54th Academy Awards (1981)
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- DirectorHugh HudsonStarsBen CrossIan CharlesonNicholas FarrellTwo British track athletes, one a determined Jew and the other a devout Christian, are driven to win in the 1924 Olympics as they wrestle with issues of pride and conscience.Winner - Best Picture
Nominated - Best Director for Hugh Hudson
Nominated - Best Supporting Actor for Ian Holm
Winner - Best Original Screenplay for Colin Welland
Winner - Best Original Score for Vangelis
Winner - Best Costume Design for Milena Canonero
Nominated - Best Film Editing for Terry Rawlings - DirectorLouis MalleStarsBurt LancasterSusan SarandonKate ReidIn a corrupt city, a small-time gangster and the estranged wife of a pot dealer find themselves thrown together in an escapade of love, money, drugs and danger.Nominated - Best Picture
Nominated - Best Director for Louis Malle
Nominated - Best Actor for Burt Lancaster
Nominated - Best Actress for Susan Sarandon
Nominated - Best Original Screenplay for John Guare - DirectorMark RydellStarsKatharine HepburnHenry FondaJane FondaNorman is a curmudgeon with an estranged relationship with his daughter Chelsea. At Golden Pond, he and his wife nevertheless agree to care for Billy, the son of Chelsea's new boyfriend, and a most unexpected relationship blooms.Nominated - Best Picture
Nominated - Best Director for Mark Rydell
Winner - Best Actor for Henry Fonda
Winner - Best Actress for Katharine Hepburn
Nominated - Best Supporting Actress for Jane Fonda
Winner - Best Adapted Screenplay for Ernest Thompson
Nominated - Best Sound
Nominated - Best Original Score for Dave Grusin
Nominated - Best Cinematography for Billy Williams
Nominated - Best Film Editing for Robert L. Wolfe - DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsHarrison FordKaren AllenPaul FreemanIn 1936, archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis can obtain its awesome powers.Nominated - Best Picture
Nominated - Best Director for Steven Spielberg
Winner - Best Sound
Nominated - Best Original Score for John Williams
Winner - Best Art Direction
Nominated - Best Cinematography for Douglas Slocombe
Winner - Best Film Editing for Michael Kahn
Winner - Best Visual Effects - DirectorWarren BeattyStarsWarren BeattyDiane KeatonEdward HerrmannA radical American journalist becomes involved with the Communist revolution in Russia, and hopes to bring its spirit and idealism to the United States.Nominated - Best Picture
Winner - Best Director for Warren Beatty
Nominated - Best Actor for Warren Beatty
Nominated - Best Actress for Diane Keaton
Nominated - Best Supporting Actor for Jack Nicholson
Winner - Best Supporting Actress for Maureen Stapleton
Nominated - Best Original Screenplay for Warren Beatty and Trevor Griffiths
Nominated - Best Sound
Nominated - Best Art Direction
Winner - Best Cinematography for Vittorio Storaro
Nominated - Best Costume Design for Shirley Russell
Nominated - Best Film Editing for Dede Allen and Craig McKay - DirectorSteve GordonStarsDudley MooreLiza MinnelliJohn GielgudAlcoholic billionaire playboy Arthur Bach must marry a woman he does not love, or he will be cut off from his $750,000,000 fortune. But when Arthur falls in love with a poor waitress, he must decide if he wants to choose love or money.Nominated - Best Actor for Dudley Moore
Winner - Best Supporting Actor for John Giedgud
Nominated - Best Original Screenplay for Steve Gordon
Winner - Best Original Song for "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" - DirectorSydney PollackStarsPaul NewmanSally FieldBob BalabanWhen a prosecutor leaks to a Miami reporter that a liquor wholesaler is suspected in the murder of a union head, the man's life begins to unravel.Nominated - Best Actor for Paul Newman
Nominated - Best Supporting Actress for Melinda Dillon
Nominated - Best Original Screenplay for Kurt Luedtke - DirectorGlenn JordanStarsMarsha MasonKristy McNicholEd MooreA boozy Broadway actress comes out of a 12-week cure to face the problems of her best friends as well as her needy daughter. She tries to balance the terrors of returning to work with the demands of all around her with humor and insight, while staying off the booze.Nominated - Best Actress for Marsha Mason
Nominated - Best Supporting Actor for James Coco
Nominated - Best Supporting Actress for Joan Hackett - DirectorKarel ReiszStarsMeryl StreepJeremy IronsHilton McRaeAnna and Mike portray two characters in a film set in 19th century England who fall in love despite the fact that Mike's character is engaged.Nominated - Best Actress for Meryl Streep
Nominated - Best Adapted Screenplay for Harold Pinter
Nominated - Best Art Direction
Nominated - Best Costume Design for Tom Rand
Nominated - Best Film Editing for John Bloom - DirectorMilos FormanStarsJames CagneyElizabeth McGovernHoward E. Rollins Jr.A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.Nominated - Best Supporting Actor for Howard E. Rollins, Jr.
