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Top 101 Movies of the 90s. We are done. If I knock out Amadeus/Brazil/Ran, We get to have an 80s countdown!! (1 Viewer)

I would love to be a part of that 80’s countdown......let me know @KarmaPolice
@Todem  I am not opposed to a couple more jumping in. 

I get that out method of countdown was a bit confusing and imperfect.   So I think it needs to be discussed if we are going to do a similar combined countdown or as somebody suggested, mabye we countdown our 100-1 individually.   Ie one posts their 100-96, then the other posts their 100-96, and so on.  

 
80s has been doing all the talking about Gump, but obviously it wasn't on my list either.    Not a movie I hate by any stretch, just one that hasn't aged well for me.     I would guess it would be in the wave of the next 100 movies for me along with other very good movies that missed like Reservoir Dogs and the like.  

 
For all the Gump hate that came about its way for having an impaired character and its being an attempt at a conservative epic, it really was grand in its scope and was a great movie, IMO. Unlike other disingenuous narrative devices, the character was impaired in the book, so it's not like they chose it as a narrative driver. Of course, the book was wildly different because the character was an autistic savant and the jokes were ribald (Jenny was more like Myrna Minkoff from Confederacy Of Dunces) but that's neither here nor there. It was a great movie, with awesome cultural references and touchstones. 

I dug it then and it holds up upon viewing. 
Various movie snobs I’ve come across over the years seem to have a grudge against it because they didn’t think it deserved to win best picture over Pulp Fiction.

 
If we were making a list of iconic movies of the 90s or something like that my list would be different.   There are always going to be those handful of movies that get pushed down the list as you put in personal favorites.    

 
Various movie snobs I’ve come across over the years seem to have a grudge against it because they didn’t think it deserved to win best picture over Pulp Fiction.
Absolutely. I think that's where a lot of the hate comes from. Forrest Gump is a pretty benign film to deserve all that hate. I guess the girlfriend-slapping SDS guy rankled everybody's politics a bit (as did the slight Americana jingoism, which in my mind, was tepid compared to a lot of movies, especially a lot of movies from the '80s) but in the end, a pretty innocent movie to deserve such blowback. 

 
Was also surprised this didn't make the list, but I could see it being left off. I could also see it in the top ten. Very much a precursor of what was to come for Tarantino. 
I held it in a bit higher regard until I started watching older movies more.   What I thought at the time was a fresh, groundbreaking movies revealed itself to be a typical QT MO - his snappy dialogue wrapped in a shell of movies that he loved growing up.   Watching old noir and heist movies (and getting around to Kubrick's The Killing) knocked it down the pedestal some for me and put it just outside the top 100.    Pulp feels way more stylistically his, if that makes sense.      For me his best are Pulp, Jackie, Once Upon a Time, and Basterds.    For me a lot of his other work feels like regurgitation of others before him with the QT flare.  

 
For all the Gump hate that came about its way for having an impaired character and its being an attempt at a conservative epic, it really was grand in its scope and was a great movie, IMO. Unlike other disingenuous narrative devices, the character was impaired in the book, so it's not like they chose it as a narrative driver. Of course, the book was wildly different because the character was an autistic savant and the jokes were ribald (Jenny was more like Myrna Minkoff from Confederacy Of Dunces) but that's neither here nor there. It was a great movie, with awesome cultural references and touchstones. 

I dug it then and it holds up upon viewing. 


I didn't hate it, but I definitely didn't dig it the way the rest of the audience did when I saw it in the theater.

I remember feeling like it was one of several movies that came out aroudn the same time where Hollywood was trying to teach us life lessons about humanity, but through these inhuman characters. I'd have been ok with Idiot savant Gump... but he was idiot savant Gump who also had super-human speed... which dehumanized him in my eyes- again, against the backdrop of several other films using a similar kind of approach.

by the time I got to Gump, I was over it. at the time, my thought was- give me normal people (and disabilities were fine) to mirror humanity back at me- not people with super-human abilities. this is a part of what disinterests me about all the super hero movies. 

but I agree about the epic scope of it being pretty great, and tbh I've grown to like it a lot more since seeing it originally- getting distance from that original bugaboo. but that still taints my view of it, ranking-wise.

and that's all I have to say about that.

 
Yep. History through the eyes of a person with severe limitations and a problem with social niceties, too. He tells the story as an ur-rationalist in this case, which gives things a very methodical, cold feel to them. All the more for Groom to sort of avoid politics and present the history as almost a factual thing, rather than have it wrapped up in any bias (of course, just doing that winds up biased). But to present the history as dispassionately as he does is also a choice to inure himself of critical dissent from the novel's interesting politics, something the author didn't really avoid in the end.  


Attempting a similar thing, i thought about Gump a lot and it simply doesnt work as well as a sustained act of intention. were he more than a toy boat in a torrent, the bathos & pathos wouldnt line up, know'm'sayin?

