The Top 25 Films of the 1990s
page 3

#17  The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Starring Morgan Freeman, Tim Robbins, William Sadler, Bob Gunton, James Whitmore, and Clancy Brown.
Written by Frank Darabont based on the short story by Steven King.
Directed by Frank Darabont.

The Grades
Alison
Carlo
Dana
B+
Jeff
B+
Jen
A+
Kris
A-

I don't like prison movies. Malice, injustice, brutality, and indignity just don't appeal to me. However, no other movie has so thoroughly surprised me before or since. The Shawshank Redemption endures because of its unabashed portrayal of friendship between men. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman have fearlessly created characters who hold a deep, loving affection for each other. Theirs is a relationship that I've never witnessed in real life, although I long to believe that such honest bonds can exist between men. I certainly haven't seen anything like it in the movies.

I've seen countless stories of men reluctantly bonding after some wild escapade, but I can't remember another movie in which the male leads meet and discover an instant affinity for one another, one that naturally deepens into a true, abiding love. This relationship is precious because it is so rarely seen. It stands out in high relief against the bleak, harsh backdrop of the prison yard, and is propelled by an emotionally moving story.  –Jen

Academy Awards™
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Freeman), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Score, Best Sound.

Other Major Awards
American Society of Cinematographers: Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography.
Golden Globes: nominated for Best Actor (Freeman) and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Screen Actors Guild: nominated for Best Actor (Freeman) and Best Actor (Robbins).

Back to the Top 100.

#18  Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Starring Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce, and Alex Baldwin.
Written by David Mamet.
Directed by James Foley.

The Grades
Alison
A-
Carlo
Dana
Jeff
Jen
Kris

Words are weapons in Glengarry Glen Ross. The salesmen inhabiting the shabby office of Premier Real Estate stab each other with invective and lay traps for their customers with their circumlocution. Every conversation is a sale. Every wheedle has a winner. David Mamet's brilliant dialogue sashays rhythmically from actor to actor. You don't even need to know the words to feel the energy and the bitterness behind them. These salesmen are trapped in traditional male modes of expression and desire that seem brutal and archaic. Rejecting ethics is the only way for them to get ahead.

The ensemble cast is flat-out amazing. Al Pacino gives his best work of the decade as the suave cajoler Ricky Roma. Jack Lemmon thrives as the desperate Shelley Levene, going from meek to mean in instants. Alec Baldwin justifies his entire career with a five-minute monologue that is the epitome of dick-swinging bombast. Kevin Spacey's venal office manager suffers enormous verbal abuse, which he earns with malicious glee. Every scene is a tour-de-force in acting, making the film enormously entertaining. James Foley's camera fluidly follows the barbs and back-stabbing. The film has an atmosphere of weary persistence, like the fighter who refuses to stay down when he knows he's beat. Glengarry Glen Ross is a fascinating place to visit for 100 minutes, but I wouldn't want to live there.  –Jeff

Academy Awards™
Nominations: Best Supporting Actor (Pacino).

Other Major Awards
Golden Globes: nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Pacino).
National Board of Review: Best Actor (Lemmon).
Venice Film Festival: Best Actor (Lemmon).
Writers Guild of America: nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Back to the Top 100.

#19  Election (1999)

Starring Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon, Chris Klein, Jessica Campbell, Mark Harelik, Molly Hagan, and Frankie Ingrassia.
Written by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor based on the novel by Tom Perrotta.
Directed by Alexander Payne.

The Grades
Alison
A-
Carlo
A-
Dana
A-
Jeff
A-
Jen
Kris

A spirited comedic gem, Election delivers on the promise shown by director Alexander Payne in his previous film, Citizen Ruth. Less openly satirical than its predecessor, Election manages to walk that most difficult of tightropes, simultaneously poking fun while sympathizing with its hopelessly compulsive characters. Witherspoon goes full bore as the hyper-competitive candidate for president of her high-school class, while Broderick reigns in his usual mannerisms as the beaten down, sexually misdirected teacher increasingly driven to thwart the ambitions of his star pupil. They are joined by a stellar supporting cast, including Chris Klein and Jessica Campbell.

