The 10 Best Films of the 1990s
Jun 18 '04 (Updated Jun 26 '04)
The Bottom Line The 10 Best Movies of the 1990s. Here is a list of 19 movies that I feel really shaped movies in the 1990's, and the reason that we love cinema
To come up with any Top 10 list, you are always going to weight heavily on what your opinions of films are at the time. If you don't like a film, it probably won't make it very high on your list, even if millions of people saw it. On the other hand, you may be a big fan of an actor, and think of it as a better movie than another just because they were in the film. What I have compiled here, is a list of what I thought were the 10 best movies of the 1990's. Of course personal opinion comes in to play, but I did not go with my personal favorites of a genre, rather I went with what I thought were the 10 best movies to come out during the years 1990-1999
This was not an easy list to create, and I went through a lot of research trying to make sure that I was not leaving a great movie off of my list. I reference imdb.com, amazon, even my own collection to make sure that I was not forgetting anything. Then, to make sure that I was not making a decision based on other peoples choices, I avoided reading any of the top 10 lists on the Epinions Site. So, without any more delay, or explanation, here is my list of the top 10 movies of the 1990's.
First of all, in order to get to my ultimate top 10, I ended up having to remove some great movies from my list. I ended up with 19 movies that I think had a great impact on the 1990's, and I knew that it would be tough to narrow it down to 10. When I eventually did, I also knew that I would have to mention the 9 that were left off of my list. So, in no particular order here are the films I would place at 11-19 if I were making a top 19 list.
The Lion King (1994)
In the highest grossing cartoon of the 90's, this movie centers around a lion cub, who will soon be asked to fill the role of the "king of the jungle." The main character, Simba, goes through a lot of trials, and life-changing events with the help of two other animals by the names of Timon and Pumbaa. This is a very fun movie that has one of the best movie soundtracks of all time as part of it. It did well in theaters, as well as in the hearts of everyone that saw it.
Pulp Fiction (1994) Starring John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Bruce Willis
In this film by Quentin Tarantino, we are treated to many stories, with many different characters that interlock with every change of scenery. The film uses the unique method of showing scenes out of chronological order. This leaves the viewer with only partial information, right up until the end of the film when everything finally comes together. This was a very interesting film, which ended up helping shape how movies would be made after it.
Toy Story (1995) Starring the voices of Tim Allen and Tom Hanks
Produced by Pixar films, this film was done entirely with computer animation. It showed the world, that a new method of film animation was here to stay, and that in order to stay with the times all animation would soon have to involve computers. The movie centers around the secret lives that toys lead when they are not being watched. Allen and Hanks play the two lead characters, as we are able to see the adventures that 2 toys go through on a daily basis. In a very inventive story, this movie helps show where movies like Finding Nemo and Shrek will be coming from.
L.A. Confidential (1997) Starring Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, and Danny DeVito
This film boasts one of the biggest "star-power" casts of the 1990's With Russell and Spacey right before they became Mega-stars this film has all of the makings of a great detective story of the 1930's. Set in 1950's L.A. , Russell, Spacey, and Crowe play police officers who must deal with a night club shooting that ends up being more than it appears on the surface. They are all hard-nosed cops with defining styles that help piece together a crime-wave that leads them right back to the department where they work. This is one of those films that will stand the test of time, and 20 years from now, people will still be able to watch it for the first time and enjoy it. All of the actors but in stellar performances, and the movies shines from beginning to end.
Good Will Hunting (1997) Starring Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Robin Williams
This is the film that put Damon and Affleck into the front of our minds as actors. Damon plays Will Hunting, who is a genius who has been living a hard life in Boston. He has taken a job at MIT as a custodian, and one night he sees an unsolvable math problem put up on a chalk-board in the hallways. He quickly solves it, and the people who figure it out, peg him as a genius who has not been seeing his full potential played out. Affleck plays his best friend, who thinks that life has more to offer him, and Williams plays the psychiatrist who wants to help Will get in touch with the demons that have been plaguing him. This is a great film that won a few academy awards, and it helps to show us that no matter where you start out, you can still become a great person.
Dances With Wolves (1990) Starring Kevin Costner
In the 1990 winner for Best Picture at the academy awards, Costner plays the lead role of Lt. John Dunbar. He is exiled to a remote western Civil War outpost, befriends wolves and Indians, and becomes an intolerable aberration to the military. What starts out as a film of a soldier doing his duty and nothing else, turns into a man fighting to save the people he has befriended and find himself at the same time. In a beautifully filmed movie, Costner is at his best has a man with nothing, who soon finds that the best part of ourselves might have more to do with our actions than our thoughts.
