The American Cinematheque presented the 31st American Cinematheque Award to five-time Oscar nominee (Junebug, Doubt, The Fighter, The Master, American Hustle) Amy Adams at the Cinematheque’s annual benefit gala on Friday night (11/10) at The Beverly Hilton.
Adams was the unanimous choice of the Cinematheque Board of Directors selection committee. Since 1986, the organization has annually honored an extraordinary artist in the film industry, who is fully engaged in his or her work and is committed to making a significant contribution to the art of the motion picture. For many years, the event was known as the Moving Picture Ball. Funds raised benefit the year-round programming of the non-profit cultural organization, the American Cinematheque (founded in 1981 by Gary Essert and Gary Abrahams).
Presenting the honor to Adams–after some of her most memorable movie scenes played before the gala audience–were a succession of notables including Tom Hanks, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Kristen Stewart, Natalie Portman, Justin Timberlake, Chris Messina, and Denis Villeneuve who directed Adams in Arrival.
Previous American Cinematheque Award honorees include: Eddie Murphy (1986), Bette Midler (1987), Robin Williams (1988), Steven Spielberg (1989), Ron Howard (1990), Martin Scorsese (1991), Sean Connery (1992), Michael Douglas (1993), Rob Reiner (1994), Mel Gibson (1995), Tom Cruise (1996), John Travolta (1997), Arnold Schwarzenegger (1998), Jodie Foster (1999), Bruce Willis (2000), Nicolas Cage (2001), Denzel Washington (2002), Nicole Kidman (2003), Steve Martin (2004), Al Pacino (2005), George Clooney (2006), Julia Roberts (2007), Samuel L. Jackson (2008), Matt Damon (2010), Robert Downey Jr. (2011), Ben Stiller (2012), Jerry Bruckheimer (2013), Matthew McConaughey (2014), Reese Witherspoon (2015), and Ridley Scott (2016).
Meanwhile, another notable, director Christopher Nolan, earlier in the evening at the Cinematheque festivities presented the 3rd Annual Sid Grauman Award to Richard Gelfond and Greg Foster on behalf of IMAX for their outstanding contribution to theatrical exhibition.
Cinematheque chairman Rick Nicita said of Gelfond and Foster, “Their leadership of IMAX has resulted in a breathtaking expansion of not only box office grosses around the world but in a quantum leap forward for the excitement and enjoyment of the movie-going audience. There is no better way to see a movie than on the big screen and IMAX gives us the biggest screens of all.”
Nolan deployed IMAX cameras for his latest lauded feature, Dunkirk, which is very much in this season’s Oscar conversation. Nolan was actually one of the first directors to use IMAX cameras on a feature to great effect, yielding The Dark Knight.
