Monday, March 14, 2005

Best Movies of the 90s

In the spirit of movie lists started at Lawyers Guns Money and spreading across the blogosphere, and particularly inspired by Rob over there who made his 90s list, here's mine.

First though, what a great decade for movies. Good foreign films, the "independents" actually made a few good ones, even the studios had some good films. Comparing it to the 80s is amazing. A few months ago a discussion of 80s movies showed how difficult it was to come up with 10 movies worthy of such a list. For the 90s, you could make good arguments for at least 40.

Oddly though, there's not one movie that is completely dominant over the rest. None of the top movies seem like #1 contenders.

Nonetheless, here's my top 10 list with the understanding that this is very fluid and would probably be different tomorrow.

1. Red (Kieslowski, 1994)
2. Lone Star (Sayles, 1995)
3. Schindler's List (Spielberg, 1993)
4. To Live (Zhang, 1994)
5. The Big Lebowski (Coen, 1997)
6. Hana-Bi (Kitano, 1997)
7. Unforgiven (Eastwood, 1992)
8. The Thin Red Line (Malick, 1998)
9. The Usual Suspects (Singer, 1995)
10. Burnt By The Sun (Mikhalkov, 1994)

What a great list of movies. What's even more amazing is the list that didn't make the top 10 but I think are really good movies.

White
The Sweet Hereafter
Out of Sight
Rushmore
Groundhog Day
A Taste of Cherry
The Best Intentions
Zentropa
Hamsun
Leaving Las Vegas
L.A. Confidential
Cold Comfort Farm
An Autumn Tale
Secrets and Lies
Boogie Nights
Goodfellas
Microcosmos
Central Station
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down
Insomnia
Silence of the Lambs
Husbands and Wives
The Celebration
Hoop Dreams
The Straight Story
Deconstructing Harry
Gods and Monsters
Buena Vista Social Club
Three Kings
Miller's Crossing
The Truce

I have no doubt that I am missing some too. I think any of these would be top 10 in the 80s. They are listed in no particular order by the way. And these don't includes the many good movies that others might talk about like Quiz Show or something that really don't belong here. And if you believe that Saving Private Ryan should be considered, we need to have long talk.