IT'S OSCARS TIME AGAIN!

However much I've often disagreed with the Academy, I've always loved the Academy Awards. (But I'm sure many of you regular readers might've figured that already.) For a cinephile like me, Oscar day (as it is in Australia) is much like Christmas. I don't throw a party or anything, but I watch and record the show live (although I've missed it since 2014, to my chagrin, for weather and work reasons), and then discuss it at length with several online friends.

This first year I watched the Oscars was 1999, when Shakespeare in Love won Best Picture and Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful) practically trampled the audience on his way onto the stage (the latter being my earliest Oscars memory). From then, I was permanently hooked.

I do have my longstanding gripes with some Oscar wins, both during and before my lifetime, but hey, disagreements happen and I'm nobody important anyway. But the atmosphere and spectacle of the Awards is just transfixing every fucking time, and what they celebrate - the magic of movies - epitomises contagiousness. There are numerous reasons why cinema, like all artforms, has endured for over a century.

I would now list my most hated Oscar wins, but I'm a cranky, rambling arsehole already. So, here are my picks for the top five winners in each major category ever, in no order besides alphabetical.

BEST PICTURE:

Forrest Gump (1994)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Schindler's List (1993)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)


BEST DIRECTOR:


Jonathan Demme - The Silence of the Lambs
Milos Forman - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Peter Jackson - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Steven Spielberg - Schindler's List
Robert Zemeckis - Forrest Gump


BEST ACTOR:


Marlon Brando - On the Waterfront (1954 - my #6 Best Picture winner)
Robert De Niro - Raging Bull (1980)
Tom Hanks - Forrest Gump
Anthony Hopkins - The Silence of the Lambs
Jack Nicholson - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest


BEST ACTRESS:


Kathy Bates - Misery (1990)
Louise Fletcher - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Jodie Foster - The Silence of the Lambs
Holly Hunter - The Piano (1993)
Charlize Theron - Monster (2003)


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:


John Gielgud - Arthur (1981)
Kevin Kline - A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight (2008)
Tim Robbins - Mystic River (2003)
J. K. Simmons - Whiplash (2014)


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:


Angelina Jolie - Girl, Interrupted (1999)
Mo'Nique - Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (2009)
Eva Marie Saint - On the Waterfront (although I consider her leading)
Maureen Stapleton - Reds (1981)
Marisa Tomei - My Cousin Vinny (1992)


BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:


Bo Goldman and Laurence Hauben - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Malcolm Johnson and Budd Schulberg - On the Waterfront
Peter Shaffer - Amadeus (1984)
Ted Tally - The Silence of the Lambs
Steven Zaillian - Schindler's List


BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:


Ben Affleck and Matt Damon - Good Will Hunting (1997)
Michael Arndt - Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Roger Avary and Quentin Tarantino - Pulp Fiction (1994)
Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard - Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Tom Schulman - Dead Poets Society (1989)


P.S. I realise those are quite repetitive and most contemporary. But they're still genuine.