinda)
9. Glenda Jackson  (Sunday Bloody Sunday)
10. Sigourney Weaver  (Death and the Maiden)

note:  Had I not limited this to English Language performances fully half of the list would be from Bergman films.

10 Best English Language Comedy Performances Not Nominated for the Globe

1. Emma Thompson  (Much Ado About Nothing)
2. Emma Thompson  (Primary Colors)
3. Juliet Stevenson  (Truly, Madly, Deeply)
4. Laura Linney  (The Savages)
5. Winona Ryder  (Heathers)
6. Michelle Pfeiffer  (Batman Returns)
7. Gwyneth Paltrow  (Emma)
8. Maggie Smith  (A Private Function)
9. Laura Dern  (Citizen Ruth)
10. Jennifer Lopez  (Out of Sight)

note:  1996 is particularly bad for the Globes since they nominated Glenn Close (101 Dalmations) and Barbra Streisand (The Mirror Has Two Faces) rather than Paltrow and Dern.

5 Most Acclaimed Performances to not Win the Drama Globe (based on Consensus Awards percentage):

1. Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
2. Glenda Jackson, Women in Love, 1970
3. Julie Christie, Darling, 1965
4. Liv Ullmann, Face to Face, 1976
5. Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake, 2004

5 Most Acclaimed Performances to not Win the Comedy Globe (based on Consensus Awards percentage):

1. Frances McDormand, Fargo, 1996
2. Holly Hunter, Broadcast News, 1987
3. Ellen Page, Juno, 2007
4. Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004
5. Kathleen Turner, Peggy Sue Got Married, 1986

5 Least Acclaimed Performance to Win the Drama Globe (based on Consensus Awards percentage):

1. Shirley MacLaine, Madame Sousatzka, 1988
2. Sharon Stone, Casino, 1995
3. Elizabeth Taylor, Suddenly Last Summer, 1959
4. Sigourney Weaver, Gorillas in the Mist, 1988
5. Marsha Mason, Cinderella Liberty, 1973

note:  MacLaine and Weaver were two of three winners in 1988.

5 Least Acclaimed Performances to Win the Comedy Globe (based on Consensus Awards percentage):

1. Madonna, Evita, 1996
2. Renee Zellweger, Nurse Betty, 2000
3. Rosalind Russell, Gypsy, 1962
4. Taina Elg, Les Girls, 1957
5. Kay Kendall, Les Girls, 1957

5 Most Acclaimed Performances to not earn a Globe nomination (based on Consensus Awards percentage):

1. Isabelle Adjani, The Story of Adele H, 1975
2. Kim Stanley, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, 1964
3. Sophia Loren, Two Women, 1961
4. Chloe Webb, Sid and Nancy, 1986
5. Marilia Pera, Pixote, 1981

note:  I won’t do a least acclaimed for this because it’s just going to be five very recent performances that earned no other nominations, since there are so many points available nowadays.  I also won’t do a Most Acclaimed list for Comedy because it would be reaching.

Top 5 Globe Years  (Drama):

1. 2008  (Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road), Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married), Angelina Jolie (Changeling), Kristin Scott Thomas (I’ve Loved You So Long), Meryl Streep (Doubt))
2. 1974  (Gena Rowlands (A Woman Under the Influence), Faye Dunaway (Chinatown), Liv Ullmann (Scenes from a Marriage), Ellen Burstyn (Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore), Valerine Perrine (Lenny))
3. 1995  (Sharon Stone (Casino), Emma Thompson (Sense and Sensibility), Elisabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas), Meryl Streep (The Bridges of Madison County), Susan Sarandon (Dead Man Walking))
4. 2001  (Sissy Spacek (In the Bedroom), Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball), Nicole Kidman (The Others), Judi Dench (Iris), Tilda Swinton (The Deep End))
5. 1993  (Holly Hunter (The Piano), Emma Thompson (The Remains of the Day), Juliette Binoche (Blue), Michelle Pfeiffer (The Age of Innocence), Debra Winger (A Dangerous Woman))

note:  In 1993, if the Globes had nominated Winger for Shadowlands instead it would be #1.

Top 5 Globe Years  (Comedy):

1. 2007  (Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), Ellen Page (Juno), Amy Adams (Enchanted), Helena Bonham Carter (Sweeney Todd), Nikki Blonsky (Hairspray))
2. 2005  (Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line), Keira Knightley (Pride and Prejudice), Judi Dench (Mrs Henderson Presents), Laura Linney (The Squid and the Whale), Sarah Jessica Parker (The Family Stone))
3. 1988  (Melanie Griffith (Working Girl), Jamie Lee Curtis (A Fish Called Wanda), Susan Sarandon (Bull Durham), Michelle Pfeiffer (Married to the Mob), Amy Irving (Crossing Delancey))
4. 2002  (Renee Zellweger (Chicago), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago), Maggie Gyllenhaal (Secretary), Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), Goldie Hawn (The Banger Sisters))
5. 2004  (Annette Bening (Being Julia), Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Emmy Rossum (Phantom of the Opera), Ashley Judd (De-Lovely), Renee Zellweger, (Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason))

note:  The Top 5 Drama years are much better than the Top 5 Comedy years.  The #1 Comedy year ties the #5 Drama year.

Worst 5 Globe Years  (Drama):

1. 1960  (Greer Garson (Sunrise at Campobello), Jean Simmons (Elmer Gantry), Elizabeth Taylor (BUtterfield 8), Doris Day (Midnight Lace), Nancy Kwan (The World of Suzie Wong))
2. 1963  (Leslie Caron (The L-Shaped Room), Rachel Roberts (This Sporting Life), Natalie Wood (Love with the Proper Stranger), Polly Bergen (The Caretakers), Geraldine Page (Toys in the Attic), Romy Schneider (The Cardinal), Alida Valli (The Paper Man), Marina Vlady (The Conjugal Bed))
3. 1979  (Sally Field (Norma Rae), Jane Fonda (The China Syndrome), Lisa Eichhorn (Yanks), Jill Clayburgh (La Luna), Marsha Mason (Promises in the Dark))
4. 1970  (Ali MacGraw (Love Story), Glenda Jackson (Women in Love), Faye Dunaway (Puzzle of a Downfall Child), Sarah Miles (Ryan’s Daughter), Melina Mercouri (Promise at Dawn))
5. 1958  (Susan Hayward (I Want to Live!), Deborah Kerr (Separate Tables), Shirley MacLaine (Some Came Running), Ingrid Bergman (The Inn of the Sixth Happiness), Jean Simmons (Home Before Dark))

Worst 5 Globe Years  (Comedy):

1. 1958  (Rosalind Russell (Auntie Mame), Ingrid Bergman (Indiscreet), Leslie Caron (Gigi), Doris Day (The Tunnel of Love), Mitzi Gaynor (South Pacific))
2. 1957  (Taina Elg, Kay Kendall (Les Girls), Audrey Hepburn (Love in the Afternoon), Jean Simmons (This Could Be the Night), Cyd Charisse (Silk Stockings))
3. 1963  (Shirley MacLaine (Irma La Douce), Molly Picon, Jill St. John (Come Blow Your Horn), Audrey Hepburn (Charade), Ann-Margret (Bye Bye Birdie), Doris Day (Move Over Darling), Hayley Mills (Summer Magic), Joanne Woodward (A New Kind of Love))
4. 1981  (Bernadette Peters (Pennies from Heaven), Liza Minnelli (Arthur), Carol Burnett (The Four Seasons), Blair Brown (Continental Divide), Jill Clayburgh (First Monday in October))
5. 1974  (Raquel Welch (The Three Musketeers), Cloris Leachman (Young Frankenstein), Diahann Carroll (Claudine), Lucille Ball (Mame), Helen Hayes (Herbie Rides Again))

