Category: Oscar Profile

Born July 19, 1976 in London, England, Benedict Cumberbatch is the son of actors Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton (born Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch). He is a grandson of submarine commander Henry Carlton Cumberbatch who fought in both World Wars and a great-grandson of diplomat Henry Arnold Cumberbatch, Queen Victoria’s Council General in Turkey and Lebanon.…

Born January 24, 1917 in Hamden, Connecticut, Ermes Effron Borgnino, known professionally as Ernest Borgnine, was the son of Italian immigrants. His parents separated when he was two years old, and he spent the next four and a half years liiving in Italy with his mother. His parents then reconciled, moving to New Haven, Connecticut…

Born December 8, 1911 in Bronx, New York, Lee J. Cobb (born Leo Jacoby) was interested in acting from an early age. He ran away from home at 16, joining the Harmonica Rascals with whom he made a short subject in Hollywood in 1929 before returning to New York where he studied accounting at New…

Born September 10, 1914 in Winchester, Indiana, Robert Wise was the youngest of three sons of a meatpacker and his wife. An avid moviegoer, he came into the film business through an odd job at RKO Radio Pictures when he was 19. Initially a protégé to a sound effects editor, he worked in that capacity…

Peter Farrelly’s Green Book won Best Picture of 2018 over Best Director Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, kicking off the decade. Among the other six nominees were Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther and Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. Not nominated were such films as Damien Chazelle’s First Man and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. 2019’s Best Picture award went for the…

Best Director Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture of 2008 as Oscar ended its 65-year tradition of five nominees in the category. It won over David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, Gus Van Sant’s Milk, and Stephen Daldry’s The Reader. Not nominated were such films as John Patrick Shanley’s…

John Madden’s Shakespeare in Love surprisingly won Best Picture of 1998 over Best Director Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. Also nominated were Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful and Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth. Not nominated were Bill Condon’s Gods and Monsters, Walter Salles’ Central Station, and Kirk Jones’ Waking Ned Devine.…

Best Director Barry Levinson’s Best Picture, Rain Man prevailed over Lawrence Kasdan’s The Accidental Tourist, Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liaisons, Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning and Mike Nichols’ Working Girl at the 1988 Oscars. Overlooked were Philip Kaufman’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers, and Sidney Lumet’s Running on Empty. Non-nominated Bruce Beresford’s Driving…

The Vietnam War was the backdrop for both Best Director Michael Cimino’s Oscar winning Best Picture, The Deer Hunter, and Hal Ashby’s also nominated Coming Home. Other nominees were Alan Parker’s Midnight Express, Paul Mazursky’s An Unmarried Woman and Warren Beatty and Buck Henry’s Heaven Can Wait. Overlooked were Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, Ingmar…

Musicals were on the downswing in 1968 but two of them, William Wyler’s film of Funny Girl and Carol Reed’s film of Oliver! , which was a surprise winner for both Best Picture and Best Director, were among Oscar’s five nominees for Best Picture. Joining them in the first Oscar race of the decade were…

It was during Oscar’s fourth decade that studio control over the movie business faltered, film distribution changed from single theatre premieres to wider openings, and the Hollywood Production Code saw chinks in it that ended it completely by the end of the decade. Oscar’s 1958 Best Picture was Best Director Vincente Minnelli’s Gigi, a musical…

Oscar’s 1948 Best Picture was Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet, the first time the award went to a non-Hollywood film. The British film won over three Hollywood films, Best Director John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, John Negulesco’s Johnny Belinda, and Anatole Litvak’s The Snake Pit as well as another British film, Powell & Pressburger’s…

Oscar recognized non-English language films in the Best Picture category for the first time with Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion included among the ten films nominated for the honor in 1938. It lost to the classic comedy, You Can’t Take It with You. Other films nominated that year included The Adventures of Robin Hood, Boys Town,…

The Academy Awards began with boards from five areas of endeavor (directors, actors, producers, writers, and technicians) whose votes decided the nominations while a panel of judges from each board decided the winners. The eligibility period was from August 1, 1927-July 28, 1928, for films opening in Los Angeles during that period. An eligibility list…

Born March 15, 1943 in Toronto, Canada, David Cronenberg is the son of a musician mother and writer-editor father. A voracious reader from an early age, he developed a strong interest in the science fiction writings of Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and later, Philip K. Dick, all of whom would influence his film work. Controversial…