Ten times the Oscars REALLY got it RIGHT
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Image: A scene from Midnight Cowboy
Best Original Screenplay: Mel Brooks (The Producers)
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A genuinely inventive comedy about trying to make the world's worst theatrical production, this film -- starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder -- went on to turn into a Broadway legend, which was then turned back into a film.
Image: A scene from The Producers
Best Supporting Actress: Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny)
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Tomei's NooYawk-tongued Mona Lisa Vito carries the film, trying to make nice with her impossible boyfriend, ranting about her biological clock while stamping her heels in an animal-printed bodysuit, and finally, at the witness stand, spilling over with infectious joy as she solves the court case the film centres around.
Image: A scene from My Cousin Vinny
Best Score: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network)
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In 2010, however, despite Hans Zimmer's Inception, Alexandre Desplat's The King's Speech and AR Rahman's 127 Hours, there was just one true winner and the Oscar rightfully went to Nine Inch Nails men Reznor and Ross for their remarkable first film score.
Image: A scene from The Social Network
Best Actor: Peter Finch (Network)
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It is a brave, loony, off-the-wall performance that gives that miraculously prescient film its gravitas, making it a frighteningly realistic nightmare.
Image: A scene from Network
Best Foreign Language Film: (8 1/2)
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Roman Polanski's Knife In The Water (Poland) and Vasilis Georgiadis' The Red Lanterns (Greece) were striking films, but Fellini's sublimely surreal take on a great director unable to conceive his next film was both mind-bogglingly imaginative and tremendously insightful. Surely the best film about film, ever.
Image: A scene from 8 1/2
Best Supporting Actor: Kevin Kline (A Fish Called Wanda)
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John Cleese's immaculately plotted A Fish Called Wanda featured Kline as an unscrupulous ex-CIA goon with a penchant for reading Nietzsche, a man so sensationally daft that he thinks the London Underground is a political movement.
Image: A scene from A Fish Called Wanda
Best Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro (Pan's Labyrinth)
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The Prestige, The Black Dahlia and The Illusionist were very well shot, and while Children Of Men had its own share of marvellous trickery, nothing came close to what Navarro did for Guillermo Del Toro's utterly unique Mexican film, a haunting masterwork shot like a lucid dream.
Image: A scene from Pan's Labyrinth
Best Director: Francis Ford Coppola (Godfather 2)
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No director ever deserved the prize more than the bearded 35-year-old, despite Polanski and Truffaut at the height of their powers.
Image: A scene from Godfather 2
Best Actress: Audrey Hepburn (Roman Holiday)
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The sheer effervescence of Hepburn prevailed, however, and her Princess Ann -- her elfin and enchanting and ebullient Princess Ann -- took home the gold, creating a major superstar who hit the ground flying.
Image: Best Actress: Audrey Hepburn (Roman Holiday)
Best Picture: (Annie Hall)
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And only one Annie. (La-dee-da, la-dee-da.) And Herbert Ross mustn't have been too fond of her. Ross had two films in contention for Best Picture (The Goodbye Girl and The Turning Point) and even though he was seen as a long-shot, considering it was the year of George Lucas and his Star Wars, his films seemed more Academyc, shall we say, films that would appeal to juries and strike universally dramatic highs.
Not so for Woody Allen's extraordinary comedy about a neurosis-ridden comedian and his one enduring love affair.
Often cited as the one comedy that redefined the Best Picture statuette, Annie Hall is a wickedly clever and disarmingly intelligent film about life, love, posturing and plain happiness. (And if you don't believe me, just listen to Marshall McLuhan.)
Image: A scene from Annie Hall
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