Top 5 Films to win the Globe – Drama (based on quality of film not the performance):

1. Sunset Blvd.
2. The Silence of the Lambs
3. Terms of Endearment
4. The Hours
5. Network

Top 5 Films to win the Globe – Comedy  (based on quality of film not the performance)

1. Annie Hall
2. Some Like It Hot
3. The Apartment
4. Moulin Rouge
5. Mary Poppins

Worst 5 Films to win the Globe – Drama  (based on quality of film not the performance):

1. Love Story
2. I Want to Live!
3. The Iron Lady
4. Blue Sky
5. The Accused

Worst 5 Films to win the Globe – Comedy  (based on quality of film not the performance)

1. Tommy
2. The Boy Friend
3. The Devil Wears Prada
4. Diary of a Mad Housewife
5. Auntie Mame

Worst 5 Films to earn a Globe nomination (either) (based on quality of film not the performance):

1. The Tourist
2. BUtterfield 8
3. Fatal Attraction
4. Tom and Viv
5. Resurrection

Years in Which the Worst of the Nominees Won the Globe:

• 1951 – Drama  –  Jane Wyman (The Blue Veil) wins over Vivien Leigh, Shelley Winters
• 1970 – Drama  –  Ali MacGraw (Love Story) wins over Glenda Jackson, Sarah Miles, Faye Dunaway, Melina Mercouri
• 1971 – Comedy  –  Twiggy (The Boy Friend) wins over Ruth Gordon, Angela Lansbury, Elaine May, Sandy Duncan
• 1995 – Drama  –  Sharon Stone (Casino) wins over Emma Thompson, Elisabeth Shue, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon
• 2005 – Drama  –  Felicity Huffman (Transamerica) wins over Gwyneth Paltrow, Charlize Theron, Maria Bello, Zhang Ziyi

note:  In 1988, when there were three winners, one of them, Shirley MacLaine (Madame Souzatzka) was the worst of the five nominees.

Kudos to the Globes – the best performances nominated by the Globes – Drama but no one else

1. Gwyneth Paltrow, Proof, 2005
2. Juliette Binoche, Three Colors: Blue, 1993
3. Diane Keaton, Shoot the Moon, 1982
4. Sigourney Weaver, A Map of the World, 1999
5. Michelle Pfeiffer, The Age of Innocence, 1993

Kudos to the Globes – the best performances nominated by the Globes – Comedy but no one else

1. Renee Zelwegger, Nurse Betty, 2000
2. Meg Ryan, When Harry Met Sally, 1989
3. Ruth Gordon, Harold and Maude, 1971
4. Kathleen Turner, Prizzi’s Honor, 1985
5. Laura Linney, The Squid and the Whale, 2005

We Agree on the Film but Not the Performance – films that earned Oscar and Globe noms for different performers

note:  Only listed if they nominated different performers in the same category.

• 1996:  Diane Keaton nominated for the Oscar, Meryl Streep nominated for the Globe  (Marvin’s Room)

The Broadcast Film Critics Awards  (Critics Choice)

Summary:

The Actress award was one of the initial BFCA Awards that began in 1995.  None of the early performances were split among different films like in the supporting awards.  The first BFCA winner, Nicole Kidman, didn’t even earn an Oscar nomination.  Of the next seven winners, only three won the Oscar (McDormand, Swank, Roberts).  There was more agreement starting in 2003 but still only a bit more than half the time.  Kidman won the first award and then earned three straight nominations from 2001 to 2003 while Meryl Streep would later win back-to-back awards in 2008 and 2009.

• Lowest Critical Acclaim for a BFCA Winner:  Meryl Streep, Doubt, 2008
• Highest Critical Acclaim for a BFCA nominee:  Imelda Staunton, Vera Drake, 2004
• Lowest Critical Acclaim for a BFCA nominee:  Cate Blanchett, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2008
• Highest Critical Acclaim for a BFCA snub:  Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky, 2008
• Best Performance by a BFCA snub:  Meryl Streep, The Hours, 2002
• Best BFCA Nominee Not Nominated by Any Other Group:  Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger, 2005
• Worst BFCA Winner:  Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side, 2009
• Worst BFCA Nominee:  Cate Blanchett, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2008

Top 5 BFCA Points:

1. Nicole Kidman  –  210
2. Meryl Streep  –  210
3. Hilary Swank  –  140
4. Cate Blanchett  –  140
5. Charlize Theron  –  140

The Screen Actors Guild

Summary:

The SAG Awards began in 1994, rather late in the game for guild awards.  In the first year, they disagreed with the Oscar winner and they only nominated 3 of the same 5.  Since then, though, the agreement has been 12 of 17 for winners and 74 of 85 for nominees with 1996 and 2003 being the only years where less than 4 of the nominees overlapped.  Do I even need to write that Streep has completely dominated the category since its inception?  She earned nominations in each of the first two years and four of the first six years.  It would take until 2008 for her to win but that was her sixth win (with two more since) while no one else has more than four.

• Lowest Critical Acclaim for a SAG Winner:  Jodie Foster, Nell, 1994
• Highest Critical Acclaim for a SAG nominee:  Hilary Swank, Boys Don’t Cry, 1999
• Lowest Critical Acclaim for a SAG nominee:  Hilary Swank, Conviction, 2010
• Highest Critical Acclaim for a SAG snub:  Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky, 2008
• Best Performance by a SAG snub:  Meryl Streep, The Hours, 2002
• Best SAG Nominee Not Nominated by Any Other Group:  Meg Ryan, When a Man Loves a Woman, 1994
• Worst SAG Winner:  Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side, 2009
• Worst SAG Nominee:  Gena Rowlands, Unhook the Stars, 1996

The SAG Top 5:

1. Meryl Streep  –  315
2. Judi Dench  –  140
3. Annette Bening  –  140
4. Hilary Swank  –  140
5. six tied  –  140

The Critics Awards

Summary:

The New York Film Critics would begin handing out Best Actress in 1935, the first year of their awards.  In their very first year, the award went to Greta Garbo for Anna Karenina, who wouldn’t even earn an Oscar nomination.  It would be another eight years before they would reward an Oscar snub but of their first 13 winners, only three would go on to win the Oscar (Rainer in 1936, Leigh, Fontaine).  Garbo would win two early awards and the first five winners would all be from MGM films (as many as all MGM films would win the award from all six groups since).  The National Board of Review would begin their own award in 1945 and Olivia de Havilland, in 1948, would be the first actress to win both awards.  In most years, the winners would be different, though there would be a couple of streaks where the winners would be the same (three times from 1952 to 1955, 1963-1966).  1966 would bring in the National Society of Film Critics and they would immediately start handing out the award to foreign actresses.  Before 1966, each of the two groups had given one award to a foreign language performance while the NSFC did it in each of their first three years.  The three groups would agree for the first time on Glenda Jackson in 1970.  The LA Film Critics would begin in 1975 in a stretch where all the groups were heavy for foreign actresses (seven of the eleven performances to win an award from 1972 to 1976 are foreign).  It would be in 1979 that an actress would win all four awards (Sally Field).  The Boston Society of Film Critics would begin the next year and in 1982 all five groups would agree on Meryl Streep.  The Chicago Film Critics would come on board in 1989 and in 1992 and 1993 all six groups agreed on Emma Thompson and Holly Hunter (and then again in 2006 on Helen Mirren).

