This is a good example of why the Oscars are a bad metric of movie history. Public perception and media narrative have such an undue influence on who wins (at the time) that it makes the award rather meaningless. All that context is lost as the decades move on and people forget.

Basinger was coming off of a few high-profile duds and was largely seen as on her way out of Hollywood. So, everyone loves a comeback story and voted for that instead of giving it to ( the relative newcomer) Moore. Plus, Moore’s nom was hampered by being in such a big cast. Not a traditional ‘leading actress’ part even though she is the emotional crux of that movie.