Three years after David Lean made his last film, the epic was in good hands with Italy’s Bernardo Bertoluccci who made 1987’s The Last Emperor.

Bertolucci’s film is about Pu Yi, born to lofty heights, raised behind the great wall of China, forced to abdicate and endure the hardships of the Japanese invasion and eventually ends up an ordinary peasant worker in the People’s Republic. It won all nine Oscars it was nominated for including Best Picture; Director; Adapted Screenplay; Cinematography; Editing; Art Direction; Costume Design; Score and Sound. None of the actors were nominated for Oscars, but star John Lone did receive a Golden Globe bid for Best Actor and Peter O’Toole was cited by BAFTA with a Best Supporting Actor bid.

An epic on a less grand scale, John Boorman’s Hope and Glory about the life a nine year-old boy during the London blitz, was nominated for five Oscars, three of which went to Boorman himelf for Best Picture, Director and Original Screenplay. It had also been nominated for Best Cinematography and Art Direction. Based on Boorman’s own experiences during the war, the film starred Sebastian rice-Edwards whose only film it was, along with veterans Sarah Miles, Ian Bannen and Sammi Davis. Miles and Bannen received BAFTA nominations for their performances as the boy’s mother and grandfather, respectively.

In a rarity for an Oscar race, two much loved comedies were nominated for Best Picture: Broadcast News, which received seven and Moonstruck which received six.

Although it won New York Film Critics Awards for Best Picture; Actress (Holly Hunter), Director (James L. Brooks) and Screenplay (Brooks again), Broadcast News failed to win Oscars in any of the categories it was nominated for, which included Best Actor (William Hurt); Supportign Actor (Albert Brooks); Cinematography and Editing as well as Picture, Actress and Original Screenplay, but surprisingly not Director. The wry spoof of television news, however, remains as fresh today as it was then.

A definite charmer, Norman Jewison’s Moonstruck won a surprise Best Actress Oscar for Cher as a middle-aged widow torn between two brothers and a not surprising Supporting Actress Oscar for Olympia Dukakis as her sharp tongued mother. It also won for its Original Screenplay and had been nominated for Picture; Director and Supporting Actor, Vincent Gardenia as Cher’s philandering father.

A huge box office hit, Adrian Lyne’s Fatal Attraction features a sensational lead performance by Glenn Close as a crazy stalker. While that performance certainly merited an Oscar nomination, it difficult to fathom while the film received another five nods for Picture; Director; Supporting Actress (Anne Archer); Adapted Screenplay and Editing. The object of Close’s distorted affection was Michael Douglas who was named the year’s Best Actor, albeit for his other 1987 film, Wall Street. Fittingly, Douglas’ portrayal of the greedy corporate raider was that film’s only nomination.

Other films Oscar liked beside Wall Street included The Dead; Full Metal Jacket; Empire of the Sun; The Untouchables; My Life As a Dog; Au Revoir Les Enfants; Babette’s Feast; Ironweed; The Whales of August; Maurice; Cry Freedom; Street Smart; Dirty Dancing; RoboCop; Lethal Weapon and The Princess Bride.

Oscar voters who filled out their ballots for Fatal Attraction in all those categories, did so at the expense of several much more interesting films.

Fifteen time Academy Award nominee and two time winner, John Huston, who died in 1987, left behind what many consider his finest film, his son Tony’s adaptation of James Joyce’s short story, The Dead. The film did receive two nominations for the younger Huston’s Adapted Screenplay and for Costume Design. None of the performers, however, were nominated, not even daughter Anjelica for her exquisite portrayal of the woman at a Christmas party who recalls a lost love through the singing of a song. Donal McCann, as her husband, recites a beautifully realized chunk of dialogue a from the original work which closes the film as the snow falls all over Ireland, on the living and the dead.

Stanley Kubrick’s take on the Vietnam War, Full Metal Jacket was a harrowing film divided into two parts, basic training and street fighting in country. Matthew Modine played Pvt. Joker which the original author Gutav Hasford based on himself. Hasford, along with Kubrick and Michael Herr were nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Thirteen year-old Christian Bale headed the cast of Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun which was nominated for six Oscars including Cinematography; Editing; Art Direction; Costuem Design; Score and Sound. John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson and Nigel Havers headed the supporting cast in this epic film about a young boy struggling to survive in Japanese occupied China during World War II.

A hit TV series that ran from 1959 to 1963 was the inspiration for Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables which began the still profitable practice of turning hit TV series into hit movies. Nominated for four Oscars including Best Art Direction; Costume Design and Score, it won Sean Connery an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor as rising star Kevin Costner’s mentor.

Foreign films that won Oscar’s respect this year included My Life As a Dog for which Lasse Hallstrom received a rare nomination as Best Director of a foreign language film. Hallstrom was also nominated, along with two others, for Best Adapted Screenplay for this charming story about the misadventures of a twelve year-old Swedish boy.

Louis Malle received a Best Original Screenplay nod for Au Revoir Les Enfants, his childhood remembrance of occupied France, which was also nominated for Best Foreign Film. It lost the latter award to Denmark’s Babatte’s Feast, which was directed by Gabriel Axelwho adapted itfrom Karen Blixen’s novel.

Jack Nicolson received his ninth Oscar nomination and Meryl Streep her seventh for Hector Babenco’s Ironweed, based on William Kennedy’s Pultizer Prize winning novel about depression era drunks on Albany, New York’s skid row.

No, 94 year-old Lillian Gish, 79 year-old Bette Davis, 78 year-old Ann Sothern and 77 year-old Vincent Price did not play the title characters in Lindsay Anderson’s The Whales of August, but they did come into consideration for year-end awards. Gish was a co-winner the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress along with Holly Hunter in Broadcast News. Gish, Price and Sothern were all nominated for Independent Spirit Awards. Only Sothern made the cut with Oscar voters.

Merchant-Ivory’s follow-up to the mega successful A Room With a View was another E.M. Forster adaptation, his posthumously published Maurice about a decades long homosexual love affair which begins in the Edwardian England of 1912. Written early in his career, it was considered un-publishable at the time. The film which made stars of James Wilby, Hugh Grant and Rupert Graves was nominated for Best Costume Design.

Richard Attenborough’s film about South African activism, Cry Freedom was no Gandhi at the box office, but it was high profile enough to secure nominations for Best Score, Song (its title song) and Supporting Actor, emerging star Denzel Washington.

Another actor starting to be noticed on screen, Morgan Freeman also received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his portrayal of a dangerous pimp in Jerry Schatzberg’s Street Smart.

One of the year’s biggest this was the feel-good Dirty Dancing which made stars of Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. It won the Oscar for Best Song, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life”. It was also nominated for another song, “Hungry Eyes”.

Other popular films receiving Oscar attention included RoboCop, a nominee for Best Editing and Sound and winner of a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects; Lethal Weapon, nominated for Best Sound and The Princess Bride, nominated for Best Song (“Storybook Love”).

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

This week’s new DVD releases include the Blu-ray debuts of Diabolique and The Hustler.