Nominated - Best Supporting Actress for Elizabeth McGovern
Nominated - Best Adapted Screenplay for Michael Weller
Nominated - Best Original Score for Randy Newman
Nominated - Best Original Song for "One More Hour"
Nominated - Best Art Direction
Nominated - Best Cinematography for Miroslav Ondricek
Nominated - Best Costume Design for Anna Hill Johnstone - DirectorHerbert RossStarsSteve MartinBernadette PetersJessica HarperDuring the Great Depression, a sheet-music salesman seeks to escape his dreary life through popular music and a love affair with an innocent schoolteacher.Nominated - Best Adapted Screenplay for Dennis Potter
Nominated - Best Sound
Nominated - Best Costume Design for Bob Mackie - DirectorSidney LumetStarsTreat WilliamsJerry OrbachRichard ForonjyA New York City narcotics detective reluctantly agrees to cooperate with a special commission investigating police corruption, and soon realises he's in over his head, and nobody can be trusted.Nominated - Best Adapted Screenplay for Jay Presson Allen and Sidney Lumet
- DirectorIstván SzabóStarsKlaus Maria BrandauerIldikó BánságiKrystyna JandaIn early-1930s Germany, a passionate stage actor faces a dilemma: renounce his apolitical stance and comply with the Reich's doctrine, or face oblivion. But, Faustian bargains never end well. What is the price of success?Winner - Best Foreign Language Film (Hungary)
- DirectorMarkus ImhoofStarsTina EngelHans DiehlMartin WalzDuring World War II, Switzerland severely limited refugees: "Our boat is full." A train from Germany halts briefly in an isolated corner of Switzerland. Six people jump off seeking asylum: four Jews, a French child, and a German soldier. They seek temporary refuge with a couple who run a village inn. They pose as a family: the deserter as husband, Judith as his wife, an old man from Vienna as her father, his granddaughter and the French lad, whom they beg to keep silent, as their children. Judith's teenage brother poses as a soldier. The fabrication unravels through chance and the local constable's exact investigation. Whom will the Swiss allow to stay? Who gets deported?Nominated - Best Foreign Language Film (Switzerland)
- DirectorAndrzej WajdaStarsJerzy RadziwilowiczKrystyna JandaMarian OpaniaA few years after the events of Man of Marble (1977), a journalist investigates Mateusz Birkut's son Maciek Tomczyk, now an activist leading a shipyard strike.Nominated - Best Foreign Language Film (Poland)
- DirectorKôhei OguriStarsTakahiro TamuraMariko KagaNobutaka AsaharaIn post-War Japan, a boy from a noodle store-owning family befriends a neighboring boy living in poverty.Nominated - Best Foreign Language Film (Japan)
- DirectorFrancesco RosiStarsPhilippe NoiretMichele PlacidoVittorio MezzogiornoThree men face their mother's death.Nominated - Best Foreign Language Film (Italy)
- DirectorPeter HyamsStarsSean ConneryFrances SternhagenPeter BoyleA federal marshal stationed at a mining colony on the Jupiter moon of Io uncovers a drug-smuggling conspiracy. He gets no help from the workers or authorities when he finds himself marked for murder.Nominated - Best Sound
- DirectorArnold SchwartzmanStarsElizabeth TaylorOrson WellesSimon WiesenthalOrson Welles and Elizabeth Taylor compassionately narrate this harrowing documentary about Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany, which soon turned into a notoriously industrious plan to wipe them from existence.Winner - Best Documentary Feature
- DirectorJim BurroughsStarsJim BurroughsThe film chronicles the Mariel boatlift in 1980 and follows a year in the life of Cuban refugees.Nominated - Best Documentary Feature
- DirectorKen BurnsStarsPaul RoeblingJulie HarrisArthur MillerThis documentary chronicles the world-famous Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. The difficult construction process is described in interesting detail; later parts of the film interview current notables who describe the effects that the Brooklyn Bridge has had upon New York society and beyond.Nominated - Best Documentary Feature
- DirectorMary BenjaminStarsHelen CaldicottNominated - Best Documentary Feature
- DirectorGlenn SilberTeté VasconcellosStarsEnrique AlvarezJohn A. BushnellTerence CookeExamines the origins of the civil war in El Salvador and the US involvement in it, echoing memories of the prior Eastern Asia wars and America involved conflicts in Korea and Vietnam.Nominated - Best Documentary Feature
- DirectorNigel NobleStarsAmy IsraelA chorus of 4th- and 5th-graders at the Brooklyn Friends School and a chorus of elderly retirees at a Brooklyn Jewish seniors' center combine to give an annual joint concert. Practicing separately for several months while communicating only as pen pals, they eventually meet for a rehearsal prior to their concert. The children's various preconceptions about older people, as well as the seniors' approach to aging and their young co-performers, are a principal focus.Winner - Best Documentary Short
