64th Academy Awards for the third consecutive year. Three weeks earlier, in a ceremony held at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles on March 7, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by host Tom Hanks. "The Silence of the Lambs" won five awards including Best Picture. Other winners included "" with four awards, "Beauty and the Beast", "Bugsy", and "JFK" with two, and "City Slickers", "", "The Fisher King", "In the Shadow of the Stars", "Manipulation", "Mediterraneo", "Session Man", and "Thelma & Louise" with one. The telecast garnered more than 44 million viewers in the United States. The nominees for
Academy Awards contains any notable changes, nor gives ABC any further creative control over the telecast. Historically, the "Oscarcast" has pulled in a bigger haul when box-office hits are favored to win the Best Picture trophy. More than 57.25 million viewers tuned to the telecast for the 70th Academy Awards in 1998, the year of "Titanic", which generated close to US$600 million at the North American box office pre-Oscars. The 76th Academy Awards ceremony in which "" (pre-telecast box office earnings of US$368 million) received 11 Awards including Best Picture drew 43.56 million viewers. The most watched ceremony based on Nielsen ratings