Multiple Wins:

As mentioned above, three actresses have won awards from all six groups.  Prior to that, several actresses won both awards when there were just two groups, Jackson won all three of the existing groups, Field won all four existing groups (with three others winning four of five between 1980 and 1988: Sissy Spacek, Shirley MacLaine, Holly Hunter) and Streep won all five with Michelle Pfeiffer winning five of six in the first year with six awards.

Multiple Films:

This has been a consistent mark of all the critics groups dating back to 1945 when the NYFC gave the award to Ingrid Bergman for The Bells of St. Mary’s and Spellbound.  At the NYFC, Deborah Kerr won it in 1947 for two films as did Liv Ullmann in 1973 and Hope Davis in 2003 while Grace Kelly won it in 1954 for three.  The NBR started in, in 1953 with Jean Simmons (3 films), then Kelly (3 in 1954), Joanne Woodward (2 in 1957), Julie Christie (2 in 1965), Liv Ullmann (2 in 1968) and Emma Thompson (2 in 1995).  The NSFC gave it to Anjelica Huston in 1990 for two films.  The LAFC started it in 1978 with Jane Fonda (3 films), then Kathleen Turner in 1984 (2), Anjelica Huston (2 in 1990) and Julianne Moore (2 in 2002).  Huston also won the BSFC in 1990 for two films.

Foreign Films:

There have been 23 different performances to win critics awards (winning 36 awards), three of them winning three each (Isabelle Adjani in 1975, Liv Ullmann in 1976, Ingrid Bergman in 1978).  Twelve of the awards have been won by Liv Ullmann alone.  Eleven of the awards were given by the NSFC and before 1966, it was almost never done and from 1966 to 1968, the NSFC awards four different films.  The biggest stretch, as mentioned above, was in the mid 70’s.

Single Awards:

There have been 197 films that have won a Best Actress critics award.  Of those, 84 won just that one award with the two oldest groups accounting for the majority of them (29 from the NBR, 27 from the NYFC).  There have been another 22 films that won two critics awards, both of them for Actress, seven of them NBR / NYFC winners while half of them won the NSFC and one other award.  There have been five films to win three Actress awards and no other awards.  Three films, Norma Rae, Coal Miner’s Daughter and Vera Drake, won four Actress awards but no other awards.  Sophie’s Choice is the grand winner, taking home five Actress awards but no other awards.

Other Awards:

Doing the math above, you’ll realize that 83 films won Best Actress as well as at least one other award in another category.  Picture is the category most likely to be win in conjunction with Actress, with 35 films winning both.  Eight films have won multiple awards in both Picture and Actress with Terms of Endearment (three Picture, four Actress) the biggest winner.  There have been 31 films to win both Actress and Director with 14 films winning multiple awards for both, the biggest being The Piano, winning all six for Actress and two for Director.  None of the acting overlaps are very big (14 with Actor, 15 with Supporting Actor, 17 with Supporting Actress).  Only two films have ever won multiple awards for both Actor and Actress (Silence of the Lambs, Leaving Las Vegas).  The two films that won the fewest of their awards points with Actress are Sense and Sensibility and Lost in Translation with the one Actress award for each accounting for less than 10% of the film’s total critics awards points.

The Critics Top 10 (raw total):

1. Liv Ullmann  –  840
2. Meryl Streep  –  740
3. Holly Hunter  –  700
4. Sissy Spacek  –  560
5. Ingrid Bergman  –  490
6. Emma Thompson  –  490
7. Julie Christie  –  490
8. Hilary Swank  –  420
9. Julianne Moore  –  420
10. Helen Mirren  –  420

Best by Group

• NYFC:  Meryl Streep  (Sophie’s Choice, 1982)
• LAFC:  Meryl Streep  (Sophie’s Choice, 1982)
• NSFC:  Meryl Streep  (Sophie’s Choice, 1982)
• BSFC:  Meryl Streep  (Sophie’s Choice, 1982)
• CFC:  Helen Mirren  (The Queen, 2006)
• NBR:  Meryl Streep  (Sophie’s Choice, 1982)

Worst by Group

• NYFC:  Ida Lupino  (The Hard Way, 1943)
• LAFC:  Sandrine Bonnaire  (Vagabond, 1986)
• NSFC:  Marilia Pera  (Pixote, 1981)
• BSFC:  Rosanna Arquette  (Baby It’s You, 1983)
• CFC:  Ellen Burstyn  (Requiem for a Dream, 2000)
• NBR:  Irene Papas  (Trojan Woman, 1971)

note:  I should point out that the CFC has a really strong group of winners.

10 Best Performances that Didn’t Win any Critics Awards (post-1966):

1. Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter, 1968
2. Emma Thompson, The Remains of the Day, 1993
3. Annette Bening, American Beauty, 1999
4. Faye Dunaway, Chinatown, 1974
5. Diane Keaton, Reds, 1981
6. Faye Dunaway, Bonnie and Clyde, 1967
7. Ingrid Thulin, Cries and Whispers, 1972/1973
8. Mary Tyler Moore, Ordinary People, 1980
9. Nicole Kidman, The Hours, 2002
10. Meryl Streep, The Hours, 2002

5 Most Acclaimed Post-1966 Performances to not Win a Critics Award (based on Consensus Awards percentage):

1. Katharine Hepburn, On Golden Pond, 1981
2. Nicole Kidman, The Hours, 2002
3. Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side, 2009
4. Liza Minnelli, Cabaret, 1972
5. Maggie Smith, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1969

Least Acclaimed Performances to Win the Critics by Group

• NYFC:  Jennifer Jason Leigh, Georgia, 1995
• LAFC:  Jeong-hie Yun, Poetry, 2011
• NSFC:  Kirsten Dunst, Melancholia, 2011
• BSFC:  Samantha Morton, Under the Skin, 1998
• CFC:  Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger, 2005
• NBR:  Lilian Gish, The Whales of August, 1987

note:  Basically, because of the larger total amount of Consensus points the more recent you get, these are all the most recent examples of a winner with no other Consensus points.

Most Critically Acclaimed Performance Snubbed by a Critics Group:

• NYFC:  Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce, 1945
• LAFC:  Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line, 2005
• NSFC:  Hilary Swank, Boys Don’t Cry, 1999
• BSFC:  Michelle Pfeiffer, The Fabulous Baker Boys, 1989
• CFC:  Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line, 2005
• NBR:  Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress, 1949

Critical Oddities:

note:  These are the performances that won multiple Critics Awards but failed to earn nominations from any of the awards groups.

• Liv Ullmann  (Shame, 1968)
  • NSFC, NBR
• Marilia Pera  (Pixote, 1981)
  • NSFC, BSFC
• Chloe Webb  (Sid and Nancy, 1986)
  • NSFC, BSFC
• Ally Sheedy  (High Art, 1998)
  • LAFC, NSFC
• Naomi Watts  (Mulholland Dr., 2001)
  • NSFC, CFC
• Yolande Moreau  (Seraphine, 2009)
  • LAFC, NSFC

Going First Has Disadvantages – The NBR Being Different:

• 1951  –  They decide that Jan Sterling in Ace in the Hole is a lead role
• 1953  –  They award Jean Simmons for The Actress while all other awards go to Audrey Hepburn
• 1977  –  They decide Diane Keaton is supporting in Annie Hall
• 1990  –  They award Mia Farrow for Alice whose only other support is a Globe – Comedy nom
• 2010  –  They award Leslie Manville for Another Year for a supporting role (BAFTA nominated for supporting)

The Nighthawk Awards

note:  Because my awards go, retroactively, all the way back through 1912, there are a lot more nominees and winners than in the other awards.

