Every year since its inception, the Japanese Academy has recognized an outstanding foreign film. The year that any given film is nominated is not based on the film's domestic release date but rather on the date it is released in Japan. As delays of over four months are not uncommon, many films are nominated in Japan the following year after their release to the Japanese market (i.e. Million Dollar Baby

Million Dollar Baby

Million Dollar Baby is a 2004 American sports drama film directed, co-produced, and scored by Clint Eastwood and starring Eastwood, Hilary Swank, and Morgan Freeman...

won the American Academy Award for Best Picture

Academy Award for Best Picture

The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...

 for films made in 2004, but the Japanese award, based on its localized release date, is for 2005). In fact, not one of the five films nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Picture had been released in Japan by February 15th, 2008, the date of the Japan Academy Prize Ceremony. Although the 2007 recipient of this award, Letters from Iwo Jima

Letters from Iwo Jima

is a 2006 war film directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood, and starring Ken Watanabe and Kazunari Ninomiya. The film portrays the Battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers and is a companion piece to Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers, which depicts the same battle from the...

, a film almost entirely in Japanese, would not seem to meet the qualification of a "Foreign Language Film", the actual Japanese title of the award, 最優秀外国作品賞 makes no mention of language. It would be more accurately translated as "Best Foreign Production". Regardless, the fact that the film was released on December 9, 2006 in Japan should still technically have made it ineligible.

• 2010 - Avatar
  • Inception
    Inception
    Inception: The Subconscious Jams 1994-1995 is a compilation of unreleased tracks by the band Download.-Track listing:# "Primitive Tekno Jam" – 3:23# "Bee Sting Sickness" – 8:04# "Weed Acid Techno" – 8:19...
    
    
  • Toy Story 3
    Toy Story 3
    Toy Story 3 is a 2010 American 3D computer-animated comedy-adventure film, and the third installment in the Toy Story series. It was produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by Lee Unkrich. The film was released worldwide from June through October in Disney Digital...
    
    
  • Invictus
    Invictus (film)
    Invictus is a 2009 biographical sports drama film directed by Clint Eastwood starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.The story is based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation about the events in South Africa before and during the 1995 Rugby World...
    
    
  • The Hurt Locker
    The Hurt Locker
    The Hurt Locker is a 2009 American war film about a three-man United States Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team during the Iraq War. The film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow and the screenplay was written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded as a journalist in 2004 with a US bomb...
    
    

• 2009 - Gran Torino
  • Slumdog Millionaire
    Slumdog Millionaire
    Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British epic romantic drama adventure film directed by Danny Boyle, written by Simon Beaufoy, and co-directed in India by Loveleen Tandan. It is an adaptation of the novel Q & A by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup...
    
    
  • The Changeling
    The Changeling (film)
    The Changeling is a 1980 horror film directed by Peter Medak and starring George C. Scott and Trish Van Devere . The story is based upon events that writer Russell Hunter said he experienced while he was living in the Henry Treat Rogers Mansion of Denver, Colorado.-Plot:Scott stars as Dr...
    
    
  • The Wrestler
  • Red Cliff Part II

• 2008 - The Dark Knight
  The Dark Knight (film)
  The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins...
  
  
  • The Bucket List
    The Bucket List
    The Bucket List is a 2007 comedy-drama film directed by Rob Reiner, written by Justin Zackham, and starring Academy Award-winners Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman...
    
    
  • No Country for Old Men
    No Country for Old Men (film)
    No Country for Old Men is a 2007 American crime thriller directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin. The film was adapted from the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name...
    
    
  • Lust, Caution
  • Red Cliff Part I

• 2007 - Letters from Iwo Jima
  Letters from Iwo Jima
  is a 2006 war film directed and co-produced by Clint Eastwood, and starring Ken Watanabe and Kazunari Ninomiya. The film portrays the Battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of the Japanese soldiers and is a companion piece to Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers, which depicts the same battle from the...
  
  
  • Dreamgirls
    Dreamgirls (film)
    Dreamgirls is a 2006 musical drama film, directed by Bill Condon and jointly produced and released by DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures. The film debuted in three special road show engagements beginning December 15, 2006 before its nationwide release on December 25, 2006...
    
