Weekly Discussion: Your Favorite 90's Films

Continuing on from our previous discussion thread, let's now discuss our favorite films of the 90's.

 

1990: Home Alone, Goodfellas
1991: Boyz n the Hood, The Silence of the Lambs
1992: The Mighty Ducks, Reservoir Dogs, Wayne's World
1993: Jurassic Park, Sleepless in Seattle, Dazed and Confused
1994: Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, Dumb and Dumber
1995: Toy Story, Apollo 13, Billy Madison, Empire Records, Tommy Boy
1996: Fargo, Independence Day, Jerry Maguire, Scream, Twister, Happy Gilmore
1997: Starship Troopers, Good Will Hunting, Men in Black, Boogie Nights, Austin Powers
1998: The Truman Show, The Big Lebowski, There's Something About Mary, American History X, You've Got Mail
1999: American Beauty, Fight Club, The Matrix, American Pie, Office Space

 

As an huge action film guy: The Rock, True Lies, Face/Off, Broken Arrow, Hard Target, Demolition Man, and Terminator 2 are all top tier action films for me. I thought it was the golden age for action films that actually have great fights and shoot out scenes instead shaky cam fights and CGI fests that plague action films today.

 

Also, even though Disney has always done good work in every decade, I feel like this was their best decade for animated films: The Lion King, Aladdin, Toy Story 1 and 2, Beauty and the Beast, Ducktales Movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Pocahontas, Tarzan, Hercules, Mulan and the The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I'm sure there is more that I'm missing.

 

The Truman Show
The Fisher King
American Beauty
The Big Lebowski
Fargo
Reservoir Dogs
Pulp Fiction
The Green Mile
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Trainspotting
The Thin Red Line
Goodfellas
The Usual Suspects
Groundhog Day
What About Bob?

 

Forgot to add Chasing Amy.

 

And the other Kevin Smith movies in the 90s!

 

It's my favorite of his from that decade. You could probably add Clerks, but I don't think I would add Dogma or Mallrats to my own list.

 

Dogma is my top I'd do Amy as my close second.

 

Jurassic Park, The Lion King, Toy Story, Independence Day, Twister, Fight Club, The Matrix

 

not going to include stuff like Space Jam and Air Bud which I loved back in the day but probably wouldn't now

The Truman Show
The Lion King
Toy Story
Wayne's World
Empire Records
Clueless
10 Things I Hate About You
Pleasantville
Election
Fargo
The Big Lebowski
Pulp Fiction
Goodfellas
Beauty and The Beast
Good Will Hunting
There's Something About Mary

forgot
Romeo + Juliet
Can't Hardly Wait

 

There are a lot of important Nineties films that I have put off for some time. I have probably seen less than twenty non-English Nineties films.

Four of the most important directors of today came from the Nineties; Tarantino changed the way people thought about independent film with Pulp Fiction, Wes Anderson blended genuine oddity with sweetness in Rushmore, Paul Thomas Anderson aped Scorese for Boogie Nights before stretching that type of filmmaking for the sake of emotional connection in Magnolia, and Richard Linklater made an unironic romance cool for a cynical generation. David Fincher was another filmmaker to begin in the time period, but he never made his film work until several years in the 2000's (Darren Aronofsky still has not made a film work).

Even moreso than the Eighties, the Nineties would glorify excess, although they found the winning corporate strategy of suggesting depth and diversity while maintaining the status quo. The grunge and rap movements may have been in another art form, but throughout the Nineties you can see filmmakers trying to capture that attitude and rawness for the sake of seeming authentic. Even for those who were alive, it is hard to explain why that faded away near the end as people went back to pop music and waited for their Windows 98 computers to stop working.

Some of the same directors that struggle to secure financing today were able to flourish in the Nineties in a time before the superhero takeover. It is almost impossible to imagine a Spike Lee film about Malcolm X getting any sort of budget today, a quarter-century later. Woody Allen could still make expansive films that explored new genres, and Paul Verhoeven was able to make big-budget films that toyed with the audience and had actual subtext. If Stanley Kubrick was still alive, would he have had to go to Kickstarter for something like Eyes Wide Shut?

