It’s difficult to fully comprehend what happened in 1995.  Early speculation focused on possible Oscar wins for Tim Robbins’ Dead Man Walking, the true story of a nun who acts as spiritual advisor to death row inmates; Leaving Las Vegas, Mike Figgis’ account of an alcoholic’s descent into hell; Ang Lee’s much admired adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility with a screenplay by Emma Thompson and Apollo 13, Ron Howard’s tribute to the NASA mission that almost failed.  Then seemingly out of nowhere Mel Gibson’s Braveheart , a Memorial Day release, which attained a huge following on home video, suddenly emerged as the film to beat for the top prize.

Braveheart was an historic epic that had many admirers, but many detractors as well.  Ostensibly the story of a 13^th Century Scottish hero, the screenplay is full of holes any schoolboy can see through, not the least of which was Wallace’s (Braveheart) fathering of a child by Queen Isabella who would become the next king of England when in fact he had never met Isabella who was nine or ten years old at the time of his death and several years away from becoming queen to Edward II and giving birth to Edward III.

The National Board of Review got things started by giving their Best Picture award to Sense and Sensibility and their Best Director award to Leaving Las Vegas’ Mike Figgis.  The New York Film Critics then reversed things by giving their Best Picture award to Leaving Las Vegas and their Best Director award to Sense and Sensibility’s Ang Lee.   Their L.A. counterparts went with Vegas for both top awards.  It took the National Society of Film Critics to break the monotony a tad by giving their Best Picture award to Chris Noonan’s Babe, an Australian made fantasy about a prize pig and his owners.  Figgis, however, was their choice for Best Director as well.

The newly formed Broadcast Film Critics gave their initial prize to Sense and Sensibility for Best Picture but surprised everyone by naming Mel Gibson the year’s Best Director for Braveheart.

The Golden Globes echoed the Broadcast Film Critics in naming Sense and Sensibility as Best Picture – Drama and Gibson as Best Director.  They chose Babe as Best Picture – Musical or Comedy.

The Directors Guild nominated Gibson (Braveheart); Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) and Lee (Sense and Senisibility) along with Michael Radford for the Italian film, Il Postino, and resurrected Ron Howard as a serious contender for Apollo 13 by giving him their award.

Howards’ chances at an Oscar, however, were quickly dashed when he failed to join nominees Gibson, Figgis, Radford as one of Oscar’s anointed.  The other two nominees were Babe’s Chris Noonan and Dead Man Walking’s Tim Robbins.

With two of the early favorites, Leaving Las Vegas and Dead Man Walking left off Oscar’s Best Picture list, and the other favorites, Apollo 13 and Sense and Sensibility in the running without their directors, Braveheart now became the front-runner over them and surprise nominees, Babe and Il Postino.

So, then, what would the other nominees have been had Oscar gone to a ten picture slate?  Certainly Leaving Las Vegas (four nominations and a win for Best Actor Nicholas Cage) and Dead Man Walking (four nominations and a win for Best Actress Susan Sarandon) would have been there.

Other strong contenders included Clint Eastwood’s The Bridges of Madison County (one nomination, no win); Rob Reiner’s The American President (one nomination, no win) and Pixar’s premiere effort, Toy Story (three nominations, no wins).