    
  • Babel
  • Hairspray
    Hairspray (2007 film)
    Hairspray is a 2007 musical film produced by Kolaja Productions and distributed by New Line Cinema. It was released in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom on July 20, 2007. The film is an adaptation of the 2002 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was based on John...
    
    
  • The Bourne Ultimatum
    The Bourne Ultimatum
    The Bourne Ultimatum is the third Jason Bourne novel written by Robert Ludlum and a sequel to The Bourne Supremacy . First published in 1990, it was the last Bourne novel to be written by Ludlum himself. Eric Van Lustbader wrote a sequel titled The Bourne Legacy fourteen years later.A film titled...
    
    

• 2006 - Flags of Our Fathers
  Flags of Our Fathers (film)
  is a 2006 American war film directed, co-produced and scored by Clint Eastwood and written by William Broyles, Jr. and Paul Haggis. It is based on the book of the same name written by James Bradley and Ron Powers about the Battle of Iwo Jima, the five Marines and one Navy Corpsman who were involved...
  
  
  • Crash
    Crash (2004 film)
    Crash is a 2004 American drama film co-written, produced, and directed by Paul Haggis. The film is about racial and social tensions in Los Angeles, California. A self-described "passion piece" for Haggis, Crash was inspired by a real life incident in which his Porsche was carjacked outside a video...
    
    
  • Hotel Rwanda
    Hotel Rwanda
    Hotel Rwanda is a 2004 American drama film directed by Terry George. It was adapted from a screenplay written by both George and Keir Pearson. Based on real life events which took place in Rwanda during the spring of 1994, the film stars Don Cheadle as hotelier Paul Rusesabagina, who attempts to...
    
    
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
    Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
    Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is a 2006 adventure fantasy film and the second film of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, following Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl . It was directed by Gore Verbinski, written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and produced by...
    
    
  • The Da Vinci Code
    The Da Vinci Code (film)
    The Da Vinci Code is a 2006 American mystery thriller film directed by Ron Howard. The screenplay was written by Akiva Goldsman and based on Dan Brown's worldwide bestselling 2003 novel, The Da Vinci Code...
    
    

• 2005 - Million Dollar Baby
  Million Dollar Baby
  Million Dollar Baby is a 2004 American sports drama film directed, co-produced, and scored by Clint Eastwood and starring Eastwood, Hilary Swank, and Morgan Freeman...
  
  
  • Cinderella Man
    Cinderella Man
    Cinderella Man is a 2005 American drama film by Ron Howard, titled after the nickname of heavyweight boxing champion James J. Braddock and inspired by his life story. The film was produced by Howard, Penny Marshall, and Brian Grazer.-Plot:James J...
    
    
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (film)
    Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a 2005 film adaptation of the 1964 book of the same name by Roald Dahl. The film was directed by Tim Burton. The film stars Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket and Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka...
    
    
  • The Phantom of the Opera
    The Phantom of the Opera (2004 film)
    The Phantom of the Opera is a 2004 film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical of the same name, which in turn was based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux....
    
    
  • Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
    Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
    Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is a 2005 American epic space opera film written and directed by George Lucas. It is the sixth and final film released in the Star Wars saga and the third in terms of the series' internal chronology....
    
    

• 2004 - The Last Samurai
  The Last Samurai
  The Last Samurai is a 2003 American epic drama film directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick, who also co-wrote the screenplay based on a story by John Logan. The film was inspired by a project developed by writer and director Vincent Ward, who had previously filmed the movie in 1990, starring...
  
  
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
    The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
    The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a 2003 epic fantasy-drama film directed by Peter Jackson that is based on the second and third volumes of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings...
    
    
  • Mystic River
    Mystic River (film)
    Mystic River is a 2003 American drama film directed, co-produced and scored by Clint Eastwood, starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden, Laura Linney and Emmy Rossum. The film was written by Brian Helgeland, based on Dennis Lehane's novel of the same...
    
    
  • Seabiscuit
    Seabiscuit (film)
    Seabiscuit is a 2003 American biographical film based on the best-selling non-fiction book Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand...
    
