Top Ten 1990s
Tuesday, April 9, 2013 at 11:50PM I promised longtime TFE super fan Ryan that I would one day write up a big top ten of the 90s piece although THIS IS NOT IT. This is like those tossed back "shots" of past decades wherein we tell each other our favorites. I'll tell you my ten favorites which are wildly unstable and could be replaced by anything in the "with apologies to" list if I'd ranked on another day. Well, not the top three. I mean... let's not get crazy.
- The Piano (Jane Campion)
- Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson)
- Thelma & Louise (Ridley Scott)
- Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson)
- Beauty & The Beast (Trousdale & Wise)
- All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar)
- Trois Coleurs Trilogy (Krystof Kzielowski)
- T2: Judgment Day (James Cameron)
- Fargo (The Coen Bros)
- Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino)
Most of them weren't even nominated for Best Picture. (Sigh). Oscar is so...
With apologies to 15 more. Let's call it a top 25:
Being John Malkovich, Titanic, [safe], Howards End, The Thin Red Line, Se7en, The Truman Show, Schindler's List, The Silence of the Lambs, Postcards from the Edge, Edward Scissorhands, The Grifters, Waiting for Guffman, Husbands and Wives, and Election.
other "favs" if not all of them as 'respectable':
Death Becomes Her, Babe, Ed Wood, Dead Man Walking, Strictly Ballroom, Tie Me Up Tie Me Down, A League of Their Own, Addams Family Values, Bullets Over Broadway, Reality Bites, Queen Margot, Clueless, Romeo + Juliet, My Best Friend's Wedding, Wings of the Dove, Celebration, The Idiots, High Art, Velvet Goldmine, Run Lola Run, My Own Private Idaho, Priest, The Fisher King, Leaving Las Vegas and The Last of the Mohicans.
P.S. After Jurassic Park (best shot tomorrow night!), I promise we'll leave the 90s behind and come back to the now. So get it all out of your system in the comments!
Reader Comments (76)
Off the top of my head, and I'm sure I will forget something near and dear, but oh well :)
The Crying Game
Titanic
The Age of Innocence
Jackie Brown ("Where'd you park the car, Louis?")
Pulp Fiction
The Player
Thelma and Louise
Bowfinger
The Piano
Beauty and the Beast
Just Missing out:
Silence of the Lambs
Elizabeth
Schindlers List
Howards End
Galaxy Quest
Fargo
LA Confidential
Loved at the time, but may need revisiting:
One False Move
Red Rock West
My top 10
1. Pulp Fiction
2. GoodFellas
3. Fight Club
4. Mononoke-hime
5. Magnolia
6. Todo Sobre Mi Madre
7. American Beauty
8. Boogie Nights
9. Edward Scissorhands
10. The Piano
Honorable Mentions: Being John Malkovich, Fargo, Breaking the Waves, Reservoir Dogs, Three Colors: Blue & Red, Kika, Before Sunrise, Trainspotting, The Big Lebowski, Schindler's List, The Shawshank Redemption.
My quickie top ten, not in order:
* The Piano
* Safe
* Boogie Nights
* All About My Mother
* Thelma and Louise
* The Silence of the Lambs
* The Ice Storm
* Pulp Fiction
* Being John Malkovich
* Election
Close calls: Before Sunrise, Batman Returns, L.A. Confidential, To Die For, The Grifters, Se7en, Love is the Devil, Boys Don't Cry, Portrait of a Lady, The Crying Game, Scream (not sure how this one holds up, but I loved it at the time)
1. toy story 2
2. the ice storm
3. strictly ballroom
4. edward scissorhands
5. the grifters
6. trainspotting
7. clueless
8. ed wood
9. shakespeare in love
10. south park: bigger longer and uncut
honorable mentions: toy story, husbands and wives, miller's crossing, the piano, schindlers list, groundhog day, priest, heavenly creatures, pleasantville, being john malkovich
Short Cuts
Short Cuts
Short Cuts!
