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Milestones and Turning Points in Film History The Year 1992 |
 Timeline of Greatest Film History Milestones and Turning Points (by decade and year) Introduction | Pre-1900s | 1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s |
| Event and Significance | |
| Americans spent $12 billion to buy or rent video tapes, compared to just $4.9 billion on box office ticket sales. 76 percent of all US homes had VCRs. | |
| In 1992, the standard for Hi-Def (hi-definition) TV (HDTV) transmission in the US, with much improved picture and sound quality, was established. It would have a screen aspect ratio of 16:9 (compared to NTSC's 4:3) - in other words, it would be a wide-screen aspect ratio that would reduce the "picture in a box" feeling of the current television standard, and allow 35 millimeter movies to be viewed uncropped on TV screens. HDTV would also have picture quality equivalent to 35 millimeter film by using roughly 1,000 lines (or in the jargon, 1080 lines of vertical resolution, known as full Hi-Def or HD), improving upon NTSC's standard definition with a pixel resolution of only 640 × 480. | |
| The first film released in Dolby Stereo Digital sound was Tim Burton's sequel to the original 1989 film, Batman Returns (1992). | |
| Tele-Communications, Inc. agreed to sell its 2,398-theater United Artists chain, the nation's biggest, to a subsidiary of Merrill Lynch Capital Partners, Inc. | |
| The mediocre film The Bodyguard (1992) was significant for its superstar Whitney Houston (in her first major acting role) and the soundtrack - including her rendition of the 1974 Dolly Parton hit song: "I Will Always Love You"; the song sold 17 million copies and became the #1 all time Grammy-winning film soundtrack (replacing Saturday Night Fever). | |
| A translated version of It's a Wonderful Life (1946) was the first American program ever to be broadcast on Russian television, in early January, 1992 - marking the first occasion of the freed Russian Orthodox Church celebrating Christmas Day. | |
57 year-old Woody Allen declared that he was in love with Soon-Yi Previn, the 21 year-old adopted daughter of Mia Farrow, his former lover for 12 years (they never married). Allen and Farrow separated in 1992, after Farrow discovered nude photographs that Allen had taken of Soon-Yi. After ending his relationship, Allen continued his relationship with Soon-Yi (and eventually married her in 1997). He sued Farrow for custody of their biological child (Satchel Farrow) and the two children (Dylan Farrow and Moshe "Moses" Farrow) that they had adopted together. She charged him with child abuse. |
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| Disney's Aladdin (1992), budgeted at $28 million, became the highest-grossing (domestic) film of the year, at $217.3 million. It was one of Disney's first movies to gross more overseas (at $286.7 million) than it did domestically (neither Beauty and the Beast (1991) nor The Little Mermaid (1989) did so). It won two Oscars (from five nominations), Best Original Score (Alan Menken) and Best Original Song ("A Whole New World"). This was the first major animated film that was advertised as having a major movie star (Robin Williams as the voice of the Genie) providing one of the character's voices - a predominant trend ever since. The animated feature film engendered considerable controversy for its pro-Western portrayal of Aladdin and Jasmine (always unveiled and in skimpy costumes) - the first non-white princess, the fact that turbaned characters were bald, and all the villainous characters were Arab caricatures. | |
| Basic Instinct (1992) was released - a suspenseful, cat-and-mouse erotic thriller with psychosexual overtones. Its director-writer team of Paul Verhoeven (known for earlier films Robocop (1987) and Total Recall (1990) and then Showgirls (1995)) and Joe Eszterhas (known for Jagged Edge (1985)) created this exploitative, soft-porn, excessive, controversial film with a negative portrayal of lesbianism, violence, initial X-rating, and voyeuristic, sensational, gratuitous sex. Womens' groups called the film misogynistic, and gay-rights groups in San Francisco called it stereotypically-homophobic and gay-bashing. Star Sharon Stone's career as a sex goddess was also revived by the film's interrogation scene in which as bisexual homicide suspect Catherine Trammel, she uncrossed and re-crossed her legs while wearing a short white mini-dress (without panties). [The former model had first acted in a small part in Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), and in a slightly larger role in Irreconcilable Differences (1984). She also appeared in minor films such as King Solomon's Mines (1985) and Action Jackson (1988), but her major breakthrough was opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall (1990). Later came a Golden Globe-nominated part in Casino (1995), but the remainder of her filmography consisted of flops or smaller roles.] | |
| Writer/director Leslie Harris' authentic, low-budget independent film - an emotional coming-of-age drama titled Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (1992) - was shot in only a few weeks. It was one of the first honest portraits of urban black female teenagers - it was also about sexual ignorance and unplanned pregnancy. The film won first-time director Leslie Harris a Special Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. | |