    
  • Troy
    Troy (film)
    Troy is a 2004 epic war film written by David Benioff and directed by Wolfgang Petersen based on the events of the Trojan War. Its cast includes Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector.It was nominated for the Academy Award for Costume Design.-Plot:...
    
    

• 2003 - The Pianist
  The Pianist (2002 film)
  The Pianist is a 2002 biographical war film directed by Roman Polanski, starring Adrien Brody. It is an adaptation of the autobiography of the same name by Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman...
  
  
  • Chicago
    Chicago (2002 film)
    Chicago is a 2002 musical film adapted from the satirical stage musical of the same name, exploring the themes of celebrity, scandal, and corruption in Jazz-age Chicago....
    
    
  • The Hours
    The Hours (film)
    The Hours is a 2002 drama film directed by Stephen Daldry, and starring Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Ed Harris. The screenplay by David Hare is based on the 1999 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same title by Michael Cunningham....
    
    
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
  • Yeopgijeogin geunyeo

• 2002 - Monster's Ball
  Monster's Ball
  Monster's Ball is a 2001 romantic drama film directed by Marc Forster, starring Billy Bob Thornton, Halle Berry, and Heath Ledger, and written by Milo Addica and Will Rokos. It was produced by Lionsgate and Lee Daniels Entertainment....
  
  
  • Gangs of New York
    Gangs of New York
    Gangs of New York is a 2002 historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and written by Jay Cocks, Steven Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. The film was inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1928 nonfiction book, The Gangs of New...
    
    
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
    Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)
    Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a 2002 fantasy film directed by Chris Columbus and based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. It is the second instalment in the Harry Potter film series, written by Steve Kloves and produced by David Heyman...
    
    
  • I Am Sam
    I Am Sam
    I Am Sam is a 2001 American drama film written and directed by Jessie Nelson, and starring Sean Penn as a father with a developmental disability, Dakota Fanning as his inquisitive seven-year-old daughter, and Michelle Pfeiffer as his lawyer...
    
    
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

• 2001 - Billy Elliot
  Billy Elliot
  Billy Elliot is a 2000 British drama film written by Lee Hall and directed by Stephen Daldry. Set in the fictional town of "Everington" in the real County Durham, UK, it stars Jamie Bell as 11-year-old Billy, an aspiring dancer, Gary Lewis as his coal miner father, Jamie Draven as Billy's older...
  
  
  • Artificial Intelligence: AI
  • Chocolat
  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
    Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
    Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, released in the United States and India as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, is a 2001 fantasy film directed by Chris Columbus and based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. The film is the first instalment in the Harry Potter film series,...
    
    
  • Postmen in the Mountains
    Postmen in the Mountains
    Postmen in the Mountains is a 1999 Chinese film directed by Huo Jianqi. It is based on the short story of the same name by Peng Jianming ....
    
    

• 2000 - Dancer in the Dark
  Dancer in the Dark
  Dancer in the Dark is a 2000 Danish musical drama film directed by Lars von Trier and starring Icelandic singer Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Cara Seymour, Peter Stormare, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, and Joel Grey...
  
  
  • American Beauty
    American Beauty (film)
    American Beauty is a 1999 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball. Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a middle-aged magazine writer who has a midlife crisis when he becomes infatuated with his teenage daughter's best friend, Angela...
    
    
  • Gladiator
    Gladiator (2000 film)
    Gladiator is a 2000 historical epic film directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Ralf Möller, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, John Shrapnel and Richard Harris. Crowe portrays the loyal Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is betrayed...
    
    
  • The Green Mile
    The Green Mile (film)
    The Green Mile is a 1999 American drama film directed by Frank Darabont and adapted by him from the 1996 Stephen King novel of the same name...
    
    
  • Swiri
    Shiri (film)
    Shiri is a 1999 South Korean action film, written and directed by Kang Je-gyu.Swiri was the first Hollywood-style big-budget blockbuster to be produced in the "new" Korean film industry...
    
    

• 1999 - The Sixth Sense
  The Sixth Sense
  The Sixth Sense is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film tells the story of Cole Sear , a troubled, isolated boy who is able to see and talk to the dead, and an equally troubled child psychologist who tries to help him...
  
