By way of introduction I'm approaching this topic thusly: first, I'll be visiting the Wikipedia entry for every year listed below, and second, I'll be working my way down through the lists of Oscar winners until I find a) two movies I haven't seen before, and b) two movies also available on YouTube. Yes, I could get movies through a variety of other legal and illegal methods, but these entries are intended for a more general audience, and some of the streaming services and torrents don't work as well in certain countries.
Besides all that I'm lazy. Using VPNs, torrent clients and sites which force me to click off a thousand pop-ups is exhausting.
...oh, and one more thing -- since I'm basing this on the Academy Awards, be aware that all of the movies below came out the year before they won the award.
1990
1. Best Actress (Nominated): Pauline Collins: Shirley Valentine
The "middle-aged woman unsatisfied with her life thus far" movie is at this point a genre unto itself, but lead Pauline Collins, who played the same role in the stage production, pulls it off like nobody's business. Shirley Valentine is a very charming, very funny movie with much to recommend it.
Director Lewis Gilbert, who helmed everything from Sink the Bismark! to Educating Rita, should be more widely known than he is. My favorite of his movies is still, for all its ridiculousness, Moonraker, but Shirley Valentine also stands out in his long and accomplished filmography.
2. Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Nominated): Marlon Brando: A Dry White Season
An indisputably good movie, but in stylistic terms it feels like it belongs to the previous decade.
In A Dry White Season Donald Sutherland stars as a South African history teacher investigating his gardener's murder. Most of the "action" in this film revolves around the securing of various documents, but it still manages to generate a fair amount of tension.
Sutherland's costar Marlon Brando is memorable as an attorney doomed to failure, but I think that Denzel Washington, who won Best Supporting Actor for Glory the same year, had much more claim to the award. Brando was great in so many movies, but his role in this one is very abbreviated.
1991
1. Best Actor (Nominated): Richard Harris: The Field
Director Jim Sheridan is better known for his collaborations with Daniel Day-Lewis, but The Field, which follows his first movie My Left Foot, is still an impressive piece of work that should be better known.
To be fair it does meander a bit in the second half, but Richard Harris is outstanding as an Irish farmer with supposed blood rights to a local field. Critics weren't kind to this movie, but I think they were too harsh. It does feel a little too much like a play, but so do a lot of other movies, many of which have won Oscars.
2. Best Written Screenplay (Original Material) (Nominated): Whit Stillman: Metropolitan
A young man from the other side of the tracks befriends a group of Manhattan socialites. The writer, director and producer of this film could have done with a bigger budget, but I appreciate the work he put into it. The finished product is a triumph of resourcefulness.
1992
1. Best Documentary: In the Shadow of the Stars
I can't abide opera, but this documentary on the artform offers some interesting takes on what it means to be a singer in an opera chorus. Did it change my mind about opera? Not in the slightest, but I appreciate the work they put into what they do.
2. Best Documentary (Nominated): Death on the Job
An analysis of the three most hazardous professions, these being commercial fishing, construction (particularly tunneling) and anything in the petrochemical industry. This documentary doesn't state much beyond the obvious, but the numbers and testimonials it puts behind its statements are well worth considering.
1993
1. Best Foreign Language Film (Nominated): Daens
A Belgian priest and social reformer tries (and largely fails) to assist textile workers in his parish. As a historical account it rings true, but I don't think they managed to flesh out the priest as a character. Making his personal struggles more central to the plot would have made this film much better.
2. Best Documentary: The Panama Deception
More American adventurism in Central and South America. In this instance the U.S. props up the Noriega regime, which quickly grows to big for its britches. The result is a highly staged intervention in that country's affairs, much of which is quite gruesome.
1994
1. Best Actress (Nominated): Debra Winger: Shadowlands
Anthony Hopkins stars as the celebrated Narnian C.S. Lewis, with Debra Winger as an American poet visiting the author. In some ways this movie is almost too subtle for its own good, and I'm not surprised that Winger didn't win the Oscar. She's great here, but more bombastic films and performances usually take the prize.
Slight Disappointment: I would have enjoyed a glancing shot of J.R.R. Tolkien at one of the Oxford functions. He and Lewis were friends at the time.
2. Best Foreign Language Film (Nominated): Hedd Wyn
How many Welsh language movies have you seen? In my case Hedd Wyn brings the grand total to one.
This movie is... OK. I had trouble understanding what the big deal about the national poetry chair was, and also why it was of such overriding importance to the protagonist. Absent that understanding I was left with yet another film in which our hero, wounded in battle, reflects back upon his life. This life isn't in itself that interesting, and I think that the Academy made the right decision in passing over Hedd Wyn in favor of Belle Epoque, the Spanish nominee and winner from the same year.
