Top Box Office in 1998


1	Titanic (1997)
2	Armageddon (1998/I)
3	Saving Private Ryan (1998)
4	There's Something About Mary (1998)
5	The Waterboy (1998)
6	Doctor Dolittle (1998)
7	Deep Impact (1998)
8	Good Will Hunting (1997)
9	Godzilla (1998)
10	Rush Hour (1998)
11	As Good as It Gets (1997)
12	Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)
13	The Truman Show (1998)
14	Mulan (1998)
15	A Bug's Life (1998)

Best Picture in 1998:
Shakespeare in Love

Best Actor: Roberto Benigni, Life Is Beautiful
Best Actress: Gwyneth Paltrow, Shakespeare in Love
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1	Gene Autry
2	Lloyd Bridges
3	John Derek
4	Norman Fell
5	Phil Hartman
6	Bob Kane
7	Keisuke Kinoshita
8	Akira Kurosawa
9	Shari Lewis
11	David Leigh MacLeod
11	E.G. Marshall
12	Roddy McDowall
13	Maureen O'Sullivan
14	Alan J. Pakula
15	Jerome Robbins
16	Esther Rolle
17	Don Taylor

Highest Rated in 1998


1	"From the Earth to the Moon" (1998) (mini)
2	American History X (1998)
3	Saving Private Ryan (1998)
4	Festen (1998)
5	Lola rennt (1998)
6	Fucking Åmål (1998)
7	The Big Lebowski (1998)
8	Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
9	Central do Brasil (1998)
10	Violon rouge, Le (1998)
11	Happiness (1998)
12	Crna macka, beli macor (1998)
13	Rushmore (1998)
14	The Truman Show (1998)
15	Leggenda del pianista sull'oceano, La (1998)

Editors picks for 1998


1	Festen (1998)
2	Dark City (1998)
3	A Simple Plan (1998)
4	Central do Brasil (1998)
5	Fucking Åmål (1998)

Steven Spielberg's WWII drama Saving Private Ryan is released on July 24. Boasting a stellar cast and one of the most riveting opening sequences in the history of cinema, the film goes on to win five Oscars, including Best Director, though it loses Best Picture to surprise winner Shakespeare in Love. More topically, it currently resides at #67 in the IMDb Top 250.

Seinfeld's series finale attracts 108 million viewers.

DreamWorks' first computer-generated animated feature, Antz, meets with mixed reviews and decent success, but is crushed by Pixar's A Bug's Life.

Buddy cop movies rule the summer as Brett Ratner's Rush Hour and Richard Donner's Lethal Weapon 4 crack wise and bust crime.

On the same day that she wins the Best Actress Oscar, Helen Hunt signs a million dollar per episode contract for a seventh season of Mad About You.

Jim Carrey takes a dramatic turn with The Truman Show, a reality TV drama masterfully directed by Peter Weir. Despite his against-character performance, Carrey is overlooked for a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

The third movie from the Farrelly brothers, There's Something About Mary, opens on July 15. It finally hits #1 on the box office charts eight weeks later on Labor Day weekend, turns Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz into box office stars, and remains the brothers' most successful movie.

George Clooney's performance in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight lets him off the hook for Batman & Robin; Jennifer Lopez hits her acting career peak as sizzling US Marshal Karen Sisco.

Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin's Godzilla remake is released on May 19 and, after a year of hype on the Internet (Emmerich and Devlin were one of the first filmmaking teams to create a website for a film). The irradiated lizard opens to harsh reviews and above-average numbers, but the audience quickly tapers off. Though it ends up the #9 film for the year, it's a disappoinment for Emmerich after the blockbuster Independence Day. Adding insult to injury, the film is even made sport of in Armageddon, the #1 film of the summer, when an advance meteorite shower takes out a street vendor hawking Godzilla-like merchandise.

April 24th: IMDb offcially becomes an Amazon.com company.

July 29th: User comments system is launched.

September: A major site redesign is launched. The site now streamlines individual pages of information and the tab structure at the top of the navigation bar is introduced. Much of the skeletal look and feel of this redesign remains to this day.

New lists added: in-production, plot outlines.

December 31st: IMDb covers nearly 180,000 movie titles (including TV-series and video games) and filmographies for 2,610,997 people. 2,096,068 data items are submitted in 1998 alone.

Earth is nearly destroyed twice, as disaster movies Armageddon and Deep Impact become huge box-office hits. The end up at #2 and #7 on the year-end box office chart, respectively.

Fans of Mulder and Scully are appeased -- up to a certain point -- with the release of The X Files movie, where the special agents fight a conspiracy to cover-up an alien colonization of Earth. At least we think that's what it was about ...

As Bruce Willis and Demi Moore announce their divorce, Barbra Streisand and James Brolin marry.

Director Bill Condon follows up Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh with Gods and Monsters a studied look at the last days of Frankenstein director James Whale, as portrayed by Ian McKellen. Both McKellen and his co-star, Brendan Fraser, astonish critics and audiences.

Chicago Hope's Christine Lahti wins the Golden Globe, though she's in the bathroom at the time her name is announced; Camryn Manheim wins the Best Supporting Actress Emmy for her portrayal of junior attorney Ellenor Frutt on The Practice. At the podium she exclaims: "This is for the fat girls!"

Norm Macdonald is fired from Saturday Night Live newsdesk. During an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman, Macdonald blamed NBC West Coast president Don Ohlmeyer for the dismissal, and revealed what Ohlmeyer had told him: "You're not funny."


	In 1998 the United States is so broke that Chet Roosevelt, the President of the United States, decides to raise money by holding a telethon in Americathon.