  
  • Elizabeth
    Elizabeth (film)
    Elizabeth is a 1998 biographical film written by Michael Hirst, directed by Shekhar Kapur, and starring Cate Blanchett in the title role of Queen Elizabeth I of England, alongside Geoffrey Rush, Christopher Eccleston, Joseph Fiennes, Sir John Gielgud, Fanny Ardant and Richard Attenborough...
    
    
  • The Matrix
    The Matrix
    The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction-action film written and directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, and Hugo Weaving...
    
    
  • Shakespeare in Love
    Shakespeare in Love
    Shakespeare in Love is a 1998 British-American comedy film directed by John Madden and written by Marc Norman and playwright Tom Stoppard....
    
    
  • La Vita è bella
    Life Is Beautiful
    Life Is Beautiful is a 1997 Italian film which tells the story of a Jewish Italian, Guido Orefice , who must employ his fertile imagination to help his family during their internment in a Nazi concentration camp.At the 71st Academy Awards in 1999, Benigni won the Academy Award for Best Actor and...
    
    

• 1998 - L.A. Confidential
  L.A. Confidential (film)
  L.A. Confidential is a 1997 American film based on James Ellroy's 1990 novel of the same title, the third book in his L.A. Quartet. Both the book and the film tell the story of a group of LAPD officers in the 1950s, and the intersection of police corruption and Hollywood celebrity...
  
  
  • Armageddon
  • As Good as It Gets
    As Good as It Gets
    As Good as It Gets is a 1997 American romantic comedy film directed by James L. Brooks and produced by Laura Ziskin. It stars Jack Nicholson as a misanthropic, obsessive-compulsive novelist, Helen Hunt as a single mother with an asthmatic son, and Greg Kinnear as a gay artist. The screenplay was...
    
    
  • Good Will Hunting
    Good Will Hunting
    Good Will Hunting is a 1997 drama film directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver, and Stellan Skarsgård...
    
    
  • Saving Private Ryan
    Saving Private Ryan
    Saving Private Ryan is a 1998 American war film set during the invasion of Normandy in World War II. It was directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay by Robert Rodat. The film is notable for the intensity of its opening 27 minutes, which depicts the Omaha Beach assault of June 6, 1944....
    
    

• 1997 - Titanic
  Titanic (1997 film)
  Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...
  
  
  • The English Patient
    The English Patient (film)
    The English Patient is a 1996 romantic drama film based on the novel of the same name by Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje. The film, written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella, won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture...
    
    
  • Shine
    Shine (film)
    Shine is a 1996 Australian film based on the life of pianist David Helfgott, who suffered a mental breakdown and spent years in institutions. It stars Geoffrey Rush, Lynn Redgrave, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Noah Taylor, John Gielgud, Googie Withers, Justin Braine, Sonia Todd, Nicholas Bell, Chris...
    
    
  • Air Force One
    Air Force One (film)
    Air Force One is a 1997 American action-thriller film written by Andrew W. Marlowe and directed by Wolfgang Petersen. It stars Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, and Glenn Close, and also features Xander Berkeley, William H. Macy, Dean Stockwell and Paul Guilfoyle...
    
    
  • Seven Years in Tibet
    Seven Years in Tibet (1997 film)
    Seven Years in Tibet is a 1997 film based on the book of the same name written by Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer on his experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951 during the Second World War, the interim period, and the Chinese People's Liberation Army's invasion of Tibet in 1950. The film...
    
    

• 1996 - Il Postino
  Il Postino
  Il Postino is a 1994 Italian film directed by Michael Radford. The film was originally released in the U.S. as The Postman, a straight translation of the Italian title...
  
  
  • Independence Day
    Independence Day (film)
    Independence Day is a 1996 science fiction film about an alien invasion of Earth, focusing on a disparate group of individuals and families as they converge in the Nevada desert and, along with the rest of the human population, participate in a last-chance counterattack on July 4 – the same...
    
    
  • Mission: Impossible
    Mission: Impossible (film)
    Mission: Impossible is a 1996 action thriller directed by Brian De Palma and starring Tom Cruise. Following on from the television series of the same name, the plot follows a new agent, Ethan Hunt and his mission to uncover the mole within the CIA who has framed him for the murders of his entire...
    
