| 1. The Sweet Hereafter (39)
| 2. Hands on a Hard Body (28)
| 3. Happiness (25)
| 4. Shakespeare in Love (22)
| 5. A Simple Plan (19)
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| 6. The Big Lebowski (17)
| 7. The Opposite of Sex (14)
| 8. Out of Sight (13)
| 9. Saving Private Ryan (11)
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| MARJORIE BAUMGARTEN
1. The Sweet Hereafter | STEVE DAVIS
1. Shakespeare in Love | ROBERT FAIRES
1. The Sweet Hereafter | MARC SAVLOV
1. Happiness | RUSSELL SMITH
1. The Sweet Hereafter |
| NEAR MISSES | Saving Private Ryan; Shakespeare in Love; Henry Fool; Beloved; He Got Game | High Art; The Thief;Without Limits; You’ve Got Mail; Snake Eyes | Clockwatchers; You’ve Got Mail, Pleasantville, Moon Over Broadway, Twentyfourseven | The Opposite of Sex; The Cruise; The Butcher Boy; Bulworth; Hands on a Hard Body | Live Flesh; Your Friends and Neighbors; Oscar and Lucinda; Insomnia; Elizabeth |
| MOST OVERRATED FILMS | The Opposite of Sex; Pleasantville; The Spanish Prisoner | Two Girls and a Guy; Deconstructing Harry; The Opposite of Sex | The Waterboy; The Truman Show; There’s Something About Mary | Pleasantville; Love Is the Devil; The Spanish Prisoner | |
| MOST UNDERRATED FILMS | Bulworth; Babe: Pig in the City; Velvet Goldmine | Babe: Pig in the City; Without Limits; Snake Eyes | The Big Lebowski; Clockwatchers; Madeline | * (Pi); Six-String Samurai; Can’t Hardly Wait | Great Expectations; Lolita; Four Days in September |
| ACTING KUDOS | Julie Christie (Afterglow); Ed Harris (The Truman Show); Warren Beatty (Bulworth); Ally Sheedy (High Art); John Turturro and entire cast (The Big Lebowski) | Robert Duvall, (The Apostle); Holly Hunter (Living Out Loud); Patricia Clarkson (High Art); Billy Bob Thornton (A Simple Plan); Eammon Owens (The Butcher Boy) | Cate Blanchett (Oscar and Lucinda); Robert Duvall (The Apostle); Dustin Hoffman (Wag the Dog); Joan Allen (Pleasantville); Lisa Kudrow (The Opposite of Sex, Clockwatchers) | Ally Sheedy (High Art); Christina Ricci (Buffalo ’66); Lisa Kudrow (The Opposite of Sex); Rose McGowan (Lewis & Clark & George); Robert Duvall (The Apostle) | Christina Ricci (The Opposite of Sex); Geoffrey Rush (Elizabeth); Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love); Rona Hartner (Gadjo Dilo); Stellan Skarsgard (Insomnia) |
| BEST DIRECTOR | Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter); Todd Solondz (Happiness); Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight) | Sam Raimi (A Simple Plan); Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter); Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight) | Joel Coen (The Big Lebowski); Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter); Gillian Armstrong (Oscar and Lucinda) | Todd Solondz (Happiness); Vincent Gallo (Buffalo ’66); Darren Aronofsky, * (Pi) | Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter); Steven Spielberg (Saving Private Ryan); Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine) |
| BEST SCREENPLAY | Neil LaBute (Your Friends and Neighbors); Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter); Richard Kwietniowski (Love and Death on Long Island) | Marc Norman & Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love); Ed Dechter & John J. Strauss (There’s Something About Mary); Neil Jordan (The Butcher Boy) | Marc Norman & Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love); Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter); Don Roos (The Opposite of Sex) | Todd Solondz (Happiness); James Toback (Two Girls and a Guy); Sherman Alexie (Smoke Signals) | Neil LaBute (Your Friends and Neighbors); Whit Stillman (The Last Days of Disco); Tom Stoppard & Marc Norman (Shakespeare in Love) |
| WORST FILM | Ringmaster: Why go to the theatre and pay seven bucks to buy the Springer cow when you can stay home on the couch and watch the milk curdle for free? | Desperate Measures: Has Andy Garcia ever appeared in a good movie since The Untouchables? He’s become the kiss of death for any film he’s in. | The second half of Armageddon: What began as a smarter-than-average summer blockbuster goes dangerously wrong after blast-off, devolving into bomb blasts and bombast, an annoying mix of improbable space opera that would embarrass Flash Gordon and sappy, slo-mo “We Are the World” Coke ad. | Godzilla (A Haiku): Godzilla lesson | Almost Heroes (Memo to God: Punch my ticket whenever you want. It’s your deific prerogative. But at least grant me the courtesy of a less embarrassing artistic swan song than this one by the late Chris Farley.) |
| WILD CARD CATEGORY | The welcome embrace of genre films by numerous directors of note: Robert Altman (The Gingerbread Man); Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight); Richard Linklater (The Newton Boys); Tony Scott (Enemy of the State); John Frankenheimer (Ronin) | What Were They Thinking?: The talking snowman in Jack Frost; the shot-for-shot duplication of Psycho and the fictionalization of a Jerry Springer show with Jerry Springer in Ringmaster | Most loquacious NYC export: Timothy “Speed” Levitch | Best live concert film of a middle-aged English folk/pop/psychedelic cult-rocker that debuted at the SXSW Film Festival, yet — inexplicably — has yet to return for a theatrical showing: Storefront Hitchcock |
Critics’This article appears in 1998.