Driving Miss Daisy

Driving Miss Daisy was given a limited release on December 15, 1989, earning $73,745 in three theaters. The film was given a wide release on January 26, 1990, earning $5,705,721 over its opening weekend in 895 theaters, becoming the number one film in the United States. It remained at number 1 the following week but was knocked off the top spot in its third weekend of wide release by Hard to Kill. It returned to number one the next weekend and remained there for a fourth week. The film ultimately grossed $106,593,296 in North America, and $39,200,000 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $145,793,296.[2] The film was released in the United Kingdom on February 23, 1990.[5]

Driving Miss Daisy was well received by critics, with particular emphasis on the screenplay & Morgan Freeman's and Jessica Tandy's performances. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 81% based on reviews from 64 critics, with an average score of 7.28/10. The website's critical consensus states: "Warm and smartly paced, and boasting impeccable performances from Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy."[6] On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 based on reviews from mainstream critics, the film has a score of 81 based on 17 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[7] CinemaScore similarly reported that audiences gave the film a rare "A+" grade.[8]

Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune declared Driving Miss Daisy one of the best films of 1989.[9] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a film of great love and patience" and wrote, "It is an immensely subtle film, in which hardly any of the most important information is carried in the dialogue and in which body language, tone of voice or the look in an eye can be the most important thing in a scene. After so many movies in which shallow and violent people deny their humanity and ours, what a lesson to see a film that looks into the heart."[10]

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone also gave the film a positive review, calling Tandy's performance "glorious" and opining, "This is Tandy's finest two hours onscreen in a film career that goes back to 1932."[11] The performances of Tandy and Freeman were also praised by Vincent Canby of The New York Times, who observed, "The two actors manage to be highly theatrical without breaking out of the realistic frame of the film."[12]

Driving Miss Daisy received 9 Academy Award nominations and also achieved the following distinctions in Oscar history:

• It is the only film based on an off-Broadway production ever to win Best Picture.[13]
• Jessica Tandy (at age 81), became the oldest winner in history to win Best Actress.[13]
• It was the first Best Picture winner since Grand Hotel in 1932 to not also receive a Best Director nomination (this has only occurred twice since, Argo in 2012 and Green Book in 2018; Wings the first to win Best Picture in 1927 did not have a nomination for director William A. Wellman). In his opening monologue at the 62nd awards ceremony, host Billy Crystal made fun of this irony by calling it "the film that apparently directed itself".[14]
• It would also be the last Best Picture winner to be rated PG (to date). All the winners since have been mostly rated PG-13 and R.

In 2015, The Hollywood Reporter polled hundreds of Academy members, asking them to re-vote on past controversial decisions. Academy members indicated that, given a second chance, they would award the 1990 Oscar for Best Picture to My Left Foot instead.[17]