Dramas also took a turn with existentialist thrillers such as Fight Club ( 1999 ) and the tale of suburban angst American Beauty ( 1999 ).

He gained critical acclaim in the early 1990s, culminating in his first Academy Award for The Usual Suspects ( Best Supporting Actor ), followed by a Best Actor Academy Award win for American Beauty ( 1999 ).

Spacey won universal praise and a Best Actor Oscar for his role as a depressed suburban father who re-evaluates his life in 1999's American Beauty ; the same year, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Dunst was offered the role of Angela in the 1999 drama film American Beauty, but turned it down because she did not want to appear in the film's suggestive sexual scenes or kiss co-star Kevin Spacey.

Further credits include Coming to America, Action Jackson, Jerry Maguire, The Running Man, American Beauty, Can't Buy Me Love, and Oliver Stone's The Doors.

Abdul served as the choreographer for several film and theater productions, including the 1998 musical Reefer Madness and the cheerleading scenes in the 1999 film American Beauty ( she had previously also choreographed the 1991 film The Doors ).

The Grateful Dead also had major successes with the more reflective and stripped back Workingman's Dead and American Beauty in 1970.

* Sam Mendes-Academy Award-winning film director ( for American Beauty ) and four-time Laurence Olivier Award winner

* American Beauty ( 1931 )

Judd is currently the magazine advertising " face " of American Beauty, an Estée Lauder cosmetic brand sold exclusively at Kohl's department stores, and H. Stern jewelers.

Next he teamed up with American Beauty director Sam Mendes for the adaptation of Max Allan Collins's and Richard Piers Rayner's graphic novel Road to Perdition, in which he played an anti-hero role as a hitman on the run with his son.

American Beauty is a 1999 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes and written by Alan Ball.

Ball began writing American Beauty as a play in the early 1990s, partly inspired by the media circus around the Amy Fisher trial in 1992.

Producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen took American Beauty to DreamWorks ; the fledgling film studio bought Ball's script for $ 250, 000, outbidding several other production bodies.

American Beauty marked acclaimed theater director Mendes ' film debut ; courted after his successful productions of the musicals Oliver!

Released in North America on September 15, 1999, American Beauty was positively received by critics and audiences alike ; it was the best-reviewed American film of the year and grossed over $ 350 million worldwide.

Academics have offered many possible readings of American Beauty ; film critics are similarly divided, not so much about the quality of the film as their interpretations of it.

" The literary critic and author Wayne C. Booth concludes that the film resists any one interpretation: " Beauty cannot be adequately summarized as ' here is a satire on what's wrong with American life '; that plays down the celebration of beauty.

With " innumerable voices intruding on the original author's ," Booth says, those who interpret American Beauty " have forgotten to probe for the elusive center ".

Mendes called American Beauty a rites of passage film about imprisonment and escape from imprisonment.

Like other American films of 1999 — such as Fight Club, Bringing Out the Dead and Magnolia — American Beauty instructs its audience to " more meaningful lives ".

The feminist academic and author Sally R. Munt argues that American Beauty uses its " art house " trappings to direct its message of non-conformity primarily to the middle classes, and that this approach is a " cliché of bourgeois preoccupation ... the underlying premise being that the luxury of finding an individual ' self ' through denial and renunciation is always open to those wealthy enough to choose, and sly enough to present themselves sympathetically as a rebel.

Winning the 1951 Best Picture Oscar and numerous other awards, the film was directed by Vincente Minnelli, featured many tunes of Gershwin, and concluded with an extensive, elaborate dance sequence built around the An American in Paris symphonic poem ( arranged for the film by Johnny Green ), costing $ 500, 000.

An Academy Award is an award bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ( AMPAS ) to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors and writers.

Category: American film directors

Category: American film producers

The film adaptation, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is based on the American edition of the book ( which Burgess considered to be " badly flawed ").

Category: American film directors

Category: American film producers

The American Film Institute was founded in 1967 as a national arts organization to preserve the legacy of American film heritage, educate the next generation of filmmakers and honor the artists and their work.

The AFI Catalog of Feature Films, started in 1968, is an online database that preserves the history of American film in encyclopedic detail.

Citizen Kane was voted the greatest American film twice.

" American shot " is a translation of a phrase from French film criticism, " plan américain " and refers to a medium-long (" knee ") film shot of a group of characters, who are arranged so that all are visible to the camera.

* ASA is a film speed rating system defined by the former American Standards Association

His television work led to assignments as an assistant director for several Latin American film productions including Gaby: A True Story and Romero, and in 1991, he landed his first big-screen directorial assignment.

* Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story, a 2005 American documentary film

* Adrian Pasdar ( born 1965 ), American actor and film director

* Adrian Zmed ( born 1954 ), American television personality and film actor

* 1946 – Dawn Steel, American film producer ( d. 1997 )

Category: American film actors

Category: American film directors

Category: American film producers

* A film speed rating system defined by the former American Standards Association

This continued with the influx of American military personnel in World War II as well as film ; seen in the enduring persistence of okay, you guys and gee.