Brenda Blethyn of Secrets and Lies
Photo: October Films

Runners-up: Ron Shelton's Tin Cup and Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire, each a witty and romantic riff on the lunacies of the sporting life; the Coen brothers' Fargo, a midwestern spoof as funny as it is chilly; Shine, Scott Hicks's playful and touching bio-pic of Australian piano prodigy David Helfgott.

Best Foreign-Language Film: L'America, Italian director Gianni Amelio's heart-stopping drama about Albania struggling free of both the legacy of Stalinism and the new brigands of global capitalism.

Runners-up: The White Balloon, Jafar Panahi's beautiful contemplation of a small Iranian girl in search of a goldfish; Chungking Express, Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai's delightfully capricious tripartite tale of modern love; Prisoner of the Mountains, Sergei Bodrov's inspiring and entertaining update of a Tolstoy novella.

Best Actor: Jointly to Tony Shalhoub, for his shy charm as the compulsive master chef in Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott's Big Night, and Eddie Murphy, for the sheer elasticity of all seven of his incarnations in The Nutty Professor.

Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub
Photo: John Clifford

Runners-up: Geoffrey Rush, as the hypersensitive pianist in Shine; Chris Cooper, for his laconic sheriff in Lone Star; Ian Hart, as the naive Spanish Civil War freedom fighter in Land and Freedom; William H. Macy, as the reluctant perpetrator in Fargo; Nick Nolte, as the reluctant Nazi in Mother Night.

In Memoriam: Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1941-1996, whose masterly ten-part cycle, The Decalogue, and gorgeous trilogy, Trois Couleurs, mused on God in a secular world.

Runners-up: Frances McDormand, for her hilariously dogged policewoman in Fargo; Debbie Reynolds, for her loony Gracie Allen composure in Albert Brooks's Mother; Laura Dern, as the pathetic drug addict in Alexander Payne's abortion-rights satire, Citizen Ruth.

Best Supporting Actor: Timothy Spall, for his versatility as the beleaguered photographer in Secrets and Lies.

Runners-up: Jointly to Nathan Lane, as Robin Williams's flaming-queen lover, and Hank Azaria, as the houseboy, in The Birdcage; Alan Arkin, for his wry wit as Nick Nolte's neighbor in Mother Night; Cheech Marin, as Kevin Costner's long-suffering sidekick in Tin Cup; Steve Zahn, as the wannabe womanizer in That Thing You Do.

Mary Kay Place
Photo: Rozano Johnson

Best Supporting Actress: Mary Kay Place, for two wonderfully controlled performances--as the kidnapped pseudo-nurse in Manny and Lo and the fanatical pro-lifer in Citizen Ruth.

Runners-up: Katrin Cartlidge, as Emily Watson's severe but loving sister-in-law in Breaking the Waves; Alison Elliot, for her honest turn as a damaged young woman in the otherwise pedestrian The Spitfire Grill; Claire Rushbrook, as Brenda Blethyn's truculent daughter in Secrets and Lies; Juliet Stevenson, as the obnoxious one in Emma.

Best Newcomer: Emily Watson, who brought passion and dignity to an ultimately tacky role as a Scottish whore-saint in Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves.

Emily Watson
Photo: October Films

Runners-up: Ewan McGregor, as a brilliant dopehead in Trainspotting; teenager Iain Robertson, as a lad coming of age in gang-infested Glasgow in Small Faces.

The Calamity Jane Award goes to Franco Zeffirelli, for bowdlerizing Jane Eyre, one of the most latently libidinous best-sellers in Western literature, into pap.

The Funny Farmer Award goes to John Schlesinger, for his uproarious adaption of Stella Gibbons's satirical classic, Cold Comfort Farm.

The Mr. Rogers Award goes to Francis Ford Coppola, for Jack, his wet blob of a movie about a boy in a man's body.

The Blow Hard Award goes to Jan De Bont's Twister, all craft and no content.

The Great Brain
Photo: Zade Rosenthal

The Play-It-Again Award goes jointly to Phenomenon, the latest in Hollywood's idiot-savant stories to strike it rich at the box office, and To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, another dreary tale of ghost therapy.