    
  • Se7en
    Seven (film)
    Seven is a 1995 American thriller film, which also contains horror and neo-noir elements, directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker. It was distributed by New Line Cinema and stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow, R...
    
    
  • 12 Monkeys

• 1995 - The Shawshank Redemption
  The Shawshank Redemption
  The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont and starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman....
  
  
  • Apollo 13
    Apollo 13 (film)
    Apollo 13 is a 1995 American drama film directed by Ron Howard. The film stars Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Kathleen Quinlan and Ed Harris. The screenplay by William Broyles, Jr...
    
    
  • The Bridges of Madison County
    The Bridges of Madison County (film)
    The Bridges of Madison County is a 1995 American romantic drama film based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Robert James Waller. It was produced by Amblin Entertainment and Malpaso Productions, and distributed by Warner Bros. Entertainment...
    
    
  • Forrest Gump
    Forrest Gump
    Forrest Gump is a 1994 American epic comedy-drama romance film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis, starring Tom Hanks, Robin Wright and Gary Sinise...
    
    
  • Léon
    Léon (film)
    Léon is a 1994 French thriller film written and directed by Luc Besson...
    
    

• 1994 - Schindler's List
  Schindler's List
  Schindler's List is a 1993 American film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark...
  
  
  • The Piano
    The Piano
    The Piano is a 1993 New Zealand drama film about a mute pianist and her daughter, set during the mid-19th century in a rainy, muddy frontier backwater on the west coast of New Zealand. The film was written and directed by Jane Campion, and stars Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, and Anna Paquin...
    
    
  • Pulp Fiction
    Pulp Fiction (film)
    Pulp Fiction is a 1994 American crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino, who co-wrote its screenplay with Roger Avary. The film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, nonlinear storyline, and host of cinematic allusions and pop culture references...
    
    
  • Speed
  • True Lies
    True Lies
    True Lies is a 1994 American action-comedy film directed by James Cameron and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton, Tia Carrere, Charlton Heston, and Art Malik. Eliza Dushku also appears in the film in one of her first major film roles...
    
    

• 1993 - Jurassic Park
  Jurassic Park (film)
  Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Michael Crichton. It stars Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Martin Ferrero, and Bob Peck...
  
  
  • Cliffhanger
    Cliffhanger (film)
    Cliffhanger is a 1993 American action film directed by Renny Harlin and starring Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow. Stallone plays a mountain climber, who becomes embroiled in a failed heist set in a U.S. Treasury plane flying through the Rocky Mountains...
    
    
  • The Fugitive
    The Fugitive (1993 film)
    The Fugitive is a 1993 American thriller film based on the television series of the same name. The film was directed by Andrew Davis and stars Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. The film was one of the few movies associated with a television series to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best...
    
    
  • Heaven & Earth
  • Unforgiven
    Unforgiven
    Unforgiven is a 1992 American Western film produced and directed by Clint Eastwood with a screenplay written by David Webb Peoples. The film tells the story of William Munny, an aging outlaw and killer who takes on one more job years after he had hung up his guns and turned to farming...
    
    

• 1992 - JFK
  JFK (film)
  JFK is a 1991 American film directed by Oliver Stone. It examines the events leading to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and alleged subsequent cover-up, through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison .Garrison filed charges against New Orleans businessman Clay...
  
  
  • The Lover
    The Lover (film)
    - Production :While adapting the Marguerite Duras novel into the film's screenplay, director Jean-Jacques Annaud and fellow writer Gérard Brach changed the age of "The Girl" from 15½ to 17, but tried to maintain the original structure and literary tone of the original novel. As with the Duras...
    
    
  • Basic Instinct
    Basic Instinct
    Basic Instinct is a 1992 erotic thriller directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas, and starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone....
    
    
  • The Bodyguard
    The Bodyguard
    The Bodyguard is a 1992 American romantic-thriller film starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston. Costner stars as a former Secret Service Agent turned bodyguard who is hired to protect Houston's character, a music star, from an unknown stalker. Lawrence Kasdan wrote the film in the 1970s,...
    