Multiple Nominations (Films):

It would take until 1973 for Cries and Whispers to become the first film to win Best Actress and earn a second nomination but it would happen again with Autumn Sonata, Terms of Endearment, Howards End and The Hours.  Stage Door is the first film to earn two nominations, followed by All About Eve, Night of the Iguana, The Turning Point, Thelma & Louise and The Kids are All Right.

Multiple Nominations (Performances):

In my very first year (the combined year of 1912-26), Lilian Gish both wins the award (Broken Blossoms) and earns a nomination (Birth of a Nation).  The next year, Janet Gaynor does the same (Sunrise, 7th Heaven).  Marlene Dietrich is next in 1931 but she just earns two noms (Morocco, The Blue Angel).  Others who win the award and earn a second nomination are Katharine Hepburn in 1933 (Morning Glory, Little Women), Rosalind Russell in 1941 (The Lady Eve, Ball of Fire), Greer Garson in 1942 (Mrs. Miniver, Random Harvest), Ingrid Bergman in 1943 (For Whom the Bell Tolls, Casablanca), Deborah Kerr in 1947 (I See a Dark Stranger, Black Narcissus), Joanne Woodward in 1957 (Three Faces of Eve, No Down Payment), Simone Signoret in 1959 (Room at the Top, The Crucible), Diane Keaton in 1977 (Annie Hall, Looking for Mr. Goodbar), Emma Thompson in 1993 (The Remains of the Day, Much Ado About Nothing) and Kate Winslet in 2008 (Revolutionary Road, The Reader).  Dietrich is the only one to earn two nominations but not win the award.

Directors:

Seven directors have directed at least six actresses to a Nighthawk nomination.  Fred Zinnemann’s performers are 0 for 6, Billy Wilder and David Lean are both 2 for 6 (surprising for Lean who, because of his two Best Picture winning films is often thought of as more of a male director), Hitchcock is 0 for 8, Cukor is 3 for 10 and William Wyler (no surprise) is 3 for 11.  Ingmar Bergman, of course, massively dominates here with three winners (one each for Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Bergman) and 17 nominees including 7 for Ullmann and 4 for Ingrid Thulin.

Sequels:

The original 1932 Fanny is the first sequel to earn a nomination, notable since Orane Demazis didn’t earn one for the first film, Marius.  Also earning nominations are Carrie Fisher for Empire Strikes Back, Sigourney Weaver for Aliens and Michelle Pfeiffer for Batman Returns (though she wasn’t in the original).

Genres:

Drama massively dominates the nominations (63.87%) and wins (71.76%) with Comedy distantly behind in noms (17.95%) and wins (10.59%).  No other genre has more than 5% of the noms while Suspense, with 6 wins, manages a little over seven percent.  Every genre has at least one nomination though Adventure (The African Queen) and Western (McCabe & Mrs. Miller) only have one each while a lot of genres have no wins (Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Kids, Sci-Fi, Western).

Best Picture:

Is the problem that I don’t have the right appreciation for the right films, the one with the best lead actress performances, or that they don’t come in the very best films?  Either way, there have only been a dozen films to win both Picture and Actress, ranging from Sunrise in 1928 to American Beauty in 1999.  There have been another 11 Nighthawk winnings films to earn an Actress nomination, most recently Inglourious Basterds (the first in nine years).  Another 34 films have earned Nighthawk nominations for Picture while winning Actress.  In total, 126 films earned a nomination in both categories.  Unfortunately, it does mean that almost half of the Best Actress winners don’t come from films nominated for Picture.

Foreign Film:

There have been seven foreign language performances to win the Nighthawk, all of them either Swedish or French: Anita Bjork (Miss Julie), Harriet Andersson (Through a Glass Darkly), Liv Ullmann (Cries and Whispers), Isabelle Adjani (The Story of Adele H), Ingrid Bergman (Autumn Sonata), Audrey Tautou (A Very Long Engagement) and Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose).  In total, there have been 59 foreign language performances to earn nominations, dominated of course by performances in Bergman films.  While Bergman accounts for three wins and 17 nominations, the only other director with more than two is Almodovar and he only has four (with no wins).

Single Nominations:

There have been nine winners in which the film earned no other nominations, though only three since 1964 (The Fabulous Baker Boys, Death and the Maiden, Shame).  There were three in a row from 1955-57 (The Rose Tattoo, Anastasia, Three Faces of Eve).  There have been 98 other nominees from films that received no other nominations.  2011 was the first year without a single nominee since 2001 while 1959 and 1984 had three each.  The Turning Point is notable in being the only film to receive two Actress nominations without any other nominations.  The Shop Around the Corner and Whale Rider are notable for being the only Top 10 films to earn Actress nominations but no other nominations.

Other Categories:

Nothing crosses over a ton (no category overlaps more than 127 times) and it’s the major categories that cross over the most: 127 for Picture, 121 for Director, 118 for Adapted Screenplay with the effects technical categories the least: 19 for Visual Effects, 22 for Sound Editing, 33 for Makeup, 47 for Sound.  The biggest categories (Picture, Director, both Screenplays, all Acting categories, Editing, Cinematography, Art Direction) all cross over between 127 and 91 times, so it’s fairly evenly spread.

My Top 10

1. Katharine Hepburn  –  560
2. Bette Davis  –  525
3. Meryl Streep  –  455
4. Ingrid Bergman  –  420
5. Deborah Kerr  –  385
6. Janet Gaynor  –  315
7. Liv Ullmann  –  315
8. Emma Thompson  –  315
9. Audrey Hepburn  –  245
10. Jane Fonda  /  Shirley MacLaine  –  245

My Top 10 Drama

1. Bette Davis  –  665
2. Katharine Hepburn  –  455
3. Ingrid Bergman  –  455
4. Meryl Streep  –  455
5. Deborah Kerr  –  385
6. Liv Ullmann  –  385
7. Jane Fonda  –  350
8. Janet Gaynor  –  315
9. Vivien Leigh  –  280
10. Joanne Woodward  /  Emma Thompson  /  Sissy Spacek  /  Sigourney Weaver  –  245

My Top 10 Comedy

1. Audrey Hepburn  –  420
2. Katharine Hepburn  –  385
3. Shirley MacLaine  –  350
4. Julie Andrews  –  280
5. Carole Lombard  –  245
6. Renee Zellweger  –  245
7. Meryl Streep  –  245
8. Marie Dressler  –  210
9. Kathleen Turner  –  210
10. Mia Farrow  /  Diane Keaton  /  Emma Thompson  –  210

My Top 10 Weighted Points

1. Katharine Hepburn  –  917
2. Bette Davis  –  792
3. Meryl Streep  –  737
4. Deborah Kerr  –  581
5. Ingrid Bergman  –  540
6. Liv Ullmann  –  495
7. Audrey Hepburn  –  449
8. Emma Thompson  –  417
9. Shirley MacLaine  –  388
10. Greta Garbo  –  379

note:  This based on a scale from 20-1 based on Top 20 placement at the Nighthawks.  A win is worth 70 points in Actress, a 20th place finish is worth 1 point (if the list goes a full 20).

My Top 10 Absolute Points List:

1. Meryl Streep  –  1133
2. Katharine Hepburn  –  877
3. Bette Davis  –  811
4. Liv Ullmann  –  611
5. Deborah Kerr  –  594
6. Emma Thompson  –  574
7. Ingrid Bergman  –  550
8. Audrey Hepburn  –  548
9. Nicole Kidman  –  531
10. Shirley MacLaine  –  513

note:  This is a point scale based on their performance points, not where they finished in the year.

