1992 Best Picture:
Unforgiven

Competition:
The Crying Game, A Few Good Men, Howard's End, Scent of a Woman

Other Winners:
Best Actor: Al Pacino, Scent of a Woman 
Best Actress: Emma Thompson, Howard's End
Best Supporting Actor: Gene Hackman, Unforgiven
Best Supporting Actress: Marisa Tomei, My Cousin Vinny
Best Director: Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven

Cast: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Francis Fisher, Jaimz Woolvett, Saul Rubinek, Anna Levine 

Storyline: A has-been cowboy reunites with his own partner to kill two men accused of attacking and disfiguring a woman in a whorehouse.

Did it deserve to win:  Yes!  After a 30 year career, Eastwood can finally say that he has paid his dues!  Clint serves up one of the best westerns to come along in a long while!

Howard's End remains the best offering by the team of Merchant-Ivory.  A Few Good Men was yet another excuse to Jack Nicholson to behave badly.  A Scent of A Woman was an Al Pacino vehicle, designed mainly to get him an Oscar. The Crying Game offered the biggest surprise in movie history!

Critique:  Clint Eastwood achieves what might have been considered the impossible in 1992, and that was to revive the western!  Dances With Wolves could technically be called a western because of its subject matter, but Unforgiven is a better example, dealing with the classic good versus evil premise that made the genre popular in days past.

Eastwood had already proven himself to be a competent actor, as well as an effective director.  This film put both elements together quite nicely.

To top it all off, Eastwood assembles a great cast, including Gene Hackman, in the role that would finally win him a second Oscar, as well as Richard Harris, in one of his most colorful roles in years.

Perhaps the biggest thrill in this film is the tongue and cheek perspective that Eastwood takes with his own character.   As a fumbling cowpoke, who is atoning for his dark past, Eastwood pays tribute to his own remarkable career.   

Behind the Scenes: Unforgiven was nominated for nine Oscar's, and won four of them.  Eastwood joined the ranks of Warren Beatty, Robert Redford, Laurence Olivier and Kevin Costner, as actors who won the Best Director Oscar.

To the tune of Nat King Cole's Unforgettable, Billy Crystal croons Unforgiven, to Best Director, Clint Eastwood.

The script for Unforgiven had been floating around Hollywood for nearly twenty years.  Gene Hackman had already been offered the role by previous director's who were considering the script.  He finally took it after some convincing from Clint. 

At the time the film was released, Francis Fisher was pregnant with Clint's child.

Perhaps to make up for last years snub of Barbra Streisand, the Academy presented a tribute to women in film, boasting the fact that 36 women were nominated in various categories this year, including 10 in the Actress categories!  It's ironic that 'man's man', Clint was the big winner that year, as women presented awards, clips showed women's accomplishments in film throughout the years, and Liza Minelli came out to sing "It's Lady's Day"!  Streisand even came out to present the award for Best Director to Eastwood.

Al Pacino achieved a first, being nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor in the same year, and winning the Best Actor Award.  Those who had two nominations in the past had traditionally won the supporting award.

Pacino gets his day!

Uruguay was disqualified from the Best Foreign film award for their entry,  A Place in the World, when it was determined that the director was South American.

Richard Gere got on the political bandwagon that year, asking the audience to channel their positive thoughts and energy  to China so that they would take their troops away from the people of Tibet.   

One of the nastiest rumors surrounding the Academy Awards emerged that year, and it was directed at Marisa Tomei.  She had already developed a bad name in the industry as being a bit of a diva on the set.  Stories about her win for Best Supporting Actress suggest that she wasn't the winner after all.  It was reported that Jack Palance didn't read what was on the envelope when he announced the winner, but rather what was on the teleprompter.  The Academy denied the rumor, claiming that the would have stepped in if such an error occurred. 

Interestingly enough, Tomei was the only American nominated in that category, with a very tough group of established actresses as her competition.

  

Mystery Solved! It looks to me as though Jack Palance is reading from the card within in the envelope, and not the teleprompter.  So, Marisa ... You are the Best Supporting Actress of 1992!

English Bob is given a warm reception from Hackman.