Hollywood was weird in the late eighties. Really weird. If you look back at the 1987 Academy Award winners, you aren’t just looking at a list of movies; you’re looking at a massive cultural pivot point where the "Old Guard" of the industry finally had to sit at the table with the gritty, caffeinated newcomers. It was the year of Platoon. It was the year Paul Newman finally got his due, though maybe for the wrong movie, depending on who you ask at the bar.
The 59th Academy Awards, held on March 30, 1987, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, felt different. Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn, and Paul Hogan hosted. Think about that lineup. It’s a chaotic mix of slapstick, charm, and "Crocodile Dundee" energy. The room was packed with legends, but the night belonged to Oliver Stone.
The Platoon Sweep and the Brutality of Realism
People forget how much of a gamble Platoon was. Before it became one of the major 1987 Academy Award winners, it was a project nobody wanted to touch. Oliver Stone had been shopping it around for years. He’d fought in Vietnam himself. He didn't want the Rambo-style heroics that were popular in the Reagan era. He wanted dirt. He wanted bugs. He wanted the internal moral collapse of a young soldier.
It worked.
The film took home Best Picture and Best Director. It was a massive moment for Stone, who had previously won for writing Midnight Express but was still seen as a bit of a wild card. Platoon also grabbed Best Film Editing and Best Sound. When you watch the scene where Willem Dafoe’s character, Elias, is gunned down to the sounds of Barber's Adagio for Strings, you realize why. It’s visceral. Even today, it holds up better than most war epics because it doesn't try to be "cool." It just tries to be honest.
Interestingly, Platoon beat out A Room with a View, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Mission, and Children of a Lesser God. That’s a wild spread of genres. You had the high-brow British period drama, the Woody Allen neurotic comedy, the sweeping religious epic, and a groundbreaking drama about the Deaf community. But the Academy went with the mud.
Paul Newman and the "Lifetime Achievement" Problem
Honestly, we need to talk about Paul Newman winning Best Actor for The Color of Money. Everyone knows Newman is a legend. By 1987, he had been nominated six times for Best Actor and hadn't won once. The Academy was embarrassed.
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So, they gave it to him for playing Fast Eddie Felson again.
Don't get me wrong, he’s great in it. Tom Cruise is there too, doing his high-energy 80s thing, but Newman is the anchor. However, most film historians will tell you he should have won for The Hustler or Hud or Cool Hand Luke. This win felt like a "sorry we missed you" card. Newman didn't even show up to the ceremony. He told the press, "It’s like chasing a beautiful woman for eighty years. Finally, she relents, and you say, 'I'm terribly sorry, but I'm tired.'"
He wasn't wrong.
The competition that year was stiff. Bob Hoskins was terrifying and heartbreaking in Mona Lisa. James Woods was electric in Salvador. Dexter Gordon—a real-life jazz legend—delivered a haunting performance in ’Round Midnight. Many felt William Hurt was the dark horse for Children of a Lesser God. But the momentum was behind Newman. The Academy loves a narrative, and the narrative that year was "Give Paul his Oscar before it’s too late."
Marlee Matlin Makes History
While the Newman win felt like a legacy play, Marlee Matlin’s win for Best Actress was a genuine revolution. At 21, she became the youngest Best Actress winner in history. She also became—and remains—the only Deaf performer to win in that category.
She was incredible in Children of a Lesser God.
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The film explores the relationship between a speech teacher at a school for the Deaf (William Hurt) and a cleaning lady who refuses to speak (Matlin). It’s a movie about communication, but more than that, it’s about power. Matlin’s performance is so physical, so expressive, that you forget there’s a language barrier at all. When she accepted her award using American Sign Language, it was a top-tier Oscar moment. It wasn't just a win for her; it was a massive signal to the industry that representation wasn't just a buzzword. It was a requirement for better storytelling.
The Supporting Categories: Weird and Wonderful
The 1987 Academy Award winners in the supporting categories were a bit of a mixed bag, but they’ve aged surprisingly well.