ETA: i fell for it xtra hard because i was helpless unto watching my own wildchild wife waste away to a dread disease when it came out, but it's still solid filmmaking.

 
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Attempting a similar thing, i thought about Gump a lot and it simply doesnt work as well as a sustained act of intention. were he more than a toy boat in a torrent, the bathos & pathos wouldnt line up, know'm'sayin?
The critics of the novel didn't think that they lined up. That's all I can really say. The pathos towards the character is one thing I think Groom avoided. His character loved to drink, ####, and fight, and wound up in a one-man band, happy and sleeping on a park bench, which is generally where heavily autistic people without care wind up. And Groom did that amorally, IIRC. So I'm not sure pathos for the character and his surrounding characters were an issue. Think he winds up hanging out with Lt. Dan and a NASA monkey in the end. But it's been so long since I've read it. I was fourteen or so when I first read it, and gave it a re-reading after the movie came out. 

So there wasn't a whole lot of pathos required to identify with the original character. The film did it much differently, so your aim is truer there, and maybe true as well for the novel, which critics didn't seem to care for -- at least from the blurbs I'm reading. 

 
A little 90s movie list trivia:

Each year Ebert choose his best move of the year. Obviously those movies did well on our Top 100. However, there were 3 years that Ebert chose a movie that did NOT make our countdown. 

What are the 3 movies listed here that were not named the best movie of their year by Ebert?

  • Goodfellas, JFK, Malcolm X, Schindler's List,  Pulp Fiction, Apollo 13
  • Fargo, Boogie Nights, Dark City, Being John Malkovich
 
Honest answer is probably a couple months.    Looking at my initial list of 60-70 that I made the last couple days and thinking about my experience with the rewatches, I am not going to watch nearly as many as I did for the 90s, but I did write down about 20-25 that are on my radar for either watching for the first time ever or just in a very long time.   I am going to be opinionated and uncompromising about my top 50-70, and not much is going to change if I watch Karate Kid for the 300th time.   

For me the much harder balance is going to be how to grade out the Ghostbusters vs. the Raging Bull type movies.    Way more than the 90s there is going to be a "battle" of nostalgia vs. what I think are actual great movies.  
Please lean towards greatness.  Ghostbusters vs Raging Bull should be no contest

 
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I was thinking how much different the list would be if this was FBGirls.  Titanic #1?  Pretty Woman and Ghost probably Top 20.

 
Various movie snobs I’ve come across over the years seem to have a grudge against it because they didn’t think it deserved to win best picture over Pulp Fiction.


Movie snob checking in here.  I maybe not quite hated but very much disliked it when I saw it in the theatre.  Didn't get it at all, and hardly enjoyed a minute of it; it just irritated me to no end.  I wasn't aware of the book but can see how reading it might make one like the movie more (or, I suppose, less).

Then it beat out not just Pulp Fiction, but also Shawshank and Quiz Show, and Hanks won over Freeman and Travolta in those movies as well as Paul Newman in Nobody's Fool.  I'll admit that made it even less endearing to me, but I hadn't been a fan anyway.

 
I was thinking how much different the list would be if this was FBGirls.  Titanic #1?  Pretty Woman and Ghost probably Top 20.
My wife would be pretty mad that A League of their Own and Notting Hill didn't make it to this list. 

 
gonna list some of my favorite comedies.  Some of these may have been mentioned already

A League of Their Own - probably one of Tom Hanks last good roles before he became a serious actor.

American Pie - a more modern take on the 80s screwball comedies.  I was pretty close in age to all the characters and it definitely had some LOL scenes.  Also Shannon Elizabeth :wub:

Bottle Rocket - others mentioned it, might be my 2nd favorite Wes Anderson behind Tennenbaums.  Definitely more funny than quirky

Career Opportunities - I don’t remember much about this one other than Frank Whaley gets locked in a store with Jennifer Connelly, but I know I’d watch it anytime it came on because hot girl

Deuce Bigalow - that’s a huge ##### :lmao:

Father of the Bride - always liked this movie.  Also had a crush on Kimberly Williams Paisley.  It’s interesting to watch it as a youngin and then as an adult to get a different perspective on weddings

Feeling Minnesota 

Four Rooms - I think the first story and last story are the best, always loved how fast Ted chops that dudes finger off

Friday - several people mentioned this one but definitely iconic and quotable 

 
Please lean towards greatness.  Ghostbusters vs Raging Bull should be no contest
Both are great movies.  

I'll treat the 80s the same way - basically a desert island grab of the 100 movies I'd choose to watch from the 80s and an attempt to rank them on order I would take them.  Because of my age, the lists will look different because instead of Cable Guy, Jurassic Park,  and Scream being my mainstream or "faves" picks it will be Karate Kid and Bill and Ted type movies.  

