Jack in line", while Kempley declared Jeff's performance the best of his career. Despite feeling the film is "hardly original", Time Out described the Bridges as "a superb double act", writing Jeff particularly "manages with very sparse dialogue to convey a wealth of information about a less than sympathetic character". Although Variety felt nothing is particularly original about the film, they praised the cast and Kloves's direction, predicting Pfeiffer's performance of "Makin' Whoopee" will be remembered for years to come. Although Hilary Mantel of The Spectator praised the film's music, performances and dialogue, she felt the film lacked content and plot, concluding, "its inconsequentiality soon begins to grate on the nerves." Film critic Andrew Sarris reported that, at the time of its initial release, some pundits criticized the film's melancholy tone and ambiguous ending. In terms of year-end placements, Ebert ranked The Fabulous Baker Boys the 19th best film of 1989, while the National Board of Review cited it among the year's 10 best. Writer Piero Scaruffi named the film one of the best of 1989, while The Washington Post declared The Fabulous Baker Boys one of the 10 best films of the 1980s. Awards and nominationsThe Fabulous Baker Boys was nominated for several awards and accolades. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards at the 62nd Academy Awards in 1990: Best Actress for Pfeiffer, Best Cinematography for Ballhaus, Best Original Score for Grusin and Best Film Editing for William Steinnkamp. The film ultimately lost all four awards for which it had been nominated. Pfeiffer dominated the 1989-1990 awards season, winning nearly every award for which she had been nominated. In addition to the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama, Pfeiffer won the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress, the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress, the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, the Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress. At the time, she was one of only seven actresses to win a Golden Globe and all four major critics' organizations awards for a single performance. Despite being largely favored to win the Academy Award, she ultimately lost to Jessica Tandy, becoming the only one of the seven actresses to not win the Academy Award for the same performance. Film critic Emanuel Levy theorized