    
  • A League of Their Own
    A League of Their Own
    A League of Their Own is a 1992 American comedy-drama film that tells a fictionalized account of the real-life All-American Girls Professional Baseball League . Directed by Penny Marshall, the film stars Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Tom Hanks, Madonna, and Rosie O'Donnell...
    
    

• 1991 - Dances with Wolves
  Dances with Wolves
  Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a...
  
  
  • Awakenings
    Awakenings
    Awakenings is a 1990 American drama film based on Oliver Sacks's 1973 memoir Awakenings. It tells the true story of British neurologist Oliver Sacks, fictionalized as American Malcolm Sayer and portrayed by Robin Williams who, in 1969, discovers beneficial effects of the then-new drug L-Dopa...
    
    
  • Nikita
  • The Silence of the Lambs
  • Terminator 2: Judgment Day
    Terminator 2: Judgment Day
    Terminator 2: Judgment Day is a 1991 science fiction action film directed by James Cameron and written by Cameron and William Wisher Jr.. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, and Edward Furlong...
    
    

• 1990 - Field of Dreams
  Field of Dreams
  Field of Dreams is a 1989 American fantasy-drama film directed by Phil Alden Robinson and is from the novel Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella...
  
  
• 1989 - Die Hard
  Die Hard
  Die Hard is a 1988 American action film and the first in the Die Hard film series. The film was directed by John McTiernan and written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. It is based on a 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp titled Nothing Lasts Forever, itself a sequel to the book The Detective, which...
  
  
• 1988 - The Last Emperor
  The Last Emperor
  The Last Emperor is a 1987 biopic about the life of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, whose autobiography was the basis for the screenplay written by Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci. Independently produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was directed by Bertolucci and released in 1987 by Columbia Pictures...
  
  
• 1987 - Platoon
  Platoon (film)
  Platoon is a 1986 American war film written and directed by Oliver Stone and stars Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen. It is the first of Stone's Vietnam War trilogy, followed by 1989's Born on the Fourth of July and 1993's Heaven & Earth....
  
  
• 1986 - Back to the Future
  Back to the Future
  Back to the Future is a 1985 American science-fiction adventure film. It was directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale, produced by Steven Spielberg, and starred Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson. The film tells the story of...
  
  
• 1985 - Amadeus
  Amadeus (film)
  Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...
  
  
• 1984 - Once Upon a Time in America
  Once Upon a Time in America
  Once Upon a Time in America is a 1984 Italian epic crime film co-written and directed by Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. The story chronicles the lives of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in New York City's world of organized crime...
  
  
• 1983 - An Officer and a Gentleman
  An Officer and a Gentleman
  A Officer and a Gentleman is a 1982 American drama film that tells the story of a U.S. Navy aviation officer candidate who comes into conflict with the Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant who trains him. It was written by Douglas Day Stewart and directed by Taylor Hackford...
  
  
• 1982 - E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
  E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
  E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote...
  
  
• 1981 - Die Blechtrommel
• 1980 - Kramer vs. Kramer
  Kramer vs. Kramer
  Kramer vs. Kramer is a 1979 American drama film adapted by Robert Benton from the novel by Avery Corman, and directed by Benton. The film tells the story of a married couple's divorce and its impact on everyone involved, including the couple's young son...
  
  
• 1979 - The Deer Hunter
  The Deer Hunter
  The Deer Hunter is a 1978 drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Russian American steel worker friends and their infantry service in the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, Meryl Streep, John Savage, John Cazale, and George Dzundza...
  
  
• 1978 - Conversation Piece
  Conversation Piece (film)
  Conversation Piece is an award-winning 1974 film by Italian director Luchino Visconti.The film features an international cast including the American actor Burt Lancaster, the Austrian Helmut Berger and the Italians Silvana Mangano and Claudia Cardinale and the French actress Dominique Sanda in a...
  
  
• 1977 - Rocky
  Rocky
  Rocky is a 1976 American sports drama film directed by John G. Avildsen and both written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. It tells the rags to riches American Dream story of Rocky Balboa, an uneducated but kind-hearted debt collector for a loan shark in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania...