A Century of Film: Miramax / The Weinstein Company

A Century of Film

Miramax  /  The Weinstein Company

The Studio

Some forty years ago, long before one brother sank beneath the weight of his other brother’s sexual crimes, there were Bob and Harvey Weinstein.  Though they were from New York City, they had been successful with a rock promotion business in Buffalo during the seventies.  But their passion for films won them over and began a small, independent distribution business that they named after their parents Miriam and Max.

“These were the Weinstein brothers, Harvey and Bob.  In the mid-eighties, they were a unique hybrid combining the competitive yet collegial world of Cinecom and Island with the dealmeister approach of Golan and Gobus at Cannon. … The Weinsteins might have acted like hustlers, but they seemed to have much better taste than your average hustler.”  (Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes, John Pierson, p 84-85).

Normally in the Century of Film posts, I act as if it’s the end of 2011 and we’ve just completed the first century of film.  But for this post, partially because of the way TWC and Miramax are both effectively done and partially because of the fall of Harvey Weinstein (I’ve been working on this to get it done because I was afraid he would die and I would be appalled if anyone thought this was a tribute to Weinstein so I wanted to make certain this was published before that potential event), it’s so difficult to pretend that it’s the past.  So this is a full reckoning of the two independent studios that the Weinsteins created.

This is not the full sordid history of the brothers and their lives.  There’s too much to say about Harvey and so much of it is awful.  Years before his fall and imprisonment, Peter Biskind in his book Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film (a seminal book to read about the studio – see the bottom of the post for my full take on the book) gave a pretty good description of him: “The Lizzie Grubman of the movie business, Harvey is like a drunk driver who jumps the curb, maims a few pedestrians, swerves crazily back into traffic, and screeches to a halt inches from a stroller, whereupon he leaps out, grabs the baby and holds it up for everyone to see as he takes credit for saving its life.”  (p 4)

So, if you want more about them, read the books that are out there.  Biskind’s book does focus more on their work and not their lives and it was published back in 2004 but I’m certain there will be others before too long that really will tell the whole ugly, repulsive story.  So this introduction will focus on a brief history of the studios and if you want more, there are others places you can find that info (it turned out not to be so brief and I really truncated things after 2000 to even get it to that point).  With COVID still raging, I’ve been forced to do this just with the materials I own but there are more books out there.

The Weinsteins actually tried to make a film once: “The Weinsteins had been making like the Taviani Brothers, co-directing a feature for Universal Pictures called Playing for Keeps.  It is the pits, although they did call in some chits from their years as rock ‘n’ roll concert promoters in Buffalo, to assemble an impressive soundtrack album with artists like Phil Collins, Pete Townshend, and Eric Clapton.  Having quickly realized their limitations as filmmakers, Bob and Harvey jumped back into their distribution company with a vengeance.”  (Pierson, p 87)  Playing for Keeps, as noted, was a Universal film so isn’t ranked below but it would be at about #490 to give an idea of its quality.  Pierson knew them well at this point because they decided they wanted to distribute the film Working Girls that Pierson was involved with and they massively outbid the other distributors.  Pierson explains not only why he went with them but why others did as well: “They had an instinctual grasp of how to walk the tightrope between sensationalistic come-on and classy intellectual tease.” (Pierson, p 87)

Pierson would then again deal with the brothers when they would distribute the documentary The Thin Blue Line which would make a big splash and help establish them as the premiere independent distributors in American film.  What’s more, they differed greatly from New World Pictures and AIP by focusing much more on art-house films and the possibility of winning awards and getting critical attention.  This strategy was born out at the Oscars before too long.  By 1992, with just 44 Miramax films even having been submitted it had already earned more Oscar nominations than AIP (369 Oscar submitted films) and New World (163 submitted films) combined.  That was also the year that Miramax earned its second Best Picture nomination, putting them one more than New World and AIP combined.

The Thin Blue Line might have been a success story in terms of critical acclaim and national attention, but it also highlighted something else that would be a hallmark of the studio: “Errol had already spent years editing his film.  Miramax has acquired it ‘as is’, without any contingencies as to running time.  Harvey now suggested that it should be five to ten minutes shorter.”  (Pierson, p 109)  This was still 1988, so Edward Scissorhands hadn’t been released yet to give Harvey what would soon be one of his nicknames: Harvey Scissorhands.

Pelle the Conqueror, which Harvey tried to market as an Adventure film to sell it outside of big cities (which didn’t work), was the first success for Miramax at the Oscars, earning it its first major nomination (Best Actor) and its first win (Best Foreign Film).  Pelle would also be emblematic of Miramax’s box office approach.  It opened quite small and then eventually made far more than its opening weekend would suggest.  All the way until the end, Miramax would rely on that strategy.  Only with the Dimension films which were designed for bigger opening weekends, would Miramax abandon the platform approach of a limited opening release then a wider push.  Miramax would eventually have nine films make over $75 million (not including Dimension films) and none of them earned more than 15% of their total gross in their opening weekends.

In the winter of 1988-89, Miramax purchased distribution rights to two films that would help pave the way for the future.  The first was My Left Foot, seen by Harvey in England in late 1988 but held back until November of 1989 and pushed for major Oscars, which it succeeded in scoring, managing Picture and Director nominations where Glory stumbled.  The second, seen at Sundance, was sex, lies and videotape which at $25 million, would outgross all of Miramax’s previous films combined and would continue to the be the studio’s biggest hit until the fall of 1992.

My Left Foot owed part of its success to a new trend that Weinstein would eventually leverage to the hilt: “Companies were starting to send our screener tapes to Academy members, a practice that leveled the playing field.  ‘The tapes are what did it for My Left Foot,’ says Weinstein.  ‘We didn’t have the money to do screening after screening, busing people in, having lavish parties.  That gave us parity.'”  (Biskind, p 98-99)

In 1990 and 1991, however, the studio hit a wall.  Though it won the Oscar for Foreign Film each year (completing a four year streak and in the midst of a 12 year streak of winning at least one Oscar – the longest streak by any studio since 1972) and had the most Oscar nominated films of any studio in 1990 with five, it couldn’t manage a Best Picture nomination and it couldn’t find mainstream success.  Of the first 41 films released after My Left Foot, only Truth or Dare managed to break $15 million (and just barely) and the films averaged just $3 million.  Miramax needed a hit or awards success to stay alive.

1992 saved the game for the studio.  The modest box office success of Enchanted April (with eventual Oscar nominations), the start of the genre subsidiary studio Dimension Films and its first film Hellraiser III (the first Miramax film to have an opening weekend over $3 million) and the release of Reservoir Dogs which began the studio’s relationship with Quentin Tarantino all set the stage for the massive success of The Crying Game.  The Crying Game was far and away the biggest hit the studio had ever released, grossing over $60 million in the States and returning Miramax to a Best Picture race from which it would never leave.  That success set the stage for the next level: “On April Fool’s Day, Katzenberg phoned Chris McGurk, who was then CFO of Disney Studios, and said, ‘Hey, call Harvey Weinstein, let’s talk to him about buying the company.'”  (Biskind, p 149)

This was a true win-win.  Disney ensured that Miramax would have the budget to get (or make) the films they wanted with a hands-off approach provided they stuck within the budget and Miramax would finally start bringing in some Oscars to the studio.  But it would remain to be seen how good films would be if Miramax actually made them:

Now that Miramax was on its way to becoming a producer as well as an acquirer and distributor, the biggest question mark was whether the Weinsteins would be as skillful developing, shooting, and editing their own films as they had been acquiring those of others, which is to say, it’s much easier to recognize in a finished film elements that can be exploited for an effective marketing campaign than it is to develop an idea from scratch and successfully see it through production.  Not to put too fine a point on it, none of the films Miramax had produced up to that point had been any good.  (Biskind, p 153)

Then Harvey started taking on all of Hollywood.  His presence was important: “Each year Miramax releases as many films as a couple of studios combined.  By virtue of the volume of its output, it is by far the largest employer of above-the-line talent and below-the-line crew in New York City, and it has a significant presence in Los Angeles as well.”  (Biskind, p 3)  And in the middle of all this, came their greatest film.

“Taking in $107,921,755 at the U.S. box office, Pulp Fiction was the tenth highest grossing movie of 1994, becoming the most profitable independent film ever made.  The film took in an additional $105 million overseas.  For the first time, Hollywood’s major studios were forced to pay attention to the New York-centric world of independent film and could no longer ignore Miramax and its ringleader, Harvey Weinstein.  The success of Pulp Fiction fueled a move to create art-house divisions on the studio lots – Fox Searchlight, Paramount Classics, October (later USA Films), and, though it took a decade, Warner Independent – that were aimed at breeding crossover indie hits and cultivating indie talent for the major studios.”  (Rebels on the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Studio System, Sharon Waxman, p xvii-xviii)

But after a weaker 1995, 1996 helped the studio stay on top with another $100 million film (Scream) and the elusive prize that Harvey had long been after: Best Picture.  The English Patient would not only be the big winner for Miramax, but one of the biggest films in Oscar history and helped Miramax to a whopping 12 total Oscars in 1996.  It would also, ironically, lead to a deal that would make the Weinsteins personally a lot of money but would deny Miramax a much, much larger amount of money, prestige and Oscar gold.  English Patient producer Saul Zaentz happened to own the rights to the Lord of the Rings and Weinstein connected him with director Peter Jackson who had released Heavenly Creatures through Miramax.  In the end, because Miramax was owned by Disney, given the cost of the potential production, Weinstein needed Michael Eisner’s permission to take on the project and Eisner wouldn’t do it.  Not wanting to give it up, Weinstein applied draconian terms to hold on to the film but Jackson’s perseverance and the intelligent insight from Bob Shaye at New Line ended up with the project being moved and being released as three films instead of Jackson’s originally proposed two or Disney’s offer to make just one with a more limited budget.  The Weinsteins names would appear on the film and they would make money from it, but it was not to be the their baby. (for more on this, see the books at the bottom of the post)

Coming out of The English Patient, Miramax was now firmly in the Oscar business.  Every year would see a film pushed hard for the Oscars and always landing one among the Best Picture nominees.  The next year would see Good Will Hunting and the start of Matt and Ben.  After that would be a nomination for Life is Beautiful (22 years with no foreign Best Picture nominees and Miramax did it twice in four years) and the Oscar for Shakespeare in Love.

But Shakespeare also seemed to be the point where it became much more well known the kind of things that Weinstein would do to get his film to succeed.  As described on pages 369 and 370 of Down and Dirty Pictures, this was where the Oscar campaigning really took off, this is where the reputation of Harvey using dirty tricks to attack other films came from and this is the point where Harvey rushed up on stage to grab the mic away from Ed Zwick because this was his big Oscar moment.

The following 100 pages of Biskind’s book takes the story of the studio through the era of heavy campaigning and scoring nominations for Cider House Rules and Chocolat, of the nasty race against A Beautiful Mind and of the big triumph in 2002 with Chicago winning it all even though Gangs didn’t win anything.

But then came the real changes as the book was being published.  Cold Mountain was pushed heavily but fell short at the Oscars.  The Aviator cost a lot and couldn’t win Best Picture.  Miramax was buying less and producing more expensive films.  The films were bigger but there were far fewer.  In 2004, Miramax would release just 14 films, its fewest since 1989.  They would have their highest box office average ($30 million) but higher costs.  So in the spring of 2005 came the announcement of the long-rumored split, that the Weinsteins would leave behind the company they had founded, letting Disney keep the name while they would depart and form their own indie studio yet again.

Disney would never really have the proper handle on how to run Miramax without the Weinsteins.  They would have some Oscar gold, yes, winning a fourth Best Picture for the studio with No Country for Old Men.  But that and The Queen (more Oscar gold) would be the only post-Weinstein films to make over $50 million and the entire slate of 37 films released between the departure and the ending of the label in late 2010 would make less than the films released in 2004 alone.

And now suddenly the Weinsteins had their own studio again.  Their first release, Derailed, would show the mixed results.  It would make $36 million, more than all but two post-Weinstein releases at Disney and more than the first 75 films released by Miramax but also a little bit less than The Brothers Grimm, the last Miramax film released while the brothers were still there.  It would also be terrible.

Dimension went with them, so they had genre films to make money while they tried to find the path to Oscar gold again.  But they weren’t finding the way.  Bobby and The Great Debaters found Globe nominations but the Oscars ignored them.  The second was particularly painful as Miramax won Best Picture that year without them.  Finally in 2008, The Reader broke through, snagging Oscar nominations out from under the feet of The Dark Knight.  Then came QT to the rescue again.

Inglourious Basterds was the best film the studio had made to-date.  It was also a big Oscar contender, the first TWC film to break $100 million (just as Pulp Fiction had been the first Miramax film to do so) and the first non-Dimension film to even break $60 million.  The brothers had found their place again.  The following year would come The King’s Speech, a surprise smash (the second biggest grossing film in the studio’s history) and a surprise winner over the clear critics favorite The Social Network at the Oscars.  They followed that up the next year by winning Best Picture again with The Artist.

But the brothers weren’t riding a wave higher and higher – they had peaked.  The next year brought more financial success (Silver Linings, Django) with high grosses and major Oscar gold but not Picture or Director.  After that, there would only be one more $100 million film and the main reason they were getting into the Oscar race was because of the expanded Picture category, only scoring three more Picture nominations and one more Director nomination.  The grosses were going down, the quality of the films were slipping and they no longer had a magic touch with the Academy.  The studio was floundering and then came the lawsuits.  The studio and all its assets were put up for sale.  What had once, in a lot of ways, been the most powerful force in the film industry, was over.

Notable Miramax Films

• Rockshow (1980)  –  Paul McCartney concert film; first Miramax release
• I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing  (1987)  –  first Miramax film submitted for the Oscars
• The Thin Blue Line  (1988)  –  major documentary that earned a lot of publicity
• Pelle the Conqueror  (1988)  –  first Miramax Oscar nominee; first Oscar winner (Foreign Film)
• sex, lies and videotape  (1989)  –  first Miramax film to gross over $20 million
• My Left Foot  (1989)  –  first Miramax film nominated for Best Picture
• Reservoir Dogs  (1992)  –  beginning of Quentin Tarantino’s relationship with Miramax
• Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth  (1992)  –  first film produced by Dimension, Miramax’s genre subdivision
• The Crying Game  (1992)  –  second Miramax Best Picture nominee; first film from Miramax to gross over $25 million; first independent film from any studio to gross over $60 million
• Pulp Fiction  (1994)  –  first Miramax film (or independent film from any studio) to gross over $100 million
• Il Postino  (1995)  –  first Foreign film from any studio to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars in 26 years
• The English Patient  (1996)  –  first Best Picture winner for Miramax
• Good Will Hunting  (1997)  –  first Miramax film to gross over $125 million
• Shakespeare in Love  (1998)  –  second Best Picture winner for Miramax
• Scary Movie  (2000)  –  first Miramax film to gross over $150 million
• Chicago  (2002)  –  third Best Picture winner; highest grossing film in Miramax’s history
• The Brothers Grimm  (2005)  –  final film released with the Weinsteins still in charge of Miramax
• The Queen  (2006)  –  first Miramax nominee for Best Picture post-Weinsteins
• No Country for Old Men  (2007)  –  fourth and final Best Picture winner
• The Tempest  (2010)  –  final Miramax Oscar submission and for all intents and purposes the final Miramax film

Notable TWC Films

• Derailed  (2005)  –  first TWC release
• The Reader  (2008)  –  first TWC Best Picture nominee
• Ingloruious Basterds  (2009)  –  first Tarantino film for TWC; first TWC film to gross over $100 million
• The King’s Speech  (2010)  –  first Best Picture winner for TWC; second highest grossing TWC film
• The Artist  (2011)  –  second Best Picture winner for TWC, giving TWC back-to-back winners, something Miramax never did
• Django Unchained  (2012)  –  highest grossing TWC film
• Lion  (2016)  –  final TWC film to earn a Best Picture nomination
• Tulip Fever  (2017)  –  final TWC release

The Directors

Harvey Weinstein famously pissed off a lot of directors who then refused to ever go back to Miramax.  Biskind’s book makes quite clear why Steven Soderbergh (who did make two more films for them) and Neil Jordan (who didn’t make any) came to loathe him.  But other directors had a good working relationship with him and made several films at the studio, even moving from Miramax to TWC.

Quentin Tarantino

• Films:  9
• Years:  1994-2015
• Average Film:  89.7
• Best Film:  Pulp Fiction
• Worst Film:  Death Proof

Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs was an art-house hit but Pulp Fiction helped Miramax become the company that could make big box office and win major Oscars.  Tarantino stayed on, often arguing (he refused to cut Jackie Brown) but also making brilliant films.  He jumped to TWC and might still be there if it hadn’t disintegrated.

Kevin Smith

• Films:  6
• Years:  1994 – 2008
• Average Film:  73.8
• Best Film:  Clerks
• Worst Film:  Jersey Girl

Smith’s Clerks was bought by Miramax and was a big cult hit.  Smith left and came back (“After the failure of Mallrats, Smith famously called Harvey and said, ‘Can I come home now?'” Biskind, p 285) and then stayed through Zack and Miri before he started making really bad films.  Dogma, however, wouldn’t be released by Miramax (see pages 344-346 and 366-67 of Biskind) and the Weinsteins own the film rights so you can’t get it on streaming so I guess I should hold on to my DVD.

Woody Allen

• Films:  6
• Years:  1994 – 2008
• Average Film:  74.5
• Best Film:  Bullets over Broadway
• Worst Film:  Celebrity

If you line up all the Oscar nominated directors and sort their films by years, it’s interesting to look at the studios, especially after 1960.  Yes, some modern directors, like Eastwood, stay with the same studio for their careers.  Others, like Scorsese, jump all around and rarely even make two films in a row for the same studio.  Then there is Woody Allen, who would make several films with a studio, then move to a new, more hip studio.  He joined up with Miramax in 1994 for the first of four films and then later two more with TWC.  In that time, his films won three Oscars just for Supporting Actress (Wiest, Sorvino, Cruz).  Most directors are happy to have their films win three acting Oscars ever.  What’s more, in Bullets, Everyone Says I Love You and Vicky Cristina Barcelona, we have three of his strongest post-1990 films.

Stephen Frears

• Films:  8
• Years:  1990 – 2013
• Average Film:  79.9
• Best Film:  The Grifters
• Worst Film:  Lay the Favorite

Frears is often over-looked and could easily be here as well.  He’s the only director aside from Marty and Quentin with two films in the studio’s Top 15.  He directed two Best Picture nominees (The Queen, Philomena) earned another nomination for Director (The Grifters) and had two more films earn major Oscar noms (Dirty Pretty Things, Mrs Henderson Presents).  If not for the awful Lay the Favorite, his studio average would be 86.4.

Robert Rodriguez

• Films:  11
• Years:  1995 – 2014
• Average Film:  59.4
• Best Film:  Sin City
• Worst Film:  The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl

Rodriguez was brought in to Miramax as part of the four directors on Four Rooms then re-teamed with Tarantino directing his script for From Dusk Till Dawn.  Starting with that, he became Dimension’s resident auteur, with most of his films from then until the dissolution of TWC released by the genre division of Miramax / TWC.  No other director made more films for the Weinsteins.

The Stars

Gwyneth Paltrow

Yes, she has clearly become a crazy person of Tom Cruise proportions.  And lots of people don’t feel she should have won the Oscar.  But, aside from a lot of crap that Emma did for the studio (The Pallbearer, View from the Top), all of her best performances came in films from Miramax and they are really worth remembering and watching.
Essential Viewing:  Shakespeare in Love, Proof, Emma, Sliding Doors

Ben Affleck

“It’s Miramax. So I’m sure it’ll be Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. They put those guys in a bunch of movies.”  Ben Affleck in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.  It actually started with Chasing Amy before Good Will Hunting.  But Hunting made him and Damon household names and Affleck was then in Shakespeare in Love as well as many of Kevin Smith’s subsequent films.  It’s interesting to note that Affleck’s directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, was made for post-Weinstein Miramax.
Essential Viewing:  Good Will Hunting, Chasing Amy, Shakespeare in Love

Renee Zellweger

She didn’t do much at Miramax but it’s hard to ignore the fact that Zellweger made three films in three years with the studio, all three earned her Oscar noms, the second not only won Best Picture but was the highest grossing film in either studio’s history and the third film won her the Oscar.  That’s kind of the definition of a star right there.
Essential Viewing:  Chicago, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Cold Mountain

Genres

As can be seen by the lists below, the two studios did eventually cover all the genres.  But they mostly focused on Comedies and Dramas.  A lot of their genre films would be released by Dimension Films, the sub-studio for both studios.  It’s interesting to note that Quentin Tarantino made the best film in two genres at Miramax and then made the best film in two completely different other genres at TWC.  One thing of note is that Miramax made a lot of really great Crime films while TWC made very few Crime films at all and none worthy of noting.  TWC just didn’t do the genres as well as Miramax had.

Foreign Films

Miramax did a lot of their early business by distributing foreign films in the States.  Their first Oscar nomination (and win) was Best Foreign Film in 1988 for Pelle the Conqueror.  They followed that up with three more wins (Cinema Paradiso, Journey of Hope, Mediterraneo), an unprecedented run of success in any category.  Miramax was incredibly successful, winning eight Oscars and earning another 17 nominations.  TWC didn’t focus on that in the same way and earned just two nominations.  Two more TWC films were semi-finalists.  There were also 22 films that Miramax distributed that were submitted that weren’t nominated (and one TWC).  What’s more, Miramax had a wide array.  They won the Oscar with six different countries (three for Italy) and earned nominations for 13 more.  In all, Miramax submitted films from at last 25 different countries including 8 from Italy and 6 from France.

All of the films, ranked

note:  This list consists of all the films I considered for the various categories below.  Because colors tend to get thrown off when I apply links, the TWC films are in bold.  I don’t note the Dimension films separately from either studio nor do I specify other branches such as Miramax Zoe or TWC-RADiUS.  This list is every film (except documentaries) released by either Miramax or TWC according to the lists I could find (BOM, Wikipedia, Academy records).  The two exceptions are Strike It Rich, the 1990 adaptation of a Graham Greene novel which kills me that I can’t find it and The Crude Oasis, which isn’t listed at BOM but is the only film ever submitted to the Oscars by Miramax that I haven’t seen.  Those are the only two Miramax films I haven’t seen.  I’ve seen all the TWC films.

1. Pulp Fiction
2. Trainspotting
3. The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain
4. The English Patient
5. The Aviator
6. No Country for Old Men
7. The Crying Game
8. Gangs of New York
9. Carol
10. City of God
11. Inglourious Basterds
12. The Artist
13. The Grifters
14. Shakespeare in Love
15. The Queen
16. Three Colors: Red
17. In the Bedroom
18. Jackie Brown
19. The King’s Speech
20. Chicago
21. Heavenly Creatures
22. The Imitation Game
23. Django Unchained
24. Kill Bill Volume 1
25. Bullets over Broadway
26. Kill Bill Volume 2
27. Good Will Hunting
28. Princess Mononoke
29. Reservoir Dogs
30. The Others
31. The Hateful Eight
32. Hero
33. Gone Baby Gone
34. Three Colors: Blue
35. Three Colors: White
36. Clerks
37. The Quiet American
38. A Single Man
39. Philomena
40. Cinema Paradiso
41. The Station Agent
42. Dirty Pretty Things
43. I’m Not There
44. Twin Sisters
45. My Left Foot
46. My Week with Marilyn
47. Emma
48. The Wings of the Dove
49. Heaven
50. Chasing Amy
51. Sing Street
52. sex, lies and videotape
53. Silver Linings Playbook
54. Proof
55. Happy-Go-Lucky
56. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
57. Finding Neverland
58. Sin City
59. Wind River
60. The Barbarian Invasions
    ***.5
61. The Crow
62. Like Water for Chocolate
63. Ju Dou
64. The Master
65. Blue Valentine
66. Smoke
67. Velvet Goldmine
68. Il Postino
69. Tsotsi
70. Queen Margot
71. Paddington
72. The Tempest
73. Rabbit-Proof Fence
74. Everyone Says I Love You
75. The Matador
76. August: Osage County
77. The Piano
78. Ridicule
79. Snowpiercer
80. Infernal Affairs
81. Beautiful Girls
82. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them
83. The Nasty Girl
84. The Reader
85. Doubt
86. Cold Mountain
87. The Lovers on the Bridge
88. Vicky Cristina Barcelona
89. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
90. eXistenZ
91. Enchanted April
92. Farewell My Concubine
93. Scandal
94. The Snapper
95. The Warrior
96. Kids
97. The Crossing Guard
98. The Double Life of Veronique
99. My Son the Fanatic
100. Mrs. Henderson Presents
101. Muriel’s Wedding
102. Citizen Ruth
103. Exotica
104. The Cider House Rules
105. Beyond Silence
106. Baran
107. The Best of Youth
108. Mr. & Mrs. Bridge
109. Strictly Ballroom
110. Shaolin Soccer
111. Sirens
112. Flirting with Disaster
113. The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and Her Lover
114. Mansfield Park
115. Life is Beautiful
116. French Twist
     ***
117. Coriolanus
118. Days of Glory
119. Ella Enchanted
120. Scream
121. Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down
122. Little Voice
123. Spy Kids
124. It Follows
125. Begin Again
126. The Company Men
127. The Lookout
128. Brassed Off
129. Strawberry and Chocolate
130. Close to Eden
131. Bridget Jones’s Diary
132. Frida
133. Iris
134. The Grandmaster
135. Fruitvale Station
136. My Blueberry Nights
137. The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain
138. Ararat
139. Holy Smoke
140. Equilibrium
141. Lion
142. Bad Santa
143. Delicatessan
144. Mrs. Brown
145. Passion Fish
146. Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams
147. Clerks II
148. The Railway Man
149. Nowhere Boy
150. The Importance of Being Earnest
151. Journey of Hope
152. An Ideal Husband
153. The Brothers Grimm
154. Bride and Prejudice
155. Dear Frankie
156. A Walk on the Moon
157. Welcome to Sarajevo
158. Fresh
159. Shall We Dance
160. Valentin
161. The Shipping News
162. The Hoax
163. Children of the Revolution
164. Rounders
165. Zatoicihi
166. Guinevere
167. The Long Walk Home
168. Mighty Aphrodite
169. Country Life
170. Cheri
171. Our Very Own
172. An Unfinished Life
173. The Human Stain
174. Butterfly
175. The Immigrant
176. The Road
177. Bobby
178. Twist and Shout
179. Goodnight Mommy
180. Love Serenade
181. Next Stop Wonderland
182. Nomad
183. Chocolat
184. The Faculty
185. Mediterraneo
186. Le grand chemin
187. Through the Olive Trees
188. Walking and Talking
189. Cosi
190. Smoke Signals
191. Venus
192. Breaking and Entering
193. Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
194. Golden Door
195. East is East
196. The Harmonists
197. She’s So Lovely
198. Kolya
199. Hear My Song
200. Crossover Dreams
201. Erendira
202. Georgia
203. A Month by the Lake
204. Four Days in September
205. Kate and Leopold
206. The Star Maker
207. Big Eyes
208. Children of Heaven
209. Basquiat
210. The Horseman on the Roof
211. Grace is Gone
212. Scream 2
213. Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over
214. The Grandfather
215. Victory
216. The Magdalene Sisters
217. Under the Same Moon
218. Buffalo Soldiers
219. The Little Thief
220. The Castle
221. Summer Snow
222. The Innocent
223. Picture Bride
224. Talk of Angels
225. Unhook the Stars
226. Everybody’s Famous
227. All the Pretty Horses
228. Populaire
229. Miss Potter
230. The Son’s Room
231. Everybody’s Fine
232. Love’s Labour’s Lost
233. Woman in Gold
234. Sliding Doors
235. Prospero’s Books
236. Mama, There’s a Man in Your Bed
237. Stolen Summer
238. Submarine
239. Kon-Tiki
240. Suite Francaise
241. Tracks
242. Quartet
243. Mimic
244. The Krays
245. Cry the Beloved Country
246. Dragon
247. The Great Debaters
248. With a Friend Like Harry
249. The Closet
250. St. Vincent
251. The Founder
252. Iron Monkey
253. Mouth to Mouth
254. The Libertine
255. Behind the Sun
256. My Life So Far
257. The Efficiency Expert
258. Pastime
259. The Taste of Others
260. Reprise
261. Fanboys
262. High Heels
263. Jane Eyre
264. Torrents of Spring
265. Map of the Human Heart
266. Into the West
267. I’m Not Scared
268. Heaven Knows What
269. The Intouchables
270. The Concert
271. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
272. Birthday Girl
273. Spanish Fly
274. The Visitors
275. Swingers
276. The Miracle
277. Ethan Frome
278. The Great Raid
279. 1408
280. Operation Condor
281. Young Soul Rebels
282. Antonia and Jane
283. The Mighty
284. Blue Car
285. Vatel
286. Happy, Texas
287. The Truce
288. Jet Lag
289. Rain
290. 14 Blades
291. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
292. The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk II
293. Two Bits
294. Strapless
295. Tatie Danielle
296. Drowning by Numbers
297. The Governess
298. Transamerica
299. The Longshots
300. Down in the Delta
301. Piñero
302. Artemisia
303. One Chance
304. Yves Saint Laurent
305. Blue Ruin
306. The Butler
307. War of the Buttons
308. Squeeze
309. Especially on Sunday
310. Unfinished Song
     **.5
311. Pelle the Conquerer
312. Dead Man
313. From Dusk till Dawn
314. Blue in the Face
315. I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing
316. Extract
317. Jersey Girl
318. Sonatine
319. Brideshead Revisited
320. The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet
321. Concussion
322. Sarah’s Key
323. Hoodwinked
324. Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.
325. The Advocate
326. Grey Owl
327. B.Monkey
328. Ciao Professore
329. Lucky Number Slevin
330. Cassandra’s Dream
331. Bounce
332. Jane Got a Gun
333. Becoming Jane
334. Temptress Moon
335. Shall We Dance (2004)
336. The Sapphires
337. Death Proof
338. Malena
339. Light Years
340. Marvin’s Room
341. Full Frontal
342. Albino Alligator
343. Twin Dragons
344. The Unbelievable Truth
345. The Lemon Sisters
346. Gold
347. Control
348. Desperate Remedies
349. Miral
350. Grosse Fatigue
351. That’s the Way I Like It
352. Hands of Stone
353. 40 Days and 40 Nights
354. Haute Cuisine
355. The Substance of Fire
356. The Journey of August King
357. Tom and Jerry: The Movie
358. Scream 3
359. Cop Land
360. Soul Men
361. The One I Love
362. The Chorus
363. Music of the Heart
364. Dark Skies
365. Smart People
366. Hav Plenty
367. A la mode
368. Freddie as F.R.0.7
369. The Wisdom of Crocodiles
370. Killing Them Softly
371. Butter
372. Kinky Boots
373. She’s All That
374. A Price Above Rubies
375. The Opposite Sex and How to Live with Them
376. Celebrity
377. The Nanny Diaries
378. Scream 4
379. Horns
380. The Last of the High Kings
381. Below
382. Macbeth
383. Nine
384. The Hunting Party
385. Scary Movie
386. Iris Blond
387. Outside Providence
388. Wide Awake
389. The Night We Never Met
390. The Glass Shield
391. Eva
392. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
393. Lawless
394. Our Idiot Brother
395. Avalon
396. In Too Deep
397. Camilla
398. Arthur and the Invisibles
399. Get Over It
400. Lovelace
401. Leap!
402. The Last Five Years
403. Strike!
404. A Rage in Harlem
405. Blindness
     **
406. Planet Terror
407. Blow Dry
408. Johnny Suede
409. Easy Money
410. Undisputed
411. The Night Listener
412. House of Cards
413. Human Traffic
414. The Yards
415. 3 Generations
416. On the Other Side of the Tracks
417. Restoration
418. Kafka
419. The Girl in a Swing
420. Italian for Beginners
421. Serendipity
422. Committed
423. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
424. Pulse
425. Swordsman 2
426. City of Men
427. Tulip Fever
428. Man of Tai Chi
429. Inside
430. The Quest
431. The Big Man
432. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World
433. Before We Go
434. Southpaw
435. The Details
436. The Boys are Back
437. Closing the Ring
438. People I Know
439. The Pope Must Die
440. Gordy
441. Arabian Night
442. This Must Be the Place
443. Eagle vs. Shark
444. The Switch
445. Heaven (1998)
446. The Protector
447. Paid in Full
448. About Adam
449. Nightwatch
450. Priest
451. Little Buddha
452. The Giver
453. Dedication
454. Pokemon Heroes
455. The House of Yes
456. The Mist
457. I Got the Hook-Up
458. Iron & Silk
459. Renaissance
460. Bachelorette
461. Crossing Over
462. Killshot
463. Prozac Nation
464. The Legend of Zu
465. Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead
466. The Tall Guy
467. Edith and Marcel
468. Deception
469. Adventureland
470. The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl
471. The Iron Lady
472. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
473. Shanghai
474. Tadpole
475. Breaking the Rules
476. Benefit of the Doubt
477. Animal Behavior
478. The Art of the Steal
479. Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker
480. Keeping Up with the Steins
481. Of Love and Shadows
482. Lie Down with Dogs
483. Adult Beginners
484. Escape from Planet Earth
485. The Visitors II: The Corridors of Time
486. Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil
487. Hostage
488. Everybody’s Fine  (2009)
489. Burnt
490. The Players
491. The Pallbearer
492. Sling Blade
493. The Last Legion
494. Monsters: Dark Continent
495. Pokemon 4Ever
496. Down to You
497. 54
498. Playing by Hear
499. The House of the Spirits
500. Texas Rangers
501. Ride
502. Captives
503. The Crow: City of Angels
504. Zentropa
505. W.E.
     *.5
506. Tom and Viv
507. Hardware
508. Love Crimes
509. Daltry Calhoun
510. Hamlet
511. Rampage
512. Prêt-à-Porter
513. Everly
514. Viral
515. Lay the Favorite
516. Secuestro Express
517. Loaded
518. Air Bud: Golden Retriever
519. Teaching Mrs. Tingle
520. Regression
521. Piranha
522. Gunmen
523. Wild Oats
524. Diamonds
525. Accidental Love
526. Halloween
527. The Reflecting Skin
528. 6 Souls
529. Factory Girl
530. Waking Up in Reno
531. Dirty Girl
532. Darkness
533. The Very Thought of You
534. Aftershock
535. Awake
536. The Ex
537. I Don’t Know How She Does It
538. No Escape
539. Boys and Girls
540. Youth in Revolt
541. Hannibal Rising
542. School for Scoundrels
543. Pinocchio
     *
544. The Prophecy
545. Duplex
546. The Imposter
547. Martyrs
548. Mother’s Boys
549. Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
550. View from the Top
551. Phantoms
552. Mindhunters
553. They
554. Halloween II
555. Stepfather II
556. Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
557. The Battle of Shaker Heights
558. Underclassmen
559. My Boss’s Daughter
560. Who’s Your Caddy?
561. Apollo 18
562. Derailed
563. Reindeer Games
564. On the Line
565. Venom
566. Feast
567. Fortress
568. Halloween: Resurrection
569. Solomon Kane
570. DOA: Dead or Alive
571. Four Rooms
572. Scary Movie 4
573. 13 Sins
574. Only God Forgives
575. All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
576. Senseless
577. Amityville: The Awakening
578. Clown
579. Highlander III: The Final Dimension
580. Wolf Creek
581. Dracula 2000
582. My Baby’s Daddy
     .5
583. Vampire Academy
584. Spaced Out
585. Hellraiser IV: Bloodline
586. Black Christmas
587. Highlander: Endgame
588. Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice
589. Ghost Fever
590. Scary Movie 5
591. Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
592. Cursed
593. Scary Movie 2
594. Superhero Movie
595. Scary Movie 3
596. Doogal
     0 stars
597. Piranha 3DD

