"Sense and Sensibility" collected a leading six nominations Thursday for the Golden Globe Awards, and "The American President" earned the second most selections with five.
Nominated for best dramatic motion picture were "Sense and Sensibility," "Apollo 13," "Braveheart," "The Bridges of Madison County" and "Leaving Las Vegas."Nominated for best musical or comic motion picture were "The American President," "Babe," "Get Shorty," "Sabrina" and "Toy Story."
Nominations for the 53rd annual awards were made by about 90 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The Globes often presage the Academy Awards. The awards, plus an honorary award for Sean Connery, will be presented Jan. 21 in a program broadcast by NBC.
Unlike the Oscars, the Golden Globes divides films into two categories, drama and musical-or-comedy. Nominated for best dramatic actor were Nicolas Cage for "Leaving Las Vegas," Richard Dreyfuss for "Mr. Holland's Opus," Anthony Hopkins for "Nixon," Ian McKellen for "Richard III" and Sean Penn for "Dead Man Walking."
The dramatic actress selections were Susan Sarandon for "Dead Man Walking," Elisabeth Shue for "Leaving Las Vegas," Sharon Stone for "Casino," Meryl Streep for "The Bridges of Madison County" and Emma Thompson in "Sense and Sensibility."
The Golden Globe voters snubbed two films that had been considered favorites for both Golden Globes and Academy Awards for best 1995 films: Oliver Stone's "Nixon" and Martin Scorsese's "Casino" both failed to be nominated for best dramatic movie.
Scorsese did get a nomination for best director, however. Stone did not. The other best director nominees were Mike Figgis for "Leaving Las Vegas," Mel Gibson for "Braveheart," Ron Howard for "Apollo 13," Ang Lee for "Sense and Sensibility" and Rob Reiner for "The American President."
Named for best supporting actress were Anjelica Huston for "The Crossing Guard," Kathleen Quinlan for "Apollo 13," Kyra Sedgwick for "Something to Talk About," Mira Sorvino for "Mighty Aphrodite" and Kate Winslett for "Sense and Sensibility."
Nominated for best supporting actor were Ed Harris for "Apollo 13," John Leguizamo for "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar," Brad Pitt in "Twelve Monkeys," Tim Roth for "Rob Roy" and Kevin Spacey for "The Usual Suspects."
Supporting acting awards are not divided between drama and musical-or-comedy.
Although the Golden Globes are far less prestigious than the Oscars, they can influence Academy Award voting and often predict top nominees.
In nominations for television shows, the picks for best drama series were "Chicago Hope," "ER," "Murder One," "NYPD Blue" and "Party of Five."
The best comedy nominations were "Cybill," "Frasier," "Friends," "Mad About You" and "Seinfeld."