OSCAR PERFORMANCES: Shine (1996)

Geoffrey Rush introduces himself as an instant screen legend.

1996 was a crowded year in movies. The English Patient swept up tons of awards, Jerry Maguire somehow commanded critical and box office attention, and Fargo cemented the Coen brothers’ status as true master craftsmen. So it says something that a tiny little movie from Australia garnered a ton of Oscar nominations and a Best Actor Oscar for a man that only Aussie theatergoers knew about. Shine isn’t just any typical movie though - it’s packed with stellar performances from young and older actors, an incredibly powerful and joyful script, and a style that bucked the standard biopic tropes nearly a decade before they were really put in place. Everyone should see this movie, not only to hear David Helfgott’s amazing story, but also to just enjoy the creative, masterful work being put into the film. This week, we fall in love with Geoffrey Rush all over again when we watch 1996’s Shine!

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Intro music taken from the Second Movement of Ludwig von Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Hong Kong (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 HK) license. To hear the full performance or get more information, visit the song page at the Internet Archive.