Notes on Films

note:  These are just tidbits on some of the films.  The films are listed in alphabetical order.  Unless I have something specific to say, I don’t mention films that have full reviews elsewhere or films that I saw in the theater from 1989 to 2005 (they are all mentioned in those Nighthawk Awards) or films listed already in the Adapted Screenplay project (through 2002).

• 54  –  One of the most infamous examples of Weinstein butchering a film.  I will admit that my rating of low ** is based on the original theatrical version and I haven’t seen the later director’s cut that restored much of the homosexuality in the film.
• Accidental Love  –  Talk about famous butchering.  I use this title (instead of the original Nailed) and I list Stephen Greene (the pseudonym David O. Russell used on the released film) and don’t count it as a Russell film at all.
• Begin Again  –  Absolutely should have been released under the original title (Love is an Unfinished Song).  Ironic that the Academy got Adam Levine to sing at the Oscars when the whole point is that he ruins the authenticity of the songs in the film.
• Bobby  –  The TWC Oscar hope for 2006.  Far from a great film but the last few minutes are magnificent and the speech that it makes use of has provided my e-mail signature for well over a decade now and they words well worth remembering: “But we can perhaps remember – even if only for a time – that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek – as we do – nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.” Robert Kennedy April 5, 1968
• Coriolanus  –  I have this as a 75, the highest a film can earn without being considered for my Best Picture lists.  The studios actually released several Shakespeare films (five plus two more that are quasi).  This one is also nice because it’s such a lesser known play.
• Death Proof  –  I just want to mention my low (**.5) opinion of this so people will realize that I don’t think everything QT does is brilliant.  Just almost everything.
• The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them  –  I actually watched all three versions but I only list this one.  One of the most under-rated films that TWC ever released.
• Eagle vs. Shark  –  Another film I don’t like from a director I do, in this case Taika Waititi.  I had heard this was like Napoleon Dynamite and that was correct but I hated Napoleon Dynamite.  This film brings Waititi’s average film down seven points.
• Fanboys  –  A very good example of a guilty pleasure.  A fun film that we’ve seen three times because it totally embraces a big part of our lives.
• Four Rooms  –  Proof before Death Proof that QT wasn’t perfect.  A terrible, terrible anthology film.  In anthology films, I usually only list one director and for this one I list Robert Rodriguez which isn’t really fair since his segment is the only good one.
• Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth  /  Highlander III: The Final Dimension  –  Before you get too up in arms over how much I thought the third and fourth films in these franchises (of which the first two, in each case, was released by a different studio before Dimension took on the third and fourth installments) sucked, you should also know that I think the originals suck.
• Hero  –  The release of this brilliant Zhang Yimou Action film is somewhat inexplicable.  It scored an Oscar nomination in 2002 but then Miramax kept delaying a U.S. release.  It lollygagged so long that Zhang Yimou’s even more brilliant Action follow-up, House of Flying Daggers, was already out and getting rave reviews in Asia before this got a U.S. release.  Finally, Disney pushed Miramax to release it and QT even added his name to the poster to get people to see it.  Miramax did the opposite of their normal release strategy and dumped it wide, but it managed to score the third best opening for a non-Dimension film in the studio’s history ($18 million) and went on to gross $53 million in the States to become what is still, 16 years later, the third highest grossing Foreign language release (though Parasite would have likely caught it if not for COVID as it ended up just a few hundred thousand short of it).  That release actually scored Hero some critics awards (that it shared with House).
• Hoodwinked  –  Not a bad film but it infuriated me that people compared it to Rashomon.  Those people either didn’t watch or didn’t understand Rashomon.  The story in this film is that you don’t know the whole story and each layer, told from a different perspective, adds to the last one and allows you to see the whole story.  But the whole point of Rashomon is that truth is different and subjective and that you can never get to the real truth.
• Horns  –  After making the worst film in TWC’s history, Alexandre Aja followed it up with this Horror-Comedy from the interesting book by Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son).  Flawed, yes, but also interesting and deserved better reviews (which were not good) and better box office (which was terrible).  Also was one of the first films to show that Daniel Radcliffe was not just going to sit on his Harry Potter laurels but was looking for interesting work.
• Killing Them Softly  –  Critics really over-rated this film which I didn’t find that surprising given that critics also really over-rated the previous Andrew Dominik directed film that starred Brad Pitt (Assassination of Jesse James).
• Love Serenade  –  One of the films I tracked down in the wake of Lord of the Rings, looking to find the Kiwi / Aussie actors who I hadn’t been familiar with.  Miranda Otto is funny and very plain and the complete opposite of her role as Eowyn in a bizarre but winning Comedy.
• Macbeth  –  I am convinced a great film can be made of this play, one of Shakespeare’s best, but it still hasn’t happened.  This has great casting (Fassbender, Cotillard) but was just a mess.
• The Nanny Diaries  –  I paused this film in a scene where Scarlett Johansson’s pants have been pulled down and she is bending over and called Veronica into the room.  “I’ve already seen her in her underwear thanks to Lost in Translation,” she replied.  “Wait for it,” I said and then the cute next door neighbor meets her and I said “Black Widow, meet Captain America.”
• Next Stop Wonderland  –  Ugh, the Blue Line.  I lived in Boston for 13 years and only once went out to Wonderland station, just to say I had ridden the whole length of the Blue Line.  But Hope Davis is good.
• Pelle the Conquerer  –  I probably should watch this again.  At the time, I think it’s likely I hadn’t seen a single Bergman film.
• Phantoms  –  “Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms.”  Ben Affleck in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.  Good he has a sense of humor about a film that was just terrible.
• Sin City: A Dame to Kill For  –  I think I saw this the same day I saw the 300 sequel and both of them only have one good thing – a good nude sex scene with Eva Green.  Everything else about the two films sucked.
• Sing Street  –  I have not done the research on this but I’m willing to bet it had been quite a while since a Golden Globe Best Picture nominee had earned less than $5 million.  This little film that could (and did) was from John Carney, so I should have expected a great soundtrack.  But this film was already streaming on Netflix when the Globe noms came out and I saw it and then had Veronica watch it and she loved it so much I got her the soundtrack for Christmas.  She especially loved the line “No woman can truly love a man who listens to Phil Collins,” although she does truly love a man who listens to Phil Collins.
• The Tempest  –  Miramax has done Shakespeare really wrong (Hamlet) but they have also done it really right in this, certainly one of the most under-rated Shakespeare film adaptations.
• Wind River  –  A number of Avengers have given really good performances in Miramax or TWC films and a couple of final ones come here, in TWC’s last great film, with solid performances from Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen.

The Best Miramax / TWC Films by Decade

• 1980’s:  My Left Foot
• 1990’s:  Pulp Fiction
• 2000’s:  The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain
• 2010’s:  Carol

The Best Miramax Films by Genre

• Action:  Kill Bill Volume 1
• Adventure:  The Warrior
• Comedy:  The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain
• Crime:  Pulp Fiction
• Drama:  The English Patient
• Fantasy:  Heavenly Creatures
• Horror:  Trainspotting
• Kids:  n/a
• Musical:  Chicago
• Mystery:  Gone Baby Gone
• Sci-Fi:  Existenz
• Suspense:  The Crying Game
• War:  The Quiet American
• Western:  none

note:  Films listed with n/a mean that no Miramax film in that genre met my threshold (***.5).

The Best TWC Films by Genre

• Action:  n/a
• Adventure:  n/a
• Comedy:  The Artist
• Crime:  n/a
• Drama:  Carol
• Fantasy:  n/a
• Horror:  n/a
• Kids:  Paddington
• Musical:  I’m Not There
• Mystery:  Wind River
• Sci-Fi:  Snowpiercer
• Suspense:  n/a
• War:  Inglourious Basterds
• Western:  Django Unchained

note:  Films listed with n/a mean that no TWC film in that genre met my threshold (***.5).

The Worst Miramax Films by Genre

• Action:  Underclassmen
• Adventure:  n/a
• Comedy:  Scary Movie 3
• Crime:  Reindeer Games
• Drama:  Hamlet
• Fantasy:  Highlander: Endgame
• Horror:  Cursed
• Kids:  Pinocchio
• Musical:  Johnny Suede
• Mystery:  Deception
• Sci-Fi:  Spaced Out
• Suspense:  Stepfather II
• War:  n/a
• Western:  Texas Rangers

note:  Films listed with n/a mean that no Miramax film in that genre met my threshold (** or below).

The Worst TWC Films by Genre

• Action:  DOA: Dead or Alive
• Adventure:  The Last Legion
• Comedy:  Superhero Movie
• Crime:  Only God Forgives
• Drama:  Dirty Girl
• Fantasy:  Solomon Kane
• Horror:  Piranha 3DD
• Kids:  Doogal
• Musical:  n/a
• Mystery:  n/a
• Sci-Fi:  The Giver
• Suspense:  Derailed
• War:  n/a
• Western:  n/a

note:  Films listed with n/a mean that no TWC film in that genre met my threshold (** or below).

The Statistics

• Total Films 1912-2020: 597  (11th)
• Total Films (Miramax only):  417  (11th)
• Total Films  (TWC only):  180  (16th)
• Total Percentage of All Films, 1912-2020:  2.47%
• Total Percentage of All Films, 1983-2017:  5.15%

Decade Totals:

• 1983-1989:  18  (0.95%)  (23rd)
• 1990-1999:  240  (7.90%)  (1st)
• 2000-2009:  219  (5.83%)  (2nd)
• 2010-2017:  120  (4.15%)  (8th)

Biggest Years:

• 1998:  34
• 1995, 1996:  31
• 1999:  29
• 2002, 2005:  28
• 2013, 2014:  22  (biggest TWC year)

Biggest Years by Percentage of All Films:

• 1998:  10.46%
• 1995:  10.26%
• 1996:  9.90%
• 1999:  8.81%
• 2001:  7.99%

Best Year:

• 1994:  5 Top 10, 8 Top 20
• 1996:  2 Top 10, 6 Top 20

Average Film By Decade:

• 1983-1989:  56.00
• 1990-1999:  62.32
• 2000-2009:  57.40
• 2010-2017:  55.62
• TOTAL:  58.98
• TOTAL – Miramax:  61.16
• TOTAL – TWC:  53.97

note:  This is considerably higher than the overall average during the same period (54.21).  While TWC often had lower than average films, Miramax often had much higher than average.  There were four different years where Miramax released double-digit numbers of films and had averages over 10 points higher than the average for all films, peaking in 1997 when the Miramax average was an astonishing 16.99 points higher than the overall average.
note:  I will also point out that Miramax never once had the worst film of the year.  The only film reviewed on the list for being the worst is Doogal which was a TWC film.

Best Years for Average Film:

• 1997:  70.41
• 2004:  67.64
• 1990:  65.94

Worst Years for Average Film:

• 2000:  48.90
• 2006:  49.04
• 2016:  51.60

Box Office:

• Average Miramax Film:  $12,932,505
• Average TWC Film:  $15,282,022
• Miramax $100 million films:  11
• TWC $100 million films:  5
• Miramax Total:  $5,431,652,200
• TWC Total:  $2,888,302,148

note:  To give a comparison of what a different box office world Miramax functioned in, both in terms of the kind of films they released and what box office was like, all 609 films accounted for on this list (includes documentaries) grossed less in the States than the 23 Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

Star Rating:

note:  The percentage breakdown for all Miramax films by star rating.  The first number is the total, followed by the Miramax number, then the TWC number.

