The most nominated (12) picture in 1993, “Schindler's List” competed for the top award with the action-adventure “The Fugitive (7 nominations), Jim Sheridan's socially-conscious drama “In the Name of the Father” (7), Campion's “The Piano” (8), and Merchant-Ivory production of “The Remains of the Day,” which, with 8 nods but o Oscars, became the biggest Oscar loser of the year.

The most nominated (12) picture in 1993, “Schindler's List” competed for the top award with the action-adventure “The Fugitive (7 nominations), Jim Sheridan's socially-conscious drama “In the Name of the Father” (7), Campion's “The Piano” (8), and Merchant-Ivory production of “The Remains of the Day,” which, with 8 nods but o Oscars, became the biggest Oscar loser of the year.

With the Oscar on their side, these movies acquire the “must-see” label for a much larger public of viewers, many of whom would not have seen them otherwise. The Oscar Award provides a kind of legitimacy of approval, as director Martin Scorsese, a multiple-Oscar nominee and winner once observed: “When people see the label Academy Award winner, they go to see that movie.”

For Helen Hunt, too, the Best Actress Oscar for “As Good As It Gets” arrived on a day when her blossoming movie and TV careers came together. On March 23, 1998, Hunt announced she would return for another year of her hit NBC sitcom, “Mad About You,” and in the evening, she won Best Actress for James L. Brooks' comedy. Hunt's movie and TV career complement each other, with several movies lined up at Sony and other studios.

In the third year of the foreign-language Oscar category, the five nominees were: “Mon Oncle” (My Uncle”) from France, which won, “Arms and the Man” from the Federal Republic of Germany, “”The Road a Year Long” from Yugoslavia, “The Usual Unidentified Thieves” (aka “Big Deal on Madonna Street”) from Italy, and “La Venganza” from Spain.