With nine Oscar nominations, Bruce Beresford’s film of Alfred Uhry’s off-Broadway smash hit, Driving Miss Daisy went into the 1989 Oscar race with the most nominations, but it failed to receive one for Best Director, usually a bad omen. What it did have, however, were the great performances of its stars, Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman as a crotchety old lady and the chauffer she is dependent upon.

Tandy at 80 was in the twilight of a long and successful stage career that included the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. She had also given memorable supporting performances in films for more than forty years. She won the lead in Daisy over legends Katharine Hepburn and Bette Davis, both of whom wanted the role – Davis would pass away before the film’s release.

Tandy’s win was one of the most predictable in Oscar history. Its Best Picture win, though, was far from certain given its lack of a Best Director nod. It managed to prevail, however, over what was seen as a second weak year in a row. The film also won for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Makeup.

Morgan Freeman went into the Oscar race with a predicted 50-50 chance of winning, with Tom Cruise as real-life Vietnam War veteran and human rights activist Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July considered his only competition. With eight nominations and an almost guaranteed win for Stone as Best Director, the film itself seemed to have a better chance of winning than Daisy. It had also secured nominations for Adapted Screenplay; Cinematography; Score and Sound, but its only win beside Stone’s was for Best Editing.

The spoiler was another film about a handicapped man, Jim Sheridan’s My Left Foot about Irish poet Christy Brown, who was born with cerebral palsy and learned to draw and write with his only controllable limb, his left foot.

Nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture; Director and Adapted Screenplay, it won Daniel Day-Lewis his first Best Actor Oscar as Brown and Brenda Fricker the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her luminous portrayal of his no-nonsense, albeit supportive, mother. There were outstanding performances, too, by young Hugh O’Conor as the adolescent Christy Brown and Ray McAnally as his father.

Filling out Oscar’s roster of Best Picture nominees were the inspirational classroom drama, Dead Poets Society and the nostalgic tribute to baseball and father-son relationships, Field of Dreams, neither of which seemed likely to win anything.

Robin Williams received a Best Actor nomination as the teacher whose students include Robert Sean Leonard and Ethan Hawke in Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society, which also receive a nod for Weir as Best Director and managed a win for Best Original Screenplay.

Kevin Costner was the star of Ron Shelton’s Field of Dreams, which in addition to its Best Picture nomination, received nods for Best Adapted Screenplay and Score. The film co-starred James Earl Jones featured Burt Lancaster in a cameo in one of his last films.

Other films that Oscar liked this year included Henry V; Crimes and Misdemeanors; Do the Right Thing; A Dry White Season; Glory; The Fabulous Baker Boys; Music Box; Shirley Valentine; Enemies, A Love Story; Parenthood; Steel Magnolias; sex, lies, and videotape; When Harry Met Sally…; Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Little Mermaid.

Kenneth Branagh’s gritty adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Henry V received three Oscar nominations including two for the director/star, a feat previously accomplished by Laurence Olivier, who died this year, for the same project forty-four years earlier. It was also nominated for its Costume Design.

Also receiving three nominations, including two for its writer/Director, was Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors. Its third nod was for the supporting performance of Martin Landau as an opthalmologist facing a moral dilemma. His competition included Danny Aiello as the owner of a pizzeria in an impoverished racially charged Brooklyn neighborhood in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing; Dan Aykroyd as Jessica Tandy’s ineffectual son in Driving Miss Daisy; Marlon Brando as a South African barrister in A Dry White Season, the last of his eight nominations, and the winner, Denzel Washington as a black volunteer in a Northern Army regiment in The Civil War in Edward Zwick’s Glory. Glory also won for Best Cinematography and Sound. It had also been nominated for Best Art Direction and Editing.

Miss Tandy’s chief competition for the Oscar seemed to be Michelle Pfeiffer, who had won the lion’s share of the early critics’ awards for her aspiring singer in Steve Kloves’ The Fabulous Baker Boys. The film had also been nominated for Best Cinematography; Editing and Score. Filling out the roster were Jessica Lange as a lawyer defending her father of war crimes in Music Box; Pauline Collins as a discontented wife in Shirley Valentine and Isabelle Adjani as mad sculptress Camille Claudel.

Miss Fricker’s competition for the Supporting Actress Oscar consisted of Lena Olin as a concentration camp survivor and Anjelica Huston as the woman’s husband’s mistress in Paul Mazrusky’s Enemies, a Love Story; Dianne Wiest as an exasperated mother in Ron Howard’s Parenthood and Julia Roberts as a doomed bride in Herbert Ross’ Steel Magnolias.

Seven Soderbergh received the first of his three Oscar nominations to date, and the only one for writing, for his original screenplay for sex, lies, and videotape,which is exactly about what the title implies.

Popular films receiving at least one Oscar nomination included When Harry Met Sally… (one nomination, no win, for Best Original Screenplay); Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (three nominations, one win for Best Sound Effects) and The Little Mermaid (three nominations, two wins for Best Score and Song (“Under the Sea”).

All films discussed have been released on DVD in the U.S.

This week’s new DVD releases include recent Oscar nominee Biutiful and the Blu-ray debut of American Graffiti.