• ****:  10.05%  /  11.03%  /  7.78%
• ***.5:  9.38%  /  11.03%  /  5.56%
• ***:  32.50%  /  34.53%  /  27.78%
• **.5:  15.91%  /  14.87%  /  18.33%
• **:  16.75%  /  16.07%  /  18.33%
• *.5:  6.37%  /  4.56%  /  10.56%
• *:  6.53%  /  5.76%  /  8.33%
• .5:  2.35%  /  2.16%  /  2.78%
• 0:  0.17%  /  0.00%  /  0.56%

Nighthawk Awards

• Number of Films That Have Earned Nominations:  97
• Number of Films That Have Won Nighthawks:  34
• Number of Films With Multiple Nominations:  61
• Number of Films With Multiple Wins:  15
• Best Picture Nominations:  19
• Total Number of Nominations:  335
• Total Number of Wins:  73
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Actress  (31)
• Director with Most Nighthawk Nominated Films:  Quentin Tarantino  (8)
• Best Film with No Nighthawks:  City of God
• Best Film with No Nighthawk Nominations:  Sin City
• Number of Films That Have Earned Drama Nominations:  60
• Number of Films That Have Earned Comedy Nominations:  45
• Number of Films That Have Won Drama Awards:  18
• Number of Films That Have Won Comedy Awards:  20
• Drama Picture Nominations:  17
• Comedy Picture Nominations:  15
• Total Number of Drama Nominations:  160
• Total Number of Comedy Nominations:  139
• Total Number of Drama Wins:  45
• Total Number of Comedy Wins:  40
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Actress  (28 – Drama  /  25 – Comedy)
• Best Drama Film With No Nominations:  Princess Mononoke
• Best Comedy Film With No Nominations:  Velvet Goldmine
• Most 2nd Place Finishes:  The Artist  (7)
• Most 6th Place Finishes:  Reservoir Dogs  /  Django Unchained  /  The Imitation Game  (4)
• Most Top 10 Finishes:  Gangs of New York  /  The Aviator  (15)
• Most Top 20 Finishes:  Shakespeare in Love  /  Django Unchained  /  The Hateful Eight  (16)
• Films With at Least One Top 10 Finish:  147
• Best Film Without a Top 10 Finish:  Sin City
• Films With at Least One Top 20 Finish:  188

Most Nighthawk Nominations:

1. The Aviator  –  14
2. The English Patient  –  12
3. Inglourious Basterds  –  12
4. Shakespeare in Love  –  10
5. Gangs of New York  –  10
6. The King’s Speech  –  10
7. The Artist  –  10
8. Carol  –  10
9. The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain  –  9
10. No Country for Old Men  –  9

Most Nighthawks:

1. The Aviator  –  10
2. Carol  –  7
3. Inglourious Basterds  –  6
4. The English Patient  –  5
5. Shakespeare in Love  /  No Country for Old Men  –  4

Most Nighthawk Points:

1. The Aviator  –  685
2. Inglourious Basterds  –  565
3. Carol  –  555
4. The English Patient  –  475
5. No Country for Old Men  –  445
6. Shakespeare in Love  –  395
7. The King’s Speech  –  350
8. The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain  –  340
9. The Crying Game  –  315
10. Gangs of New York  –  315

Most Drama Nominations:

1. The Crying Game  –  6
2. The Aviator  –  6
3. Inglourious Basterds  –  6
4. The King’s Speech  –  6
5. The Imitation Game  –  6

Most Comedy Nominations:

1. Chicago  –  7
2. Silver Linings Playbook  –  7
3. Bullets over Broadway  –  6
4. Jackie Brown  –  6
5. Shakespeare in Love  /  My Week with Marilyn  –  6

Most Drama Wins:

1. Pulp Fiction  –  5
2. The Aviator  –  5
3. Carol  –  5
4. Inglourious Basterds  –  4
5. four films  –  3

Most Comedy Wins:

1. Trainspotting  –  4
2. Jackie Brown  –  4
3. The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain  –  4
4. The Artist  –  4
5. Shakespeare in Love  /  Chicago  /  Silver Linings Playbook  –  3

Most Drama Points:

1. The Aviator  –  430
2. Carol  –  400
3. Inglourious Basterds  –  395
4. Pulp Fiction  –  390
5. The Imitation Game  –  335

Most Comedy Points:

1. Jackie Brown  –  400
2. Chicago  –  385
3. Trainspotting  –  370
4. Silver Linings Playbook  –  370
5. The Artist  –  360

All-Time Nighthawk Awards

• Best Picture

1. Pulp Fiction
2. Trainspotting
3. The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain
4. The English Patient
5. The Aviator

Analysis:  Aviator and No Country win the Nighthawk for Miramax while Inglourious Basterds and Carol win it for TWC.  In total, including the winners, there are 19 Nighthawk nominees, five of which are TWC films.  That includes a whopping seven second place finishers: Crying Game, Pulp Fiction, Trainspotting, Shakespeare in Love, Amelie, Gangs, The Artist.  Pulp Fiction adds a Drama win with Trainspotting, Jackie Brown, Amelie, Chicago and The Artist winning in Comedy.  In total, including winners, there are 17 Drama noms and 15 Comedy noms.
Miramax would win three Oscars with the Weinsteins (English Patient, Shakespeare, Chicago), one without them (No Country) and then TWC would win back-to-back Oscars for King’s Speech and The Artist.  In total, Miramax would score 18 Oscar nominations (two without the Weinsteins) with a whopping 15 of them from 1992-2004 with one every year except 2003.  In an era of just five nominees per year, they managed two in 1998, 2002 and 2004.  In nine years, TWC would add another nine nominations.
Miramax would win Drama at the Globes just twice (English Patient, Aviator) among 12 total noms with TWC adding 10 noms but no wins.  In Comedy, Miramax would win twice (Shakespeare, Chicago) out of nine noms while TWC would also win twice (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Artist) among eight noms.
Miramax would win four BAFTAs (English Patient, Shakespeare, Aviator, Queen) while TWC would win twice (King’s Speech, Artist).  Miramax would have another 13 noms while TWC would have another four.  King’s Speech also won British Film and Picture nominees Crying Game and East is East would also win British Film.  The Warrior would add British Film without a Picture nom and in total, between Miramax and TWC, there would be 23 total nominees in the category, although many of them wouldn’t be released by Miramax in Britain.
Chicago, No Country and The Artist would win the BFCA with a whopping 25 other nominees in just over 20 years including three in 2012.
Miramax would win the PGA five times (Crying Game, English Patient, Chicago, Aviator, No Country) with King’s Speech and Artist adding two more for TWC.  In total, including winners, the two studios would combine for 25 nominations.
Pulp Fiction would win four critics awards as would No Country.  The Artist would win two more.  Surprisingly, outside of that, it’s pretty thin with just five awards spread among five films (My Left Foot, Trainspotting, In the Bedroom, Finding Neverland, Carol).  In looking at the way the Weinsteins played the awards game, it’s worth noting that the five films that won Best Picture at the Oscars under the Weinsteins hands, only The Artist managed a critics win for Best Picture.  It’s worth noting as well that Miramax has the top two (The Piano, The Queen) and four of the top six (adding Happy-Go-Lucky and The Master) films in points at the critics awards without a Picture win.

• Best Director

1. Quentin Tarantino  (Pulp Fiction)
2. Anthony Minghella  (The English Patient)
3. Martin Scorsese  (The Aviator)
4. Martin Scorsese  (Gangs of New York)
5. Danny Boyle  (Trainspotting)

Analysis:  Minghella and Scorsese (Aviator) win the Nighthawk as do the Coens (No Country), Quentin (but for Basterds) and Todd Haynes (Carol).  The other three in my Top 5 all earn Nighthawk noms as do ten other directors (including Quentin two other times).  Quentin adds a Drama win for Pulp while Comedy wins are added for Quentin (Jackie Brown), Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie), Rob Marshall (Chicago), Mike Leigh (Happy-Go-Lucky) and Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist).  In total, including winners, there are 18 Drama noms and 17 Comedy noms.
Director was the weak link for the Weinsteins, only winning once of their three Miramax Best Picture wins (English Patient), though the Coens won a second for Miramax after they left and the two Best Picture winners at TWC both won the Oscar.  But Miramax did manage five Director nominations without corresponding Picture noms, which meant in 1994, they had one Picture nominee but three of the five Director noms.  In total, including winners, the studios combined for 26 Oscar noms.
Marty would be the only Weinstein Globe winner (for Gangs) though Diving Bell and the Butterfly would be a post-Weinstein Miramax win.  In addition, 10 Miramax films and 6 TWC films earned noms, three of which were Quentin.  It’s similar at the BAFTAs with Il Postino the only Weinstein win at Miramax, the Coens adding a post win and The Artist adding a TWC win.  There are, including winners, 22 nominees.  Minghella, Marty (Aviator), the Coens and Hazanavicius would win the BFCA with eight other nominees, split between the two studios.
Miramax would do better at the DGA, with wins for Minghella, Marshall, the Coens, Tom Hooper (King’s Speech) and Hazanavicius.  Another 16 films would earn DGA noms with only the last three being TWC films.
Tarantino would set a new record by sweeping all six Director awards in 1994.  Todd Haynes would add three awards for Carol while two awards each would go to Jane Campion (The Piano), the Coens and Mike Leigh.  Seven other films would win one award each though two of them were the same award in the same year for the same director who directed two Miramax films (Phillip Noyce in 2002 for Quiet American and Rabbit-Proof Fence).

• Best Adapted Screenplay:

1. Trainspotting
2. The English Patient
3. No Country for Old Men
4. Carol
5. In the Bedroom

Analysis:  Trainspotting, No Country, The Imitation Game and Carol win the Nighthawk (English Patient loses to Trainspotting).  Another 12 films earn nominations.  English Patient does win the Drama award while The Snapper, Jackie Brown, My Week with Marilyn and Silver Linings Playbook add Comedy wins.  Including winners there are 15 Drama noms and 17 Comedy noms.
Four films win the Oscar including Sling Blade, one of the worst choices in the category’s history (as well as Cider House Rules, No Country and Imitation Game).  Miramax earns 15 other nominations (two post-Weinstein) including two of the films that Sling Blade somehow beat (Trainspotting, English Patient).  TWC adds five more nominations.
No Country is the only adapted script to win the Globe.  Of the 18 Globe nominees, 10 of them are adapted.  Six films win the BAFTA: Trainspotting, English Patient (different BAFTA eligibility), Diving Bell and the Butterfly (post-Weinstein Miramax), Silver Linings Playbook, Philomena, Lion (the last three all TWC).  Also, 14 Miramax films and 4 TWC films earn noms.  English Patient and Confessions of a Dangerous Mind win the BFCA with nine other noms.
Sling Blade, No Country and Imitation Game win the WGA.  Fourteen other Miramax films earn noms (including three that lose to Sling Blade – adding Emma to the mix) and three other TWC do as well.
No Country wins three critics awards, the only adapted film to win more than one.  Nine films do win a single award each.

• Best Original Screenplay:

1. Pulp Fiction
2. The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain
3. The Crying Game
4. Shakespeare in Love
5. Inglourious Basterds

Analysis:  All of my Top 5 win the Nighthawk.  There are also 18 other nominees, three more of which are Tarantino films.  The Aviator and Django win Drama awards (giving Tarantino four total genre wins among the two writing categories).  In total, including winners, there are 25 Drama noms and 15 Comedy noms.  Tarantino earns seven total genre noms.
Miramax wins three Oscars in a row from 92-94 and then adds two more in 97 and 98 while TWC adds King’s Speech and Django.  Miramax adds 13 more with two more for TWC.  Miramax has three of the five nominees in 1994.
Tarantino wins the first Globe for Miramax in 94 and the only one for TWC in 2012.  In between three other original scripts win the Globe (Good Will Hunting, Shakespeare in Love, The Queen).  There are also 8 Globe nominees that are original.  Tarantino earns the first Globe nomination for an original for TWC (The Reader had done it for adapted) and the last Globe nomination at all for Hateful Eight.
Miramax does well at the BAFTAs, winning for Cinema Paradiso, Pulp Fiction, Amelie and Station Agent before adding wins for King’s Speech, Artist and Django (all in a row) with TWC.  There are also 17 Miramax noms and 4 TWC noms.  Good Will Hunting, Shakespeare in Love, Basterds, King’s Speech and Django win the BFCA with noms for five other films.
A key writer is missing at the WGA with Tarantino not eligible.  Still, Crying Game and Piano win back-to-back and Shakespeare adds a third win.  There are also 12 other Miramax nominees and 2 TWC noms.
Pulp Fiction sweep the critics awards (it wins five when the NBR didn’t have the category), The Queen wins four, The Piano wins three, three films add two (Crying Game, Shakespeare in Love, Happy-Go-Lucky) while The Artist and Hateful Eight are the only original scripts to win one award each.

• Best Actor:

1. Daniel Day-Lewis  (My Left Foot)
2. Daniel Day-Lewis  (Gangs of New York)
3. Ralph Fiennes  (The English Patient)
4. Tom Wilkinson  (In the Bedroom)
5. Leonardo DiCaprio  (The Aviator)

Analysis:  For both Actor and Actress, I had four perfect 9 performances and then had to pick from a myriad of performances I rank at an 8 and it was very difficult.  All five of these performances win the Nighthawk as does Colin Firth (King’s Speech).  There are actually only nine other nominees which honestly seems kind of low.  Benedict (Imitation Game) adds a Drama win and Ewan (Trainspotting) and Jean Dujardin (The Artist) score Comedy wins.  In total, including winners, there are 15 Drama nominees and 12 Comedy nominees.
Day-Lewis (My Left Foot), Roberto Benigni, Firth and Dujardin won the Oscar.  There were also 18 other nominees including Max Von Sydow (Pelle the Conqueror), who earned his first Oscar nomination as well as the studio’s first nomination.  Two of the winners and four of the nominees were TWC films.
There would be two Drama winners at the Globes (Leo, Firth) and three Comedy winners (Michael Caine (Little Voice), Richard Gere (Chicago), Dujardin).  In total, including winners, there would be 17 Drama nominees and 14 Comedy nominees.
Miramax would win big at the BAFTAs with seven winners over the years as well as 19 other nominees including all four of the losing nominees in 2001.  Day-Lewis (Gangs) and Firth would win the BFCA with nine other actors earning noms, most from TWC, given the time period.  After earning six nominations in the preceding four years, Roberto Benigni became the first Miramax actor to win SAG, followed by Day-Lewis (Gangs), Firth and Dujardin.  Including winners, Miramax earned 15 noms and TWC earned six.
Day-Lewis dominates with four critics wins for My Left Foot and three more for Gangs.  Firth also earned three critics wins.  Six other performances (two from TWC) managed a single critics win each.

• Best Actress

1. Helen Mirren  (The Queen)
2. Cate Blanchett  (Carol)
3. Holly Hunter  (The Piano)
4. Sissy Spacek  (In the Bedroom)
5. Anjelica Huston  (The Grifters)

Analysis:  Hunter doesn’t win the Nighthawk but the other four do as do Gwyneth (Proof) and Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn).  There are also a whopping 25 other nominees including three in 2008.  The studio scores 12 nominations each in the 90s and 00s.  Meryl adds a Drama win (Iron Lady) with Comedy wins for Lina Stolze (Nasty Girl), Gwyneth (Shakespeare), Audrey Tautou (Amelie), Renee Zellweger (Chicago), Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky), Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) and Amy Adams (Big Eyes).  In total, including winners, there are 28 Drama nominees and 25 Comedy nominees.
Miramax would win three Oscars (Hunter, Gwyneth, Mirren) then TWC would add three more (Kate Winslet (Reader), Meryl, Lawrence).  Including winners there would be 29 nominees in the course of 26 years including seven years with two nominees and one (2001) with three.  2003-04 were the only back-to-back years without an Oscar nomination from 1990 to 2015.
The studio would romp at the Globes with six Drama winners and seven Comedy winners and a total of 27 Drama nominees and 22 Comedy nominees.  Surprisingly, given that, it would take until 2011 for the studio to win both awards in the same year (Meryl, Williams).
Six actresses would win the BAFTA (Hunter, Judi Dench (Mrs Brown and Iris), Mirren, Winslet, Meryl) while another 25 would earn nominations.  From 1992 to 2005, Miramax earned 21 nominations, won three awards, was nominated every year except one (1995) and earned four noms in 2001 alone (including the winner).  Helena Bonham-Carter (Wings of the Dove), Spacek, Mirren and Meryl (Doubt) would win the BFCA with 14 other performances (mostly from TWC) earning noms.
In the first two years of SAG (94-95), Miramax earned no noms.  Then it earned three in 96 and four in 97 before winning the award with Gwyneth (and earning another nom) in 98.  After that, Zellweger, Mirren, Meryl and Lawrence would also win.  In total, including wins, Miramax would earn 19 noms (in just nine years) while TWC would earn 9 (in eleven years).
Holly Hunter would sweep all six critics awards in 1993 and then Mirren would do it again in 2006.  Sally Hawkins would win four, Huston, Bonham-Carter and Marion Cotillard (for The Immigrant, although shared with a non-TWC film) would win three, Spacek and Williams would win two each and eight other actresses would win one each.  That’s a total of 37 awards spread across 16 performances.