| The Lawnmower Man (1992), a breakthrough film with eight minutes of ground-breaking special effects, introduced Virtual Reality to films. It was one of the first films to record a human actor's movements in a sensor-covered body suit - a technique called Body Motion Capture. One of the film's firsts was a VR sex scene. [The technique was later perfected in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), for the CGI character of Gollum.] | |
| 12 year-old Macaulay Culkin was paid $8 million to star in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), the largest paycheck for a child star. The film was the second highest-grossing (domestic) film of the year, at $173.6 million. | |
| Former Southern California video-store clerk and self-styled 'film geek' Quentin Tarantino released his debut feature film (as both director and screenwriter), the bloody and extremely violent crime drama Reservoir Dogs (1992) - an influential independent and cult film. | |
| China Star Entertainment Limited, a company based in Hong Kong and specializing in film production and distribution, was established in 1992. Most of its films were Chinese and offered in Cantonese. | |
| American actor Anthony Perkins died at the age of 60, of AIDS - his most memorable role was as mother-crazed Norman Bates in Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) (and he also appeared in three sequels). Perkins often bemoaned the fact that his career was almost totally overwhelmed by his portrayal of the lunatic Norman Bates. For two years, Anthony Perkins and his wife, Berry Berenson (the sister of actress Marisa Berenson), kept silent that the actor was dying of AIDS. He dictated a statement about his life which was released after his death: "I choose not to go public about his, because to misquote Casablanca, I'm not much at being noble, but it doesn't take too much to see that the problems of an old actor don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy old world." During his entire film career beginning in 1953 (and lasting until 1992), he was Oscar-nominated only once, for his role in Friendly Persuasion (1956). | |
| Director Robert Altman's acclaimed The Player (1992) was a character-intensive satire on contemporary Tinseltown morality and its wheeling and dealing, starring Tim Robbins as a smooth Hollywood studio executive. | |
| Indian auteur film director Satyajit Ray died at age of 70. His most notable films included his first film Pather Panchali (1955) about village life. Combined with Aparajito (1956) and The World of Apu (1959) (aka Apur Sansar), the three films completed his brilliant 'Apu Trilogy', bringing Indian films to worldwide attention. | |
| Miramax (run by Bob and Harvey Weinstein before they cofounded The Weinstein Company in 2005) began an unbroken, eleven-year streak lasting from 1992 until 2002, of Best Picture-nominated films each year, beginning with the Irish/British film sleeper hit, writer/director Neil Jordan's The Crying Game (1992). It was the longest streak for any company since the Academy limited the Best Picture nominees to five films in 1944. | |
| In Miramax's advertising campaign for The Crying Game (1992), it pressured its audiences and critics to not reveal the film's transgender plot twist, although a hint was given when Jaye Davidson (as girlfriend Dil) received a Best Supporting Actor award. | |
| Director Spike Lee's biopic Malcolm X (1992) of the controversial African-American leader was the first non-documentary production (and first US film) that was given permission to film in Mecca, the holy Islamic city. Lee's second-unit (all Muslims) did the filming, since non-Muslims were prohibited from entering the city. | |
| Actor Sylvester Stallone received a record number of consecutive nominations and wins for the Worst Actor Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Award, from 1984 to 1992. He was nominated nine consecutive times for Worst Actor, winning four times (for Rhinestone (1984), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Rambo III (1988), and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992)). In 1990, he was honored as the Worst Actor of the Decade, for Cobra (1986), Lock Up (1989), Over the Top (1987), Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Rambo III (1988), Rocky IV (1985), Rhinestone (1984) and Tango & Cash (1989). | |
| In the year 1993, Razzie Awards were given to: 'Worst Supporting Actor' Tom Selleck for Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992), and 'Worst Actress' (and 'Worst Picture') to Melanie Griffith for Shining Through (1993). | |
| German and American film star Marlene Dietrich died at the age of 90 of kidney failure. Her breakthrough film was in the role of Lola Lola in The Blue Angel (1930, Germ.), beginning a long-standing relationship with director Josef von Sternberg in six more films (from 1930 to 1935), including Morocco (1930), Dishonored (1931), Shanghai Express (1932), Blonde Venus (1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934), and The Devil Is a Woman (1935). Her first US film was Morocco (1930), for which she received her sole Oscar nomination. Other memorable films included Destry Rides Again (1939), The Spoilers (1942), A Foreign Affair (1948), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Rancho Notorious (1952), and Touch of Evil (1958). |
