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The History of American Cinema: 1995

3/1 -

Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction wins the best film, director and screenplay categories at the National Society of Film Critics' annual award ceremony at the Algonquin hotel in New York. [ADD]

10/1 -

Los Angeles Superior Court rules that John Dahl’s film noir The Last Seduction is ineligible for nomination for an Academy Award because it was initially screened on the HBO cable television channel. [ADD]

13/1 -

Edward Zwick's adaptation of Jim Harrison’s novella The Legends of the Fall is released nationwide after a limited release in December to ensure its eligibility for nominations for this year’s Academy Awards.   Anthony Hopkins, Henry Thomas, Aidan Quinn and Brad Pitt star. [ADD]

1/2 -

Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen's new studio DreamWorks SKG is unveiled with the announcement that it intends to produce 24 features by the year 2000. [ADD]

1/2 -

Disney announce the release of a new version of the 1940 classic Fantasia featuring four segments from the original and a further five new segments.   Release is scheduled for 1998. [ADD]

6/2 -

MGM/UA Home Video withdraws a Loony Tunes compilation video from circulation because it contains a 1944 cartoon called Bugs Nips the Nips in which Bugs Bunny makes racist remarks about the Japanese. [ADD]

13/2 -

Martin Scorsese's Casino, starring Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci,  completes filming in Las Vegas after a 100-day shoot. [ADD]

17/2 -

81-year-old Gene Kelly suffers a second stroke  in Los Angeles, after suffering his first in July last year. [ADD]

Mr Payback, an interactive film written and directed by Bob Gale is released for distribution in approximately 25 specially-equipped cinemas.   The cinema’s seats have three buttons in the seat arms which allows the audience to vote on the progress of the film. [ADD]

24/2 -

George Lucas begins work on a three-part prequel to his Stars Wars trilogy more than ten years after the release of the last instalment. [ADD]

6/3 -

The Walt Disney Co announce record sales of 20 million copies of the video of The Lion King.   The film has grossed $740 million in cinemas worldwide to date. [ADD]

27/3 -

Robert Zemeckis’s Forrest Gump wins Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and three other awards at the 67th Annual Academy Awards ceremony. [ADD]

7/4 -

Michael Caton-Jones’ Rob Roy is released.   Liam Neeson stars as the Scottish 18^th-Century Robin Hood, with John Hurt and Tim Roth in support. [ADD]

21/4 -

Val Kilmer stars in Jean-Jacques Annaud's 40-minute, $15 million-plus Wings of Courage, the first drama filmed using IMAX 3-D technology.   The film opens at New York’s Sony Lincoln Square, one of only 120 cinemas in the world capable of screening the process. [ADD]

3/5 -

Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas’s My Family, which examines the pursuit of the American dream by three generations of Hispanic immigrants from the 30s to the present day, is released.   Jennifer Lopez, Jacob Vargas, Jenny Gago, Eduardo López Rojas, Esai Morales, Edward James Olmos, Enrique Castillo, Lupe Ontiveros, Constance Marie, Jimmy Smits and Elpidia Carrillo star. [ADD]

19/5 -

Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, which the actor both directs and stars in, is released.   Gibson stars as William Wallace, who led a 13th-Century Scottish revolt against British rule.    Patrick McGoohan, Angus Macfadyen and Ian Bannen also star. [ADD]

14/6 -

Michael Radford’s Il Postino is released.   The film tells the story of Mario (Massimo Troisi) a fisherman on a small Italian island, whose life is changed by the arrival of a famous Chilean writer (Philippe Noiret).   Maria Grazia Cucinotta plays the waitress with whom Mario is in love. [ADD]

30/6 -

Ron Howard’s Apollo 13, which recreates the crisis experienced by astronauts Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon), is released.   Gary Sinise and Ed Harris are the ground crew racing against time to save them. [ADD]

28/7 -

Rumours circulate around Hollywood that Kevin Costner’s latest film, Waterworld, is in trouble as its budget nears the $200 million mark because of production problems.   The production is referred to by wags as ‘Fishtar’ and ‘Kevin’s Gate.’ [ADD]

16/8 -

Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie's The Usual Suspects is released.   Gabriel Byrne heads a cast that includes Chaz Palmintieri, Kevin Spacey, Benicio Del Toro, Stephen Baldwin, Dan Hedaya, Pete Postlethwaite and Kevin Pollak, all of whom are seeking the true identity of the mysterious Keyzer Soze. [ADD]

22/9 -

Paul Verhoeven’s soft porn extravaganza Showgirls is released.   Written by Joe Esterhaz, the film stars Elizabeth Berkeley and Gina Gershon as rivals in the sex-filled Las Vegas striptease industry. [ADD]

27/10 -

Leaving Las Vegas, Mike Figgis’s bleak study of one man’s determination to destroy himself through alcohol, is released.   Nicolas Cage stars as the self-destructive Ben Sanderson who meets Sera (Elisabeth Shue), a Vegas prostitute while on his fatal binge. [ADD]

27/10 -

Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite is released.  Allen stars with Helena Bonham-Carter as a couple who discover the birth mother of their adopted son is a prostitute and porn star (Mira Sorvino). [ADD]

22/11 -

John Lasseter’s animated film Toy Story is released.   The film charts the adventures of Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks), the former favourite toy of Andy, and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) Andy’s new birthday present.   The voices of Don Rickles and Wallace Shawn also star. [ADD]

20/12 -

Oliver Stone’s Nixon, a depiction of the disgraced president’s years in the White House, is released.   British actor Anthony Hopkins takes the title role, with Joan Allen playing his wife, Pat.   J.T. Walsh, James Woods and David Hyde Pierce also feature. [ADD]

29/12 -

Tim Robbins’ Dead Man Walking, in which his wife Susan Sarandon stars as a catholic nun endeavouring to save a death-row killer (Sean Penn), is released.   R. Lee Ermey also features as the grief-stricken father of one of Penn’s victims. [ADD]

Other Key American Films of 1995