1995
1. Best Foreign Language Film: Burnt by the Sun
Suicide, totalitarianism and paranoia in an idyllic Russian dacha. This movie tested my patience early on (in particular the annoyingly precocious child), but its conclusion is satisfyingly weird. Those able to wade through books like The Master and Margarita or The Gulag Archipelago will find a lot to like in Burnt by the Sun.
The two sequels to this movie were also very well received. I'll watch them if I can track them down.
2. Best Documentary (Nominated): Freedom on My Mind
Notes from the civil rights struggle in Mississippi. Many of the lessons (almost) learned from this chapter in U.S. history remain very, very relevant today, and learning more about the backgrounds of many participants adds another dimension to the events they took part in.
1996
1. Best Supporting Actress (Nominated): Mare Winningham: Georgia
Jennifer Jason Leigh. She's one of those actors/actresses who chooses well. If I see her name in the opening credits I know that the movie will be good, maybe even great.
Georgia I'd put in the "good" category. Leigh played a similar role four years earlier in Rush, but there's enough of a difference between that role and her role in Georgia to overlook the similarities. Mare Winningham is good as her older (and more famous) sibling, but in terms of story I couldn't quite figure out why people are so drawn to Leigh's character, and what kind of hold she has over them.
I think that Leigh taking the role showed a lot of courage, especially since her character is so often a source of embarrassment, but I would have liked more of this movie from the older sister's point of view.
2. Best Foreign Language Film: Antonia's Line
Several generations of women transform a Danish village. Antonia's Line has been described as "a feminist film," and yeah, the men in this movie don't amount to much. I enjoyed the first third of it, but found the second two thirds a little pretentious and hard to follow. If you're familiar with films like Hospital of the Transfiguration or The Hotel New Hampshire you'll have a larger frame of reference for Antonia's Line.
1997
1. Best Foreign Language Film: Kolya (a.k.a. "Kolja")
An aging Czech bachelor looks after a Russian boy abandoned by his mother. Unlike, Antonia's Line (above) this film isn't trying so hard to make a point, and instead offers a gripping story full of well thought-out characters. Many of Kolya's reflections on the Russian presence in Czechoslovakia are also very funny.
I've seen a few Czech films in the course of writing these entries, and I'd have to say that Kolya is the best I've seen so far.
Fun Fact: 1984's Amadeus is, to some extent, a product of Czechoslovakia. It was filmed there, much of the crew was Czech, and director Milos Forman immigrated from that country.
2. Best Documentary: When We Were Kings
An account of the "Rumble in the Jungle" bout between Ali and Foreman in Zaire. I'd already been introduced to this event in 1974's Rumble in the Jungle, a much earlier BBC documentary. In my opinion When We Were Kings adds little more than what was offered in Rumble in the Jungle.
1998
1. Best Director (Nominated): Atom Egoyan: The Sweet Hereafter
Ian Holm sells this movie like nobody's business (he really should have been nominated for Best Actor), but I had trouble with several aspects of his character. For example, where is his office? And why isn't he recording those home visits? And how likely is that conversation on the plane? And why isn't the plane moving?
Aside from Holm the perennially underrated Bruce Greenwood appears as the tormented father of two dead children, the rest of the cast being then (and now) relatively unknown. I liked the first third of this movie, but after that point it seemed very implausible.
I can remember thinking that Atom Egoyan was overrated at the time. Extra points for style, but not so many for substance. My opinion on the matter remains unchanged.
Huh?: The director viewed this film as a metaphor for the Armenian Genocide.
2. Best Foreign Language Film (Nominated): Beyond Silence
A young girl born to deaf parents aspires to be a musician. Those watching this movie in 2026 (or thereafter) might be reminded of 2021's CODA, which tackled similar themes. The 2014 French film La Famille Belier is credited as the inspiration behind CODA, but as CODA, La Famille Belier and Beyond Silence all explore similar ideas it's hard to say which chicken came before which egg.
1999
1. Best Supporting Actress (Nominated): Brenda Blethlyn: Little Voice
It took me a minute, but as I watched Little Voice I slowly realized that I'd seen it before. I'm not buying the turnout for "Little Voice's" debut concert, but once this hurdle is cleared it's not a bad movie. The "breakdown" Little Voice experiences is probably the highlight of the film.
2. Best Documentary: Dancemaker
A study of the famed choreographer Paul Taylor. I liked its inclusion of interviews which spoke against some of its subject's legacy, and the footage of the performances was well done.
Related Entries:
NOTE: Some of the above movies won or were nominated in other awards categories. The category listed is the first I came across.
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