Awakenings is a 1990 American drama film based on Oliver Sacks's 1973 memoir Awakenings. It tells the true story of British neurologist Oliver Sacks, fictionalized as American Malcolm Sayer and portrayed by Robin Williams who, in 1969, discovers beneficial effects of the then-new drug L-Dopa. He administered it to catatonic patients who survived the 1917–28 epidemic of encephalitis lethargica. Leonard Lowe and the rest of the patients were awakened after decades of catatonia and have to deal with a new life in a new time. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards. Directed by... Penny Marshall, the film was produced by Walter Parkes and Lawrence Lasker, who first encountered Sacks's book as undergraduates at Yale University and optioned it a few years later. Awakenings stars Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, Julie Kavner, Ruth Nelson, John Heard, Penelope Ann Miller, and Max Von Sydow.
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| Release date: | December 12, 1990 |
| Directed by: | Penny Marshall |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 121 Minutes |
| Producer: | Walter F. Parkes, Lawrence Lasker |
| Editor: | Gerald B. Greenberg, Battle Davis |
| Music by: | Randy Newman |
| Cinematography: | Miroslav Ondříček |
| Screenplay by: | Steven Zaillian |
| Adapted from: | Awakenings |