In Film Awards History it must be difficult crowning the winner of The Best Picture award no matter if your The Academy, Hollywood Foreign Press Assosication who run the Golden Globes or BAFTA who are the British film awards which awards domestic and foreign films for excellence in film.
By Willis Sweeney
4th December 2016
(Photo: Cropped photo of Tom Hanks as the titular character Forrest Gump.)
In the film year of 1994/95 The Academy must have had a to make a difficult decision when crowning that years Best Picture winner which Robert Zemeckis’ Forest Gump eventually won while Forrest Gump was a critical, financial and cult hit success many have questioned why didn’t Quentin Tarantinos Pulp Fiction or why didn’t Shawshank Redemption win as they fit into the same category of cult hit films that are still watched and debated about today.
Forrest Gump based on the Winston Groom novel or the same name tells the story of a man with a low IQ and good intentions and the remarkable journey which he embarks on…
Forrest Gump was a financial success making $677.9 Million on a budget of $55 Million. It was nominated for 13 Oscars winning 6, including best actor for Tom Hanks, Best Picture, Best Director for Robert Zemeckis and Best Visual Effects, it was nominated for 4 Golden Globes winning 3, and it was nominated for 7 BAFTA’s winning 1 in the Visual Effects category.
(Photo: to the left John Travolta as Vincent Vega and to the right Samuel L Jackson as Jules Winnfield.)
Pulp Fiction is a film which ultimately put Tarantino into the film map (sorry Reservoir Dogs fans I like that film too but Pulp Fiction in my opinion put Tarantino on the map) Pulp Fiction also revived John Travolta’s career after a string of flops and Razzie winning films in the 80s it also Revived Bruce Willis’ to some extent after he had a series of flops in the early 1990s, it also put Samuel L Jackson in to Hollywood stardom as he like his co-star Travolta and Uma Thurman were nominated for Acting Oscars and BAFTA’s, Many film critics have questioned why didn’t Samuel L Jackson win over Martin Landau who won for his performance as Béla Lugosi in Tim Burton’s biopic of one of cinemas worst film Directors titled ‘Ed Wood’.
Pulp Fiction was also a financial success as it made $213.9 Million Dollars on a budget of just $8.5 Million, Pulp Fiction was nominated for 7 Oscars winning one for the best original screenplay for both Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary, it was nominated 6 Golden Globes winning the Best Screenplay award and it was nominated for 9 BAFTA’s winning 2, one for the Best Original Screenplay and Samuel L Jackson won the Best Actor in a Supporting Role award.
(Photo: to the left Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne, to the right Morgan Freeman as Ellis Boyd ‘Red’ Redding in the Shawshank Redemption.)
The Shawshank Redemption on the other hand is based upon the Stephen King novel Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption the film tells the story of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) a banker who is jailed for life at Shawshank State Penitentiary after he murdered his wife and her lover, during his time in prison he befriends an African American man referred to as Red (Morgan Freeman) he then gets involved in plots of money laundering and through there he plans his escape…
The Shawshank Redemption wasn’t exactly a complete financial success when it came out as it was made on a budget of $25 Million but in total only made $58 Million although it did end up with 7 Oscar nominations and 2 Golden Globe nominations.
The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump are all on the IMDb Top 250 films at Number 1,7 and 13 respectively.
Source: http://imdb.com/title/tt0111161/ / http://imdb.com/title/tt0110912/ / http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109830/?ref_=nv_sr_1
All photos are from the respective films IMDb pages.
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