The performances notwithstanding, the movie's heart is in the palpable sense of enjoyment taken by Payne in his characters' foibles: here freezing the camera at a particularly unflattering angle of Witherspoon's cocksure expression, there dressing her up in curlers and a frumpy nightgown as she berates fellow students for keeping her awake after hours. Election is one of those movies that takes about two minutes to establish that your $8 was well spent, and it keeps getting better from there.  –Kris

Academy Awards™
Awards pending. Nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay.

Other Major Awards
Golden Globes: nominated for Best Actress-Comedy/Musical (Witherspoon).
National Society of Film Critics: Best Actress (Witherspoon).
New York Film Critics: Best Adapted Screenplay.
Writers Guild of America: Best Adapted Screenplay.

Back to the Top 100.

#20  Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Starring Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Jeremy Davies, and Matt Damon.
Written by Robert Rodat and Frank Darabont (uncredited).
Directed by Steven Spielberg.

The Grades
Alison
Carlo
Dana
A+
Jeff
A-
Jen
B+
Kris
B+

Saving Private Ryan is a small story set against the epic canvas of World War Two. Having just survived the decimation at Omaha Beach, eight American soldiers are sent in search of the sole surviving son from an Iowa family. The mission is a high-minded gesture from the top. As such, it serves as an allegory to the grand gesture of waging war itself, pitting the big picture against the small.

Meticulously staged and shot, Saving Private Ryan captures the insanity of combat with bracing immediacy. By setting this tale around D-Day, Spielberg challenges the mythos of the "Good War" and exposes the fraudulent portrait of heroics promulgated by conventional WWII films. Death comes by chance, by mistakes made, by running out of ammunition or showing compassion. Survival happens by luck, not valor.

Saving Private Ryan takes the soldiers’ perspective, which makes it brutal and heartbreaking. It's beloved by historians and especially by veterans of the war, whose sacrifices it honors by telling the truth. Noble intent does not make carnage pristine or moral. Heroism is nothing more or less than having the will to go on. Combat makes you less of a man, not more of one. And though there may be good causes, there's no such thing as a Good War.  –Dana

Academy Awards™
Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing.
Nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor (Hanks), Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Dramatic Score, Best Makeup.

Other Major Awards
British Academy Awards: Best Special Effects, Best Sound.
Broadcast Film Critics Association: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Score.
Directors Guild of America: Outstanding Directorial Achievement.
Golden Globes: Best Picture-Drama, Best Director.
London Critics Circle: Film of the Year.
Los Angeles Film Critics Association: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography.
New York Film Critics Circle: Best Film.

Back to the Top 100.

#21  American Beauty (1999)

Starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Mena Suvari, Chris Cooper, and Peter Gallagher.
Written by Alan Ball.
Directed by Sam Mendes.

The Grades
Alison
Carlo
A-
Dana
Jeff
A-
Jen
Kris
B+

The notion that "appearances can be deceiving" is a central theme of American Beauty, and it also describes the film. On its surface, Sam Mendes’ directorial debut is a darkly comic social satire about the spiritual void engendered by embracing hollow values. Ultimately, it metamorphoses into a compassionate meditation on the depth and beauty of the ordinary struggles of ordinary people to find themselves, to connect to one another, and to see this messy world for the palace of wonders that it is.

Kevin Spacey gives a brilliant performance as Lester Burnham, an affluent suburbanite who has become uncomfortably numb to the experience of being alive. Just as his capacity to truly engage with the world is resurrected, that world is crumbling around him. A magnificent ensemble cast brings various facets of soul-crushing fear and self-loathing to vivid life. Elegant and gorgeous in its careful progression from satire to poignant drama, American Beauty celebrates the rewards of the journey instead of glorifying the destination or the prize. And unlike some similarly lofty fare, it's not afraid to entertain along the way. Perfectly distilling the end-of-millennium zeitgeist, its empathic embrace of our collective absurdities imbues it with an irresistible beauty all its own.  –Dana

Read Vornporn's full-length review.

Academy Awards™
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Spacey), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography
Nominations: Best Actress (Bening), Best Film Editing, Best Score.