Also -
Before the Rain
Festen
Les Misérables (Lelouch version)
Pulp Fiction
Nelly & Mr Arnaud
The Remains of the Day
Sense and Sensibility
Trois Couleurs
Underground
1. Dumb and Dumber
2. Goodfellas
3. Boogie Nights
4. Pulp Fiction
5. Magnolia
6. Chasing Amy
7. Schindler's List
8. Husbands and Wives
9 Dazed and confused
10. T2
This could change tomorrow:
1. American Beauty
2. Beauty and the Beast
3. Good Will Hunting
4. The English Patient
5. Malcolm X
6. The Silence of the Lambs
7. Bullets Over Broadway
8. The Crying Game
9. The Opposite of Sex
10. Happy Together
The next 25: As Good As It Gets, Awakenings, Beautiful Thing, Before Sunrise, Clueless, Elizabeth, Evita, Husbands and Wives, LA Confidential, A League of Thier Own, Life is Beautiful, My Best Friend's Wedding, My Own Private Idaho, Pleasantville, The Prince of Egypt, Scream, Sense & Sensibility, Sister Act, The Sixth Sense, South Park: Bigger Longer and Uncut, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Thelma & Louise, The Truman Show, The Usual Suspects, Wag the Dog
1. Pulp Fiction
2. Fargo
3. Short Cuts
4. Magnolia
5. The Sweet Hereafter
6. Before Sunrise
7. Muriel's Wedding
8. The Piano
9. Goodfellas
10. Central do Brasil
01. The Thin Red Line
02. Elizabeth
03. Se7en
04. Breaking the Waves
05. Festen
06. Three Colours Triology
07. The Matrix
08. Ba wang bie ji ( Farewell My Concubine)
09. The Ice Storm
10. L.A. Confidential
Bubbles: The Lion King, Orlando, The Silence of the lambs, Eyes Wide Shut, The English Patient, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Todo Sobre Mi Madre, Fight Club, Thelma & Louise, Pretty Woman, Being John Malkovich, The Sixth Sense, Pulp Fiction, Once Were Warriors, Delicatessen, Live Flesh,
Groundhog Day
Thelma & Louise
The Age of Innocence
The Crying Game
The Remains of the Day
Fargo
Husbands & Wives
Silence of the Lambs
American History X
Babe
In no particular order
My top 25:
1. The Wrong Trousers (okay, it's a short movie, but nothing from the 90s beats this for sheer quality and joy!)
2. Babe
3. Fargo
4. The Truman Show
5. Groundhog Day
6. Ed Wood
7. L.A. Confidential
8. Searching for Bobby Fisher (a forgotten gem: truly wonderful!)
9. Quiz Show
10. The Player
11. The Crying Game
12. The Silence of the Lambs
13. The Sweet Hereafter
14. American Beauty
15. Toy Story 2
16. Edward Scissorhands
17. The Hunt for Red October
18. The Talented Mr. Ripley
19. Lost Highway
20. Goodfellas
21. The Insider (can't believe no-one has mentioned this great movie yet)
22. Miller's Crossing
23. The Straight Story
24. The Nightmare before Christmas
25. Magnolia
Honorable mentions:
Trois Couleurs: Blanc
Unforgiven
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Tremors
The Ice Storm
The Edge
Shakespeare in Love
October Sky
Once Were Warriors
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
The Iron Giant
The Age of Innocence
Just noticed how many movies on my list were made in 1999. Surely one of the great movie years in history!
1. The Thin Red Line
2. Eyes Wide Shut
3. Magnolia
4. The Piano
5. Limbo (why does no one else love this film??)
6. Fallen Angels
7. Exotica
8. Boogie Nights
9. Safe
10. Crash
Preferring My Best Friend's Wedding to Muriel's Wedding isn't a matter of 'differing taste'. It's plain wrong.
Love the 90s! Such divise mixture of films, independent meets art meets mainstream. Also the children movies according to me have never been as good, but I maybe think so because I'm a 90s child.
Top 10:
1. The Age of Innocence (1993)
2. Boogie Nights (1997)
3. The Thin Red Line (1998)
4. The Piano (1993)
5. Velvet Goldmine (1998)
6. Fight Club (1999)
7. Reservoir Dogs (1994)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
9. Schindler's List (1993)
10. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Off the top of my head:
Raise the Red Lantern
L.A. Confidential
Goodfellas
Malcolm X
Trois Couleurs: Bleu, Blanc et Rouge
Pulp Fiction
The Pillow Book
Fargo
All About My Mother
The Shawshank Redemption
Fight Club
Of course it would be easy to come up with another list excluding all of the aforementioned titles.
@ Dieter: 1999 is a gold mine -- think of a top ten list just from that year. IMHO, 1999 ranks with 1974, 1962 and 1939 as seminal years in film.
