Top Box Office in 1997


1	Men in Black (1997)
2	The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
3	Liar Liar (1997)
4	Air Force One (1997)
5	My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)
6	Face/Off (1997)
7	Batman & Robin (1997)
8	George of the Jungle (1997)
9	Con Air (1997)
10	Contact (1997)
11	Hercules (1997)
12	Jerry Maguire (1996)
13	Titanic (1997)
14	Scream (1996/I)
15	Conspiracy Theory (1997)

Best Picture in 1997:
Titanic

Best Actor: Jack Nicholson, As Good as It Gets
Best Actress: Helen Hunt, As Good as It Gets
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1	Stanley Cortez
2	Jacques-Yves Cousteau
3	Chris Farley
4	Marco Ferreri
5	Samuel Fuller
6	Brian Keith
7	Burgess Meredith
8	Toshirô Mifune
9	Robert Mitchum
10	Marjorie Reynolds
11	James Stewart
12	The Notorious B.I.G.

Highest Rated in 1997


1	Vita è bella, La (1997)
2	L.A. Confidential (1997)
3	Mononoke-hime (1997)
4	"Riget II" (1997)
5	Shin seiki Evangelion Gekijô-ban: Air/Magokoro wo, kimi ni (1997)
6	The Sweet Hereafter (1997)
7	Abre los ojos (1997)
8	Good Will Hunting (1997)
9	Hana-bi (1997)
10	Karakter (1997)
11	As Good as It Gets (1997)
12	Gattaca (1997)
13	Boogie Nights (1997)
14	Bacheha-Ye aseman (1997)
15	Knockin' on Heaven's Door (1997)

Editors picks for 1997


1	Mononoke-hime (1997)
2	In the Company of Men (1997)
3	Gattaca (1997)
4	Jackie Brown (1997)
5	Ma vie en rose (1997)

Ellen DeGeneres comes out of the closet on her ABC sitcom, Ellen, in April; an estimated 42 million people watch. A few months later, in July, her secret love affair with Anne Heche grabs headlines.

Writer-director Curtis Hanson emerges from the shadows with L.A. Confidential, an adaptation of James Ellroy's noir novel that opens to some of the best reviews of the year. The tale of police corruption and Hollywood sleaze goes on to win a pair of Oscars, including a Best Supporting Actress award for Kim Basinger (her first).

Good Will Hunting, a mainstream departure for director Gus Van Sant, becomes a huge box office hit, introduces the world to co-writers/stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and goes on to win two Oscars.

Men in Black is released on July 2nd, earning $84.1 million over the holiday weekend; it will go on to be the box-office champ of the year (besting The Lost World: Jurassic Park) and seals Will Smith's reputation as Mr. July 4th.

Ang Lee's ensemble drama The Ice Storm becomes one of the biggest hits to date for relatively new indie distributor Fox Searchlight.

All three original Star Wars films are warmly greeted upon their re-release in theaters; George Lucas uses then-state-of-the-art technology to enhance scenes and reinstate sequences that he thought did not work the first time around - the most memorable being the meeting between Han Solo and Jabba the Hutt. Some don't take kindly to the tinkering, however, and Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back includes the line: "This flick may be the worst idea since Greedo shooting first."

Sensitive to the portrayal of its relationship to Tibet, the Hong Kong government looks to halt production on Kundun, Martin Scorsese's film about the life of the 14th Dalai Lama. Disney hires former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger in an effort to rebuild relations with China, ultimately signing an agreement to build a multi-million dollar theme park there.

Warner Bros. makes history by webcasting 15 minutes of live, full-motion video of Kevin Costner directing a sequence for The Postman, his $80 million directorial follow-up to Waterworld. The film bombs, falling out of the top 10 in its second week, and is partially responsible for the firing of Warner marketing chief Chris Pula, who is canned after only 11 months on the job.

Luc Besson's insane, colorful The Fifth Element is the first film to send Bruce Willis into the future, and introduces us to Chris Tucker and Milla Jovovich.

March 7th: IMDb wins the Webby Award in the Film category at the first annual Webby Awards.

Studio Briefing news added to the site.

September 5th: Two new lists, the awards and the awards master lists, are added.

New lists added: DVD, posters, TV guest appearances, trailers.

December: IMDb user registration system launched.

December 31st: IMDb covers nearly 127,000 movie titles and over 1,950,000 credits for individuls. 2,852,250 data items submitted in 1997 alone.

The Simpsons eclipses The Flintstones as the longest-running animated prime-time television program. On February 9th, the 167th episode airs.

A Superbowl ad pairs Fred Astaire with a Dust Devil broom.

Dawn Steel, the first woman to be named head of studio (Columbia, 1987), succumbs to a brain tumor.

Michelle Yeoh makes her English-language debut as Wai Lin, a member of the People's External Security Force, in the 18th James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies.

President Bill Clinton's attempt to remove footage of himself from Contact is unsuccessful; in a related story, CNN announces that it will no longer permit its anchors and reporters to play themselves in film and TV dramas.

Three African-American directors emerge with well-received films: Kasi Lemmons (Eve's Bayou), Theodore Witcher (Love Jones), and George Tillman Jr. (Soul Food).

Snake Plissken has to retrieve the President from the maximum security prison that is New York City in Escape From New York.

SkyNet, the overlord computer that destroys civilization as we know it, becomes sentient and starts all-out nuclear war, according to The Terminator and The Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

The world is so over-populated in 1997 that the Robinson family, Maj. Don West and the wily Dr. Smith seek some elbow room and get Lost in Space.