Other Major Awards
American Society of Cinematographers: Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography.
Broadcast Film Critics Association: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay.
British Academy Awards: Awards pending. Nominated for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Spacey), Best Actress (Bening), Best Supporting Actor (Bentley), Best Supporting Actress (Birch), Best Supporting Actress (Suvari), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Film Music, Best Makeup/Hair, Best Sound.
Directors Guild of America: Oustanding Directorial Achievement.
Golden Globes: Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay.
London Critics Circle: Film of the Year, Director of the Year, Actor of the Year (Spacey), Actress of the Year (Bening), Screenwriter of the Year.
Los Angeles Film Critics Association: Best Director.
National Society of Film Critics: Best Cinematography.
Screen Actors Guild: Outstanding Performance by a Cast, Outstanding Performance by a Male Lead Actor (Spacey), Outstanding Performance by a Female Lead Actor (Bening).
Toronto International Film Festival: People's Choice Award.
Writers Guild of America: Best Original Screenplay.

Back to the Top 100.

#22  Trainspotting (1996)

Starring Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner, Kevin McKidd, and Kelly MacDonald.
Written by John Hodge based on the novel by Irvine Welsh.
Directed by Danny Boyle.

The Grades
Alison
A-
Carlo
A 
Dana
B+
Jeff
A-
Jen
A 
Kris
A-

From Scotland, Trainspotting is a spirited, energetic, hilarious take on one of the least spirited, energetic, or hilarious topics of all: heroin addition. Or at least, so addiction would seem to us outsiders. Trainspotting is one of the few films that tells its story not from the detached, finger-waggling point of view of someone who knows better, but from the perspective of the addicts themselves. "People think it's all about misery and desperation and death," says Renton (McGregor). "But what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise, we wouldn't do it! After all, we're not fecking stew-pid, you know."

Though it dares to admit drugs feel good, there's no mistaking Trainspotting's anti-drug position. It makes its point not by lecturing, but by focusing on its unforgettable characters–Renton, scrawny Spud (Bremner), Sean Connery-fanatic Sick Boy (Miller), ill-fated Tommy (McKidd), and psychotic drunkard Begbie (Carlyle). In a series of visually inventive, in-your-face, tragicomic vignettes, including one about the worst toilet in Scotland, director Danny Boyle sketches out their lives as an endless circle of addiction, recovery, and relapse. Heroin is their dead-end escape from their dead-end lives in economically depressed Scotland, but can they escape from heroin's inviting, deadly embrace?  –Carlo

Academy Awards™
Nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay.

Other Major Awards
British Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay, nominated for Best British Film.
Boston Society of Film Critics: Best Film.
London Critics Circle: British Actor of the Year (McGregor), British Screenwriter of the Year, nominated for British Film and Director of the Year.
Seattle International Film Festival: Best Film, Best Director.

Back to the Top 100.

#23  Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffrey Rush, Judi Dench, Ben Affleck, and Colin Firth.
Written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard.
Directed by John Madden.

The Grades
Alison
Carlo
A-
Dana
A 
Jeff
A-
Jen
B+
Kris
A-

Anchored by an utterly charming and unapologetically swoony romantic fantasy, Shakespeare in Love is an energetic, joyous celebration of love, art, language, and the creative process. Fiennes and Paltrow are perfect as Shakespeare and his muse, both of them simmering with passion and sweetness in equal measure. The screenplay is a marvel, infusing a simple story with the sort of layered density that Shakespeare himself employed. While the foreground focuses on the struggle to bring a play to life, the background provides glimpses of the human longings that fuel such creation.

Many were shocked when it won Best Picture, but they shouldn't have been. Its wry observations about show business and the mysterious nature of creative synergy serve as a rapturous love letter to the writers, actors, and craftsmen whose votes put statuettes in hands. While its romantic fantasy warms the heart, its creative fantasy is the Holy Grail of artists everywhere: audiences will love your work, tough critics will embrace it, and the financier will grow to love it more than he loves his money. Surely that's the only fantasy as alluring and elusive as perfect love. Shakespeare in Love provides both fantasies, weaving them together with sublime precision and tremendous joie de vivre.  –Dana

Read Carlo's full-length review.