- DirectorObie BenzStarsEdward AsnerCarlos FuentesPeggy HealeyA close examination of American military intervention in Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Chile and El Salvador.Nominated - Best Documentary Short
- DirectorDick YoungStarsJoel CragerDrought, desert, famine. Half the world's population must daily take a thirsty journey in search of water for survival, a search made even more difficult because the water they do find will almost certainly be contaminated.Nominated - Best Documentary Short
- This film features interviews with a number of hearing-impaired women, often in their homes, where the lighting is unusually dark.Nominated - Best Documentary Short
- DirectorRoland HalléOwner-builders share the experience of building their own homes. The different phases of construction provide a background for the more human issues: stress, confidence, and control of one's own life.Nominated - Best Documentary Short
- DirectorShelley LevinsonStarsDidi ConnPatrick DollaghanRodney SaulsberryBadly scarred in a childhood accident, Violet boards a bus in North Carolina on a pilgrimage to Oklahoma to visit a TV preacher, the one that heals. On the bus, she meets two soldiers on their way to Fort Smith.Winner - Best Live Action Short
- DirectorClare PeploeStarsFrances LowRik MayallPeter EyreTwo couples - one with all the riches that dreams are made of, the other with only dreams and schemes - are brought together by the plotting of the poorer couple. A pair of newlyweds wander through the city streets, bickering about their poverty, until they are distracted by the opulent home of a lawyer. Impulsively, the couple makes off with the lawyer's vehicle for one night of extravagant indulgence.Nominated - Best Live Action Short
- DirectorJohn N. SmithStarsKathleen McAuliffeSharon O'NiellEric Patrick GodfreyWith the father away, an Irish immigrant family struggle to survive their first winter in the Canadian wild.Nominated - Best Live Action Short
- DirectorFrédéric BackThe industrialization of Montreal (Canada), as seen from the point of view of a rocking-chair.Winner - Best Animated Short
- DirectorWill VintonStarsJames Earl JonesThe film is based on a poem by James Weldon Johnson depicting the power of the southern black American preacher's telling of the biblical creation story.Nominated - Best Animated Short
- DirectorJanet PerlmanCinderella has to stay home while her evil stepsisters go to the ball. You know the rest except everyone here is a penguin (even the mice that become the "horses") and the lost slipper is more like a swimming flipper.Nominated - Best Animated Short
- DirectorMatthew RobbinsStarsPeter MacNicolCaitlin ClarkeRalph RichardsonA young wizarding apprentice is sent to kill a dragon which has been devouring girls from a nearby kingdom.Nominated - Best Original Score for Alex North
Nominated - Best Visual Effects - DirectorFranco ZeffirelliStarsBrooke ShieldsMartin HewittShirley KnightParental disapproval of a passionate romance between two teenagers leads to arguments, circumstance, insanity and tragedy.Nominated - Best Original Song for "Endless Love"
- DirectorJim HensonStarsJim HensonFrank OzDave GoelzKermit the Frog, The Great Gonzo, and Fozzie Bear are reporters who travel to Britain to interview a rich victim of jewel thieves and help her along with her secretary, Miss Piggy.Nominated - Best Original Song for "The First Time It Happens"
- DirectorJohn GlenStarsRoger MooreCarole BouquetTopolSecret service agent James Bond is assigned to find a missing British vessel equipped with a weapons encryption device and prevent it from falling into enemy hands.Nominated - Best Original Song for "For Your Eyes Only"
- DirectorMichael CiminoStarsKris KristoffersonChristopher WalkenJohn HurtDuring the Johnson County War in 1890 Wyoming, a sheriff born into wealth does his best to protect immigrant farmers from rich cattle interests.Nominated - Best Art Direction
- DirectorJohn BoormanStarsNigel TerryHelen MirrenNicholas ClayMerlin the magician helps Arthur Pendragon unite the Britons around the Round Table of Camelot, even as dark forces conspire to tear it apart.Nominated - Best Cinematography for Alex Thomson
- DirectorJohn LandisStarsDavid NaughtonJenny AgutterJoe BelcherTwo American college students on a walking tour of Britain are attacked by a werewolf that none of the locals will admit exists.Winner - Best Makeup for Rick Baker
- DirectorAllan ArkushStarsAndy KaufmanBernadette PetersRandy QuaidTwo household robots run away and try to start a family.Nominated - Best Makeup for Stan Winston