 
A little 90s movie list trivia:

Each year Ebert choose his best move of the year. Obviously those movies did well on our Top 100. However, there were 3 years that Ebert chose a movie that did NOT make our countdown. 

What are the 3 movies listed here that were not named the best movie of their year by Ebert?

  • Goodfellas, JFK, Malcolm X, Schindler's List,  Pulp Fiction, Apollo 13
  • Fargo, Boogie Nights, Dark City, Being John Malkovich
He is odd sometimes in his ratings .   Bolded were my guesses.  Jfk and Apollo seem a bit odd mixed with the rest, so leaned those two + a guess at a popular one he might have rated lower.  

 
He is odd sometimes in his ratings .   Bolded were my guesses.  Jfk and Apollo seem a bit odd mixed with the rest, so leaned those two + a guess at a popular one he might have rated lower.  
Apollo 13 and Pulp Fiction are correct.  Ebert did have JFK as his best movie of 1991 though. 

 
Eve’s Bayou in 97 (no idea what this is)
 it was a flick a lot like today's small slice o' life films, but made by a black woman (Kasi Lemmons - who we'd know as Clarice's FBI pal in SotL), a rare bird back then. it was no great shakes, but Ebert always made extra fuss about work from emerging sources

 
Ridiculous omissions:

Reservoir Dogs
True Romance
Clerks
Tombstone

Others that would have made my list off the top of my head:

Lost Highway
Wild at Heart
Sleepers
Primal Fear
Crash
Trees Lounge
Army of Darkness
 


A couple more that would have definitely made it.

Buffalo 66.  If you like Yes's Heart of the Sunrise, a must-see.

American History X.  

Jacob's Ladder.  I thought maybe it was 80's but checked, 1990.  This, along with Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, Clerks, and Lost Highway would probably be in my personal top 10.

Shallow Grave.  I don't think a lot of people know this.  A great psychological thriller starring Ewan McGregor.

Bad Lieutenant.  Great stuff from Keitel.

Natural Born Killers.  Surprised, I don't think I've seen this mentioned yet.

Judgement Night.  Nothing groundbreaking here, but I love an evil Denis Leary.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.  Duh.

Pi.  Another great film not talked about much.

Barton Fink.  Another great Coen Bros flick.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape.  Great performances from DiCaprio and Depp.

Cape Fear.  Deniro in one of the scariest roles I've ever seen.

Happiness.  Maybe not a fun watch, but powerful nevertheless.

 
Career Opportunities - I don’t remember much about this one other than Frank Whaley gets locked in a store with Jennifer Connelly, but I know I’d watch it anytime it came on because hot girl


Forgot about this.  Definitely top 100.

 
80s has been doing all the talking about Gump, but obviously it wasn't on my list either.    Not a movie I hate by any stretch, just one that hasn't aged well for me.     I would guess it would be in the wave of the next 100 movies for me along with other very good movies that missed like Reservoir Dogs and the like.  
This was one of my favorite aspects of your list.  It’s a terrible movie.

 
Yep

Hoop Dreams in 94

Leaving Las Vegas in 95

Eve’s Bayou in 97 (no idea what this is)
Hoop Dreams is the best documentary of all time.   That plus True Romance are the most visible gaps on the list IMO.

Great work - thanks for doing this!!  It made me re-watch The Player last night!!

 
Hoop Dreams is the best documentary of all time.   That plus True Romance are the most visible gaps on the list IMO.

Great work - thanks for doing this!!  It made me re-watch The Player last night!!
We purposely left off documentaries.     

I think Hoop Dreams would have landed quite high.   I listed a bunch of docs that I loved from the 90s somewhere in the thread.   The problem I have including docs is that just about all get really high grades from me, and would end up overpowering the list.  

 
We purposely left off documentaries.     

I think Hoop Dreams would have landed quite high.   I listed a bunch of docs that I loved from the 90s somewhere in the thread.   The problem I have including docs is that just about all get really high grades from me, and would end up overpowering the list.  
That would be an awesome list!!   :)

 
I wouldn't take it that far. Some people did. Most of us were riveted by Pulp Fiction in the theatres and thought Shawshank was the better movie, but Gump should crack the top hundred, if you ask me. 
It’s kind of weird looking at the box office in ‘94. Just for the Best Picture nominees:

Gump- 42 week run at theaters, made $678 million is one of the highest grossing movies of the decade.

Pulp- $213 million, first indie film to top $100

Four Weddings- $245 million

Quiz Show- $52 million 

Shawshank- $73 million but that was a rough ride to get there, it was a bomb on release. Opening weekend it was 9th at the box office. After a 10 week run, it had failed to recoup its budget. The director credited the Oscar nominations with saving it. He said before it got all those nominations, most people in the country had never heard of the film. It really became much more popular with an aggressive VHS and TNT/TBS campaign. 
 

 

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