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The Oscars are often accused of rewarding performers for a body of work and not the film for which they are nominated. Yes, I'm looking at Al Pacino's egregious win for Scent of a Woman over four more deserving performances from Denzel Washington in Malcolm X, Robert Downey Jr. in Chaplin, Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven and Stephen Rea in The Crying Game. That's for another discussion entirely, so I digress.

Arguably, the Academy nominated Spacey for not just his performance in the Usual Suspects but also his Se7en turn. Regardless, while John Doe got what he deserved in Se7en, Spacey definitely got what he deserved in the form of a Supporting Actor Oscar for two great performances.

No doubt salivating at the prospect of having an Oscar winner and someone that audiences now recognize; the studios apparently failed to entice Spacey to leading man roles. He wisely followed up these notable supporting roles with more supporting roles.

His immediate Oscar encore was in the holy grail of novel-to-film adaptations in the '90s, A Time to Kill, which was John Grisham's first book and the one he was most hesitant to give a big screen treatment. While in the summer of 1996 A Time to Kill was the launching pad for the artist formerly known as Wooderson and a summer movie at its heart, the film also attracted big names in Sandra Bullock, Samuel L. Jackson, and Spacey. As the district attorney tasked with prosecuting a man for avenging the rape of his little girl, Spacey's name was finally above the title but the role was still just on the peripheral like Bullock's compared to Jackson and Matthew McConaughey. Marketing was suspect at best for this one because Bullock got top billing for minimal screen time, so Spacey probably shouldn't think that he had arrived with his name in lights. I blame this advertising misdirection on director Joel Schumacher...well, because I want to blame him for anything as often as possible. Make no mistake; the real star of A Time to Kill was the Grisham brand name and a sweaty Southerner with a penchant for left-handed cigarettes.

Around this time, Spacey's choices seemed to mirror his pre-Oscar glory days and he didn't rush into the next big thing or even the next small thing. He reunited with his Glengarry Glen Ross co-star Al Pacino for Pacino's directorial debut Looking for Richard. Spacey's participation this documentary/literary analysis of Shakespeare's play was clearly just another opportunity to work with the legend of Al Pacino before he became the reigning, self-parodying mayor of "Hoo-Wah" Land.

It would be almost another year before Spacey would appear in a film and it was worth the wait in 1997. The 100%-superior-to-Titanic L.A. Confidential was released with the type of strong cast that Spacey tended to surround himself with. Similar to the "untruth in advertising" of A Time to Kill, Spacey received top billing. While the role was pivotal and showcased his ability to play smarminess with a touch of redemption, his Jack Vincennes was only a supporting player. It simply made more sense for Warner Bros. to give a recognizable Oscar winner the top spot instead of giving two unknown Australians - Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe - the honors. Powered by critical praise for the 1940s crime noir homage and the stellar direction and acting that it featured, the film earned more than $64 million against a surprisingly low $35 million budget. More importantly for Spacey, the film garnered enough Oscar goodwill in general (granted, not for him) to keep his profile high.

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