• Best Supporting Actor:

1. Christoph Waltz  (Inglourious Basterds)
2. Michael Sheen  (The Queen)
3. Samuel L. Jackson  (Pulp Fiction)
4. Tommy Lee Jones  (No Country for Old Men)
5. Javier Bardem  (No Country for Old Men)

Analysis:  This is the only category in which the all-time studio winner is from a TWC film.  Surprisingly, in spite of their awards success, only Waltz and Sheen win the Nighthawk (as does Waltz again for Django Unchained and Dev Patel in Lion).  The other three earn Nighthawks as do 16 other performances with a lot that were contenders for the Top 5 (Jaye Davidson in Crying Game, Robert Forster in Jackie Brown, Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting).  Jackson adds a Drama win and Forster, Bob Hoskins (Mrs Henderson Presents) and Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook) add Comedy wins.  In total there are 19 Drama noms and 14 Comedy noms.
There are six Oscar winners, four from Miramax (one post-Weinstein) and two from TWC: Williams, Michael Caine (Cider House Rules), Jim Bonneville (Iris), Bardem, Waltz (twice).  There are also another 13 noms (five of which are TWC).
Bonneville, Bardem and Waltz (twice) also won Globes in addition to 8 more Miramax nominees and 6 TWC noms.
This was the first big category for Miramax at the BAFTAs.  Its first award was in 1989 for Ray McNally (My Left Foot) and then again in 1990 (Salvatore Cascio for Cinema Paradiso).  There would be three more Miramax wins (Jackson, Geoffrey Rush (Shakespeare in Love), Bardem) and four for TWC (Waltz twice, Rush again (King’s Speech), Patel) as well as second nominations for Shakespeare (Tom Wilkinson) and No Country (Jones) plus nine more for Miramax and three more for TWC.
Joaquin Phoenix would win the BFCA in 2000 (for The Yards among other performances) followed by Bardem, Waltz and Hoffman with three more Miramax noms and four TWC noms.  Williams, Caine, Bardem and Waltz would all win SAG with 14 more noms (nine for Miramax, five for TWC).
Waltz would dominate with five critics awards.  Edward Norton would win three for Everyone Says I Love You (but also for other, more powerful performances that year) and Bardem would win three.  Bonneville would add two.  Six other actors would add one each (three for a TWC film including two different performances in 2012).

• Best Supporting Actress:

1. Dianne Wiest  (Bullets over Broadway)
2. Cate Blanchett  (The Aviator)
3. Rooney Mara  (Carol)
4. Julia Roberts  (August: Osage County)
5. Cate Blanchett  (I’m Not There)

Analysis:  When your Top 5 has no room for Oscar winners like Brenda Fricker (My Left Foot), Anna Paquin (The Piano), Juliette Binoche (The English Patient) and Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) you know the category is stacked.  And it is massively stacked – the best category Miramax has.  It wins nine Nighthawks in just over 25 years (Fricker, Miranda Richardson (Crying Game), Wiest, Judi Dench (Shakespeare in Love), Blanchett (both times), Cruz, Roberts, Mara), the last four from TWC.  There are also 22 more nominations (including two for Chicago).  From 1989 to 1996 alone the studio had three wins and 12 total nominations.  And it didn’t fade as TWC earned at least one nomination every year from 2007 to 2015.  Between the two it also managed seven Drama wins (Fricker, Richardson, Uma Thurman (Pulp Fiction), Marisa Tomei (In the Bedroom), Blanchett (Aviator), Keira Knightley (Imitation Game), Mara) and 18 more nominations (including two for Doubt) and a whopping nine Comedy wins including four in five years from 1994-98 and five in six years from 07-113  There are also 15 additional Comedy noms.
Miramax dominated in this category at the Oscars.  After an initial win in 1989 (Fricker), came four in a row from 93-96 (Paquin, Wiest, Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite), Binoche), again in 98 (Dench), then three in a row from 2002-04 (Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago), Renee Zellweger (Cold Mountain), Blanchett) before a TWC win in 2008 for Cruz.  All that, plus there were second noms for Bullets and Chicago and two for Doubt.  Miramax also earned 11 nominations.  Then came TWC, which couldn’t match Miramax’s wins (just the one) but managed (including the win), 12 nominations in a decade with a nomination every year and two each in 2012 and 2015.  In fact, in just 28 years, there were a total of 10 wins and 36 total nominations, averaging better than one per year.
Though not as strong as at the Oscars, Miramax still managed four wins (plus two for TWC) for Joan Plowright (Enchanted April), Wiest, Sorvino and Zellweger with TWC wins for Blanchett and Kate Winslet (The Reader).  There were in total 25 nominations for Miramax in 20 years and 12 noms for TWC in ten years.
The studio had to wait until 1996 to win the BAFTA (Binoche) but then won four more in less than a decade (Dench, Zeta-Jones, Zellweger, Blanchett) while TWC would add two more (Cruz, Helena Bonham-Carter (King’s Speech)).  Miramax would earn a total of 19 noms (two each for Chicago and Chocolat) and TWC would earn 13 (two for Nowhere Boy).  With the BFCA coming in late and being their own group, Miramax only had one award before 2002 (Sorvino) but then added Zeta-Jones, Zellweger and Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) while TWC would win for Winslet.  Miramax had four other nominees while TWC managed an astounding 15 noms in a decade.  SAG would be another contrary group with only Wiest winning before 2000.  But after that, it was all Miramax with four wins in five years (Judi Dench (Chocolat), Zeta-Jones, Zellweger, Blanchett) while TWC would win with Winslet.  In total, there would be 22 nominations for Miramax in just 14 years while TWC would manage 13 in just ten years.
But perhaps the critics awards are the most impressive.  Miramax had two performances win four awards (Wiest, Ryan) while TWC had another (Cruz).  But in all three cases, the studio actually added more winners!  In 1994, Rosemary Harris (Tom & Viv) added an award, in 2008 Winslet had another for TWC and in 2007, Cate Blanchett snagged the other two awards giving Miramax / TWC a clean sweep.  That’s in addition to the three awards for Patricia Clarkson for The Station Agent, three for Amy Adams in The Master, two each for Fricker and Sorvino, the two awards in 1996 for two different actresses in The English Patient and the 13 other awards I haven’t mentioned.  In just over 25 years, the two studios combined for an amazing 41 critics awards in this category.

• Best Ensemble

1. Shakespeare in Love
2. August: Osage County
3. Chicago
4. The Queen
5. No Country for Old Men

Analysis:  This is based on the total points for acting for all members of the cast.
The SAG Ensemble award would be won by Miramax three times (Shakespeare, Chicago, No Country) and by TWC twice (Basterds, King’s Speech).  Miramax would also earn 13 nominations (in just a decade, with three each in 1996 and 1998) while TWC would add seven more noms.

• Best Editing:

1. Pulp Fiction
2. Trainspotting
3. The English Patient
4. The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain
5. No Country for Old Men

Analysis:  City of God can’t manage a Top 5 even with a perfect 9 score.  Trainspotting, English Patient and Amelie, in spite of perfect 9 scores don’t win the Nighthawk (nor does City of God).  Joining Pulp and No Country with wins are Aviator, Basterds and Carol.  There are eight other nominees aside from the four already mentioned.  Five of the 17 films with nominations are Tarantino films.
English Patient, Chicago and Aviator win the Oscar.  There are also 13 nominations from Miramax films and five more from TWC films.
English Patient, Shakespeare and City of God win the BAFTA.  There are also 17 nominations, the last five of which are from TWC films.  Four Tarantino films earn noms (as opposed to just two at the Oscars).  As a late addition to the BFCA there are just three nominees, all of them from TWC.  With multiple categories at ACE, there are six winners including both in 2002 (Chicago, Gangs).  The last two (Artist, Silver Linings) are both from TWC.  There are also 11 Miramax nominees and five TWC nominees.

• Best Cinematography:

1. The English Patient
2. The Aviator
3. Gangs of New York
4. No Country for Old Men
5. The Hateful Eight

Analysis:  The first two films win the Nighthawk as does Basterds.  Another 17 films earn noms, four of which are directed by Tarantino.
Only English Patient and Aviator win the Oscar but there are some 22 nominees, nine of which are TWC films (three of those are Tarantino films).
English Patient, Wings of the Dove, No Country and Artist win the BAFTA.  Eleven more Miramax films and six more TWC films earn noms.  Another late BFCA category, so just seven nominations, no wins, all from TWC.  English Patient won the ASC then twenty years later, Lion won.  There are also 17 nominees, split evenly (nine from Miramax) and all of the nominees except The Piano were between the two wins.
English Patient, The Master and Carol all won three critics awards.  The Piano, Hero and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly managed two wins each.  Dead Man, The Aviator and The Immigrant each won one award.

• Best Original Score:

1. The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain
2. The Hateful Eight
3. Shakespeare in Love
4. The English Patient
5. Carol

Analysis:  Shakespeare is actually the only Nighthawk winner.  The others are among 18 Nighthawk nominees.
The studio has been much more impressive at the Oscars with nine wins including five in a four year stretch (winning both the regular and Comedy awards in both 1996 and 1998).  There are also 11 nominations.
English Patient, Frida, Aviator, Artist and Hateful Eight all win the Globe.  There are also nine more nominees each for each of the two studios.  Eight films win the BAFTA with 14 more earning nominations.  After 2006, only four films are nominated and three of those win with only Lion failing to win.  Artist and Hateful Eight win the BFCA while nine films earn noms.

• Best Sound:

1. The Aviator
2. Gangs of New York
3. Kill Bill Volume 2
4. Inglourious Basterds
5. The English Patient

Analysis:  The Crow, English Patient and Aviator win the Nighthawk.  Another seven films earn nominations.
The English Patient and Chicago win the Oscar with only seven other nominations, one of the studio’s weaker categories.
Chicago is the only BAFTA winner but there have been a total of 16 nominations over the years.  Nine was the only BFCA nominee in their short-lived category.  English Patient, Aviator and No Country all won CAS though only Chicago, Finding Neverland and Hateful Eight managed nominations aside from the winners.

• Best Art Direction:

1. Gangs of New York
2. Shakespeare in Love
3. The Aviator
4. The English Patient
5. Chicago

Analysis:  Aside from the Top 5, Hero also manages a perfect 9.  And that Top 5 was a complete bitch to decide on an order, especially given the irony that the winner doesn’t even win the Nighthawk.  But, with tough competition, only Shakespeare, Aviator and Carol win the Nighthawk.  Another 13 films (including the others in the Top 5) earn nominations.
Bizarrely, Miramax manages five Oscars in just a decade (95-04) with Restoration, English Patient, Shakespeare, Chicago and Aviator but none after that.  It does earn a total of 16 nominations with four of those coming from TWC films.  It had three of the five nominees in 2002.
The studio wins four BAFTAs (Strictly Ballroom, Piano, Amelie, Aviator) and earns 15 other nominations, six of which are from TWC films.  With the BFCA starting in 2009, only TWC has managed nominations (and no wins) with seven noms (including three in 2009).  With multiple categories, the wins extend later with the ADG with five films winning the award (English Patient, Chocolat, Amelie, No Country for Old Men, King’s Speech).  Another 16 films have earned noms including six TWC films.  Gangs of New York, Aviator and The Master all won the LAFC.

• Best Visual Effects

1. Heavenly Creatures
2. The Aviator
3. Paddington
4. The Tempest
5. Shaolin Soccer

Analysis:  A weak category for Miramax as noted in the next paragraph.  Heavenly Creatures wins the Nighthawk with noms for Kill Bill, Aviator and Tempest.
Going through in order, this is the first category in which Miramax never won an Oscar.  In fact, aside from Animated Film, it’s the only Oscar category in which Miramax never even received a nomination.  It did earn four BAFTA noms though (Prospero’s Books, Gangs, Kill Bill 1, Aviator).  Aviator won several VES awards, Gangs earned two noms while Frida, The Road and Imitation Game earned noms.

• Best Sound Editing

1. The Aviator
2. Kill Bill Volume 1
3. Kill Bill Volume 2
4. The Crow
5. Django Unchained

Analysis:   Crow and Aviator win the Nighthawk.  The second Kill Bill doesn’t earn a nom (tough year) but eight other films do (the other two Top 5 films plus Heavenly Creatures, Hero, No Country, Inglourious Basterds, Tempest and Hateful Eight).
Miramax earned a nomination (after the Weinsteins) for No Country and TWC earned ones for Basterds and Django.  Miramax has done well at the MPSE with multiple wins for Gangs and Aviator, wins for Chicago, Cold Mountain and Basterds, three noms without a win for Kill Bill 1, wins for six other films, multiple noms without wins for two more and a single nom for 26 more films.  In all, 50 films, 62 noms, 12 wins.

• Best Costume Design:

1. The Aviator
2. Shakespeare in Love
3. Gangs of New York
4. Hero
5. Farewell My Concubine

Analysis:  Another stacked category with English Patient, Chicago, Ridicule and Queen Margot unable to make the final five.  The Aviator, astoundingly, is the only Nighthawk winner even though the next three films are all perfect 9’s (just with massive competition with Hero losing out to Aviator).  Miramax does score an additional 19 nominations (five of which are actually TWC) including three in 1996 (English Patient, Ridicule, Emma).
Miramax has done great at the Oscars with five wins plus one for TWC.  The five wins were in just a decade (Restoration, English Patient, Shakespeare, Chicago, Aviator).  There are also 12 more nominations for Miramax (including its last Oscar nom for The Tempest) and six more for TWC.  Four of the six Picture winners for the two studios also won Costume Design.  Miramax scored 10 noms including three wins in six years (1992-98) and then five in three years with two wins (2002-04).
Miramax also won four BAFTAs (Strictly Ballroom, The Piano, Mrs Brown, Velvet Goldmine) and one more for TWC (The Artist).  Given that only the TWC winner overlaps with the Oscars it shows how great their costumes were.  Another 14 Miramax films and six TWC films earned noms.  Even with a late start for the category at the BFCA, TWC won an award (The Artist) and earned five more nominations with five total nominations in the first three years of the category.  Even missing out on the great Miramax work in the 90s, Miramax won two CDG awards (Chicago, The Queen) while TWC added three more (Transamerica, King’s Speech, W.E.) with seven more Miramax noms and seven for TWC.  Starting in 2000, the only year without a CDG nomination were 2001 and 2008.

• Best Makeup

1. The English Patient
2. Velvet Goldmine
3. Farewell My Concubine
4. Shakespeare in Love
5. Ridicule

Analysis:  An under-appreciated category at Miramax.  It produces two Nighthawk winners (Farewell, English Patient) and 13 other Nighthawk nominees.
On the other hand, it took until 1997 for Miramax to earn its first Oscar nom (Mrs. Brown) and 2002 for its first win (Frida).  It only has one other nom (Shakespeare) plus a win for TWC (Iron Lady).  It’s done much better at the BAFTAs with four wins (Wings of the Dove, Frida, Aviator, Iron Lady) and 19 nominations but the BAFTAs did more with hair and had a larger group of nominees.  The final six nominees were all for TWC.  TWC has scored seven BFCA noms in seven years (Nine, Road, Iron Lady, My Week with Marilyn, Butler, Carol, Hateful Eight).  During the short-lived MUASG, Chicago and Gangs of New York each won an award while Human Stain earned a nom and Frida was nominated in four different categories without winning any of them while since the revival, six TWC have earned noms.

• Best Technical Aspects

1. The Aviator
2. Gangs of New York
3. The English Patient
4. Hero
5. The Hateful Eight

Analysis:  This just adds up the totals in the Tech categories.

