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The History of American Cinema: 1998

24/1 -

Marc Levin's Slam wins the Grand Jury prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.   The documentary Grand Prize is shared by Jonathan Stack and Liz Garbus’s The Farm: Angola U.S.A and Todd Phillips’ Frat House. [ADD]

30/1 -

Alfonso Cuarón’s version of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations is released.   Gwyneth Paltrow, Ethan Hawke, Robert De Niro, Anne Bancroft, Chris Cooper and Jeremy James Kissner star. [ADD]

13/2 -

Barry Levinson’s disappointing Sphere is released.   Filmed during an extended delay in the making of Wag the Dog, the film largely wastes a fine cast that includes Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone and Liev Schreiber. [ADD]

20/2 -

Marshall Herskovitz’s Dangerous Beauty, in which Catherine McCormack stars as a scheming courtesan intent on making Rufus Sewell’s Venetian senator her own, is released.   Jacqueline Bisset also stars. [ADD]

6/3 -

The Coen brothers’ The Big Lebowski is released.   Jeff Bridges plays Jeff ‘The Dude’ Lebowski, a laid back loser who plays blows and gets stoned and mistakenly gets involved in a kidnapping plot.   John Goodman, John Turturro, Julianne Moore and Steve Buscemi also star. [ADD]

20/3 -

Mike Nichol’s political comedy-drama Primary Colors is released.   A thinly disguised satire on the political and sexual scandal’s enveloping the incumbent US president, the film stars John Travolta as a presidential candidate trying to quash rumours of an affair with an underage girl while wondering how best to use damaging information about his rival candidate.   Emma Thompson, Larry Hagman, Billy Bob Thornton, Maura Tierney, Adrian Lester and Kathy Bates also star. [ADD]

23/3 -

Titanic wins 11 Oscars at the 70th Annual Academy Awards, matching the record held by Ben-Hur since 1959.   Best Acting awards go to Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt for their performances in As Good As It Gets. [MORE]

10/4 -

Oscar and Felix are re-united after thirty years in Howard Deutch’s The Odd Couple II.   Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau reprise their roles as the mismatched room-mates on a road-trip to the wedding of Oscar’s son to Felix’s daughter. [ADD]

15/5 -

Robert Redford directs and stars in The Horse Whisperer, a lengthy (164 minutes) adaptation of Nicholas Evans's book.   Kristin Scott Thomas and Scarlett Johansson also star. [ADD]

5/6 -

Peter Weir's The Truman Show, which taps into the vogue for reality TV, is released.   Jim Carrey stars as Truman Burbank, whose entire world is a giant TV set from which – unknown to him – his life is broadcast across the globe 24 hours a day.   Carrey is supported by Laura Linney and Ed Harris. [ADD]

16/6 -

The American Film Institute announces its list of the Top 100 American movies of all time.   The top ten (in descending order) are: Citizen Kane (1941), Casablanca (1943), The Godfather (1972), Gone With the Wind (1939), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Graduate (1967), On the Waterfront (1954), Schindler's List (1993) and Singin' in the Rain (1952). [ADD]

1/7 -

Michael Bay’s Armageddon, produced by action maestro Jerry Bruckheimer, is released.   Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck head a group of oil drills charged with diverting a meteor from its head-on collision course with earth.   Steve Buscemi, Billy Bob Thornton, Owen Wilson, and Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Patton, Liv Tyler, Jessica Steen and Grace Zabriskie also star. [ADD]

10/7 -

Darren Aronofsky's sombre $60,000 budget film Pi is released after winning the Director’s Award at thie year’s Sundance Film Festival.   Sean Gullette plays Max Cohen, a paranoid mathematician obsessively seeking patterns in everything.   Mark Margolis plays his mentor. [ADD]

15/7 -

Bobby and Peter Farrelly’s hectic comedy There's Something About Mary, starring Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz, is released. [ADD]

24/7 -

Steven Spielberg’s war movie Saving Private Ryan is released.   Opening with one of the most violent and realistic battle scenes ever filmed, the film goes on to tell the story of a small band of soldier’s search for Private Ryan (Matt Damon) whose three brothers have all been killed in combat.   Tom Hanks stars with Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi and Jeremy Davies. [ADD]

25/9 -

John Waters’ Pecker, about a boy whose photos of his neighbours going about their daily lives come to the attention of the New York art world, is released.   Edward Furlong stars in the title role with support from Christina Ricci, Mink Stole and Patty Hearst. [ADD]

2/10 -

Pacific Data Images and DreamWorks SKG’s animated comedy-adventure, Antz, featuring the voices of Woody Allen, Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone, Anne Bancroft, Christopher Walken, Jennifer Lopez, Danny Glover, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, and John Mahoney, is released. [ADD]

23/10 -

Gary Ross's comedy-fantasy, Pleasantville, is released.   Toby Maguire and Reese Witherspoon play a couple of present-day teens transported back to the black-and-white TV world of ‘Pleasantville’ a wholesome family sitcom.   William H. Macy, Joan Allen, Paul Walker, Jeff Daniels and Don Knotts also feature. [ADD]

30/10 -

Tony Kaye’s American History X, in which Edward Norton stars as a highly intelligent and articulate white supremacist with a violent streak who reforms in prison only to discover his hero-worshipping younger brother (Edward Furlong) has followed in his footsteps, is released.   Despite its success Kaye disowns the film because of post-production changes made by Norton. [ADD]

4/11 -

Gods and Monsters, Bill Condon’s adaptation of Christopher Bram's novel Father of Frankenstein, is released.   Ian McKellen stars as 30s film director James Whale, who made the 1930 Universal classic Frankenstein, in his waning years as he reminisces on the past and builds a relationship with the handsome young gardener (Brendan Fraser).   Lynn Redgrave also stars as Whales’ housekeeper. [ADD]

14/11 -

A Bug's Life, Pixar’s second feature film – after 1995’s Toy Story – is released.   The characters are voiced by David Foley, Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Denis Leary, Joe Ranft, David Hyde Pierce and Hayden Panettiere.   The film includes a number of ‘out-takes’ over the closing credits.  [ADD]

4/12 -

Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot colour "re-creation" of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1960 picture Psycho is released.   Vincent Vaughn assumes the role of Norman Bates made famous by Anthony Perkins, while Anne Heche takes on the ill-fated Janet Leigh role.   Other players include Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Viggo Mortensen and James Le Gros. [ADD]

11/12 -

Wes Anderson's Rushmore, a quirky coming-of-age tale, is released.   Jason Schwartzmann stars as 15-year-old Max Fischer, who finds himself vying with Bill Murray for the affections of Miss Cross (Olive Williams), a first grade teacher at the prestigious Rushmore Academy.   Seymour Cassel, Brian Cox and Mason Gamble also feature. [ADD]

11/12 -

Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan is released.   Small-town brothers Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton and friend Brent Briscoe stumble across a crashed plane containing a corpse and millions of dollars which they decide to hide for a year before sharing.   A simple plan – but one which grows increasingly complicated and deadly.   Bridget Fonda also stars. [ADD]

16/12 -

Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan wins the New York Film Critics' Circle Best Film Award.   Best director goes to Terrence Malick for The Thin Red Line.  A Special Award is given to Rick Schmidlin for his reworked and restored version of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958). [ADD]

25/12 -

Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line goes on limited release to qualify for the 1998 Academy Awards.   The adaptation of James Jones’ novel is Malick’s first film for twenty years and stars Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas and Ben Chaplin. [ADD]

Other Key American Films of 1998