So hard to chose, I grew up on movies in the 90s, my top 10 favourites (though not necessarily 'best') :
1 Pulp Fiction
2 The Silence of The Lambs
3 Boogie Nights
4 All About My Mother
5 Out of Sight
6 American Beauty
7 LA Confidential
8 Fargo
9 The Matrix
10 Secrets and Lies
Honorable Mentions
GoodFellas
The Thin Red Line
The Sixth Sense
Passion Fish
The Age of Innocence
Reservoir Dogs
Magnolia
Shakespeare In Love
Schindler's List
Bugsy
Naked (Mike Leigh)
Oh and
Thelma and Louise
12 Monkeys
The Crying Game
Craig I loved the Three Colours films as well, I forgot about them. The 90's were such a good decade for Cinema.
I just know the beginning:
1. The Thin Red Line
2. The Insider
Everything else is up for debate.
Not even a mention of GoodFellas, Nat?
*walks away from post*
Beauty and the Beast
Titanic
Dead Man Walking
Heavenly Creatures
Eyes Wide Shut
My Best Friend's Wedding
Sense and Sensibility
Leaving Las Vegas
The Straight Story
With:
The Last Seduction
Great Expectations
Basic Instinct and...wait for it..
The House of the Spirits
Dead Again
having a place in my heart because I loved them as a kid or young adult and I'm not sure how I feel about them now except for The Last Seduction and Dead Again which I know I like in a mature way as well as in an immature way. [/overanalyzing]
1 The Talented Mr. Ripley
2 Secrets & Lies
3 Fargo
4 To Die For
5 Death Becomes Her
6 The Silenc Of The Lambs
7 American Beauty
8 Muriel's Wedding
9 Boogie Nights
10 The Sixth Sense
Honorable Mentions:
Goodfellas, Edward Scissorhands, Misery, Mermaids, Beauty And The Beast, Batman Returns, Alien3, Sister Act, Short Cuts, Bullets Of Broadway, Ed Wood, Pulp Fiction, Marvin's Room, The Ice Storm, Elizabeth, The Big Lebowski, Hilary & Jackie, Gods Ans Monsters, Heavenly Creatures, All About My Mother, Being John Malkovich, 10 Things I Hate About You, Howards End, The Truman Show, Postcards from the Edge, Election, My Best Friends Wedding.
I love that Pulp Fiction gif. I mentally do that gesture quite often while watching the Oscars. Also, I officially declare myself biologically incapable of doing top tens. Can you all share the secret?
PD I've just noticed you're eyebrows move! Great skin by the way ;)
01.Pulp Fiction
02.Trainspotting
03.The Silence of the Lambs
04.Edward Scissorhands
05.Fight Club
06.12 Monkeys
07.The Piano
08.Fargo
09.Happiness
10.Chasing Amy
1.) A Brighter Summer Day- A crime that the rights cannot be worked out for a DVD release.
Being John Malkovich
The Big Lebowski
Close-Up
Crumb
Dead Man
The Iron Giant
Jackie Brown
Paris Is Burning
Reservoir Dogs
Runner-Ups: Hoop Dreams, The Thin Red Line, Toy Story, Magnolia, Fargo, Malcolm X, Out of Sight, Before Sunrise, All About My Mother, Silence of the Lambs, South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut, Goodfellas, Wild at Heart, Barton FInk, Secrets & Lies, Taste of Cherry, Naked, Dazed & Confused, Slacker, Histoires du Cinema, Happy Together, 12 Monkeys, The Insider, The Last of the Mohicans, Good Will Hunting, The Player, Short Cuts, Chungking Express, Hard Boiled, Face/Off, Eyes Wide Shut, Point Break, Strange Days, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Gattaca, The Crying Game, My Own Private Idaho, Beauty and the Beast, The Puppetmaster, To Live, Raise the Red Lantern, Heavenly Creatures, Election, and Trainspotting
OK, I'm literally just going to type the first 25 films I think of:
Schindler's List
Six Degrees of Separation
The Shawshank Redemption
Belle Epoque
Beauty and the Beast
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Iron Giant
Beautiful Thing
The Silence of the Lambs
Chasing Amy
The Full Monty
The Insider
Boys Don't Cry
Edward Scissorhands
Trois Coleurs (Blue, White, Red)
Before Sunrise
Lawn Dogs
Malcolm X
Clerks
Gods and Monsters
The Sixth Sense
The Crying Game
The Wedding Banquet
Babe
Europa, Europa
My list:
1. Edward Scissorhands (Not just AN American Tragedy. This is THE American Tragedy. The most well conceived, visually rewarding and substantive movie of it's decade.)
