1995 was probably the hardest year to handicap in all of Oscar history.

The early awards favorite was the critically liked box-office success, Apollo 13, about the problems encountered by the moon-bound mission, and child star turned major film director Ron Howard did in fact win the DGA for Best Director, a usual indication of which director and film would win the Oscar. Not this year, in which Howard failed to pick up a predicted Oscar nomination for Best Director.

Taiwan-born Ang Lee and Oscar winning British actress Emma Thompson seemed an odd directing-writing team for a film taken from Jane Austen’s 18th Century novel about two sisters, but when Sense and Sensibility started receiving rave reviews and led in the early awards, Lee seemed to be Howard’s closest competitor in Oscar’s Best Director race. Although nominated for the DGA, he, too, failed to pick up a Best Director nod from Oscar.

The DGA’s other nominees, a second actor-turned-director, Mel Gibson (Braveheart) and Britishers Michael Radford (Il Postino) and Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) were all endorsed by the Academy, but only Gibson’s and Radford’s films made it into the Best Picture race along with Apollo 13; Sense and Sensibility and Babe, whose director Chris Noonan also merited a nod from the Academy’s directors’ branch. The fifth nominee for Best Director was yet another actor-turned-director, Tim Robbins for Dead Man Walking.

While it was certainly possible for a film to win Best Picture without its director being nominated, the odds of either Apollo 13 or Sense and Sensibility winning were dramatically reduced by the failure of their high profile directors to score a nod for either. That left the choice between a well-liked sophisticated children’s movie about a pig (Babe); a well-regarded Italian import about a postman who develops a love for poetry (Il Postino) and an historically inaccurate account of 13th Century Scottish rebel William Wallace (Braveheart).

Buoyed by an unprecedented internet campaign, Braveheart and director Gibson leapt to victory.

Nominated for a total of ten Oscars, Braveheart won five with Cinematography, Makeup and Sound Effects accounting for the other three.

Ang Lee may have been left out of Oscar’s sights but Emma Thompson was plainly in them, scoring nods for both Best Actress and Screenplay, winning the latter category, the only win the film actually received. Co-star and future Oscar winner Kate Winslet began her own Oscar journey with a Best Supporting Actress nomination as Thompson’s impetuous sister, one of six additional nods the film received.

Ron Howard’s Appollo 13 won two of the nine Oscars it was nominated for, for Editing and Sound. Ed Harris and Kathleen Quinlan were the actors singled out by the Academy for nominations in the supporting categories.

The two remaining Best Picture nominees produced one acting nominee each.

Italian actor Massimo Triosi was honored as much for his dedication as for his performance. He forced himself to finish filming Il Postino despite a severe heart condition and died within twelve hours of completing the film at the age of 41. Nominated for a total of five Oscars, the film won for Best Score.

Character actor James Cromwell, the son of Golden Age director John Cromwell and actress Kay Johnson, received a Best Supporting Actor nod for Babe, which won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. It had been nominated for a total of seven Oscars.

Other films Oscar liked this year in addition to Dead Man Walking and Leaving Las Vegas included The Bridges of Madison County; Nixon; Casino; The Usual Suspects; Rob Roy; Twelve Monkeys; Mighty Aphrodite and Toy Story.

Susan Sarandon finally won a Best Actress Oscar on her fifth nomination, her fourth in as many years as Sister Helen Prejean, the real life nun who offers comfort to death row killers as well as their victim’s families in Dead Man Walking. She was also the first actress to win an Oscar for playing a nun, a feat that couldn’t be accomplished by the likes of Ingrid Bergman, Loretta Young, Deborah Kerr or Audrey Hepburn. Jennifer Jones and Julie Andrews had won Oscars for playing postulants or nuns in training but not actual practicing nuns. The film was probably too obviously left-wing to appeal to the Academy’s conservative base so Sarandon’s win did not spill over to wins for director Tim Robbins, co-star Sean Penn or singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen who was nominated for the film’s title song.

Nicolas Cage took home the Best Actor Oscar as an alcoholic writer who comes to Las Vegas to drink himself to death in Leaving Las Vegas. Elisabeth Shue as the prostitute he spends his last days with was nominated for Best Actress. Mike Figgis actually received two nominations for the film, with a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay complementing the one he received for Best Director.

Meryl Streep’s received her tenth Oscar nomination for her portrayal of the aging Italian war bride in the film version of the best-selling The Bridges of Madison County. It was the film’s only nomination.

Oliver Stone continued to focus on real-life characters with Nixon, which was nominated for four Oscars including Best Actor Anthony Hopkins and Best Supporting Actress Joan Allen as Dick and Pat.

Martin Scorsese’s latest crime film, Casino, received a sole Oscar nomination for its leading lady, Sharon Stone as a gangster’s trophy wife.

In films for a decade, Kevin Spacey finally achieved major stardom as the only survivor of an explosion that killed 27 people in The Usual Suspects. One of four films he was in this year, it brought him his first Oscar.

Spacey’s competition included versatile Tim Roth as a despicable villain in Rob Roy and heartthrob Brad Pitt playing down and dirty in Twelve Monkeys.

Mira Sorvino, the actress daughter of character actor Paul Sorvino, won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar as a prostitute in Woody Allen’s latest opus, Mighty Aphrodite, for which Allen picked up an Original Screenplay nomination.

John Lasseter won a Special Achievement Award and his film, Toy Story, the first of three films in Pixar’s successful trilogy, was nominated for three Oscars.

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

This week’s new DVDs include Mars Needs Moms.