• Best Original Song:

1. “Can’t Even Tell”  (Clerks)
2. “The Hands That Built America”  (Gangs of New York)
3. “Ordinary Love”  (Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom)
4. “It Can’t Rain All the Time”  (The Crow)
5. “Tell Me If You Wanna Go Home”  (Begin Again)

Analysis:  Some of these songs are of questionable eligibility as original songs but fuck it, it’s my list.  The first two win the Nighthawk while the next three earn nominations.  There are also nominations for lesser songs in weaker years from Chasing Amy, Hero, Bobby, Nine and W.E..  There are also several songs from Sing Street.  This is the only category where a film lower than ***.5 (Mandela, Begin Again) makes the Top 5.
It would take until 1997 for Miramax to earn an Oscar nomination in this category, one of the last categories it picked up.  It would also never win an Oscar in the category.  It would come on strong in the late 90s and early 00s with 9 nominations from 1997 to 2004 including two for Cold Mountain and three nominations in 2002.  In fact, with Chicago, it would have the first film in 26 years and only the second over to win Picture but lose Song.  TWC would add two nominations, one in 2005 and one in 2009.  Between the two groups, it would also have the two U2 songs that would win the Globe but lose the Oscar.  In total, the two studios would earn 13 nominations from 12 films.
The studio would do much better at the Globes, winning back to back in 2001 (Kate and Leopold) and 2002 (Gangs).  TWC would add a win in 2011 with W.E. and again in 2013 with Mandela.  There would also be three more Miramax noms and seven more for TWC.
Music of the Heart would manage a BFCA win followed by two other Miramax noms and eight TWC noms.

• Best Animated Film:

1. Princess Mononoke

Analysis:  Miramax (9) and TWC (6) released a combined 15 Animated films, several of them Foreign films.  Not only is Princess Mononoke the only great one, not only is there is no very good film on the list, but there isn’t even a good one.  The next best Animated film on the list is a 60 or a high **.5 (Hoodwinked).  What’s more, Mononoke has no awards history for Best Animated Film because almost no group had an award at the time and because by the time it was released in the States, it had to compete with Toy Story 2 for the few awards that did exist.  It does win the Nighthawk.

• Best Foreign Film:

1. The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain
2. City of God
3. Three Colors: Red
4. Princess Mononoke
5. Hero

Analysis:  In many ways, of course, Miramax’s defining category (not so much for TWC).  Miramax became known early on for distributing Foreign films (or British films).  In just over a decade (1989-2001), Miramax wins the Nighthawk an astounding six times (Cinema Paradiso, Blue, Red, Ridicule, Mononoke, Amelie).  In addition, there are another 13 nominees although surprisingly only two of them lose to a fellow Miramax film (White, Il Postino).  In all, Miramax has 29 films that land in the Top 20 in a year for Best Foreign Film while TWC doesn’t have any (their best Foreign film is Days of Glory which I give a 75 to, the highest rating possible that can’t earn a nomination).
This was Miramax’s first major Oscar category and its best.  It won the Oscar eight times in all from 1988 to 2005.  More importantly, it won four straight Oscars (1988-91) with Pelle the Conqueror, Cinema Paradiso, Journey of Hope and Mediterraneo.  It was not only the first studio to win four straight Foreign Film awards (the only other studios with even two straight at that point were Janus with back-to-back Bergman films in 1960 and 1961 and New World with back-to-back Fellini and Kurosawa films) it was the first studio to win four straight Oscars in any category since Paramount did it with Actress in the mid 50s.  The other four Oscar winners were Kolya, Life is Beautiful, Barbarian Invasions and Tsotsi.  In addition, there were 19 Oscar nominees with all but Days of Glory and Kon-Tiki being from Miramax.  From 1988 to 2005 the only year a Miramax film wasn’t nominated for Foreign Film was 1999.  In the 90s, Miramax accounted for 30% of the nominees and 40% of the winners at the Oscars.
At the Globes, Miramax wouldn’t be quite as dominant, winning five awards (Pelle, Paradiso, Farewell My Concubine, Kolya, Diving Bell and the Butterfly) but in all from 1988 to 2005 it would earn 24 nominations and TWC would add one in 2010 and two more in 2012.  Every year from 1991 to 1994 Miramax would have at least two Globe nominees and it had two again in 2001 and 2002.
At the BAFTAs, Miramax would win five of the first seven awards in the 90s (Paradiso, Nasty Girl, Farewell, Il Postino, Ridicule) but that was it for wins.  In total, Miramax would earn 24 nominations from 1989 to 2007 with one more for TWC.  Even with the BFCA starting after Miramax’s initial big run, it would win four straight awards from 95-98 and still add three more (Il Postino, Ridicule, Shall We Dance, Life is Beautiful, Amelie, Barbarian Invasions and Diving Bell).  It would also add a nom for City of God with TWC adding two for Days of Glory and Intouchables.
Red is the biggest critics winner with five wins (every group but the NBR).  Concubine would win four critics awards (no NBR or CFC).  Three more films would win two each (Crying Game, City of God, Diving Bell) and another ten would win one each.  From 1990 to 1998 at least one Miramax film would win a critics award every year.

• Best Film (by my points system):

1. Gangs of New York
2. The Aviator
3. The English Patient
4. Shakespeare in Love
5. No Country for Old Men

Analysis:  Adding up all of my points.  Gangs would actually come in third if not for “The Hands That Built America” while Aviator and English Patient didn’t have any original songs.

• Best Film  (weighted points system)

1. The English Patient
2. The Aviator
3. Gangs of New York
4. Shakespare in Love
5. No Country for Old Men

Analysis:  The English Patient’s superb ensemble acting leap-frogs it into the #1 spot.  There’s a significant drop (over 30 points) after the Top 5.

Best Films With No Top 5 Finishers:

• The Artist
• Jackie Brown
• The Imitation Game
• The King’s Speech

Worst Film with a Top 5 Finish:

• Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Nighthawk Notables

• Best Film to Watch Over and Over:  Clerks
• Best Line (dramatic):  “Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life.”  (Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting)
• Best Line (comedic):  “37!  My girlfriend sucked 37 dicks!”  “In a row?”  (Brian O’Halloran and Mike Belicose in Clerks)
• Best Opening:  Trainspotting
• Best Ending:  Trainspotting
• Best Scene:  the opening of Trainspotting
• Best Kiss:  Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love
• Best Death Scene:  David Carradine in Kill Bill Volume 2
• Best Sex Scene:  Kelly MacDonald and Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting
• Most Gut-Wrenching Scene:  going down the toilet in Trainspotting
• Most Heart-Wrenching Scene:  the ending of Shakespeare in Love
• Scene Way Better than the Rest of the Film:  the speech in Bobby
• Funniest Film:  Clerks
• Worst Film by a Top 100 Director:  Four Rooms  (QT segment)  /  Lay the Favorite  (Stephen Frears)
• Best Sequel:  Three Colors: Red
• Worst Sequel:  Piranha 3DD
• Best Guilty Pleasure:  Fanboys
• Worst Remake:  Black Christmas
• Watch the Film, SKIP the Book:  Emma  /  The Wings of the Dove
• Read the Stories, SKIP the Film:  Solomon Kane
• Performance to Fall in Love With:  Audrey Tautou in The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain
• Sexiest Performance:  Annette Bening in The Grifters
• Highest Attractiveness / Acting Ability Ratio:  Winona Ryder in The House of the Spirits
• MILF:  Carla Gugino in Spy Kids
• Coolest Performance:  Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction
• Best Tagline:  “With no power comes no responsibility”  (Clerks II)
• Best Trailer:  Trainspotting
• Best Voice Performance:  Ben Whishaw in Paddington
• Funniest Cameo:  Gus Van Sant in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
• Best Cameo:  Alanis Morrissette in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

note:  As usual, several categories that are normally here (Best Ensemble, Most Over-Rated) are given a fuller treatment above and so aren’t listed here.

Nighthawk Notables Lists

Top 5 Favorite Films:

1. Clerks
2. The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain
3. Trainspotting
4. The Crow
5. Kill Bill

Top 10 Best Endings:

1. Trainspotting
2. The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain
3. Shakespeare in Love
4. The Crying Game
5. Gangs of New York
6. Carol
7. Clerks II
8. Clerks
9. The Artist
10. No Country for Old Men

Top 5 Funniest Lines:

1. “37!  My girlfriend sucked 37 dicks!”  “In a row?”  (Clerks  –  Brian O’Halloran and Mike Belicose)
2. “Some hate the English. I don’t. They’re just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. Can’t even find a decent culture to be colonized by.”  (Trainspotting  –  Ewan McGregor)
3. “What’s a Nubian?”  (Chasing Amy  –  Jason Lee)
4. “AK-47.  When you absolutely, positively have to kill every motherfucker in the room.  Accept no substitutes.”  (Jackie Brown  –  Samuel L. Jackson)
5. “For me, love is very deep.  Sex only has to go a few inches.”  (Bullets over Broadway  –  Stacey Nelkin)

Top 10 Best Nude Scenes:

1. Kelly MacDonald and Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting
2. Annette Bening in The Grifters
3. Jaye Davidson in The Crying Game
4. Eva Green in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
5. Victoria Abril in French Twist
6. Victoria Abril in Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down
7. Amanda Seyfriend in Lovelace
8. much of the cast in Mrs. Henderson Presents
9. much of the cast in Sirens
10. much of the cast in The Master

Read the Book, Don’t See the Film:

1. Solomon Kane
   worst film example on the list – the original stories by Robert E. Howard are quite fun
2. Hamlet
   terrible, terrible adaptation of the greatest play ever written
3. The House of the Spirits
   both film and novel are fully reviewed here
4. Of Love and Shadows
   another screw-up of an Allende novel, but the film is slightly better and the novel isn’t nearly as good (though still quite good)

Nighthawk Notables Music

Soundtracks I Own from Miramax / TWC Films (chronological):  The Crow, Pulp Fiction, Clerks, Trainspotting, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Gangs of New York, Chicago, Sing Street

The 5 Best Soundtracks from Miramax / TWC Films:

1. Trainspotting
2. Sing Street
3. Clerks
4. Pulp Fiction
5. The Crow

The Top 10 Uses of a Song in a Miramax / TWC Film (non-Musical):

1. “Born Slippy”  (Trainspotting)
2. “Lust for Life”  (Trainspotting)
3. “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time)”  (Jackie Brown)
4. “Stuck in the Middle with You”  (Reservoir Dogs)
5. “Across 110th Street”  (Jackie Brown)
6. “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon”  (Pulp Fiction)
7. “Perfect Day”  (Trainspotting)
8. “Kick Some Ass”  (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back)
9. “Misery”  (Clerks II)
10. “I Got a Name”  (Django Unchained)

At the Theater:  By the end of 2011, I had probably seen over 1000 films in the theater at some point or another and had definitely been to the movies over 1000 times.  Both because of their timing and their Oscar success, I’ve seen a lot of Miramax films in the theater.  In order:

Miramax:  The Crying Game, The Piano, Sirens, The Crow, Pulp Fiction, Bullets over Broadway, Pret-a-Porter, Smoke, Il Postino, Belle de Jour (as a re-issue), Kids, Mighty Aphrodite, French Twist, The Pallbearer, Trainspotting (three times), Emma, The English Patient, Everyone Says I Love You, Chasing Amy, Good Will Hunting, Scream 2, Jackie Brown, Rounders, Life is Beautiful, Celebrity, Shakespeare in Love, The Cider House Rules, Scary Movie, Chocolat, Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Others, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Serendipity, Amelie, In the Bedroom, Iris, The Shipping News, Spy Kids 2, Quiet American, Gangs of New York, Chicago (twice), Spy Kids 3D, Kill Bill Vol. 1, Cold Mountain, Jersey Girl, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Finding Neverland, The Aviator, Sin City

Miramax post-Weinsteins: The Queen, No Country for Old Men

TWC:  Clerks II, The Reader, The Artist, The Master, Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, The Imitation Game, Carol, The Hateful Eight

Awards

Academy Awards

• Number of Films That Have Earned Nominations:  109
• Number of Films That Have Won Oscars:  40
• Number of Films With Multiple Nominations:  62
• Number of Films With Multiple Wins:  16
• Best Picture Nominations:  27
• Total Number of Nominations:  366
• Total Number of Wins:  84
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Supporting Actress  (36)
• Directors with Most Oscar Nominated Films:  Stephen Frears  /  Quentin Tarantino  (5)
• Best Film with No Oscar Nominations:  Kill Bill Volume 1
• Year with Most Nominated Films:  1994  /  1996  (7)
• Year with Most Nominations:  2002  (31)
• Year with Most Oscars:  1996  (12)

Oscar Oddities:

• The Top 10 Points down below is astonishing.  The Top 4 is especially so.  RKO never had a single film with 530 points.  UA, Warners and Universal have only managed 4 films with that many points if you combine all three.  The only studio to match it is Columbia (4) and Paramount (5) and they have much, much longer track records.
• Miramax had two streaks of four consecutive years with at least 5 nominated films (94-97, 00-03).  No studio had done it even once since Paramount in 73-76 and no other studio has done it even once since.
• Miramax had the most nominated films four years in a row (00-03), the longest such streak since Paramount in the mid 70s.
• Since 1939, only twice has a studio had the most Oscar nominations at least three years in a row.  Miramax did it both times (96-98, 01-04).
• Miramax’s 31 nominations in 2002 was the most for any studio since 1981 and the third most since 1961.
• Miramax is the only studio to have the most nominations for a decade twice in a row (135 in the 90s, 118 in the 00s).
• Miramax had a streak of 12 straight years with an Oscar (88-99), the longest streak since 1972.
• Miramax’s 12 Oscars in 1996 are tied with UA in 1961 for the most ever by a studio in a single year.
• Even though Miramax didn’t even submit a film until 1987 and didn’t earn an Oscar nomination until 1988, by 1998, it had the eighth most for any studio, more than Disney or RKO.
• Miramax managed to earn an Oscar nomination 23% of the time (of their submitted films).  The average major is at 15% and no major except UA is above 17%.  Over 5% of all their submitted films were nominated for Best Picture.  The only studio higher is TWC (5.88%) while nearly all the majors are below 3.5%.  TWC managed a Best Picture nom for 32% of its nominated films, which blows away everyone else.  Miramax is in third, just behind Columbia and just ahead of Warners, all at 22%.

Most Oscar Nominations

1. Shakespeare in Love  –  13
2. Chicago  –  13
3. The English Patient  –  12
4. The King’s Speech  –  12
5. The Aviator  –  11
6. Gangs of New York  –  10
7. The Artist  –  10
8. Good Will Hunting  –  9
9. The Piano  /  No Country for Old Men  –  8
10. Inglourious Basterds  /  Silver Linings Playbook  /  The Imitation Game  –  8

Most Oscar Wins:

1. The English Patient  –  9
2. Shakespeare in Love  –  7
3. Chicago  –  6
4. The Aviator  –  5
5. The Artist  –  5

Most Oscar Points:

1. The English Patient  –  620
2. Shakespeare in Love  –  585
3. Chicago  –  535
4. The King’s Speech  –  530
5. The Artist  –  480
6. The Aviator  –  450
7. No Country for Old Men  –  420
8. The Piano  –  370
9. Good Will Hunting  –  360
10. Silver Linings Playbok  –  325

Critics Awards

• Number of Films That Have Won Critics Awards:  71
• Number of Films With Multiple Awards:  41
• Best Picture Wins:  15
• Total Number of Awards:  238
• Category With the Most Awards:  Supporting Actress  (41)

Most Awards:

1. The Piano  –  16
2. Pulp Fiction  –  16
3. No Country for Old Men  –  13
4. The Queen  –  12
5. The Master  –  11
6. Happy-Go-Lucky  –  9
7. Carol  –  9
8. My Left Foot  –  7
9. The Crying Game  –  6
10. In the Bedroom  –  6

Most Points:

1. Pulp Fiction  –  1301
2. The Piano  –  1033
3. No Country for Old Men  –  915
4. The Queen  –  799
5. Happy-Go-Lucky  –  643
6. The Master  –  602
7. Carol  –  572
8. My Left Foot  –  480
9. In the Bedroom  –  446
10. The Artist  –  397

note:  At the time of its release, Pulp Fiction was #3 all-time.  Today, it is still #6.  It was the first film to ever win six Directors awards and the first to win all of the then five Screenplay awards.

