A good movie is a good movie and will appeal to almost anyone of any age, but there are degrees of appeal that age sometimes plays a part in.

In 1994 most people were either in the Forrest Gump camp or the Pulp Fiction camp.  The former appealed primarily to the baby boomer generation, which it was made by, for and about, while the latter appealed primarily to the younger generation looking for something new and exciting.  Waiting on the sidelines was Quiz Show, a film that appealed primarily to an older generation, those who recalled its real life scandals of the 1950s.

The L.A. Film Critics, ever anxious to prove themselves hip, were the first out of the box this year in giving Pulp Fiction their vote of approval.  The film won their awards for Best Picture and Director, Quentin Tarantino.

The older skewing National Board of Review surprised with a tie vote for Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction, but gave their Best Director award to Tarantino.

The New York Film Critics, some of whose members fondly recalled the 1950s, voted for Quiz Show, but concurred with Tarantino as Best Director.

The National Society of Film Critics selected Pulp Fiction and Tarantino.

The Golden Globes were the first to select Forrest Gump over both Pulp Fiction and Quiz Show and to give their Best Director award to Gump’s Robert Zemeckis.

The Directors Guild nominated Zemeckis along with Tarantino and Robert Redford for Quiz Show; Frank Darabont for The Shawshank Redemption and Mike Newell for Four Weddings and a Funeral.  Those five films then became the favorites in Oscar’s Best Picture lineup and, indeed, all five films were nominated.  However, as was often the case, Oscar’s Best Director list did not match its Best Picture slate.  Nominated instead of Darabont and Newell were Woody Allen for Bullets Over Broadway and Polish director Krystof Kieslowski for the Polish-French-Swiss produced Red.

Had Oscar gone to a ten picture race that year, the two most likely beneficiaries would have been Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway (seven nominations, one win) and Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (five nominations, two wins).

Other lucky recipients would probably have been Gillian Armstrong’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (three nominations, no wins); Stephan Elliott’s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (one nomination and win) and Robert Benton’s Nobody’s Fool (two nominations, no wins).

In the end it wasn’t much of a contest.  Forrest Gump steamrollered the competition, taking home six of the thirteen Oscars it was nominated for while Pulp Fiction only won one of its seven nominations.  Quiz Show was completely shut out, not winning any of its four nominations.