Top Absolute Points by Decade:

1912-1929

1. Lilian Gish  –  253
2. Janet Gaynor  –  166
3. Gloria Swanson  –  121
4. Mary Pickford  –  77
5. Maria Falconetti  –  61

1930-1939

1. Bette Davis  –  270
2. Katharine Hepburn  –  265
3. Norma Shearer  –  244
4. Greta Garbo  –  208
5. Marlene Dietrich  /  Janet Gaynor  –  131

1940-1949

1. Ingrid Bergman  –  384
2. Bette Davis  –  297
3. Olivia de Havilland  –  245
4. Barbara Stanwyck  –  236
5. Greer Garson  –  173

1950-1959

1. Deborah Kerr  –  279
2. Audrey Hepburn  –  262
3. Simone Signoret  –  246
4. Anna Magnani  –  244
5. Katharine Hepburn  –  236

1960-1969

1. Audrey Hepburn  –  286
2. Anne Bancroft  –  236
3. Natalie Wood  –  234
4. Shirley MacLaine  –  208
5. Katharine Hepburn  –  192

1970-1979

1. Liv Ullmann  –  383
2. Glenda Jackson  –  306
3. Jane Fonda  –  278
4. Diane Keaton  –  200
5. Julie Christie  –  174

1980-1989

1. Meryl Streep  –  444
2. Sissy Spacek  –  236
3. Jessica Lange  –  235
4. Kathleen Turner  –  210
5. Debra Winger  /  Judy Davis  –  175

1990-1999

1. Emma Thompson  –  539
2. Meryl Streep  –  280
3. Jennifer Jason Leigh  –  218
4. Susan Sarandon  –  218
5. Michelle Pfeiffer  –  217

2000-2011

1. Meryl Streep  –  409
2. Nicole Kidman  –  339
3. Naomi Watts  –  305
4. Kate Winslet  –  305
5. Renee Zellweger  –  271

Years in Which an Actress Exceeded 115 Absolute Points:

• Janet Gaynor  –  1928  –  122  (Sunrise  /  7th Heaven)
• Barbara Stanwyck  –  1941  –  140  (The Lady Eve  /  Ball of Fire)
• Ingrid Bergman  –  1943  –  122  (For Whom the Bell Tolls  /  Casablanca)
• Glenda Jackson  –  1971  –  140  (Sunday Bloody Sunday  /  Mary Queen of Scots  /  The Music Lovers)
• Diane Keaton  –  1977  –  122  (Annie Hall  /  Looking for Mr. Goodbar)
• Emma Thompson  –  1993  –  148  (The Remains of the Day  /  Much Ado About Nothing)
• Emma Thompson  –  1995  –  122  (Sense & Sensibility  /  Carrington)
• Kate Winslet  –  2008  –  131  (Revolutionary Road  /  The Reader)

Top 5 Films to win the Nighthawk (based on quality of film not the performance):

1. Sunset Blvd.
2. Bonnie and Clyde
3. Cries and Whispers
4. Chinatown
5. A Streetcar Named Desire

Worst 5 Films to win the Nighthawk (based on quality of film not the performance):

1. Morning Glory
2. A Free Soul
3. Alice Adams
4. The Three Faces of Eve
5. Mildred Pierce

Worst 5 Films to earn a Nighthawk nomination  (based on quality of film not the performance):

1. The Iron Lady
2. Min and Bill
3. The Divorcee
4. Morning Glory
5. A Free Soul

note:  These are the only five films worse than **.5 to earn an Actress nomination (they’re all **).

Nighthawk Notables:

• Best Line (dramatic): “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve?  You just put your lips together and blow.”  (Lauren Bacall, To Have and Have Not, 1944)
• Best Line (comedic):  “Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not “Every man for himself.” And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.”  (Jamie Lee Curtis, A Fish Called Wanda, 1988)
• Funniest Performance:  Jamie Lee Curtis, A Fish Called Wanda, 1988
• Best Heroine:  Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs, 1991
• Best Animated Performance:  Holly Hunter, The Incredibles, 2004
• Sexiest Performance:  Naomi Watts, Mulholland Dr., 2001
• Performance to Fall in Love With:  Judy Garland, The Wizard of Oz, 1939
• Best Playing Another Actress:  Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe, My Week with Marilyn, 2011
• Best Death Scene:  Faye Dunaway, Bonnie and Clyde, 1967
• Best Mother:  Christine Lahti, Running on Empty, 1988
• Worst Mother:  Bette Davis, The Little Foxes, 1941
• Best Bond Girl:  Eva Green, Casino Royale, 2006

Top 5 Shakespeare Performances (original Shakespeare language):

1. Emma Thompson, Much Ado About Nothing, 1993
2. Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love, 1998
3. Helen Mirren, The Tempest, 2011
4. Claire Danes, Romeo + Juliet, 1996
5. Norma Shearer, Romeo and Juliet, 1936

Top 5 Tennessee Williams Performances:

1. Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
2. Elizabeth Taylor, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, 1958
3. Anna Magnani, The Rose Tattoo, 1955
4. Geraldine Page, Sweet Bird of Youth, 1962
5. Carroll Baker, Baby Doll, 1956

Top 5 Royal Performances:

1. Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter, 1968
2. Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth, 1998
3. Isabelle Adjani, Queen Margot, 1994
4. Judi Dench, Mrs. Brown, 1997
5. Genevieve Bujola, Anne of the Thousand Days, 1969

Top 5 Singer Biopic Performances:

1. Marion Cotillard, Edith Piaf, La Vie en Rose, 2007
2. Barbra Streisand, Fanny Brice, Funny Girl, 1968
3. Sissy Spacek, Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner’s Daughter, 1980
4. Diana Ross, Billie Holliday, Lady Sings the Blues, 1972
5. Reese Witherspoon, June Carter Cash, Walk the Line, 2005

Top 5 Screwball Comedy Performances:

1. Katharine Hepburn, The Philadelphia Story, 1940
2. Barbara Stanwyck, The Lady Eve, 1941
3. Rosalind Russell, His Girl Friday, 1940
4. Katharine Hepburn, Bringing Up Baby, 1938
5. Claudette Colbert, It Happened One Night, 1934

Top 10 Performances from Ingmar Bergman Films:

1. Liv Ullmann, Cries and Whispers, 1972/1973
2. Harriet Andersson, Through a Glass Darkly, 1961/1962
3. Ingrid Thulin, Cries and Whispers, 1972/1973
4. Ingrid Bergman, Autumn Sonata, 1978
5. Liv Ullmann, Scenes from a Marriage, 1973/1974
6. Eva Dahlbeck, Smiles of a Summer Night, 1955/1958
7. Liv Ullmann, Persona, 1966/1967
8. Harriet Andersson, Sawdust and Tinsel, 1953/1956
9. Liv Ullmann, Autumn Sonata, 1978
10. Ingrid Thulin, Winter Light, 1963

Top 5 Performances from George Cukor Films:

1. Ingrid Bergman, Gaslight, 1944
2. Katharine Hepburn, The Philadelphia Story, 1940
3. Judy Garland, A Star is Born, 1954
4. Anna Magnani, Wild is the Wind, 1957
5. Maggie Smith, Travels with My Aunt, 1972

Top 10 Performances from William Wyler Films:

1. Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress, 1949
2. Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday, 1953
3. Bette Davis, The Letter, 1940
4. Bette Davis, The Little Foxes, 1941
5. Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl, 1968
6. Bette Davis, Jezebel, 1938
7. Samantha Eggar, The Collector, 1965
8. Greer Garson, Mrs. Miniver, 1942
9. Myrna Loy, The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946
10. Shirley MacLaine, The Children’s Hour, 1961

The Full List of Nighthawk Winners and What Other Awards They Won or Were Nominated For

