Kramer vs. Kramer: 1979 Best Picture

“Kramer vs. Kramer” may have won all 4 of the top Oscars at the 52nd Academy Awards if Meryl Street was considered a lead actress, but she was nominated as a supporting actress. So it won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. Sally Field won Best Actress for “Norma Rae” and Streep picked up the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. One of her co-stars, Jane Alexander, was also in the running. The 5th “Kramer vs. Kramer” Oscar went to Robert Benton for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The other Best Picture nominees were “All That Jazz”, “Apocalypse Now”, “Breaking Away” and “Norma Rae”. Melvyn Douglas won Best Supporting Actor for “Being There.”

More 1979 Oscars: “The Tin Drum” (Best Foreign Film), “Breaking Away” (Best Original Screenplay), “A Little Romance” (Best Original Score), “The Black Stallion” (Best Sound Editing), and “All That Jazz” (Best Costume Design).

More 1979 film titles: “The China Syndrome”, “The Rose”, “La Cage aux Folles”, “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”, “10”, “Alien”, “…And Justice for All”, “The Muppet Movie”, “Hair” and “The Onion Field”. Rocky Balboa had a rematch with Apollo Creed in “Rocky II”. Evil spirits were giving the Lutz family a bad time in “The Amityville Horror.” The latter two films were only beaten at the box office by “Kramer vs. Kramer.”

Jeopardy! clues on “Kramer v. Kramer”
ACTORS & ACTRESSES $600: She won her first Oscar, as Best Supporting Actress of 1979, for playing Joanna Kramer
THE TALES OF DUSTIN HOFFMAN $200: Both Hoffman & Streep won Oscars as the title duo in this film
THE OSCARS $400: After winning Best Supporting Actress for “Kramer vs. Kramer”, she left her statuette in the ladies’ room
JUSTIN TIME $400: Justin Henry earned an Oscar nomination as Dustin Hoffman & Meryl Streep’s son in this film
THE DUSTIN HOFFMAN FILM FESTIVAL $1600: 1979: “I’d like to know what law is it that says a woman is a better parent simply by virtue of her sex?”
OSCAR YOUNGEST/OLDEST $2000: Youngest Supporting Actor nominee: Justin Henry for this 1979 tale of a custody battle (from 2009)

More 1979 clues:
AUSTRALIAN MOVIES $400: Rockatansky is the last name of the title character of this 1979 film set in a dystopian future Australia
AFI’s TOP 100 MOVIE QUOTES $400: No. 12: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning”
X-RATED $1200: Gore Vidal removed his name from a salacious 1979 film with Malcolm McDowell as this crazed emperor
FILM & TV SPACESHIPS $1000: In this 1979 film, the mining ship Nostromo lands on a distant planet to investigate a suspected S.O.S.
MY FAVORITE FILMS $800: In this 1979 film the talented Ms. Ripley battles an outer-space menace
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA $200: This star had a heart attack & was even given last rites while making the 1979 Coppola film “Apocalypse Now”
CHAMPIONSHIP MOVIES $600: Dennis Christopher battled Italians & locals en route to Indiana’s little 500 cycling championship in this 1979 film
FOREIGN FILMS $1200: A Foreign Language Oscar went to Menshov’s 1979 film called this city “Does Not Believe in Tears”
JOE-PARDY! $1000: In a 1979 film Meryl Streep seduces fallen politician Alan Alda in “The Seduction of” this man
FILMS OF THE ’70s $200: Sally Field won a victory for the union & an Oscar for herself, in this 1979 film
HARRISON FORD $1000: In the 1979 film “The Frisco Kid” cowboy Ford ran into a rabbi played by this comic actor
MUSICAL MOVIE TITLES $1200: Based on a Gunter Grass novel, this film was “Die Blechtrommel” in German
BOND….JAMES BOND $500: In 1979 this Bond film featured a stolen space shuttle — 2 years before the launch of Columbia
STAR MOVIES $300: Sigourney Weaver has played the intrepid Ripley in a series of films starting with this one in 1979
THE TITLE ESCAPES ME $400: Clint Eastwood played a convict in this 1979 prison film based on a true story
ON LOCATION $200: The jungles of Vietnam in this 1979 Coppola film were actually in the Philippines
GEOGRAPHIC CINEMA $200: 1979: “The ___ Horror”
MOVIE DEBUTS $800: Danny Glover broke into film in this 1979 Clint Eastwood flick about a prison break-out
ORDINAL MOVIES $1000: Beau Bridges was the king & Lloyd Bridges was Aramis in this late ’70s remake of “The Man in the Iron Mask”
HEY, GOOD-LOOKIN’ $200: In a 1979 film, Dudley Moore gives her a rating of 11 on a scale of 1-10
WOODY ALLEN FILMS $200: Title of a 1979 Allen film, or where he set his 1993 “Murder Mystery”
VEGAS MOVIES $1000: In this 1979 film Robert Redford steals a $12 million horse from a Vegas hotel; Jane Fonda follows him
FILMS OF THE ’70s $300: This 1979 nuclear disaster film starring Jane Fonda & Michael Douglas had no background music
MOVIES IN BLACK & WHITE $600: This 1979 Woody Allen film featured Tisa Farrow, Mia’s sister
“GREAT” FILMS $1000: Robert Duvall as a marine pilot imposed a militaristic lifestyle on his family in this 1979 film
MALTIN ON THE MOVIES $400: Steve Martin’s first starring feature, Maltin describes it as “The misadventures of a terminally stupid man”
ACTORS & THEIR ROLES $100: Numerical “Force” “from Navarone” that Harrison Ford was part of, or Bo Derek’s No. in a 1979 film
THE MOVIES $800: 1979 Oscar-nominated film that climaxed in a bicycle race at Indiana University
“BLACK” MOVIES $500: This 1979 Disney sci-fi film starring Maximilian Schell was nominated for an Oscar for Visual Effects
“GREEN” $800: Emlyn Williams play filmed in 1945 with Bette Davis & in 1979 with Katharine Hepburn
WAR MOVIES: A controversial 1979 war film was based on a 1902 work by this author
THE INDIE 5 $1200: George Harrison started Handmade Films to help make this Monty Python religious epic