Best Year Of Movies in the 90's?

1990

to

1999

Which year did you enjoying going to the movies most?
(In other words, Which had the best line-up of films?)

I gotta go with 1991: Silence of the Lambs, JFK, Beauty and the Beast, City Slickers, T2, New Jack City, The Doors, Boyz in the Hood, Thelma and Louise, and the Cape Fear remake give almost one quality popular movie per month. Some years go by with maybe 1 decent audience pleaser a year.

I was thinking of 1991 before I even came into this thread, so I agree with JohnT. :smiley:

1993:

Pulp Fiction
Forrest Gump
Jurassic Park
The Lion King
The Shawshank Redemption
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Bullets Over Broadway
Heavenly Creatures
True Lies
Interview with the Vampire, if you like Anne Rice, which I don’t
Speed
Clear and Present Danger
Hoop Dreams

A LOT of very good movies that year.

1999 - Fight Club, American Beauty, The Matrix, South Park and that’s just off the top of my head. Awesome year, best since the 70s.

Of my favorite movies from the 90s, more come from 1995 than any other year:

Babe
Before Sunrise
The City of Lost Children
Dead Man
Dead Man Walking
Forgotten Silver
A Moment of Innocence
Se7en
Smoke
Toy Story
Underground

And RickJay, you do realize that those movies are all from 1994, right? And that you’re missing the best of the lot (Fresh)?

How about 1992, folks?

The Player
Unforgiven
Reservoir Dogs
Scent of a Woman
Howard’s End
My Cousin Vinny
A River Runs Through It
The Crying Game
Glengarry Glen Ross
Husbands and Wives
Passion Fish
A Few Good Men

…and…(disputably) Basic Instict

Add “Quiz Show” to 1993…er, 1994’s list.

I’ll second DrNick - 1999 was a pretty amazing year.

American Beauty
The Matrix
Fight Club
Magnolia
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Being John Malkovich
Election
The Sixth Sense
The Insider

I’m sure there are others. Those are just the ones I pulled off of the Academy Awards site.

Too bad most of the movies you listed are from 1994. :o

But 1993 was good, too.

I’ll put in a plug for 1997 – the one year I worked as a critic, and saw about 150 movies. There were a lot of stinkers, but even the mediocre, forgettable movies were decent. G.I. Jane is a classic example. And I did not have a hard time making a top 10 list. But I don’t want to get into a “Titanic sucked/ no it didn’t” argument.

Add “South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut” to the 1999 list.

I really like 1997:
L.A. Confidential
Good Will Hunting
As Good as it Gets
Amistad (which I, but apparently nobody else, loved)
Wag the Dog
The Full Monty
Titanic
Men in Black (IMHO, the definition of what a summer movie should be)
Contact
In & Out
Other movies I didn’t see but heard favorable things about: Boogie Nights, Jackie Brown, Cop Land

1999!

I have to get in on this one! I saw more movies in 1999 than I ever had before (or since). There were so many good movies that there were films I dearly loved I couldn’t even fit into my top 50!

This is a list I made near the end of the year. There are movies in the top of my list that hit me very personally and so rank higher than some other movies that I know are “better.” And really, beyond The Matrix, which hit me in a primal spot and just HAD to be #1, 2-10 are interchangable.

Release dates on some of these are a bit iffy (such as ones I saw at festivals).

