1989
DEAD POETS SOCIETY - Tom Schulman
(Written Directly for the Screen)
DRIVING MISS DAISY - Alfred Uhry
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1988
RAIN MAN - Ronald Bass, Barry Morrow
(Written Directly for the Screen)
DANGEROUS LIAISONS - Christopher Hampton
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1987
MOONSTRUCK - John Patrick Shanley
(Written Directly for the Screen)
THE LAST EMPEROR - Bernardo Bertolucci, Mark Peploe
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1986
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS - Woody Allen
(Written Directly for the Screen)
A ROOM WITH A VIEW - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1985
WITNESS - William Kelley, Earl W. Wallace, Pamela Wallace
(Written Directly for the Screen)
OUT OF AFRICA - Kurt Luedtke
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1984
PLACES IN THE HEART - Robert Benton
(Written Directly for the Screen)
AMADEUS - Peter Shaffer
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1983
TENDER MERCIES - Horton Foote
(Written Directly for the Screen)
TERMS OF ENDEARMENT - James L. Brooks
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
Terms of Endearment (1983) is a comedy/drama classic, an entertaining film, but also a manipulative, soap-operatic melodramatic tearjerker, with an ending similar to Dark Victory (1939) and Love Story (1970). Its tagline was: "Have you come to Terms yet?" The feel-good, box-office hit from writer/director/producer James L. Brooks (his first directorial effort) was based on the novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry.
The film, with three X's signifying kisses below its title, was a major Academy Award winner in 1983, with eleven nominations and five Oscars - and Brooks was a triple Oscar winner! It won Best Picture, Best Actress (Shirley MacLaine - her first and sole win), Best Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Director, and Best Screenplay. (Co-stars Winger and Lithgow competed against MacLaine and Nicholson.) The other nominations included Best Actress (Debra Winger), Best Supporting Actor (John Lithgow), Best Art Direction, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Score.
The sit-com style film is about the thirty-year mother-daughter relationship between two women: stubborn brunette Emma (Debra Winger) and her devoted, possessive, blonde, widowed mother Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine). A sub-par sequel, titled The Evening Star (1996) found Shirley MacLaine reprising her role fifteen years later, as a grand-mother to her daughter Emma's three children, and Jack Nicholson with only a short cameo appearance. ..
1982
GANDHI - John Briley
(Written Directly for the Screen)
MISSING - Costa-Gavras, Donald Stewart
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1981
CHARIOTS OF FIRE - Colin Welland
(Written Directly for the Screen)
ON GOLDEN POND - Ernest Thompson
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)
1980
MELVIN AND HOWARD - Bo Goldman
(Written Directly for the Screen)
ORDINARY PEOPLE - Alvin Sargent
(Based on Material Previously Produced or Published)