2. Miller's Crossing (Drips with the wit and menace that are missing in the (though still very good) more slack GoodFellas)
3. Schindler's List (Nails everything it can, even with it's slight sentimental notes)
4. The Thin Red Line (An effective counterpoint to Saving Private Ryan)
5. Pulp Fiction (Jackie Brown and Reservoir Dogs may be more substantive, but this is Tarantino at his most fun.)
6. Heat. (Michael Mann's large scale cops and robbers piece is as witty as it is influential as it is ultimately artful.)
7. Fight Club (Se7en may be more straight forward, but this has the ambition and wit to burn.)
8. The Big Lebowski (Light, naturally paced fun from the Coen Bros with an insane amount of memorable scenes and quotable characters.)
9. Three Colours: Red (Still haven't gotten to Blue or White yet, but this individual piece is still an amazing achievement.)
10. Toy Story (The film that finally solidified a still bursting 20+ year long high point in commercial animated art, both in multiplexes and on TV screens.)
My equivalent 15 close but no cigar films:
11. T2: Judgment Day (Linda Hamilton is enough for me to recommend it, but I'm not quite into pure action enough to put it in my top ten.)
12. True Romance (Yeah, how did Slater not get a much larger career, even if he has the Nicholson trademark "lack of range"?)
13. The Usual Suspects (Kevin Spacey is an amazing shifty jag-off, conning everyone and eventually getting away with everything.)
14. Magnolia (A great meditation on the nature of luck, both good and bad. If PT ever wants to change things up with a tent-pole, this is a great indicator he could have pinned down both of the thematic underpinnings of the Green Lantern mythos. (Four DC heroes rough thematic underpinnings: Batman: Fear and Family. (No one's successfully managed anything but the first one in a Batman film.) Superman: Hope. Wonder Woman: Truth. Green Lantern: Luck and Will. (The Green Lantern's are not really about "destiny." The only reason "destiny" was invoked in the Green Lantern movie was because hacks wrote it.))
15. American Beauty (The movie is a nasty, bitingly misanthropic dive into suburbia. Unfortunately, though it's shockingly well delivered, the script IS tin-eared as far as the teen speak goes. But that's not the entire movie, and the stuff that isn't focused on them is good enough that I think it deserves a spot here.)
16. The Shawshank Redemption (It leans a bit hard into the sentiment, but it's a
17. L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson would never be this good again, but we can always appreciate this lucky strike.)
18. The Last of the Mohicans (Michael Mann delivers a quick period action calling card to generate the money for Heat. He makes it count, delivering a well constructed memorable work.)
19. Unforgiven (Clint's single take crazy speed leads to a lot of dull fare, but when he crackles, he really crackles.)
20. Dances with Wolves (I know, I know, the performances are dull, the visual concepts are recycled and Costner isn't nearly as good as JFK. However, it's not Avatar level dull and patronising.)
21. The Silence of the Lambs (The Hopkins/Foster duet is sterling and the opening shot is an amazingly ambitious eye-catcher.)
22. Boogie Nights (There's a very good ensemble here, but I don't quite view any individual as a "gold" standard for their categories.)
23. Se7en (It's a filthy and tense film, but there's not as much depth as Fight Club, frankly.)
24. The Addiction (For a dirty, filthy, nasty vampire tale with a brain.)
25. Saving Private Ryan (Even with the very sentimental ending and the lack of actual acting, it's still very viscerally constructed.)
Well, I know for a fact that 'Fargo' would be my #1 and 'Magnolia' would probably be my #2. After that, I'd need a week to make my official list. Here are the definites/strong possibilities:
Fargo (Coen Bros)
Magnolia (P.T. Anderson)
Three Kings (Russell)
Schindler's List (Spielberg)
Goodfellas (Scorsese)
Naked (Leigh)
Pulp Fiction (Tarantino)
The Silence of the Lambs (Demme)
Malcolm X (Lee)
The Celebration (Vinterberg)
Heat (Mann)
Unforgiven (Eastwood)
If I wasn't being oddly stubborn about having only a single film by any given filmmaker, I'd shoehorn 'The Big Lebowski', 'Topsy-Turvy', and 'Saving Private Ryan'.
But yeah, those are all "Top Ten Worthy", but I'm not sure what the list would look like just yet.
1. American Beauty
2. The Silence of the Lambs
3. Pulp Fiction
4. Fargo
5. The Shawshank Redemption
6. Boogie Nights
7. Thelma & Louise
8. Schindler's List
9. Election
10. Run Lola Run
This was kind of done off the top of my head--so the rankings might shift a little bit. The top 4 would remain there though.
