Reversal of Fortune |- | valign="top" | Jeremy Irons – Reversal of Fortune as Claus von Bülow Kevin Costner – Dances with Wolves as Lieutenant John J. Dunbar Robert De Niro – Awakenings as Leonard Lowe Gérard Depardieu – Cyrano de Bergerac as Cyrano de Bergerac Richard Harris – The Field as "Bull" McCabe | valign="top" | Kathy Bates – Misery as Annie Wilkes Anjelica Huston – The Grifters as Lilly Dillon Julia Roberts – Pretty Woman as Vivian Ward Meryl Streep – Postcards from the Edge as Suzanne Vale Joanne Woodward – Mr. and Mrs. Bridge as India Bridge |- | valign="top" | Joe Pesci – Goodfellas as Tommy DeVito Bruce Davison – Longtime Companion as David Andy García – The Godfather Part III as Vincent Corleone Graham Greene – Dances with Wolves as Kicking Bird Al Pacino – Dick Tracy as Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice | valign="top" | Whoopi Goldberg – Ghost as Oda Mae Brown Annette Bening – The Grifters as Myra Langtry Lorraine Bracco – Goodfellas as Karen Friedman Hill Diane Ladd – Wild at Heart as Marietta Fortune Mary McDonnell – Dances with Wolves as Stands with a Fist |- | valign="top" | Ghost – Bruce Joel Rubin Alice – Woody Allen Avalon – Barry Levinson Green Card – Peter Weir Metropolitan – Whit Stillman | valign="top" | Dances with Wolves – Michael Blake based on his novel Awakenings – Steven Zaillian from the book by Oliver Sacks Goodfellas – Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese from Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi The Grifters – Donald E. Westlake based on the book by Jim Thompson Reversal of Fortune – Nicholas Kazan based on the book by Alan M. Dershowitz |- | valign="top" | Journey of Hope (Switzerland) in German – Xavier Koller Cyrano de Bergerac (France) in French – Jean-Paul Rappeneau Ju Dou (China) in Mandarin Chinese – Zhang Yimou and Yang Fengliang The Nasty Girl (Germany) in German – Michael Verhoeven Open Doors (Italy) in Italian – Gianni Amelio | valign="top" | American Dream – Barbara Kopple and Arthur Cohn Berkeley in the Sixties – Mark Kitchell Building Bombs – Mark Mori and Susan Robinson Forever Activists: Stories from the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade – Judith Montell Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey – Robert Hillmann and Eugene Corr |- | valign="top" | Days of Waiting – Steven Okazaki Burning Down Tomorrow – Kit Thomas