Michael Caine won Best Supporting Actor for Hannah and Her Sisters. Like Newman, Caine wasn't there. He was busy filming Jaws: The Revenge in the Bahamas. He famously said he never saw the film, but he saw the house it built. It’s a shame he missed it, though, because his performance as the bumbling, adulterous Elliot is some of his best work. He managed to make a deeply flawed man feel relatable, which is the Woody Allen specialty.
On the women’s side, Dianne Wiest won Best Supporting Actress for the same film. This was the start of a long and fruitful partnership between Wiest and Allen. She’s a chameleon. In Hannah and Her Sisters, she plays Holly, the struggling actress/caterer who is constantly on the verge of a breakdown. She’s funny, she’s frantic, and she’s utterly human.
The Snubs and the "What Ifs"
Every year has them. 1987 was no different.
How did Blue Velvet only get one nomination? David Lynch was nominated for Best Director, but the film itself was ignored for Best Picture. Dennis Hopper’s performance as Frank Booth is arguably one of the most iconic villain roles in the history of cinema. Nothing. Not even a Supporting Actor nod. The Academy was clearly a bit scared of Lynch’s surrealist nightmare.
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Then there’s Aliens. Sigourney Weaver got a Best Actress nomination, which was a huge deal for a sci-fi action movie. It rarely happens. She didn't win—Matlin did—but the fact that Ellen Ripley was even in the conversation shows how much Weaver changed the game for women in film. Aliens did win for Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects, though. It had to. The practical effects in that movie still look better than half the CGI we see today.
Technical Marvels and the Sound of the 80s
If you look at the technical 1987 Academy Award winners, you see the industry shifting toward a more immersive experience.
- Best Original Score: Herbie Hancock for ’Round Midnight. This was controversial because some felt the score relied too much on pre-existing jazz standards, but Hancock’s arrangements were genius.
- Best Original Song: "Take My Breath Away" from Top Gun. Obviously. You couldn't turn on a radio in 1986 or 1987 without hearing Berlin. It defined the era.
- Best Cinematography: Chris Menges for The Mission. If you haven't seen this movie, watch it on the biggest screen you can find. The visuals of the Iguazu Falls are breathtaking.
The Cultural Legacy of the 59th Oscars
Looking back, the 1987 Academy Award winners reflect a Hollywood that was trying to grow up. It was moving away from the pure escapism of the early 80s (Indiana Jones, Back to the Future) and moving toward darker, more complex themes. Platoon forced America to look at the Vietnam War without the filter of patriotism. Children of a Lesser God forced a conversation about disability and agency.
Even the "safe" wins, like Newman and Caine, were for performances that leaned into human frailty rather than heroics. It was a year of imperfection.
How to Dive Deeper into 1987 Cinema
If you want to actually understand why these movies mattered, don't just read the lists. You've got to watch them in a specific order to see the "conversation" the films were having with each other.
- Watch Platoon and Salvador back-to-back. Both are Oliver Stone films from the same year. They show a filmmaker obsessed with the chaos of American foreign policy and the trauma of the individual soldier/journalist.
- Compare The Color of Money with The Hustler. See how Paul Newman aged into the role of Fast Eddie. It makes his Oscar win feel more like a long-form character study than a single achievement.
- Check out Blue Velvet. See what the Academy was too afraid to reward. It provides a necessary counterpoint to the more traditional dramas that dominated the winner's circle.
- Look up the acceptance speeches. Marlee Matlin’s speech is genuinely moving. It’s on YouTube. Watch it. It reminds you that these awards, for all their glitz and corporate backing, can occasionally mean something profound to the people receiving them.
The 1987 Academy Award winners weren't just a list of names. They were a snapshot of a world in transition. We were moving out of the neon-soaked early eighties and into something a bit more cynical, a bit more grounded, and—honestly—a lot more interesting.
The best way to appreciate these films today isn't to treat them like museum pieces. Treat them like living documents. Most of them are streaming on platforms like Max or Criterion Channel. Go see if Platoon still makes your heart race. Go see if Newman’s swagger still works. You might be surprised at how modern these "old" movies feel.