The Truman Show (1998) Starring Jim Carrey and Ed Harris
In an exceptionally original movie topic, Jim Carry plays the title role of Truman, a man who has led a life that is not his own. From birth, he has been video-taped, and now televised to a world-wide audience as he grows into a man. His entire life is a T.V. show where everyone around him is an actor, and he has no idea what is going on. His friends, his family, and everything that he believes in, has been staged around him. Thinking he is an ordinary human being leading a normal life, he has no idea just how much he is being exploited. The movie turns great, and Jim Carrey shows off his acting talents, when Truman starts to discover what has been going on for all these years. This is Carrey's best film yet, and gives us as an audience, a scary glimpse into what reality television could eventually turn in to.
Schindler’s List (1993) Starring Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, and Ralph Fiennes
In a film Directed by Steven Spielberg, Oskar Schindler uses Jewish workers to man his factory in Poland during WWII. Witnessing what is happening to Jews everywhere, he takes it upon himself to save as many of them as he can. Being a greedy businessman prior to the war, the transformation of the man becomes an important part of the movie. Based on a true story, this is a dark film about some of the worst things that happened during WWII, and one mans quest to try and save as many people as he can. Schindler is played by Neeson, and Ralph Fiennes stars as a Nazi war-criminal who will stop at nothing to eradicate as many people as he can. This is a movie that plays with your heart-strings at some points, and at others makes you sick to your stomach as you see things that you don't want to believe could have happened. The film shows the dark side of WWII, and all of the people involved made it one that was worth seeing.
Jurassic Park (1993) Starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum
In another Steven Spielberg film, we are treated to one of the best dinosaur movies ever made. A scientist discovers a mosquito that has bitten a dinosaur, and then was encrusted in tree sap that hardened and was saved for millions of years. He takes the DNA from that insect, and after crossing it with a frogs DNA we have dinosaurs. While the premise about how they were created gets some people stuck, and they don't like the movie because of it, this movie made my list for everything else that it had to offer. The movie ushered in a new era of special effects, and when the dinos where brought to life by Spielberg, we no longer were hung up on the plot, but rather how fast we needed to run to get away from them. The film was written by Michael Crichton, and even though it came out back in 1993, is still a big film today.
So those were the honorable mentions on my list, now lets get to the meat, and my top 10 list of the best films of the 1990's
10. The Matrix (1999) Starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, and Carrie-Anne Moss
When The Matrix came out, it flat out blew audiences away with the special effects wizardry that the Washowski brothers put on the screen. They had invented new ways to use the camera, and the term "bullet-time" was entered into our collective consciences to stay. The premise of the story was that a computer hacker named Neo (Keanu Reeves) learns from a few people that he could be the catalyst in a war against machines that have taken over the planet. It turns out that the human race no longer runs the planet, but serves as an energy source to the machines that now cover everything. The movie helped set the standard by which all action movies are made now, and the slow-motion sequences with rotating cameras has become something that we see in a lot of films. Not only that, but the movie has already led to two follow-up films in the 4 years since it came out.
9. Philadelphia (1993) Starring Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington
When a man with AIDS (Tom Hanks) is fired by a conservative law firm because of his condition, he hires Denzel Washington's character to defend him in a case of wrongful dismissal. Hanks plays a lawyer, who up till his illness was discovered, performed very well for the company that ends up firing him. Washington plays the lawyer, who at first is quite scared of catching the disease by just being in the same room as Hanks. The movie then moves to a court case that helps to show just how afraid our society has become of the virus, and how careless some people can be about the well-being of their employees. This is Hanks and Washington at their finest in a dramatic role that calls into question everything that makes up the human psyche.
8. Forrest Gump (1994) Starring Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise
In this film Directed by Robert Zemeckis, Tom Hanks plays the title role of Forrest Gump. Born with a low IQ, Gump falls into many historic events that take place around the story of his life. The film chronicles his accidental experiences with some of the most important people and events in America from the late 1950's through the 1970's including meetings with Elvis Presley, JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and fighting in Vietnam. It even throws in technological increase such as Apple which Gump becomes involved in by accident. Sinise plays his friend who he had saved in the war, and Robin Wright Penn stars as the girl of his dreams, Jenny. This is a great story about the History of the United States through the eyes of someone who has no understanding of what is going on around him. The innocence that he has, is what adds to the films greatness, and ended up winning Tom Hanks his second academy award for best actor.
7. A Few Good Men (1992) Starring Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, and Jack Nicholson
With a case of two soldiers having accidentally killed a fellow marine, Tom Cruise and Demi Moore's characters take on the roles of defending them in court. The issue at play is whether they were ordered to undertake the actions that they did, and if others are to blame for the resulting consequences. Jack Nicholson plays the general put in charge of the base where everything took place, and Kevin Bacon plays the attorney trying to put the two soldiers away for the death. In what is one of the most memorable acting sequences in the 90's, Cruise and Nicholson square off in a courtroom battle for the ages. The grit that Nicholson plays his role with should have got him an academy award in 1992, and the Cruise and Moore also shine in their roles as the defense attorneys. This is a fast-paced military courtroom drama that has all the makings of a classic film.
6. Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) Starring Kathy Bates, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary-Louise Parker, and Jessica Tandy
In one of the more underrated movies of the 1990's, this film is one that stands out as something people should see if they have yet to do it. Kathy Bates stars as an unhappy housewife who becomes friends with an older lady that she meets at a nursing home. During one visit the older lady (played by Jessica Tandy) starts to tell a story from her past the enthralls the house-wife. Bates returns time and time again to hear what she has to say, and we get two movies for the price of one. First we have the current-day story with the characters living out their own lives, and then we have the in-depth story that Tandy gives us. Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary-Louise Parker show of how well they can act in the flash-back sequences that make up the most important parts of the film. This is a great "time-piece", as we see a story unfold in an older America, and realize that times used to be a lot simpler. It is a great story about the human spirit, and delivers everything you want in an epic.
5. Unforgiven (1992) Starring Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Gene Hackman
In a film that Clint Eastwood also Directed, he stars as a former gunslinger who is convinced into taking one last job so that he will have enough money to take care of the children he has. Since the death of his wife, he has tried to dedicate himself to becoming a better man, but there are times when you just cannot get away from your past. He teams up with his old partner (played by Morgan Freeman), and they move on to the town where the expect to deal with the men. The reward is offered to them by a group of women who are sticking up for a friend who was attacked, and viciously cut. Unfortunately, the town is run by a cruel sheriff played by Gene Hackman. Violence of course erupts, but this is not a film that tries to make the main character come out as a great guy. Eastwood won himself a Best Picture award for Unforgiven, and the title says everything about the movie. Eastwood's character is forced to deeds that he does not expect to be forgiven for, but which he decides must be done. In a great depiction of what the West was like, this movie helped reinvent the genre of Westerns.
4. The Sixth Sense (1999) Starring Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment
In the first film directed by M. Night Shyamalan, we were able to see Bruce Willis at his best. The movie revolves around a young boys ability to see dead people. Though at first it really scares him, with the help of Willis's character, he figures out that they are just asking for his help. The movie prides itself as being one where you don't fully know what is going on until the final scenes of the film. Osment and Willis share a great on screen chemistry, as the audience is treated to one of the best ghost stories that has made it to the big-screen. The word of mouth for this film helped it gross over $200 million, and paved the way for M. Night Shyamalan to make several more films that deal with topics that are not covered my mainstream Directors.
3. Silence of the Lambs (1991) Starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins
In probably the scariest movie that has come out in years, Jodie Foster stars as Clarice Starling, a FBI agent in training, who becomes an important person in the case of a ruthless killer that is on the lose. Everyone is at a loss as to what is making this serial killer tick, and there are no clues to where he could strike next. The only hope lies in Dr. Hannibal Lector, who Starling must interrogate to try and gleam information about the killer. The only problem, is that Lector is a killer himself, and has been locked up for years because of his crimes. It now comes down to one psychopath trying to catch another one, with Starling caught in the center of it. Foster and Hopkins are at their best in this film, and it ends in a sequence of nerve-rattling silence in the dark, as Starling tries to find the killer. The great acting, coupled with a great story, and we end up almost wanting Hopkins and Foster to get together.
2. Titanic (1997) Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Bill Paxton and Kathy Bates
In the epic film of my time, and the highest grossing film of all time, we follow the story of the last days of the Titanic. At the center of the story is a love-triangle between Jack (DiCaprio), Rose (Winslet), and Cal (Billy Zane. We are able to see the love-story unfold, with the back-drop being the sinking of an unsinkable ship. The ill-fated voyage fills out this movie with emotion packed scenes, and a great story that helped this movie win a ton of academy awards, including best picture. The trick that makes this movie so good, is that James Cameron makes sure to develop all of the characters as far as he can go with them. The story is deep in its exploration of the final moments of the Titanic, and it does not hold back from showing what probably really happened on the ship, and in the water following the sinking. The is a great film, that will go on being a great film, not because of the acting, but because of the themes and the way that the story flows.
1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) Starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman
Tim Robbins stars as Andy Dufesen, who has his life turned upside down when he is accused of killing his wife and her lover. Thrown into prison for consecutive life terms, he befriend 'Red', who is played by Morgan Freeman. Not only are they both at their acting best, but when they are in scenes together the chemistry between the two of them is mind-blowing. Stephen King, who wrote this, is flawless in his story-telling, and even though the movie is just basically about the lives of several inmates, we are enthralled with the story from beginning to end. Over the years, Andy retains hope and eventually gains the respect of his fellow inmates. He never loses hope of what the outside world can offer, and he makes it his goal, though a simple one, to one day rebuild a boat with his friend in Mexico. The movie is a testament to the human spirit, and show just how deep a man can dig when faced with obstacles that would make a grown man cry. Robbins should have been nominated for a Best Actor award for the realistic portrayal that he gives of an innocent man incarcerated for the rest of his life. The ending of the film etches in stone why I found this to be the best film of the 1990's.
Well there is my list, and I hope that you enjoyed my top 10 films of the 1990's
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