Best Pictures from the Late 1980s
Five Films Which Won Best Picture from 1985 to 1989
Although the best picture winners from the1980s did not leave as rich a legacy as other decades, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science did select some good, if n
Best winning pictures from the late 1980s featured two beautifully photographed epics, an anti-war film, and two pleasant comedy-dramas.
1985 Best Picture: Out of Africa
A young Dutch woman accepts a marriage of convenience to a Baron and travels with him to Kenya. Eventually, she learns that her husband is not faithful to their marriage vows and becomes, herself, involved with a British adventurer. During all this, she still finds time to be a secular Mother Teresa to the area’s natives.
Based on the autobiography by author Baroness Karen Blixen (a.k.a. Isak Dinesen), this film leaves viewers either impressed with the story and its beautiful cinematography or wondering why they wasted nearly three hours of their time. Meryl Streep as Karen is quite good, but Robert Redford is miscast as her English lover.
1986 Best Picture: Platoon
A film about both the Vietnam War and the loss of innocence, Platoon features Charlie Sheen as a naïve college dropout who joins an infantry unit for patriotic reasons. While serving, he is caught between two mentors. Willem Dafoe is a “good” NCO, pleasant natured and heroic. Tom Berenger is his antitheses, a sadistic and a cruel murderer.
Although sometimes heavy-handed and overblown in its depiction of U.S. soldiers as malicious war criminals, this is one of the finest films on Vietnam. The anti-war picture was a labor of love for Oliver Stone, a decorated veteran of that conflict, who won the Oscar as best director. Dafoe and Berenger both received best supporting actor nominations.
1987 Best Picture: The Last Emperor
This film re-creates the life of China’s last emperor, Pu Yi (1906-1967), from his ascension to the throne in 1908, through his reign as a Japanese puppet in World War II and postwar arrest and “re-education” by the Chinese Communists, to his final years living as a gardener.
Beautifully photographed, with many of the scenes actually shot in the Forbidden City, the movie has minimal inaccuracies and may appeal to those who love historical epics like Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago. Others may be turned off by its length and the coldness of its central characters.
The film won all nine Oscar nominations that it received. Although no actors were nominated, Bernardo Bertolucci won as best director.
1988 Best Picture: Rain Man
This movie, filled with droll humor and drama, was the biggest box office hit of the year. In it, Tom Cruise plays a self-centered young man who discovers that a previously unknown older, autistic brother (Dustin Hoffman) has inherited a fortune. After meeting each other, the two begin an “odd couple” road trip that ends with Cruise a little older and wiser.
The strength of the film is in the casting of the leads. Cruise is perfect as the slimy, but likeable, Charlie, and Hoffman as his idiot savant brother has never been better. Rather than portraying Raymond/Rain Man as cute, lovable, or pathetic, Hoffman plays him straight down the middle.
Hoffman won the Oscar as best actor for his efforts and Barry Levinson won as best director.
1989 Best Picture: Driving Miss Daisy
Adapted from Alfred Uhry’s 1988 Pulitzer Prize winning play, this comedy-drama traces the relationship between a wealthy, bigoted, Jewish widow from Atlanta, Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy), and her friendly, and world wise black, Christian chauffeur, Hoke (Morgan Freeman). Their slow changing association that begins in frostiness and ends in friendship covers the changing racial climate in the South from 1948 to 1973.
Tandy, age 80, became the oldest winner of an acting Oscar. Freeman was nominated for best actor, but lost out to Daniel Day-Lewis. Comedian Dan Aykroyd, in a completely straight role as Daisy’s son, was nominated for best supporting actor, but lost to Denzel Washington.
The winners from the early 1980s are here.