Dback: Please, no on The Wedding Banquet. It's going well, another decent movie that people might justify liking more than I do when, suddenly, "rape scene."
Here's the scene: "Wei-Wei, what are you doing?" (She's grabbing his penis, facilitating a physiological response.) "Liar, you said you weren't interested in women!" (She's confusing physiological reaction and psychological attraction to justify her act, calling back to an earlier line of dialogue.) "No!" (He's actively refusing her advances before we cut to black.)
That's a kind of terrible scene, but it can be forgiven if the character suffers visual or linguistic punishment for it. Neither of those things occur.
That's EASY!
10. Goodfellas
9. Fight Club
8. Fargo
7. Postcards From the Edge
6. Jurrasic Park
5. The Silence of the Lambs
4. Titanic
3. Defending Your Life
2. The Bridges of Madison County
1. Death Becomes Her
(You may notice a pattern.....and I MAY be
obsessedpassionate about some specific actors...I have a 36 item list, AFTER narrowing! Great romantic comedies, great science fiction, great directors...I love 90s movies almost as much as I love 70s movies.
Here they are, roughly sort of in order:
1. Dark City
2. Unforgiven
3. The Full Monty
4. Four Weddings and a Funeral
5. Reservoir Dogs
6. 35 Up and 42 Up
7. Being John Malkovich
8. Grosse Pointe Blank
9. The Commitments
10. Miller's Crossing
11. Earth (Deepa Mehta)
12. Pleasantville
13. The Big Lebowski
14. The Sixth Sense
15. Three Kings
16. Chasing Amy
17. GoldenEye
18. Beauty and the Beast
19. Dogma
20. Jackie Brown
21. Groundhog Day
22. Notting Hill
23. Summer of Sam
24. You’ve Got Mail
25. Sling Blade
26. Fargo
27. Once Were Warriors
28. Heavenly Creatures
29. Shawshank Redemption
30. Pulp Fiction
31. Forrest Gump
32. The Age of Innocence
33. Malcolm X
34. Truly Madly Deeply
35. Dances with Wolves
36. Twin Falls Idaho
I grew up in the 90s, so my favorites are a weird mix of really great films and teen/genre flicks that aren't necessarily good but which made the right impression at the right time.
However, it's far too easy to make a Top Ten list entirely of films from 1999:
Being John Malkovich
The Blair Witch Project
The Matrix
The Sixth Sense
American Beauty
Dogma
Notting Hill
South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut
The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Thomas Crown Affair
Other favorites I haven't seen mentioned yet: The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Twister, Speed, Dick, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, The Dinner Game, Audition, Aladdin, The Birdcage, Analyze This, Cruel Intentions, Prospero's Books, The City of Lost Children, The Mask, Ghost, The Muppet Christmas Carol, Shall We Dance?, That Thing You Do!, Topsy-Turvy, Leon (The Professional), The Fifth Element, The Rocekteer, Bowfinger, The Virgin Suicides, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Air Force One, Cube, Pi, Go, The Game, Face/Off, Arlington Road, and the live-action The Jungle Book.
OH! And how come no one has mentioned Claire Denis' Beau Travail yet?
More that I forgot about : Boyz N'the Hood (a visceral movie going experience) , Being John Malkovich (trippy, amazing), Run Lola Run, Trick (the prelude to 'Weekend' in a way), Philadelphia , The Truman Show, Gods and Monsters (Ian Mckellen has never been better), Scream, Heat, Trainspotting.
Den Eneste Ene (1999)
Jurassic Park
Boyz 'n the Hood
Romy and Michele's High School Reunion
Primal Fear
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
Atame
Office Space
High Art
The Butcher Boy
Gun to my head...
10. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
09. Edward Scissorhands
08. Delicatessen
07. Boogie Nights
06. The Thin Red Line
05. Rushmore
04. Se7en
03. The Shawshank Redemption
02. The Big Lebowski
01. Goodfellas
I'm really angry I forgot about The Rocketeer, Bottle Rocket, and Rushmore.
Jackie Brown, Great Expectation, Cruel Intentions, American Beauty, Beauty & The Beast, Talented Mr. Ripley, Pulp Fiction, Casino, Goodfellas, Thomas Crown Affair, Pleasantville...OMG, so many. I heart the 90s...
Yay!