Most Points by Critics Group:

• NYFC:  No Country for Old Men  –  330
• LAFC:  The Piano  –  350
• NSFC:  Happy-Go-Lucky  –  300
• BSFC:  Pulp Fiction  –  270
• CFC:  No Country for Old Men  –  330
• NBR:  Pulp Fiction  –  190

Golden Globes

• Number of Films That Have Earned Nominations: 123
• Number of Films That Have Won Globes:  41
• Number of Films With Multiple Nominations:  61
• Number of Films With Multiple Wins:  11
• Best Picture Nominations:  39  (22 – Drama, 17 – Comedy)
• Total Number of Nominations:  280
• Total Number of Wins:  56
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Actress  (48; 26 – Drama, 22 – Comedy)
• Best Film with No Globe Nominations:  Trainspotting

Most Globe Nominations:

1. Chicago  –  8
2. Cold Mountain  –  8
3. The English Patient  –  7
4. The King’s Speech  –  7
5. five films  –  6

note:  Chicago and Cold Mountain are the only films from any studio with more than 7 nominations since 1997.

Most Globes:

1. Shakespeare in Love  –  3
2. Chicago  –  3
3. The Aviator  –  3
4. The Artist  –  3
5. six films  –  2

Most Globe Points:

1. Chicago  –  420
2. Shakespeare in Love  –  355
3. The English Patient  –  335
4. The Aviator  –  335
5. The Artist  –  335
6. Cold Mountain  –  300
7. The King’s Speech  –  290
8. Pulp Fiction  –  270
9. Django Unchained  –  265
10. The Piano  –  260

Guild Awards

• Number of Films That Have Earned Nominations:  110
• Number of Films That Have Won Guild Awards:  31
• Number of Films With Multiple Nominations:  60
• Number of Films With Multiple Wins:  16
• Best Picture Nominations:  25
• Total Number of Nominations:  378
• Total Number of Wins:  78
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Sound Editing  (50)
• Best Film with No Guild Nominations:  Three Colors: Red
• Best English Language Film with No Guild Nominations:  Reservoir Dogs

Most Guild Nominations:

1. Chicago  –  15
2. The English Patient  –  14
3. The Aviator  –  12
4. Shakespeare in Love  –  12
5. No Country for Old Men  –  12
6. The Imitation Game  –  12
7. Gangs of New York  –  11
8. The King’s Speech  –  11
9. Good Will Hunting  /  Frida  –  9
10. Inglourious Basterds  /  The Artist  /  Silver Linings Playbook  –  9

Most Guild Wins:

1. Chicago  –  9
2. The English Patient  –  7
3. The Aviator  –  7
4. No Country for Old Men  –  6
5. The King’s Speech  –  6

Most Guild Points:

1. Chicago  –  725
2. No Country for Old Men  –  630
3. The English Patient  –  600
4. The Aviator  –  600
5. The King’s Speech  –  560
6. Shakespeare in Love  –  530
7. The Artist  –  450
8. Gangs of New York  –  420
9. The Imitation Game  –  415
10. Inglourious Basterds  –  390

The BAFTAs

• Number of Films That Have Earned Nominations:  99
• Number of Films That Have Won BAFTAs:  43
• Number of Films With Multiple Nominations:  66
• Number of Films With Multiple Wins:  21
• Best Picture Nominations:  23
• Total Number of Nominations:  409
• Total Number of Wins:  89
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Supporting Actress  (33)
• Best Film with No BAFTA Nominations:  Jackie Brown

Most BAFTA Noms:

1. Shakespeare in Love  –  15
2. Cold Mountain  –  14
3. The Aviator  –  14
4. The King’s Speech  –  14
5. The English Patient  –  13
6. Chicago  –  12
7. Gangs of New York  –  12
8. The Artist  –  12
9. Cinema Paradiso  –  11
10. Finding Neverland  –  11

note:  Only 11 films ever have earned 14 or more nominations at the BAFTAs.  DreamWorks is the only other studio to even have two.  Shakespeare is tied for the most nominations ever.

Most BAFTA Wins:

1. The King’s Speech  –  7
2. The Artist  –  7
3. The English Patient  –  6
4. Cinema Paradiso  –  5
5. Shakespeare in Love  /  The Aviator  –  4

Most BAFTA Points:

1. The King’s Speech  –  680
2. The Artist  –  580
3. The English Patient  –  570
4. Shakespeare in Love  –  570
5. The Aviator  –  500
6. Cold Mountain  –  445
7. Cinema Paradiso  –  440
8. The Queen  –  410
9. No Country for Old Men  –  395
10. Chicago  –  380

note:  Only 11 films have ever earned 570 or more points.  Fox is the only other studio with even more than one.  To have four is simply astounding.  The King’s Speech is, by a significant margin, the biggest film in BAFTA history.

Broadcast Film Critics Awards  (Critic’s Choice Awards)

• Number of Films That Have Earned Nominations:  69
• Number of Films That Have Won BFCA Awards:  31
• Number of Films With Multiple Nominations:  39
• Number of Films With Multiple Wins:  6
• Best Picture Nominations:  18
• Total Number of Nominations:  89
• Total Number of Wins:  32
• Category With the Most Nominations:  Picture  (18)
• Best Film with No BFCA Nominations:  Trainspotting

Most BFCA Noms:

1. The King’s Speech  –  10
2. The Artist  –  10
3. Nine  –  9
4. Carol  –  9
5. Inglourious Basterds  –  8

Most BFCA Wins:

1. The Artist  –  4
2. No Country for Old Men  –  3
3. The English Patient  –  2
4. Chicago  –  2
5. Inglourious Basterds  /  The King’s Speech  –  2

Most BFCA Points:

1. The Artist  –  445
2. The King’s Speech  –  390
3. Inglourious Basterds  –  320
4. No Country for Old Men  –  290
5. The Aviator  –  270

All Awards

Most Nominations:

1. The King’s Speech  –  58
2. No Country for Old Men  –  55
3. The English Patient  –  52
4. The Artist  –  52
5. Shakespeare in Love  –  51
6. Chicago  –  50
7. The Aviator  –  49
8. Gangs of New York  –  47
9. The Queen  –  47
10. The Piano  –  46

Most Awards:

1. No Country for Old Men  –  32
2. The English Patient  –  31
3. The Artist  –  28
4. The Piano  –  25
5. The Aviator  –  24
6. The King’s Speech  –  24
7. Chicago  –  22
8. Pulp Fiction  –  20
9. Shakespeare in Love  –  20
10. The Queen  –  20

Total Awards Points

1. No Country for Old Men  –  2717
2. The King’s Speech  –  2515
3. The Artist  –  2486
4. The English Patient  –  2410
5. Pulp Fiction  –  2381
6. The Piano  –  2220
7. The Aviator  –  2212
8. Shakespeare in Love  –  2196
9. The Queen  –  2066
10. Chicago  –  2032

note:  Because these are from the same era, I won’t bother with the percentage list.  However, pre-dating several guild and BFCA awards, Pulp Fiction is #1 followed by Piano and English Patient before proceeding with the rest of the list.

Lists

Lists for studios are harder because I have to come up with them myself.  There are no books that rank the best films by studio and no way to sort through them on the IMDb or TSPDT.

The TSPDT Top 10 Miramax Films

1. Pulp Fiction  (#72)
2. The Piano  (#162)
3. Three Colors: Red  (#272)
4. Three Colors: Blue  (#284)
5. City of God  (#303)
6. Reservoir Dogs  (#315)
7. No Country for Old Men  (#508)
8. Farewell, My Concubine  (#522)
9. The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain  (#529)
10. Trainspotting  (#567)

note:  The numbers in parenthesis are the position on the most recent (2020) TSPDT list.  There are a few things to take note of.  First, because of the methodology that TSPDT uses, it favors older films.  So Miramax, a much younger studio, won’t do as well as the majors.  But Pulp Fiction is the second highest rated film of the 90s, The Piano and Red are in the Top 10 for the decade as is City of God for the 00s.  Second, I only say Miramax because all of these films are Miramax – again because of their methodology.  The highest ranked TWC film is Inglorious Basterds which is #857.  Which brings me to the third point which is that 10 is definitely the right number of films because Basterds, almost 300 spots below Trainspotting, was the next film on the list (with a big leap up in 2020 leapfrogging over Princess Mononoke and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover).

The IMDb Top 10 Miramax / TWC Films

1. Pulp Fiction
2. City of God
3. Life is Beautiful
4. Cinema Paradiso
5. Django Unchained
6. Princess Mononoke
7. Reservoir Dogs
8. Inglourious Basterds
9. Good Will Hunting
10. The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain

note:  The IMDb methodology does favor more recent films.  Thus we have 10 films in the Top 107 and even three in the Top 22.

Top 10 U.S. Domestic Box Office – Miramax

1. Chicago  –  $170.68 mil
2. Scary Movie  –  $157.01 mil
3. Good Will Hunting  –  $138.43 mil
4. Spy Kids  –  $1112.71 mil
5. Spy Kids 3D: Game Over  –  $111.76 mil
6. Scary Movie 3  –  $110.00 mil
7. Pulp Fiction  –  $107.92 mil
8. Scream  –  $103.04 mil
9. The Aviator  –  $102.61 mil
10. Scream 2  –  $101.36 mil

note:  First of all, it’s worth noting that the six films on this list that weren’t nominated for Best Picture all were Dimension films (in fact, Cold Mountain, at #13 is the only one in the Top 19 that wasn’t Dimension or Best Picture nominated).  Second, this has to be the only studio in history that has the worst film and best film back-to-back on the box office list with the worst film coming out the better.  Also worth noting, concerning the way Miramax released films, 8 of the Top 10 opening weekends for Miramax were Dimension release (the two Kill Bill films are the other two).

Top 10 U.S. Domestic Box Office – TWC

1. Django Unchained  –  $162.80 mil
2. The King’s Speech  –  $135.45 mil
3. Silver Linings Playbook  –  $132.09 mil
4. Inglourious Basterds  –  $120.54 mil
5. The Butler  –  $116.63 mil
6. The Imitation Game  –  $91.12 mil
7. Scary Movie 4  –  $90.71 mil
8. Paddington  –  $76.27 mil
9. 1408  –  $71.98 mil
10. Halloween  –  $58.27 mil

note:  It’s worth noting that The Butler is the only non-Dimension release from either studio to gross $100 million and not earn a Best Picture nom.  Cold Mountain (at $95) is the only other one to even pass $75 million.

Books

I am limited by COVID so there might be more good books out there.  But these are key to understanding Miramax.  Also, some of these are not as easy to find, but are well worth seeking out, so go to addall and try to find them.

Inside Oscar: The Unofficial History of the Academy Awards: 10th Anniversary Edition, Mason Wiley and Damien Bona, 1995

One of my most favorite and most well-used books.  I don’t think there is a book that I bought new that is in worse shape than this one.  It’s got wonderful anecdotes through the years and I highly recommend it.  Only covers through 1994 (the first edition pre-dated Miramax entirely) so Miramax is just ramping up as the book ends.  All that being said, the authors don’t cite any sources and there are things they “quote” that aren’t accurate.  Still a great book though.

Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes, John Pierson, 1995

This fantastic inside story of what the independent American film scene was like in the 80’s and early 90’s is key to understanding the early success of Miramax because Pierson ended up repping some of the key films that helped build the studio into the juggernaut that it would become.  One of the great must-read film books.  Ironically, the book was featured (in a mock-up because it wasn’t published yet) in Mallrats, a film that Kevin Smith didn’t make for Miramax.

Inside Oscar 2, Damien Bona, 2002

Don’t believe the back of the book that proclaims it the equal of the first one.  It’s far more gossipy and opinionated and only covers through 2000.  However, it covers the major part of the Miramax era and Harvey Weinstein has more listings in the index that any other person so it does give some valuable insights into what Miramax was like.

Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Independence, and the Rise of Independent Film, Peter Biskind, 2004

A mixed bag.  In the bottom answer here, Roger Ebert deals with some of the ways that Biskind manipulated things to write the book he wanted to write.  It’s fairly well-written and a compelling narrative but it has problems with accuracy.  However, it is by far the most definitive book written about one of the most important studios in film history.  Aside from the accuracy problems and the clear agenda of the book, it was published in 2004, before anyone could imagine the Weinsteins leaving Miramax to the hands of Disney and forming TWC but that at least is not Biskind’s fault.  It’s interesting, given how odious and loathsome Harvey is in the depiction in this book that it still doesn’t give you any idea of how bad he really was.

Rebels on the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System, Sharon Waxman, 2005

A great must-read book for any person with a serious interest in film.  Waxman focuses on six young directors in the late 90’s and how they got their films made, starting with Tarantino and Pulp Fiction.  It doesn’t go much into Miramax (not even listed in the index) but of course Miramax is a key to Pulp Fiction.

The Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood, Kristin Thompson, 2007

A very good in-depth book on the making of the trilogy but really only relevant to this post mainly for the opening chapter which has an in-depth description of how the films started at Miramax and then came to be made by New Line (though it erroneously lists The English Patient as only winning six Oscars).

Reviews

The Best Miramax Film I Haven’t Yet Reviewed

Princess Mononoke

(1997, dir. Hayao Miyazaki)

There are definitely some levels in which this review doesn’t belong here.  At a time when Miramax had started making their own films and not just buying films, it was a film that they didn’t make, being made, of course, by Studio Ghibli in Japan.  Writer and director Hayao Miyazaki was already well known on the international scene when this film came out but this really helped cement his reputation.  It was the highest grossing film ever released in Japan at the time and was even Japan’s Oscar submission for 1997 (which, sadly, was passed over by the Academy in spite of being the best of the submissions by far and in fact was the best film not to be nominated since the 60s).  It made clear, not just to Japan, but to the whole world that the animated film, as an art form, had a clear and undisputed master.

But it’s not just that Miramax didn’t make the film.  They didn’t make most of their films, even if they had started making them by this time.  They hadn’t even intended to release this film.  They didn’t even buy it.  Disney bought it and decided to have Miramax release it.  And Weinstein, being Weinstein, wanted it cut.  He wanted to cut the 135 minutes down to 90.  Except he didn’t have the power.  After having Nausicaa butchered in its U.S. release, Miyazaki had made certain the contract wouldn’t allow for any cuts.  So Weinstein had a film he never wanted, that he couldn’t cut and a director who had defied him.

So the film was kind of dumped on the U.S. market.  But not before Disney had their way with it, in their typical fashion, by having it dubbed.  There seems to be this stupid belief among American studios, especially Disney, that dubbing a film will make it more palatable to U.S. audiences.  But Miyazaki films have never been big business in the States.  Disney could have saved the money they paid the U.S. actors and just released the film and they would probably would have had just as good a return.  Thanks to VHS editions and seeing films in theaters, I’ve seen dubbed versions of several Miyazaki films and the only instance that I think was worth it was listening to Phil Hartman say the line “Naked?” in Kiki.

But, putting all of that aside, this is the best film released by Miramax that I haven’t already reviewed.  It is a masterpiece of imagery, of storytelling, or bringing a social issue to life in a beautiful narrative that vividly plays across the screen and turned millions into die-hard fans of the greatest animation director this planet has ever seen.

So what is the story?  In a nutshell, Ashitaka is a prince whose arms is cursed when he saves his village.  He leaves to find the answer to the curse and comes across a town where the brutal ruler (Lady Eboshi) has been destroying the forest around her to further her own goals.  That sets her against San, a young woman allied with the wolves of the forest who eventually comes to care for Ashitaka when she realizes he is there to protect and to serve and not to destroy.

Like Nausicaa, it’s a tale of what we do to nature to further our own ends.  But it’s beautifully told, not just in the story, but also in the animation and in the characters (and in the music – the score by Joe Hisaishi, Miyazaki’s regular collaborator is magnificent).  This film decries not just the idiocy of the Academy for not nominating it but also the idiocy of Weinstein for his determined obsession with cutting films down, convinced that it was the only way they would sell.  This is a film that is magnificent precisely how it is.

