Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde couldn’t do it.  Psycho couldn’t do it.  Rosemary’s Baby couldn’t do it.  The Exorcist couldn’t do it.  Finally, in 1991, a horror film won the year’s Best Picture Oscar.  It was, of course, The Silence of the Lambs.

The film, which opened in February, was considered a clear front-runner for Best Supporting Actor (Anthony Hopkins) for much of the year.  Somewhere along the way Hopkins’ desire to be considered a lead, and not a supporting actor, took hold and he began to be talked of as a candidate for Best Actor.  As the momentum built for Hopkins, it also built for co-star Jodie Foster, director Jonathan Demme and the film itself, all prizes it eventually won.

The film won early awards from the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics.  Its beigest competition came from Barry Levinson’s gangster film, Bugsy, which picked by awards from the L.A. Film Critics and the Golden Globes.  The British film, Life Is Sweet, which won the National Society of Film Critics Award, was generally considered to be out of the running.

Just as no horror film had ever won a Best Picture Oscar, no animated feature had ever won either.  In fact none had ever been nominated, even in the days when there were ten nominees, despite such strong contenders as 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; 1940’s Pinocchio; 1941’s Dumbo or 1942’s Bambi, all from the Disney studios.

Disney’s renaissance, which began with 1989’s The Little Mermaid, blossomed into full bloom with 1991’s Beauty and the Beast which won the Golden Globe for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy.

The Directors Guild nominated Barry Levinson for Bugsy; Ridley Scott for Thelma & Louise; Oliver Stone for JFK and Barbra Streisand for The Prince of Tides, along with the by now favorite, Jonathan Demme for The Silence of the Lambs.  Demme won.

Oscar nominated all but Streisand, who was supplanted by John Singleton for Boyz N the Hood.

Oscar’s Best Picture nominees included The Silence of the Lambs; Bugsy; JFK; The Prince of Tides and yes, Beauty and the Beast.

Among the films that would easily have made a ten film Best Picture list were Scott’s Thelma & Louise; Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King and Jon Avnet’s Fried Green Tomatoes, all of which scored several nominations.

Boyz and the Hood, which also won Singleton a screenplay nod, might well have made the ninth slot.

The tenth slot would likely have been a toss-up between Garry Marshall’s Frankie and Johnny; Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho; Agneiszka Holland’s Europa Europe; Martha Coolidge’s Rambling Rose and Lawrence Kasdan’s Grand Canyon.  The latter, greatly admired for its screenplay, probably had the momentum.