Academy Awards

• All the films Oliver Stone either wrote, directed, or produced, earned a total of 48 Academy Award nominations
  
• They have won a total of 13 Academy Awards
  
• Stone has won 3
  

Stone after winning an Oscar for his screenplay of Midnight Express

Actors Who Became Stars With Stone's Guidence

• James Woods - Before starring in Stone's Salvador, he had been      acting in relatively small roles.  After he starred in Salvador, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance.  He eventually earned another Academy Award nomination, starred in two more Stone movies, and starred in Martin Scorsese's Casino.
  
• Johnny Depp - Starred in only two movies prior to Stone's Platoon, where he played Lerner, the first wounded soldier in the Viet Cong ambush scene.  Depp went on to star in Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and Donnie Brasco.
  
• Willem Dafoe - Like Woods, Dafoe starred in a few small roles before starring as Sgt. Elias in Stone's Platoon.  Platoon, many say, was the best work of Dafoe's career, and he earned his first of two Academy Award nominations.  Following Platoon, Dafoe starred in Stone's Born on the Fourth of July, played Jesus in Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, and Shadow of the Vampire.
  
• Charlie Sheen - He was the second person in the Sheen family to get their break from a Vietnam War movie (His father, Martin, of course starred in Apocalypse Now).  Platoon earned him much respect from critics as well as another starring role in a Stone film.  In Stone's Wall Street, he and his father starred side by side in his last major movie.  Unfortunately, Sheen joined the many American's struggling with drug problems, but luckily, has regained stardom by taking Michael J. Fox's place on the hit TV show Spin City.
  
• Tom Sizemore - Before Natural Born Killers, Sizemore's only other recognized role was a paraplegic in Stone's Born on the Fourth of July.  Although his role in NBK was not a huge role, because of the popularity of the film, he received recognition from the biggest names in Hollywood.  He eventually starred in Heat, Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (many people think he should have received at least an Academy Award nomination for his performance), and Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead.
  
• Tom Cruise - Cruise was actually considered a star before he starred in Stone's Born on the Fourth of July, but was not really considered a great actor.  Cruise's performance as a patriotic American who changes into a paralyzed, heartbroken American was so highly praised that he earned the first of three Academy Award nominations.  He would eventually star in Jerry Maguire and Mission: Impossible, and has worked with Martin Scorsese, Stone, Steven Spielberg, and Francis Ford Coppola.
  
• Kevin Bacon - Kevin Bacon had starred in some movies before JFK, but none were really challenging or popular.  When he played the southern, homosexual Willie O'Keefe, he was offered several more challenging and adult roles.  Of all his famous post-JFK movies, the two finest were A Few Good Men and Apollo 13.
  
• Frank Whaley - Prior to 1989, Whaley's only recognized work was in the baseball classic Field of Dreams.  After costarring in Born on the Fourth of July with Cruise, Whaley went on a rampage.  Besides starring in Stone's The Doors and JFK, Whaley starred in Swimming With Sharks with Kevin Spacey, Pulp Fiction, I.Q., and made his directorial debut with Joe the King.