Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

Directed by Bruce Beresford

Starring Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy, Dan Aykroyd, Patti LuPone, and Esther Rolle

A delightful little comedy about the kind of friendship that develops over decades, Driving Miss Daisy is a lot different than a lot of the epic films that win the Academy's top prize. Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman are both wonderful as the central characters, a wealthy elderly Jewish woman and the driver her son hires against her will, who ends up in her service for over a quarter century. A lot of people dismiss this movie as a "Best Picture" for various reasons, but it is one of the better depictions of an unlikely friendship I have seen, mostly due to the script and the fantastic performances from the two leads.

Other nominees: Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone), Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir), Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson), and My Left Foot (Jim Sheridan)