3. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Academy Award nominations: 7, for Best Picture, Best Director (Allen), Best Original Screenplay (Allen), Best Supporting Actor (Michael Caine), Best Supporting Actress (Dianne Wiest), Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing.
Wins for Original Screenplay, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress. You can't watch an Allen film these days without - despite the film's quality - marvelling at the massively talented cast he manages to gather. Perhaps no film of his has better married a stunning cast with an outstanding script than
Hannah and Her Sisters, which tells a chaotic, interweaving story of a family with all of the humour and humanity one would expect from Allen. Though Allen's work might often come across as cynical and "realistic", this is one of his more optimistic works, promoting the virtue of perseverance against the tide, particularly in relation to Allen's own character Mickey. The message, of not giving up on life, and rather learning to experience and enjoy its mysteries rather than attempt to codify and understand them, is a thoughtful and comforting philosophy. Probably the only real complaint is that it all does wrap up a little too neatly, almost reaching too far with its optimism that something a little more plausible and messy might have worked better. Still, Allen himself acknowledged this flaw, and claimed it has informed many of his subsequent works, which are much less tidy in their conclusions.