My favorite movies of 1999:

  1. The Matrix
  2. The Sixth Sense
  3. Toy Story 2
  4. The Iron Giant
  5. Topsy-Turvey
  6. Magnolia
  7. Tumbleweeds
  8. After Life
  9. Three Kings
  10. Fight Club
  11. Election
  12. The Limey
  13. The Straight Story
  14. Eyes Wide Shut
  15. The Dreamlife of Angels
  16. Children Of Heaven
  17. Cookie’s Fortune
  18. Autumn Tale
  19. Run Lola Run
  20. Being John Malcovich
  21. American Movie
  22. Go
  23. All The Little Animals
  24. Rushmore
  25. Ratcatcher
  26. Bringing Out the Dead
  27. Limbo
  28. Dogma
  29. October Sky
  30. Summer of Sam
  31. South Park:BLU
  32. Sweet and Lowdown
  33. Xiu Xiu The Sent Down Girl
  34. Liberty Heights
  35. The Winslow Boy
  36. Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
  37. An Ideal Husband
  38. Three Seasons
  39. Hideous Kinky
  40. Mystery Men
  41. The 24 Hour Woman
  42. Alone
  43. Nothing
  44. Under The Sun
  45. Mansfield Park
  46. Tuvalu
  47. My Name Is Joe
  48. A Reasonable Man
  49. My Best Fiend
  50. Office Space

More movies I really liked (in sorta-semi somewhat general rough order):

Dick
All About My Mother
eXistenZ
Galaxy Quest
The Insider
It All Starts Today
Felicia’s Journey
My Life So Far
Boys Don’t Cry
American Beauty
The Phantom Menace
The Blair Witch Project
The Talented Mr Ripley
American Hollow
Anna and the King
Happy, Texas
Heroes In Tyrol
Sleepy Hollow
Valerie Flake
Desert Blue
The Legend of 1900
La Maladie de Sachs
The Personals
Checkpoint
Coming Apart
The Cider House Rules
The Love of Three Oranges
Man of the Century
Yesterday Children
New Dawn
Night Shapes
My Little Business
The Hurricane
American Pie
Pushing Tin
The Dinner Game
Post Mortem
That’s the Way I Like It
The Carriers Are Waiting
Moloch
Treasure Island
Notting Hill
The Wisdom of Crocodiles
Juha
Hilary and Jackie
Cradle Will Rock
The Messenger
Sara Amerika
The Castle
A Reasonable Man
The Personals
Tarzan
13th Warrior
Rien Sur Robert
Bowfinger
The Green Mile
Blast From The Past
Analyze This
Harmonium in my Memory
Austin Powers-TSWSM
The End of The Affair
Mumford
The Muse
The Thomas Crown Affair

Movies I saw that didn’t do much for me:

  • At First Sight
  • Deep Blue Sea
  • The Haunting
  • End of Days
  • The Criminal of Barrio Concepcion
  • The Story of Ah
  • Woman on a Tin Roof

Movies I haven’t seen, but want to
(by no means complete, in no particular order):
(-- have seen since I made this list)

– The Minus Man
God Said “Ha!”
My Son The Fanatic
The Ogre
Praise
Train Of Life
Trick
Guinevere
Judy Berlin
A Slipping-Down Life
Edge of Seventeen
Thick As Thieves
The War Zone
Broken Vessels
Caberet Balkan
Brokedown Palace
The Adventures of Sebastian Cole
Buena Vista Social Club
8MM
In Dreams
Ravenous
A Walk On The Moon
Life
Never Been Kissed
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The 13th Floor
Instinct
The Red Violin
Arlington Road
Princess Mononoke

I’m sure there are several more I’m forgetting, especially foreign films.

Typo.

1998 is the year of two of my all time favorate movies:

Rushmore
The Truman Show.

Other good movies that year:

Life Is Beautiful
Shakespeare In Love
There’s Somethin
Saving Private Ryan
Bulworth

However, this year in film could never be considered ‘the best year in the 90’s’ Due to the movies:

Very Bad Things
Patch Adams

And how about adding these two –
Groundhog Day
Malcolm X

RickJay’s got the right year (1994, that is) – and he even left off a few gems:
Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
Red (the capper to Kieslowski’s trilogy)
Ed Wood
The Last Seduction
A Confucian Confusion (Edward Yang)

A fine, fine year. The film world hasn’t seen the likes of it since.

(You can keep Gump and The Lion King, though.)