These are the 1992 Endy Awards, wherein I pretend to give out maneki-neko statues to the best in that year in film. Awards for many other years can be found in the Rankings & Awards Index. Eligibility is determined by imdb date and by whether or not I’ve seen the movie in question. Nominees are listed in alphabetical order and the winners are bolded. And the Endy goes to. . .

Best Picture:

1. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
2. Fire Walk with Me
3. Glengarry Glen Ross
4. Hard-Boiled
5. The Last of the Mohicans
6. The Long Day Closes
7. Orlando
8. Porco Rosso
9. Simple Men
10. Unforgiven

Best Director:

1. David Lynch, Fire Walk with Me
2. John Woo, Hard-Boiled
3. Michael Mann, The Last of the Mohicans
4. Sally Potter, Orlando
5. Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven

Over the years I’ve rotated between Mohicans, Unforgiven and Hard-Boiled at the top of my 1992 list. John Woo’s film is arguably the greatest pure action film ever made, while Eastwood’s Western is a genre-encompassing, apocalyptic masterpiece. But Mohicans is simply one of the most beautiful films ever made, not just in that it is remarkably picturesque (though it is) but in the expansiveness of its portrait of America, an elegy for a nation that might have been. 20 year old me would have insisted that Glengarry Glen Ross and Reservoir Dogs be added to those three at the top, but 40 year old me knows that Fire Walk with Me, Orlando and even Porco Rosso are significantly more profound works of cinema.

Best Actor:

1. Harvey Keitel, Bad Lieutenant
2. Jack Lemmon, Glengarry Glen Ross
3. Daniel Day-Lewis, Last of the Mohicans
4. Denzel Washington, Malcolm X
5. Harvey Keitel, Reservoir Dogs

Keitel becomes the second actor to be nominated twice in the same category in the same year, and like Maggie Cheung in 1996, he fails to come away with the Endy. This is Denzel’s year. Washington won as well in 2004 for Man on Fire. Other lead actors who, like Keitel, were excellent in two lead performances in 1992: Chow Yun-fat (Hard-Boiled and Full Contact), Jet Li (Swordsman II and Once Upon a Time in China II), Stephen Chow (The Royal Tramp I and II) and Tim Robbins (The Player and Bob Roberts). Also receiving votes: Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven and Robert Downey Jr in Chaplin.

Best Actress:

1. Sharon Stone, Basic Instinct
2. Sheryl Lee, Fire Walk with Me
3. Madeline Stowe, The Last of the Mohicans
4. Tilda Swinton, Orlando
5. Brigitte Lin, Swordsman II

This was Swinton’s fourth nomination and second win, until I recently watched Fire Walk with Me again for the first time since I was a teenager and realized how truly amazing it is and how phenomenal Sheryl Lee’s performance is.

Supporting Actor:

1. Tony Leung, Hard-Boiled
2. Alec Baldwin, Glengarry Glen Ross
3. Wes Studi, The Last of the Mohicans
4. Michael Madsen, Reservoir Dogs
5. Gene Hackman, Unforgiven

Honorable mentions: Simon Yam (Full Contact), Richard Harris and Morgan Freeman in Unforgiven, Anthony Wong (Hard-Boiled), Jack Nicholson and Keifer Sutherland in A Few Good Men, Steve Buscemi (Reservoir Dogs), Russell Means (Last of the Mohicans), Campbell Scott and Matt Dillon in Singles, Rob Lowe (Wayne’s World), Forest Whitaker (The Crying Game), Stephen Chow (All’s Well Ends Well), Ray Wise (Fire Walk with Me), Donnie Yen (Once Upon a Time in China II) and all the rest of the cast of Glengarry Glen Ross.

Supporting Actress:

1. Michelle Pfeiffer, Batman Returns
2. Judy Davis, Husbands and Wives
3. Elina Löwensohn, Simple Men
4. Kyra Sedgwick, Singles
5. Michelle Yeoh, Police Story III: Supercop

Honorable Mentions: Maggie Cheung in New Dragon Gate Inn and All’s Wells Ends Well, Rosie Perez in White Men Can’t Jump, Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny, Jodhi May in Last of the Mohicans.

Original Screenplay:

1. Terence Davies, The Long Day Closes
2. Hayao Miyazaki, Porco Rosso
3. Hal Hartley, Simple Men
4. Cameron Crowe, Singles
5. David Webb Peoples, Unforgiven

Adapted Screenplay:

1. David Lynch & Robert Engels, Fire Walk with Me
2. David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross
3. Michael Mann & Christopher Crowe, The Last of the Mohicans
4. Sally Potter, Orlando
5. Michael Tolkin, The Player

Endys are for closers.

Non-English Language Film:

1. Full Contact (Ringo Lam)
2. Hard-Boiled (John Woo)
3. Once Upon a Time in China II (Tsui Hark)
4. Porco Rosso (Hayao Miyazaki)
5. Rebels of the Neon God (Tsai Ming-liang)

This is Woo’s first Endy win. He was nominated for Non-English Language Film in 2008 (Red Cliff). I suspect this will not be his last Endy.

Non-Fiction Film:

1. Visions of Light (Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy & Stuart Samuels)

Animated Film:

1. Aladdin (Ron Clements & John Musker)
2. Porco Rosso (Hayao Miyazaki)

Miyazaki previously won in this category in 2001, with Spirited Away.

Unseen Film:

1. Dead Alive (Peter Jackson)
2. Life, and Nothing More… (Abbas Kiarostami)
3. Lorenzo’s Oil (George Miller)
4. A Tale of Winter (Eric Rohmer)

Film Editing:

1. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
2. Fire Walk with Me
3. Hard-Boiled
4. Last of the Mohicans
5. Swordsman II

Cinematography:

1. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
2. Hard-Boiled
3. Last of the Mohicans
4. The Long Day Closes
5. Unforgiven

Torn here between the prettiness of Mohicans and the fluidity of the action photography in  Hard-Boiled.

Art Direction: 

1. Batman Returns
2. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
3. Last of the Mohicans
4. New Dragon Gate Inn
5. Orlando

Costume Design: 

1. Batman Returns
2. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
3. Full Contact
4. Last of the Mohicans
5. Orlando

Orlando wins this award simply for the impossible dress poor Tilda Swinton wears to meet Alexander Pope.

Make-up: 

1. Batman Returns
2. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
3. Last of the Mohicans
4. Orlando
5. Unforgiven

“It tis the man himself!”

Original Score: 

1. Fire Walk with Me
2. Hard-Boiled
3. Last of the Mohicans
4. Orlando
5. Unforgiven

In one of their more baffling moves, the Academy chose not to even nominate the score for Mohicans in 1992.

Adapted Score: 

1. Boomerang
2. Fire Walk with Me
3. The Long Day Closes
4. Singles
5. Wayne’s World

Truly a golden age of movie soundtracks. Have to give it to the home team.

Sound: 

1. Glengarry Glen Ross
2. Last of the Mohicans
3. The Long Day Closes
4. Reservoir Dogs
5. Unforgiven

Sound Editing: 

1. Alien 3
2. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
3. Last of the Mohicans
4. Reservoir Dogs
5. Unforgiven

Visual Effects: 

1. Alien 3
2. Batman Returns
3. Bram Stokers Dracula
4. Death Becomes Her
5. Swordsman II

The Academy went with the pioneering digital effects of Death Becomes Her, I’m going with the the epitome of Hong Kong and Tsui Hark’s pre-Handover effects-driven wuxia, where demented imagination trumps uncanny verisimilitude.