1. The Remains of the Day
2. Heat
3. The Age of Innocence
4. Seven
5. The Insider
6. The Sweet Hereafter
7. Boogie Nights
8. Goodfellas
9. Aladdin
10. American Beauty
So, so sorry to:
In the Name of the Father
Terminator 2
Toy Story 2
Topsy Turvy
Flirting with Disaster
The Brady Bunch Movie
The Shawshank Redemption
Apollo 13
Safe
Pi
Naked Lunch
My Own Private Idaho
and probably tons more
This, I guess they all are, but this one is especially hard. I'm 31, so this was the decade I fell in love with movies, even if I don't feel as if I know the depth of them like I do the 00s. As such, I know there are several major directors whose works from the 90s I'm a step behind on.
That said, here's my ten, as best as I can make them and in no particular order.
1. The Big Lebowski - The one I watch the most.
2. Pulp Fiction - The one I loved the first.
3. All About My Mother - The one by my favorite director working today.
4. Princess Mononoke - The one overlooked because of its look.
5. The Thin Red Line - The classic that lives up to all the hype.
6. Groundhog Day - The one that was always good but took years to cement itself as genuinely great.
7. Dazed and Confused - The one overlooked because of it's subject matter.
8. Irma Vep - The one I fell in love with most recently.
9. Hoop Dreams - The one that hit me the hardest.
10. Fight Club - The one I loved the hardest but am scared to rewatch to see if it's still worthy.
Why did I think this was going to be easy? This was not easy.
Here's my top ten, in no particular order, although I think that's my # 1:
Breaking the Waves
Clueless
Reservoir Dogs
Howards End
Run Lola Run
Rushmore
Out of Sight
The Sweet Hereafter
Silence of the Lambs
Romeo + Juliet
Not today but maybe another day, they'd be top ten:
True Romance
The Piano
Un Coeur en Hiver
Thelma and Louise
Face/Off
Being John Malkovich
The Fisher King
L. A. Confidential
Proof
The Usual Suspects
Babe
Daze and Confused
Hoop Dreams
Toy Story
Paris Is Burning
Gattaca
Three Kings
Bottle Rocket
Off the top of my head and in no particular order:
The White Balloon, Boogie Nights, Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction, Taste of Cherry, Chungking Express, The Three Colors Trilogy, The Double Life of Veronique, Bullets Over Broadway, American Beauty (bite me!), The Thin Red Line, Fargo, Naked,
Ugh, and just after posting I remembered Metropolitan and Kicking and Screaming.
Not easy.
Nat, have you seen L.A. Confidential? That's my favorite film of the 1990's. I'm wondering what you think of it because you never mention it (I think it's a near perfect script, with flawless performances from everyone involved, it's where Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce were introduced to America and they're both fantastic, I also think James Cromwell has rarely been better). Not saying it needs to be your favorite, I just want to hear your thoughts.
Great list, thogh. Love that you put The Piano at the top (I'm a die-hard Schindler's List fan, but The Piano was my third favorite of that year, beautiful!!!) Also, Fargo is my favorite of 1996, Todo Sobre Mi Madre is a gorgeous film (sorry, I can't for the life of me use the English title, it doesn't sound as poetic to me) and while I personally find Pulp Fiction overrated, I see the appeal. Also, Beauty and the Beast is the first film I ever saw in theaters (I was 3 when it came out, my dad surprised me with my first visit to the movies) and to this day I think it's one of Disney's back (second best behind Pinocchio, that is if you don't count Pixar films).
Love it.
The Age of Innocence
Thelma & Louise
The Grifters
The Silence of the Lambs
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Batman Returns
[Safe]
The Crying Game
Portrait of a Lady
The Bridges of Madison County
The Piano
The End of the Affair
M Butterfly
Titanic
Sense & Sensibility
OK, I'm going to write this out straight from the gut, without worrying about what I'm leaving off
1. Goodfellas
2. Pulp Fiction
3. Fargo
4. Election
5. Topsy Turvy
6. The Iron Giant
7. LA Confidential
8. The Big Lebowski
9. Babe
10. Glengarry Glenn Ross
But... but... that's a rectangle!!!
I was a Manager for AMC Theaters for half of the 90's so I saw a LOT of movies. The ones that connect the most would be:
Titanic
Before Sunrise
The Sixth Sense
Boogie Nights
Thelma and Louise
Death Becomes Her
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Boyz n the Hood
Basic Instinct
Beauty and the Beast
Sling Blade
My Best Friend's Wedding
L A Confidential
Dances with Wolves
No order there. Just off the top of my head. A great decade for movies, and we could do a Top Ten for JUST 1999. Amazing year there!