The decade was dominated by a director who had not made a film in twenty years. The Thin Red Line is one of the greatest war films ever made by making the fighting less interesting than anything else. A staple of the "good" war film is to highlight the absurdity of war and its cost, usually in the quiet moments from battle to battle. However, the warfare these films are meant to criticize are always state-of-the-art, flashy, and alluring. The warfare in the Thin Red Line, by contrast, is unorganized and seemingly random. Like a real war, the battles serve as smaller parts of the lives of the men, who then must spend the rest of the time in reflection about what it means to take a life and survive where others did not. It is such a perfect vehicle for Malick's style of exploring humanity because these men represent a spectrum of young and old, hopeful and disillusioned, servile and questioning. For years people have had a very boring argument about how Saving Private Ryan unfairly lost to Shakespeare in Love at the Oscars (this is the decade where they really embraced irrelevance), but with this film also nominated it seems like a non-issue.

If I was making a top twenty (ten was too hard):

1. The Thin Red Line
2. Starship Troopers
3. The Big Lebowski
4. Satantango
5. Histoire(s) du cinema
6. Goodfellas
7. Secrets & Lies
8. Before Sunrise
9. Eyes Wide Shut
10. Schindler's List
11. Jackie Brown
12. Pulp Fiction
13. Rushmore
14. Breaking the Waves
15. Being John Malkovich
16. Chungking Express
17. Ed Wood
18. The Insider
19. Magnolia
20. A Night at the Roxbury

 

Goddamnit Tetra leaving off Boogie Nights!!!

 

Can't Hardly Wait
True Romance
Boogie Nights
Scream
Pulp Fiction
Good Will Hunting
American Beauty

 

Just like Reservoir Dogs, a rough draft for much greater work.

 

I enjoyed Noah, Black Swan The Wrestler and Requiem a lot. I don't think his films warrant a ton of re watches because of the dark material in them makes them hard watches, but they certainly stick with you way after they are over.

Nice list though! A lot of stuff on there I have forgotten about but is good. Also I still cannot get my head around the notation that Reservoir Dogs isn't that good, no matter how many times it's said. What a master piece it is

 

No love for The Sandlot?

 

What a classic. Never saw the sequels.

 

90s contain some of my favorite films, though, like Tetra, I haven't really deviated too far from non-English language films for the decades. Tarantino's 90s films, along with Dazed and Confused, were some of the first films I gravitated towards when I was like 12-13 and kind've shaped my love of film.

Favorites:
Dazed and Confused
Pulp Fiction
Goodfellas
Reservoir Dogs
KIDS
Hoop Dreams
Scream
Boogie Nights
The Thin Red Line
The Big Lebowski
From Dusk Til Dawn
Chasing Amy
Clerks
Army of Darkness
Go
My Own Private Idaho
Can't Hardly Wait
Before Sunrise
American Movie
Jackie Brown
Paradise Lost
Rushmore
Tommy Boy
Billy Madison
Happy Gilmore
Heat
The Faculty
Silence of the Lambs

I could go on forever with Childhood favorites, but:
The Sandlot
Little Giants
The Big Green
TMNT
Toy Story
Space Jam

 

I mean, so many:

Goodfellas, Miller's Crossing, The Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, Boyz n the Hood, Cape Fear, Reservoir Dogs, GlenGarry Glen Ross, A Few Good Men, Groundhog Day, True Romance, Dazed and Confused, Carlito's Way, Schindler's List, The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Leon: The Professional, Dumb & Dumber, Murder in the First, The Usual Suspects, Before Sunrise, Seven, Leaving Las Vegas, Casino, Heat, Twelve Monkeys, Happy Gilmore, Fargo, Primal Fear, Celtic Pride, The Cable Guy, Swingers, Lost Highway, Donnie Brasco, Face/Off, The Game, LA Confidential, Boogie Nights, Good Will Hunting, The Big Lebowski, The Truman Show, Rounders, American History X, Enemy of the State, Very Bad Things, Office Space, American Beauty, Stir of Echoes, Fight Club, The Insider, Magnolia, The Green Mile, Man on the Moon.

 

Goodfellas,
Edward Scissorhands,
Reservoir Dogs,
The Shawshank Redemption,
Pulp Fiction,
The Crow,
Heat,
Romeo + Juliet,
American History X,
The Truman Show,
American Beauty,
Fight Club,
American Pie,
Dogma

 

Beavis and Butthead Do America

 

We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story

 

I scrolled past your username but knew this list had to be yours lol! Love it!



My faves are prob

Romeo + Juliette
Scream
Romy and michele
Spice World

Oh and army of darkness

 

I'll just go top four:

The Mighty Ducks because I own it on DVD and vhs and I also watch it like every week. It also helps that this got me into hockey.

Jurassic Park because I've spent way to much time watching the movie and Universal Studios ride and stuff basically boosted that love by a lot.

Space Jam: the theme song is basically enough said.

Fargo: I'm a sucker for those Midwest styled movies and both loving the show and movie makes me happy.