The World According to Garp (1982 George Roy Hill)

Still brilliant screenplay by Steve Tesich from John Irving novel - an interesting story, to say the least! Funny, epic, thoughtful and tragic film (though Garp doesn't necessarily die in inconclusive ending).

Robin Williams (who gave up coke around this time), Glenn Close, John Lithgow, Mary Beth Hurt, Swoosie Kurtz. No surprise that Close & Lithgow were nominated. Love the scene where Close interviews hooker Kurtz (watch her face closely; she's hilarious):

Hill (who appears as the pilot who crashes into Garp's house) is a seriously underrated director whose films are always more than watchable (Slaughterhouse Five is one of the best and least-known). Note how well he does those crowd scenes (Roberta's worried scanning of the crowd adds enormously to the tension):

Also the punch of the crash scene, achieved with a zoom in on a freeze frame of the boys in the back of the car.

Now for a Nick Mini Film Lecture.
There are certain films that benefit enormously from the introduction of a (new) character later in the story. One is Kings Row, when everything's looking rather gloomy but then Ann Sheridan comes back into the story and brightens everything up. Another example is The Man Who Came to Dinner when the pace is slightly flagging and Jimmy Durante arrives like a whirlwind and energises proceedings. Here is another - a career best performance from John Lithgow as a transsexual former football star who becomes a loyal family friend.

Shot by Miroslav Ondricek.

P.S. 5/10/17 Very interesting to read in William Goldman's 'Adventures in the Screen Trade' that Hill had always had childhood fantasies of flying. Goldman wrote a fantasy beginning to The Great Waldo Pepper in which a young boy is flying though the sky, then joined by many others, and whilst it didn't make it into that film it somehow reappears here in the animated sequence.