The Best TWC Film I Haven’t Yet Reviewed

The Hateful Eight

(2015, dir. Quentin Tarantino)

Violence in a movie isn’t enough to make it interesting, no matter how much there is.  In fact, sometimes, the more violence, the less interesting the film.  Witty dialogue can make a movie interesting, but if the characters aren’t well developed or if the film doesn’t go anywhere or if it’s visually un-interesting, then sometimes the film can still fall flat.  But if you can find a way to combine the two, well then you’ve got something.  Quentin Tarantino did that the first time out with Reservoir Dogs, with some of the most cringe-worthy violence ever put on film married to the some of the most quote-worthy dialogue to ever pass across the screen.  He has never stopped combining the two in a winning, funny, dark and interesting manner.

For this exhibit, we have The Hateful Eight.  It earned Globe, BAFTA and BFCA noms for its Screenplay and won the NBR.  Yet, somehow it wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, the first film in almost 30 years to earn Globe and BAFTA noms but not an Oscar nom and the only reason it’s in third place for Consensus points without an Oscar nom and not first is because Quentin’s not a WGA member and their awards are a closed shop.  It earned those nominations (and a Nighthawk nom) because it creates interesting characters, gives them their own individual manner of dialogue, and then lets them go at each other.  It knows when characters are nasty, knows when characters aren’t that smart and it sticks to the characters it creates.  When two men hate each other because the color of their skin and end up united because they have both survived the night, you understand why those two have come together.

It also tells an interesting story and marries it to a fascinating visual means of story-telling.  While the film starts outside in the snowy mountains, it eventually gravitates towards being a chamber play and yet it manages an Oscar nomination for its exquisite Cinematography and finally won Ennio Morricone a well-deserved Oscar (a very close second place at the Nighthawks) for his magnificent Score.  Those aren’t Oscar nominations you usually see for something that is essentially a chamber play.  But even once things are confined mostly to the interior of a large room in Minnie’s Haberdashery, Tarantino the director always keeps things interesting while Tarantino the writer keeps us riveted with his dialogue and his story.

Then there is the violence.  This is a story where there are eight title characters (and about twice as many characters overall) and only two of them manage to survive the film and even they’ve been pretty badly shot up and there’s a good chance they won’t live long past the end of the film.  There’s a discussion over handing over one of the dead men to them so they can be paid his bounty which is refuted by the fact that his death scene including having his whole head blown apart which means they can’t verify he is who he is supposed to be.  It’s a film that has the kind of violence that makes me cringe the most (a man slugs a woman full in the face) and yet I couldn’t help but laugh when that punch launches her out of the wagon they are in and pulls the man she is handcuffed to out with him into the snow.  In fact, it’s made me laugh every time I see it.  That’s the kind of masterful use of violence that Tarantino has been going with ever since that ear was cut off but more notably when that needle went into the heart.  Because that’s the kind of thing that makes you laugh in spite of the violence and then you realize what’s happened and you’re ashamed of yourself and then you still laugh the next time you see it.

And then you look at this masterful group of actors that have been assembled and you see how well they work together.  Yes, Kurt Russell is new to Tarantino at this point and this is still the only Jennifer Jason Leigh appearance (though it finally earned her a first Oscar nomination).  But then remember that after Michael Madsen cut that ear off, Tim Roth shot him and there they are standing together.  Or that Samuel L. Jackson pointed that gun at Roth sitting in the booth and there he is pointing a gun at him again.  Zoe Bell won’t even be on-screen with Russell but in the next Tarantino film they’ll play a married couple.

One more interesting thing about these characters.  There are the hateful eight characters of the title and they are indeed hateful.  Several are racist, all are killers and even aside from that they are brutally violent.  But there is one other main character (not including the ones from the flashback scene) and that is poor O.B..  He’s the only real sympathetic character through most of the film.  And he is the one who suffers the most.  Leave it to Quentin to dole out the worst punishment (sitting on the stage out in the blizzard, having to continually go outside to get rid of things, dying horrifically just because he’s cold and drinks the coffee) to the person who least deserves it.

When I was asked by a co-worker what I thought of Django Unchained just after I saw it in the theater, I replied “Bloody good fun.  And vice versa.”  That’s definitely true of The Hateful Eight.  What’s more, both films have a way with dialogue, that, if other Westerns had been written like that, you would wonder why the genre isn’t still flourishing.

The Worst Miramax Film I Haven’t Yet Reviewed

Scary Movie 3

(2003, dir. David Zucker)

I guess we can blame Mel Brooks and the Zuckers.  They did such a good job with films like Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Airplane, The Naked Gun and Hot Shots that they made it look easy.  Never mind that they also showed that they could do the idea badly in films like Dracula: Dead and Loving It and this film right here.  Clearly, either working without his brother and Jim Abrahams meant he didn’t have the talent needed to do this properly or he had forgotten how it worked.  Those earlier, great (or very good) films worked because they weren’t trying to parody something specific.  They parodied broad concepts and they would occasionally throw in a specific scene designed to hearken back to earlier films.  Yes, Young Frankenstein worked closely off the original film, but it also used broad strokes to do it as well.  But then came along lazier films that just tried to continually go for gag after gag that relied on having seen earlier films.  You didn’t have to see the Airport films to know why Airplane was so brilliantly funny.  It was funny on its own merits, not just because of the scenes it parodied.

So now we get to Scary Movie 3.  The first Scary Movie had already proven a tough nut to crack because it was trying, first, to parody a specific film, and second, to parody a film that was already a satire.  Yet, it somehow managed to find enough funny moments to at least be a passable film.  But the second film devolved entirely into bad jokes based around the hot films of the day.  And this film, which didn’t involve any of the Wayans brothers who had been involved in the first two, was just a tiny bit worse (actually I give them the same score but if I rank every film, something has to come out lower).  It’s not that the film isn’t funny at all (though it isn’t) but that it never even attempts to be funny on its own merits.  Look at Weird Al songs.  Yes, her parodies popular songs and if that’s all he did and he didn’t add anything, it would be worthless.  But, he uses the parodies to do something funny as well which is why I found songs like “The Brady Bunch” and “I Lost on Jeopardy” to be hilarious before I even realized that they were parodies.  The ones that are great succeed on their own merits which is why “Yoda” is still hilarious even if you’ve never heard “Lola”.  The problem here is that not only is the film not funny, but it would be even less so (if possible) if you didn’t know what it was parodying.

Broadly, this film attempts to parody The Ring and Signs while also throwing in a lot from the Matrix films.  It’s a got a weird mix of people on their way down (Charlie Sheen, Denise Richards), people who were on their way up (Regina Hall, Kevin Hart, sadly) and people who never should have been anywhere given their talent level (Pamela Anderson, Jenny McCarthy, Eddie Griffin).  And, just to get my goat, I suppose, it was released on my 29th birthday.

The Worst TWC Film I Haven’t Yet Reviewed

Piranha 3DD

(2012, dir. John Gulager)

I almost begin the previous review with the Irwin Shaw quote about Vonnegut and how he was uncopyable that I used here for my review of Queen of Outer Space.  But, in a sense, it wasn’t true because the whole point was that even Brooks could do it wrong and Zucker, who made one of the best parodies, also directed that utter dreck.  I could use it again here, but again it’s not really the right quote (plus I used it in the review linked above).  Because the problem here isn’t that Jaws or Avatar is a singular type of film (especially not Avatar).  It’s not that the filmmakers of Piranha 3DD (or the predecessor which was just Piranha 3D) tried to copy something that they didn’t have the talent to pull off (though they did try that and they didn’t have the talent).  That would be especially ironic since Cameron’s first directorial feature (which, to be fair, he had difficulties with due to language issues and he may or may not have had control of the film) was Piranha II: The Spawning, which is an utter piece of shit.  It’s that they saw films like Jaws and Avatar and learned all the wrong lessons.

The lesson from Jaws should not have been have a creature of nature that can kill you in horrifying ways and spread that horror all across the screen.  It should have been use mood and story to make the creature all the more frightening and be sparing with the gore so that the more horrific aspects of the film are all the more terrifying and effective.  Films don’t need to have a lot of gore but most Horror directors don’t seem to have learned that.  What’s more, there are a lot of people who will gladly go just because of that amount of gore and so Horror films usually make money and then they spawn more in a never-ending cycle of creative bankruptcy (see the Saw movies).  This film has such horrid scenes as a person being yanked in half by a vacuum tube sucking up water from a pool and of course numerous people being devoured by piranha.

Then there is the lesson not learned from Avatar.  Avatar‘s success made every filmmaker wanted to start using 3D.  The lesson should have been that you only use 3D to enhance a larger scale epic in which it actually adds something to your visual experience (although I’ll point out that it should have also been in the service of a worthwhile story which that film forgot).  But to the filmmakers here, the 3D is just to add more gore and shove it in your face.

Then there is the humor aspect.  This film tries to be funny.  That’s clear from the title which is also supposed to be a play on breasts (which the film, ironically, doesn’t really make good use of).  But this is also a film which thinks the notion that a piranha getting inside a woman’s vagina and then somehow surviving and bitting off a penis during sex is funny.

At least TWC seemed to realize that in spite of the financial success of the previous film, that they had a complete dud on their hands with this one.  They decided to release it in theaters (barely) and on VOD at the same time and they went from a $25 million gross on the previous film to less than half a million for this one.

Bonus Review

Smoke

(1995, dir. Wayne Wang)

Coming out of the summer of 1995, there were two films that seemed to me to best poised for the Oscar race but back then I never thought about studios and what a studio might push.  So I was thinking about Apollo 13, the biggest film of the summer, with the biggest star of the time coming off back-to-back Oscars and telling an epic story on a large scale.  Then there was Smoke, the small little film about one corner of Brooklyn (literally, in one sense), filled with great actors but who weren’t big box office (William Hurt, Harvey Keitel, Forrest Whitaker) and simply telling the story of the way their lives intersect.  I thought Smoke was a sure bet to try for the Oscars, especially given its script (from novelist Paul Auster).  But instead, even though Smoke was the better financial bet coming out of the summer, Miramax decided to throw their weight on the Italian film they had distributed over the summer, Il Postino.  In retrospect, it seems like a good bet since that film went on to earn Best Picture, Actor and Director nominations and beating out Like Water for Chocolate to become one of the biggest Foreign language films ever in the U.S. market.  Instead, Smoke kind of slipped away and was a bit forgotten (it earned a SAG nom and an Indie Spirit nom).  Today you can’t even get it from Netflix.

Smoke is a film of intersecting stories, much like the poster says.  The primary stories deal with Augie, the proprietor of a smoke shop in Brooklyn.  Every morning for years he has taken a picture of his store at the exact same time.  When showing the pictures to his friend Paul, Paul notices his recently deceased wife in some of the pictures.  That will lead Paul to an almost accident where he is saved by a young black man and then Paul finds a friendship and helps the young man discover his own father, the owner of a rural gas station (played by Whitaker).  At the same time, Augie will be dealing with his own past as his ex-wife comes back to town (a small but riveting performance from Stockard Channing) and Paul has to help her deal with a young woman who may be his daughter (a smaller but even more riveting performance from Ashley Judd and my first experience with her – I wondered who the hell she was, this sudden bolt of energy in a film that had mostly contained subdued performances).

The film moves a bit away from its corner of Brooklyn (out to the gas station, to the slums to find the daughter) but for the most part, this is the story of a small, very specific place where lives intersect.  It was so much the opposite of Apollo 13.  Wayne Wang didn’t direct with grand gestures and there was no one “important” involved in the story.  It was simply about real people and what happens to them.  To that extent, there is a significant amount of money that comes into the story and the way it moves among the various people of the film shows how inter-connected not only they are, but how life is.

Smoke has perhaps been let down, historically, by the presence of a dud of a sequel with the same director, writer and star (Keitel) called Blue in the Face.  But, in a year where crap like Braveheart somehow was nominated for its script, it’s worthwhile to remember that Smoke had a fascinating script full of well-developed characters and interesting, believable dialogue.  You understand these people.  You like these people.  You want to know more (which, sadly, happened, but let’s skip it).  It’s a film that shouldn’t be forgotten.

Bonus Review

Clerks II

(2006, dir. Kevin Smith)

I’ve met Kevin Smith.  I’ve been to his comic book shop.  I’ve been a huge fan since Clerks.  I still own several of his films on DVD (I no longer own Mallrats or Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back).  But his films definitely inspire some mixed feelings in me.  There are very few directors in film history that have directed two films as bad as Tusk and Yoga Hosers.  I can more easily forgive him for giving his daughter roles because she’s actually shown she has talent but his wife is a different story and I can’t fathom why he seems to think that Jason Mewes is the funniest person alive when I think Mewes is a drag on almost everything Smith does.  And he earned the Best Cameo up above for the post-credit scene of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back for what was supposedly to be literally closing the book on the View Askew characters and then he went and made this sequel.  Well, there is still some of the mixed-bag feeling about it but as you can tell from its rank on the full list above, it’s a lot better than the disaster of his latest sequel (Jay and Silent Bob Reboot) which, burdened once again by too much Mewes, struggled desperately to be funny most of the time until the comic convention (but it was at least worth the cost when we got the other film cameos).  It was off to a good start with the tagline, following up the fantastic tagline of the original film (“Just because they serve you doesn’t mean they like you”) with an even better one (“With no power comes no responsibility”).

Since I’ve already picked on him for casting his wife and best friend, I won’t focus on them when I discuss what is wrong with this film (though they are a significant part) but will instead move to the crassness and the weak performance from Jeff Anderson.  To make this film properly, they needed the cast back.  The problem is that while Randall is a very funny character in the first film (my then girlfriend Kari saw him as very much being me), he’s much less so in this film (and not just because I’m a LOTR fan).  There’s also the unnecessary issue with the racist term “porch monkey” that goes on far too long (honestly, neither Veronica nor I were familiar with the term).  There are just long stretches through the middle of the film where it tries too hard to rely on being crass (especially all of the stuff with the “inter-species erotica”) for it really to be a completely worthy sequel of what is still one of the funniest films ever made.

But then you look at the rest of the film and what Smith does with it.  I remember being really disappointed when Superman Lives fell apart because I thought Smith’s brilliant scripts would work perfectly with Burton’s visual imagination and that Smith’s films needed a visual flair and Burton’s films needed more depth.  But, over a decade into his film career, Smith finally actually did the best direction that he’s done before or since.

Look at the opening of the film – the way it seems like it’s just the next day for Dante and then suddenly it’s all on fire and everything has changed.  And then Randall comes up and says “Terrorists?” and it’s one of the funniest things he says in the film.  Then we really get into the film and we remember how well Smith can make use of music (think of most of Clerks or the use of “We 3” in Chasing Amy or much of the music in Jay and Silent Bob) and one of the best songs from one of the best bands of all-time comes in and “(Nothing But) Flowers” is the perfect song to bring us into the film.  This will continue through the film, with good use of “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”, a beautiful use of the Smashing Pumpkins “1979”, a nice use of the god of Smith’s universe with Alanis’ magnificent “Everything” (one of my absolute favorites of hers) and then that brilliant ending.  The only reason I don’t own this soundtrack is because I already had all the songs.

So much of the film had been uneven and I wasn’t sure where the film would go.  Clearly Dante wouldn’t go off with the girl he’s engaged to when frigging Rosario Dawson is right in front of him, dancing her sexy way across the roof to the Jackson 5’s “ABC”.  But they had to find a way to get the characters where they really belonged.  And so things get shoehorned in a bit (so that he could eventually make Clerks III which he supposedly win according to my wife who faithfully listens to his podcast Fat Man Beyond) but that’s okay because it all leads to the end.

You think it’s going to be crass again with the reprise of the song from earlier and Jay putting on chapstick.  But then we’re inside the store, with Walt Flanagan still asking for cigarettes.  Then comes the single best-shot Smith has ever directed, with that final line, the slow pull-back, the fade to black and white, the milk maid still looking for that perfect gallon (it’s Smith’s mom) and the perfect song to accompany it all.  They say misery loves company.  We can start a company and make misery.  Frustrated incorporated.  Well I know just what you need.