Academy Awards™
Best Picture, Best Actress (Paltrow), Best Supporting Actress (Dench), Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Musical/Comedy Score.
Nominations: Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Rush), Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Sound, Best Makeup.

Other Major Awards
Berlin International Film Festival: Outstanding Single Achievement (for the screenplay).
British Academy Awards: Best Film, Best Supporting Actress (Dench), Best Editing.
Broadcast Film Critics Association: Best Original Screenplay, Breakthrough Artist (Fiennes).
Golden Globes: Best Picture-Comedy/Musical, Best Actress-Comedy/Musical (Paltrow).

Back to the Top 100.

#24  American History X (1998)

Starring Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Beverly D'Angelo, Jennifer Lien, Fairuza Balk, Avery Brooks, and Stacy Keach.
Written by David McKenna.
Directed by Tony Kaye.

The Grades
Alison
Carlo
Dana
A-
Jeff
B+
Jen
B+
Kris
B+

American History X is an object lesson in stark black and white of how hate destroys. It destroys not only its object, but its subject, as well. Edward Norton’s Derek Vinyard is that subject, a muscular, graffitied advertisement for vitriol, in a performance of harrowing power and striking depth. Derek’s story is a classical tragedy in very modern trappings. His fatal flaw–inexorable rage for all that he cannot control in his world and poisonous hatred for those he holds responsible–precipitates his downfall and the destruction of all that he holds dear, despite his efforts at redemption.

Told in flashback from the point of view of Derek’s hero-worshipping younger brother Danny (Furlong), American History X unflinchingly follows Derek’s rise to the leadership of a misdirected group of racist skinheads under the tutelage of a creepy white supremacist (Keach). Derek is smart, unrelenting, charismatic, and exceedingly frightening. The film’s power as an anti-racist statement is so strong in part because Derek is so persuasive and even seductive before the full scope and effect of his wrath is known.

The consequences of Derek’s beliefs and actions born of his unstemmed fury leave little room to doubt the film’s strong message, however. Rage of this magnitude is an opened artery and a band-aid cannot stanch its flow.  –Alison

Read Carlo's full-length review.

Academy Awards™
Nominations: Best Actor (Norton).

Other Major Awards
Golden Satellite Awards: Best Actor-Drama (Norton).
Southeastern Film Critics: Best Actor (Norton).

Back to the Top 100.

#25  The Ice Storm (1997)

Starring Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Christina Ricci, Tobey Maguire, Henry Czerny, and Elijah Wood.
Written by James Schamus based on the novel by Rick Moody.
Directed by Ang Lee.

The Grades
Alison
B+
Carlo
A 
Dana
A-
Jeff
A 
Jen
B-
Kris
A+

Set in suburban Connecticut circa 1974, The Ice Storm examines the socio-political angst of post-Vietnam America in coming to terms with the increasing cynicism and malaise embodied by the Watergate scandal, while at the same time exploring the tension between the growing sexual liberation of the era and the desire to maintain the traditional family structure. No, wait, that would be another, much more boring, movie. The Ice Storm is one of the best films of the past decade not so much for its value as a cultural statement but because it exists off on its own aesthetic plane, from the prolonged grinding of ice along the railroad tracks in the opening scene through the quiet, haunting cinematography of the storm's aftermath. The mood of the film is best captured by the time of year in which it take place–late November–rather than through the specific geography or politics of its setting. As such, it is timeless. The understated, melancholy score by Mychael Danna blends perfectly with the scenery, and the writing and acting are also terrific. These are real, fully rounded characters we're watching up there, one of the many reasons The Ice Storm stands up to repeat viewings, and seems to get better each time.  –Kris

Major Awards
British Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress (Weaver).
Cannes Film Festival: Best Screenplay, nominated for Best Film.
London Critics Circle: nominated for Film, Director, Actor (Kline), Actress (Allen), and Screenwriter of the Year.
Writers Guild of America: nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

  Comment on this feature
  Read user comments
  Previous page (numbers 9-16)

  The Top 100 of the 1990s
  Features Index