• 1912-26:  Lillian Gish, Broken Blossoms
• 1927-28:  Janet Gaynor, Sunrise  (Oscar)
• 1928-29:  Lillian Gish, The Wind
• 1929-30:  Janet Gaynor, Lucky Star
• 1930-31:  Norma Shearer, A Free Soul  (Oscar)
• 1931-32:  Constance Bennett, What Price Hollywood
• 1932-33:  Katharine Hepburn, Morning Glory  (Oscar)
• 1934:  Bette Davis, Of Human Bondage
• 1935:  Katharine Hepburn, Alice Adams  (Oscar)
• 1936:  Bette Davis, The Petrified Forest
• 1937:  Janet Gaynor, A Star is Born  (Oscar)
• 1938:  Wendy Hiller, Pygmalion  (Oscar)
• 1939:  Vivien Leigh, Gone with the Wind  (Oscar, NYFC)
• 1940:  Katharine Hepburn, The Philadelphia Story  (NYFC, Oscar)
• 1941:  Barbara Stanwyck, The Lady Eve
• 1942:  Greer Garson, Mrs. Miniver  (Oscar)
• 1943:  Ingrid Bergman, For Whom the Bell Tolls  (Oscar)
• 1944:  Ingrid Bergman, Gaslight  (Oscar, Globe)
• 1945:  Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce  (Oscar, Globe, NBR)
• 1946:  Celia Johnson, Brief Encounter  (NYFC, Oscar)
• 1947:  Deborah Kerr, I See a Dark Stranger  (NYFC)
• 1948:  Olivia de Havilland, The Snake Pit  (NYFC, NBR, Oscar)
• 1949:  Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress  (NYFC, Oscar, Globe)
• 1950:  Gloria Swanson, Sunset Blvd.  (NBR, Globe, Oscar)
• 1951:  Vivien Leigh, A Streetcar Named Desire  (NYFC, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1952:  Anita Bjork, Miss Julie
• 1953:  Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday  (NYFC, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1954:  Grace Kelly, The Country Girl  (NYFC, NBR, Oscar, Globe, BAFTA)
• 1955:  Anna Magnani, The Rose Tattoo  (NYFC, NBR, Oscar, Globe, BAFTA)
• 1956:  Ingrid Bergman, Anastasia  (NYFC, Oscar, Globe)
• 1957:  Joanne Woodward, The Three Faces of Eve  (NBR, Oscar, Globe, BAFTA)
• 1958:  Elizabeth Taylor, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof  (Oscar, BAFTA)
• 1959:  Simone Signoret, Room at the Top  (NBR, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1960:  Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment  (BAFTA, Globe, Oscar)
• 1961:  Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s  (Oscar, Globe)
• 1962:  Harriet Andersson, Through a Glass Darkly  (BAFTA)
• 1963:  Patricia Neal, Hud  (NYFC, NBR, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe – Supporting)
• 1964:  Anne Bancroft, The Pumpkin Eater  (BAFTA, Globe, Oscar)
• 1965:  Julie Christie, Darling  (NYFC, NBR, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1966:  Elizabeth Taylor, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf  (NYFC, NBR, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1967:  Faye Dunaway, Bonnie and Clyde  (Oscar, Globe)
• 1968:  Katharine Hepburn, The Lion in Winter  (Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1969:  Jane Fonda, They Shoot Horses Don’t They  (NYFC, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1970:  Glenda Jackson, Women in Love  (NYFC, NBR, NSFC, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1971:  Jane Fonda, Klute  (NYFC, NSFC, Oscar, Globe, BAFTA)
• 1972:  Liza Minnelli, Cabaret  (Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1973:  Liv Ullmann, Cries and Whispers  (NYFC, NBR, NSFC)
• 1974:  Faye Dunaway, Chinatown  (Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1975:  Isabelle Adjani, The Story of Adele H  (NYFC, NSFC, NBR, Oscar)
• 1976:  Faye Dunaway, Network  (Oscar, Globe, BAFTA)
• 1977:  Diane Keaton, Annie Hall  (NYFC, NSFC, NBR – Supporting, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1978:  Ingrid Bergman, Autumn Sonata  (NYFC, NSFC, NBR, Oscar, Globe)
• 1979:  Bette Midler, The Rose  (Globe, Oscar, BAFTA)
• 1980:  Mary Tyler Moore, Ordinary People  (Globe, Oscar, BAFTA)
• 1981:  Diane Keaton, Reds  (Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1982:  Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice  (NYFC, LAFC, NSFC, BSFC, NBR, Oscar, Globe, BAFTA)
• 1983:  Shirley MacLaine, Terms of Endearment  (NYFC, LAFC, NBR, Oscar, Globe, BAFTA)
• 1984:  Judy Davis, A Passage to India  (BSFC, Oscar)
• 1985:  Frances McDormand, Blood Simple
• 1986:  Marlee Matlin, Children of a Lesser God  (Oscar, Globe)
• 1987:  Holly Hunter, Broadcast News  (NYFC, LAFC, BSFC, NBR, Oscar, Globe)
• 1988:  Christine Lahti, Running on Empty  (LAFC, Globe)
• 1989:  Michelle Pfeiffer, The Fabulous Baker Boys  (NYFC, LAFC, NSFC, BSFC, CFC, Globe, Oscar, BAFTA)
• 1990:  Anjelica Huston, The Grifters  (LAFC, NSFC, BSFC, Oscar, Globe)
• 1991:  Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs  (NYFC, CFC, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1992:  Emma Thompson, Howards End  (NYFC, LAFC, NSFC, BSFC, CFC, NBR, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1993:  Emma Thompson, The Remains of the Day  (Oscar, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1994:  Sigourney Weaver, Death and the Maiden
• 1995:  Emma Thompson, Sense and Sensibility  (NBR, BAFTA, Oscar, Globe, SAG)
• 1996:  Frances McDormand, Fargo  (NBR, CFC, Oscar, SAG, BFCA, BAFTA, Globe)
• 1997:  Cate Blanchett, Oscar and Lucinda
• 1998:  Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth  (CFC, BAFTA, Globe, BFCA, Oscar, SAG)
• 1999:  Annette Bening, American Beauty  (BAFTA, SAG, Oscar, Globe)
• 2000:  Laura Linney, You Can Count On Me  (NYFC, NSFC, Oscar, Globa, SAG)
• 2001:  Sissy Spacek, In the Bedroom  (NYFC, LAFC, Globe, BFCA, Oscar, BAFTA, SAG)
• 2002:  Nicole Kidman, The Hours  (Oscar, BAFTA, Globe, SAG, BFCA)
• 2003:  Naomi Watts, 21 Grams  (LAFC, Oscar, BAFTA, SAG, BFCA)
• 2004:  Audrey Tautou, A Very Long Engagement
• 2005:  Gwyneth Paltrow, Proof  (Globe)
• 2006:  Helen Mirren, The Queen  (NYFC, LAFC, NSFC, BSFC, CFC, NBR, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe, SAG, BFCA)
• 2007:  Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose  (LAFC, BSFC, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe, SAG, BFCA)
• 2008:  Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road  (Globe, BAFTA, SAG)
• 2009:  Carey Mulligan, An Education  (NBR, CFC, BAFTA, Oscar, Globe, SAG, BFCA)
• 2010:  Natalie Portman, Black Swan  (BSFC, CFC, Oscar, BAFTA, Globe, SAG, BFCA)
• 2011:  Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn  (NYFC, CFC, Globe, Oscar, BAFTA, SAG, BFCA)

The Full List of Nighthawk Drama Winners (if they didn’t win the Nighthawk Award itself)

note:  No listing of other awards – it takes a long time to type.

