66th Academy Awards - March 21, 1994

Best Supporting Actor

* Tommy Lee Jones – The Fugitive
o John Malkovich – In the Line of Fire
o Pete Postlethwaite – In the Name of the Father
o Leonardo DiCaprio – What's Eating Gilbert Grape
o Ralph Fiennes – Schindler's List

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What the hell? I just watched Schindler's List for the first time ever. What an ASTOUNDING film! I can't believe it took me this long to watch it. The main thing that stuck with me after watching it was Ralph Fiennes' performance. I have never hated a character so much in a film like I did Amon Goeth. Fiennes' portrayal of him was nothing short of exceptional!

I cannot believe he did not win the oscar for best supporting actor that year. Don't get me wrong, I like Tommy Lee Jones and he delivered an iconic performance in The Fugitive, but I honestly think Fiennes' performance in SL trumps Jones' in every way. The guy was so convincing as an evil and menacing Nazi son of a bitch. He was most certainly robbed at the Academy Awards that year. Anyone else agree?

Pete Postlethwaite should have won that year. He was freakin' magnificent. But Ralph Fiennes was a real close second.

Tommy Lee Jones did a fine performance in "The Fugitive", but Oscar-worthy? And superior to Postlethwaite and Fiennes? Unreal...

Not to be a dick but what's the difference? It was 17 years ago. Who cares? It obviously didn't affect your enjoyment of the movie. Why does it even matter who wins awards? Just enjoy the performance.

Malkovich was robbed!

Wow, that's some stiff competition, however I still agree with Tommy Lee for the statue. TLJ crafted an instantly memorable character. Was it more dramatic than the others, no, but I'd say pulling off a realistic character is probably more difficult than an iconic one.

It's also telling that he was so great as that character that you remember him equally if not more than the main character. Also impressive is trying to launch a franchise on a secondary character based on that performance.

Tough tough call. Leonardo was also astounding as Depp's goofy li't brother in WEGG.

My vote goes to DiCaprio.

Postlethwaite gave the best performance that year.

Sandra Bullock has more Academy Awards than Ralph Fiennes.

100%.

I'm having serious deja vu. I feel like I saw this exact thread months ago.

Fiennes is very talented, but apparently not good at making friends in the industry and 'working the business' to get awards. He avoids things like that to concentrate on work. Those award shows are more popularity contests than about the work.

His performance was good in 'List', but it wasn't near his best, and it wasn't the best of the nominees that year.

I have no problem with Tommy Lee winning. He owned that film. It would not have been the movie it was without his role. It wasn't a serious or high brow role, but I would have had a larger problem with Fiennes winning than Lee. I think Malkovich did extremely good work, and Postlethwaite was a consummate actor, a rare talent, he was fantastic just laying dead off scene in a film. He was also excellent(as usual) in his role.

'Schindler's List' was a decent film, not spectacular, and it rides on the reputation that Spielberg is supposedly a 'genius', and the subject matter of the holocaust. It's just not that great a film, and Spielberg is just not that great a director. He's a financially successful director and there's a huge difference.

If I had to guess, I would say the logic behind that was that Jones's supporting role was so prominent that had Harrison Ford not been the top-billed actor playing the point-of-view character, you could make the case that Jones was really the lead in The Fugitive. Conversely, it was really the Holocaust that was the "star" of Schindler's List, with the spotlight on Liam Neeson.

It's the kind of decision that seems way off-base to some of us in hindsight, but at the time I'm sure more voters reflexively recalled Jones in The Fugitive than they thought of Fiennes in Schindler's List.

Otherwise, I'm not taking any of the Spielberg/Schindler's List bait. You people have snagged me one time too many with that!

I was closely following the Oscar races at the time, just as I still do, and I recall this one pretty clearly. Fiennes was a brand new name at the time (the only thing he'd done prior to Schindler's List that anyone had seen was Wuthering Heights, but very few had seen that and even less had liked it). Jones got the lifetime achievement vote, while Fiennes was plopped in the "let's see if this guy has anything else in him or if he's just a flash in the pan before we give him an award" column. It had almost nothing to do with talent or prominence of the role (surprise!).

While there were certainly a lot fewer Oscar pundits in those days before the internet made everyone an expert, almost none of those who did know their stuff were predicting a victory for Fiennes, and almost all were predicting Jones.

'Tis a shame that voters almost always contextualize the nominees by placing the performance at hand against their entire careers to that point. It's especially bothersome in music awards, where it seems newcomers often see their most creative years go unheralded in favor of older artists who've sort of reached the "mail it in" phase of their careers.

If they left it up to me, we'd have to wait five years to vote on awards for a given year. So, for instance, in February, we'd have reviewed the movies of 2006. That would give voters the benefit of more perspective, but of course no one's attention span would last long enough to remember five years ago. Probably why no one ever asked me what to do about these things.

Yes, Yes, Yes. I remember when I saw this in the movie theater and just sitting there riveted at his performance. To me, this was the Oscar winner. Fiennes was really good as well, but it didn't capture me the way Postlewaite did.

I agree! I've never understood how Cher had won for Moonstruck, instead of Glenn Close for Fatal Attraction in 1988. Cher just walked through that movie! I completely lost my interests in the Oscars after that ordeal....I haven't watched an Academy Awards ceremony since! I always wait, and read the results in the newspaper the next day. And besides, I save 3 hours of my time.

Of course, that was also the year they gave the Supporting Actress award to 11 year-old Anna Paquin.

Yup, exceptional performance.

Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper should have shared the award for True Romance.

For a while there 3-6 Mafia had more than Scorsese. What does this say about the Oscars? They've always been a big joke.

Tommy Lee Jones was, like he always does, playing Tommy Lee Jones. Yawn.

He was the least of the lot that should have won.

Never go full retard.