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The History of American Cinema: 1996

5/1 -

Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, an unorthodox futuristic thriller in which 99% of the world’s population has been wiped out by the year 2035, is released.   Bruce Willis plays a reluctant time-traveller, sent back to 1996 to discover how the mankind that decimated mankind developed, but who is mistakenly sent back to 1990.   Brad Pitt and Madeleine Stowe also star. [ADD]

28/1 -

Winners of the Grand Jury Prizes at this year's Sundance Film Festival are Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse and the documentary Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern. [ADD]

21/2 -

Wes Anderson’s first feature, Bottle Rocket, which his based on his original 13-minute short comedy from two years earlier, is released.   Newcomer brothers Luke and Owen Wilson reprise their roles as friends plotting to embark on a crime spree.   Lumi Cavazos and Robert Musgrave also star. [ADD]

25/2 -

Dr. Haing S. Ngor, the star of the 1984 film The Killing Fields, is gunned down in Los Angeles. [ADD]

8/3 -

Joel and Ethan Coen’s darkly satirical comedy thriller Fargo is released.   Frances McDormand plays a heavily pregnant small-town police sheriff investigating a series of murders prompted by a local businessman (William H. Macy) when he hires two inept villains (Peter Stormare and Steve Buscemi) to kidnap his wife. [ADD]

25/3 -

Mel Gibson’s Braveheart is the surprise winner of the Best film Award at the 68th Annual Academy Awards ceremony.   Gibson also wins the Best Director statuette for the film. [MORE]

12/4 -

Disney release Henry Selick’s version of Roald Dahl’s children’s story James and the Giant Peach through Buena Vista.   Paul Terry, Miriam Margolyes, Joanna Lumley, Pete Postlethwaite, Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss, David Thewlis, Jane Leeves and Susan Sarandon star. [ADD]

22/4 -

The American Museum of the Moving Image opens in Astoria Queens, News York [ADD]

10/5 -

Twister, a high concept disaster movie with state of the art special effects, is released.   Bill Paxton stars as a TV weatherman caught up in a tornado as he tries to get his tornado-hunter wife (Helen Hunt) to sign divorce papers. [ADD]

14/6 -

Bernardo Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty is released to mixed reviews.   Liv Tyler makes her debut as a 19-year-old beauty spending summer at a Tuscany villa who becomes the objection of adoration of a number of would-be suitors, but who prefers the company of AIDs victim Jeremy Irons. [ADD]

21/6 -

John Sayles’ Lone Star is released.   Chris Cooper and Matthew McConaughey star. [ADD]

3/7 -

Roland Emmerich's spectacular action thriller Independence Day is released by 20^th Century-Fox.   Former rap singer turned action hero Will Smith plays a Marine fighter pilot who helps save the world against marauding aliens in an effects-heavy crowd-pleaser.   Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum, Judd Hirsch and Randy Quaid also star. [ADD]

16/8 -

Following their success with Bull Durham, director Ron Shelton and star Kevin Costner re-unite in another sporting movie, Tin Cup.   Costner plays a fading golf pro who falls for the girlfriend (Rene Russo) of his arch rival (Don Johnson). [ADD]

5/9 -

Michael Collins, Neil Jordan’s biopic of the IRA leader, is released.   Liam Neeson plays the title role, and transforms from terrorist to national statesman.   Alan Rickman, Aidan Quinn, Julia Roberts, and Stephen Rea also star. [ADD]

20/9 -

Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci’s independent movie, Big Night is released.   Tucci also stars as Secondo, partner in a 1950s New Jersey Italian restaurant with his temperamental brother, Primo (Tony Shalhoub), which suffers financially because of Primo’s determination to avoid preparation of routine dishes.   Ian Holm, Minnie Driver, Isabella Rossellini and Allison Janney also feature. [ADD]

18/10 -

Barry Levinson’s Sleepers is released.   Allegedly based on a true story (from the book by Lorenzo Carcaterra) it tells the story of the consequences on a group of friends of an act of vengeance carried out by two of them against a reform school guard who sexually avbused them when they were children.   Brad Pitt, Jason Patric, Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Bacon and Minnie Driver star. [ADD]

1/11 -

William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, Australian Baz Luhrmann’s MTV-style interpretation of the bard’s tale of star-crossed lovers, is released.   Leonardo di Caprio and Claire Danes star, with support from Harold Perrineau Jr, John Leguizamo, Miriam Margolyes, and Pete Postlethwaite. [ADD]

15/11 -

Anthony Minghella’s adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s prize-winning novel The English Patient is released.   Ralph Fiennes stars as a badly burned archaeologist, tended to by Juliette Binoche, who recalls in flashback his relationship with married woman Naveen Andrews.   Willem Dafoe and Jurgen Prochnow also star. [ADD]

1/12 -

Buena Vista’s live-action family film 101 Dalmations creates a new Thanksgiving weekend record when it takes an estimated $34.2 million at the box office. [ADD]

6/12 -

Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire, in which Tom Cruise plays a sports agent with just one client (Cuba Gooding), is released.   Rene Zellweger plays Cruise’s love interest. [ADD]

12/12 -

Universal Pictures announce that their volcano disaster film Dante’s Peak will be released on 7^th February 1997, three weeks ahead of Fox 2000's rival picture, Volcano. [ADD]

25/12 -

Alan Parker’s screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s hit stage musical Evita is released.   Madonna stars as Eva Peron, with Jonathan Pryce as her husband Juan and Antonio Banderas as guerilla leader Che Guevera. [ADD]

31/12 -

The U. S. Postal Service announces that 31 million James Dean stamps were purchased for collection in 1996. [ADD]

– The US Congress renews the National Film Preservation Act for seven more years.   It also establishes the National Film Preservation Foundation to raise funding for film preservation. [ADD]

– The Best Actor Academy Award won by Clark Gable for his role in It Happened One Night sells at auction for $607,000. [ADD]

Other Key American Films of 1996