• 1938:  Bette Davis, Jezebel
• 1940:  Joan Fontaine, Rebecca
• 1941:  Bette Davis, The Little Foxes
• 1953:  Deborah Kerr, From Here to Eternity
• 1960:  Tatyana Samojlova, The Cranes are Flying
• 1961:  Natalie Wood, Splendor in the Grass
• 1972:  Liv Ullmann, The Emigrants
• 1977:  Jane Fonda, Julia
• 1979:  Jane Fonda, The China Syndrome
• 1987:  Maggie Smith, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne
• 1996:  Emily Watson, Breaking the Waves
• 2007:  Julie Christie, Away from Her
• 2011:  Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

The Full List of Nighthawk Comedy / Musical Winners (including those that won the Nighthawk Award itself – those are in red)

note:  No listing of other awards – it takes a long time to type.

• 1926:  Marie Dressler  Tillie’s Punctured Romance
• 1928:  none
• 1929:  Bessie Love,  The Broadway Melody
• 1930:  Pola Illery,  Under the Roofs of Paris
• 1931:  Marie Dressler,  Min and Bill
• 1932:  Marie Dressler,  Emma
• 1933:  May Robson,  Lady for a Day
• 1934:  Myrna Loy,  The Thin Man
• 1935:  Ginger Rogers,  Top Hat
• 1936:  Carole Lombard,  My Man Godfrey
• 1937:  Irene Dunne,  The Awful Truth
• 1938:  Wendy Hiller,  Pygmalion
• 1939:  Judy Garland,  The Wizard of Oz
• 1940:  Katharine Hepburn,  The Philadelphia Story
• 1941:  Barbara Stanwyck,  The Lady Eve
• 1942:  Katharine Hepburn,  Woman of the Year
• 1943:  Jean Arthur,  The More the Merrier
• 1944:  Betty Hutton,  The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek
• 1945:  none
• 1946:  Deborah Kerr,  Vacation from Marriage
• 1947:  Loretta Young,  The Farmer’s Daughter
• 1948:  Katharine Hepburn,  State of the Union
• 1949:  Hermione Baddely,  Passport to Pimlico
• 1950:  Katharine Hepburn,  Adam’s Rib
• 1951:  Thelma Ritter,  The Model and the Marriage Broker
• 1952:  Debbie Reynolds,  Singin’ in the Rain
• 1953:  Audrey Hepburn,  Roman Holiday
• 1954:  Judy Garland,  A Star is Born
• 1955:  Grace Kelly,  To Catch a Thief
• 1956:  Deborah Kerr,  The King and I
• 1957:  Audrey Hepburn,  Funny Face
• 1958:  Eva Dahlbeck,  Smiles of a Summer Night
• 1959:  Marilyn Monroe,  Some Like It Hot
• 1960:  Shirley MacLaine,  The Apartment
• 1961:  Audrey Hepburn,  Breakfast at Tiffany’s
• 1962:  Shirley Jones,  The Music Man
• 1963:  Shirley MacLaine, Irma La Douce
• 1964:  Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins
• 1965:  Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music
• 1966:  Lynn Redgrave, Georgy Girl
• 1967:  Anne Bancroft, The Graduate
• 1968:  Barbra Streisand, Funny Girl
• 1969:  Patty Duke, Me Natalie
• 1970:  Bonnie Bedelia, Lovers and Other Strangers
• 1971:  Ruth Gordon, Harold and Maude
• 1972:  Liza Minnelli, Cabaret
• 1973:  Marsha Mason, Cinderella Liberty
• 1974:  Diahann Carroll, Claudine
• 1975:  Ann-Margret, Tommy
• 1976:  Marie-Christine Barrault, Cousin Cousine
• 1977:  Diane Keaton, Annie Hall
• 1978:  Ellen Burstyn, Same Time Next Year
• 1979:  Bette Midler, The Rose
• 1980:  Sissy Spacek, Coal Miner’s Daughter
• 1981:  Karen Allen, Raiders of the Lost Ark
• 1982:  Julie Andrews, Victor/Victoria
• 1983:  Julie Walters, Educating Rita
• 1984:  Mia Farrow, Broadway Danny Rose
• 1985:  Kathleen Turner, Prizzi’s Honor
• 1986:  Kathleen Turner, Peggy Sue Got Married
• 1987:  Holly Hunter, Broadcast News
• 1988:  Jamie Lee Curtis, A Fish Called Wanda
• 1989:  Meg Ryan, When Harry Met Sally
• 1990:  Lena Stolze, The Nasty Girl
• 1991:  Juliet Stevenson, Truly Madly Deeply
• 1992:  Michelle Pfeiffer, Batman Returns
• 1993:  Emma Thompson, Much Ado About Nothing
• 1994:  Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hudsucker Proxy
• 1995:  Nicole Kidman, To Die For
• 1996:  Frances McDormand, Fargo
• 1997:  Helen Hunt, As Good as it Gets
• 1998:  Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love
• 1999:  Reese Witherspoon, Election
• 2000:  Renee Zellweger, Nurse Betty
• 2001:  Audrey Tautou, Amelie
• 2002:  Renee Zellweger, Chicago
• 2003:  Scarlett Johansson, Lost in Translation
• 2004:  Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• 2005:  Kiera Knightley, Pride and Prejudice
• 2006:  Penelope Cruz, Volver
• 2007:  Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
• 2008:  Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
• 2009:  Meryl Streep, Julie and Julia
• 2010:  Annette Bening, The Kids are All Right
• 2011:  Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn

Ten Best Performances Not to Win the Nighthawk:

1. Bette Davis, All About Eve, 1950
2. Holly Hunter, The Piano, 1993
3. Meryl Streep, The Hours, 2002
4. Ingrid Thulin, Cries and Whispers, 1972/1973
5. Judy Garland, A Star is Born, 1954
6. Liv Ullmann, Scenes from a Marriage, 1973/1974
7. Katharine Hepburn, Long Day’s Journey Into Night, 1962
8. Anne Bancroft, The Graduate, 1967
9. Emily Watson, Breaking the Waves, 1996
10. Anne Baxter, All About Eve, 1940

5 Best Years:

1. 2002  (Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep (The Hours), Renee Zellweger (Chicago), Julianne Moore (Far From Heaven), Cate Blanchett (Heaven))
2. 2007  (Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), Julie Christie (Away from Her), Keira Knightley (Atonement), Ellen Page (Juno), Angelina Jolie (A Mighty Heart))
3. 2004  (Audrey Tautou (A Very Long Engagement), Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake), Julia Roberts (Closer), Annette Bening (Being Julia))
4. 1950  (Gloria Swanson (Sunset Blvd.), Bette Davis, Anne Baxter (All About Eve), Anna Magnani (Amore), Eleanor Parker (Caged))
5. 2001  (Sissy Spacek (In the Bedroom), Audrey Tautou (Amelie), Naomi Watts (Mulholland Dr.), Nicole Kidman (The Others), Halle Berry (Monster’s Ball))

5 Best Drama Years:

1. 1950  (Gloria Swanson (Sunset Blvd.), Bette Davis, Anne Baxter (All About Eve), Anna Magnani (Amore), Eleanor Parker (Caged))
2. 2002  (Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep (The Hours), Julianne Moore (Far From Heaven), Cate Blanchett (Heaven), Sigourney Weaver (The Guys))
3. 2007  (Julie Christie (Away from Her), Keira Knightley (Atonement), Angelina Jolie (A Mighty Heart), Naomi Watts (Eastern Promises), Anamaria Marinca (4 Months))
4. 1973  (Liv Ullmann, Ingrid Thulin (Cries and Whispers), Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist), Joanne Woodward (Summer Wishes Winter Dreams), Claire Bloom (A Doll’s House))
5. 1999  (Annette Bening (American Beauty), Julianne Moore (The End of the Affair), Cecilia Roth (All About My Mother), Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry), Sigourney Weaver (A Map of the World))

5 Best Comedy Years:

1. 2007  (Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), Ellen Page (Juno), Amy Adams (Enchanted), Laura Linney (The Savages), Helena Bonham Carter (Sweeney Todd))
2. 1996  (Frances McDormand (Fargo), Gwyneth Paltrow (Emma), Laura Dern (Citizen Ruth), Kate Beckinsale (Cold Comfort Farm), Renee Zellweger (Jerry Maguire))
3. 2005  (Keira Knightley (Pride and Prejudice), Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line), Judi Dench (Mrs Henderson Presents), Joan Allen (The Upside of Anger), Laura Linney (The Squid and the Whale))
4. 1998  (Gwyneth Paltrow (Shakespeare in Love), Emma Thompson (Primary Colors), Jennifer Lopez (Out of Sight), Jane Horrocks (Little Voice), Christina Ricci (The Opposite of Sex))
5. 1988  (Jamie Lee Curtis (A Fish Called Wanda), Carmen Maura (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown), Susan Sarandon (Bull Durham), Michelle Pfeiffer (Married to the Mob), Melanie Griffith (Working Girl))

Top 5 Sixth Place Finishers:

1. Meryl Streep, Doubt, 2008
2. Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby, 2004
3. Amy Adams, Enchanted, 2007
4. Sigourney Weaver, Gorillas in the Mist, 1988
5. Pamela Grier, Jackie Brown, 1997

The Best Actress By Finish in The Respective Years

• 1st  –  Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice, 1982
• 2nd  –  Bette Davis, All About Eve, 1950
• 3rd  –  Anne Baxter, All About Eve, 1950
• 4th  –  Ellen Page, Juno, 2007
• 5th  –  Annette Bening, Being Julia, 2004
• 6th  –  Meryl Streep, Doubt, 2008
• 7th  –  Laura Linney, The Savages, 2007
• 8th  –  Naomi Watts, Eastern Promises, 2007
• 9th  –  Anamaria Marinca, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, 2007
• 10th  –  Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, 2007
• 11th  –  Helena Bonham Carter, Sweeney Todd, 2007
• 12th  –  Madonna, Evita, 1996
• 13th  –  Geraldine Page, The Trip to Bountiful, 1985
• 14th  –  Christina Ricci, The Opposite of Sex, 1998
• 15th  –  Felicity Huffman, Transamerica, 2005
• 16th  –  Ally Sheedy, High Art, 1998
• 17th  –  Zhang Ziyi, Memoirs of a Geisha, 2005
• 18th  –  Dominique Swain, Lolita, 1997/1998
• 19th  –  Victoria Abril, French Twist, 1995/1996
• 20th  –  Isabelle Huppert, 8 Women, 2002

Consensus Awards

Most Awards (not including the Nighthawk):

• Helen Mirren, The Queen, 2006  –  11  (Oscar, SAG, BAFTA, Globe, BFCA, NYFC, LAFC, NSFC, BSFC, CFC, NBR)
• Emma Thompson, Howards End, 1992  –  9  (Oscar, BAFTA, Globe, NYFC, LAFC, NSFC, BSFC, CFC, NBR)
• Holly Hunter, The Piano, 1993  – 9  (Oscar, BAFTA, Globe, NYFC, LAFC, NSFC, BSFC, CFC, NBR)

Most Awards Points:

1. Helen Mirren, The Queen, 2006  –  693
2. Emma Thompson, Howards End, 1992  –  567
3. Holly Hunter, The Piano, 1993  –  567
4. Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line, 2005  –  511
5. Hilary Swank, Boys Don’t Cry, 1999  –  504

Highest Awards Percentage:

1. Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress, 1949  –  54.94%
2. Emma Thompson, Howards End, 1992  –  54.15%
3. Holly Hunter, The Piano, 1993  –  52.16%
4. Meryl Streep, Sophie’s Choice, 1982  –  49.79%
5. Joan Crawford, Mildred Pierce, 1945  –  45.45%

Performances That Won the Oscar, BAFTA and Globe (1952-1994):

• Audrey Hepburn, Roman Holiday, 1953
• Anna Magnani, The Rose Tattoo, 1955
• Joanne Woodward, The Three Faces of Eve, 1957
• Louise Fletcher, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1975
• Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs, 1991
• Emma Thompson, Howards End, 1992
• Holly Hunter, The Piano, 1993

Performances That Won the Oscar, BAFTA, Globe, SAG and BFCA:

• Julia Roberts, Erin Brockovich, 2000
• Helen Mirren, The Queen, 2006
• Kate Winslet, The Reader, 2008
• Natalie Portman, Black Swan, 2010

note:  Winslet’s SAG, Globe and BFCA wins were for Supporting though at the Globes she also won Actress for Revolutionary Road.

note:  the following lists only count 1945 on, after the NBR added a fourth award to the mix.

Consensus Blowouts  (Winners over 40%, no one else over 20%)

• 1949:  Olivia de Havilland (The Heiress) at 54.94%, no one else above 17.30%
• 1951:  Vivien Leigh (A Streetcar Named Desire) at 42.41%, no one else above 15.19%
• 1979:  Sally Field (Norma Rae) at 41.57%, no one else above 14.25%
• 1980:  Sissy Spacek (Coal Miner’s Daughter) at 41.26%, no one else above 12.24%
• 1982:  Meryl Streep (Sophie’s Choice) at 49.79%, no one else above 9.88%
• 1992:  Emma Thompson (Howards End) at 54.15%, no one else above 10.41%
• 1993:  Holly Hunter (The Piano) at 52.16%, no one else above 8.69%
• 2006:  Helen Mirren (The Queen) at 44.59%, no one else above 15.19%

Consensus Top Two  (Two both over 25% or over 20% post-1967, within 5% of each other)

• 1950:  Judy Holliday (Born Yesterday) over Gloria Swanson (Sunset Blvd.), 26.97% to 26.32%
• 1973:  Liv Ullmann (Cries and Whispers) over Joanne Woodward (Summer Wishes Winter Dreams), 22.50% to 21.02%
• 1975:  Isabelle Adjani (The Story of Adele H) over Louise Fletcher (One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest), 25.81% to 21.77%
• 1996:  Frances McDormand (Fargo) over Brenda Blethyn (Secrets & Lies), 27.28% to 23.90%
• 2007:  Julie Christie (Away from Her) over Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), 28.97% to 25.70%
• 2009:  Meryl Streep (Julie and Julia) over Carey Mulligan (An Education), 24.53% to 20.33%
• 2011:  Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) over Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn), 22.01% to 20.57%

note:  The Holliday-Swanson race only came out for Holliday because she got two Globe noms for the same performance.  Just outside those two is Bette Davis (All About Eve) at 24.34%.

Consensus Wide Open Field  (No one over 20%, all five above 10% – see chart below for the five actresses)

• 1994, range from 17.27% to 10.00%, includes four Oscar nominees

Consensus Chart

note:  The chart below I imported from Excel and I hope it isn’t too confusing.  It’s about as big as I could make to still have it fit.  I only include names because if an actress earned points from multiple films, I counted them together.  I also couldn’t get the borders to copy over, so it’s as readable as I could make it.
note:  There might be errors below because I changed the formula during the process.  If you see mistakes, please don’t point them out.  This list was not originally made for public viewing and I didn’t care if the names were spelled right so please don’t point that out either.