THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG - A Look at the Best Films of 1997

I already touted 1997 as being a strong continuation of the output from 1996, but I would actually argue that the list ahead is a little stronger. Maybe there won't be a Fargo-level favorite per se, but this list has a high level of films that I consider to be truly great.

If I am ranking films on a 5-star scale, 1996 would've had 3 by my standards.

1997 has 7.

So we are talking a pretty strong year to a point where I am, once again, a tad surprised by what the 90s offered as a decade year after year. I would say having 3 is a bit more common. There are even some years where I've given no films a 5-star rating (...ugh 2022...)

I do have more I want to say on the topic, but I am going to save that for my Final Thoughts. I am going to veer over into my Honorable Mentions, and I will be listing 5 films again this time.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Gummo

Written & Directed by Harmony Korine

Out of all the films on this list, Gummo is the one that is by far the most divisive. 

Upon its release, Janet Maslin of The New York Times called it "the worst movie of the year", and it still to this day has a 39% on Rotten Tomatoes. 

It may be dour and dirty and uncomfortable, but there is something so oddly intriguing about Gummo. 

Set after a destructive tornado hits Xenia, OH, we watch a loosely based narrative form around the residents who are living in destructed poverty and have to find creative...or revolting...ways to pass the time.

It's not an easy watch, but sometimes it is worth admiring that kind of effort.

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Good Will Hunting

Directed by Gus Van Sant

Written by Ben Affleck & Matt Damon

I will admit that I have never been as passionate about Good Will Hunting as a lot of people are, but it does succeed in a lot of its emotional beats. If anything, Robin Williams steals the show with his Oscar winning performance as Dr. Sean Maguire. 

I do recall the excitement people had with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon after this came out. Even when Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau presented them with their Screenplay Oscar, you could tell Lemmon in particular was thrilled to do so. It felt like a coronation amidst a ceremony dominated by Titanic.

Speaking of....

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Titanic

Written & Directed by James Cameron

Okay, addressing the elephant in the room.

Titanic was a legit phenomenon. It was EVERYWHERE. I can remember "My Heart Will Go On" playing on the radio daily, sometimes hearing it multiple times.

It was an epic and for its time, the technical aspects were impressive. The film that was supposed to flop became the highest grossing film of its time and then swept the Oscars with ease.

And yet...the film suffers from one truly crucial thing: its screenplay.

The film may be directed with great flair and it may have a pretty solid structure, but the dialogue????

"I saw the iceberg, and I can see it in your eyes".

"To me, it was a slave ship. Taking me back to America in chains"

"Something Picasso? He won't amount to a thing. Trust me."

"They're so small, my crowd. They think they're giants, they're not even dust in God's eyes".

There is a clear reason why this film managed to get a record 14 nominations, but still got easily snubbed for a Screenplay nod. 

But I still maintain it is a highly entertaining film.

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Anastasia 

Directed by Don Bluth & Gary Goldman

Written by Susan Gauthier, Bruce Graham, Bob Tzudiker, & Noni White

A true return to grace for Don Bluth after his empire began to dwindle in the early 90s, Anastasia felt as though it was meeting the standards formed by the Disney Renaissance musicals. The irony is that Bluth had left Disney for more creative prospects only to regain a level of success by going for the new Disney formula.

Nevertheless, the musical score by Broadway vets Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, best known for Once on This Island, Ragtime, and Seussical, is one of the best aspects of this. "Journey to the Past" got a well-deserved Oscar nod (that it lost to "My Heart Will Go On") but I wish we could've seen a nod for "Once Upon a December", which is such a haunting lullaby of a song.

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Eve's Bayou

Written & Directed by Kasi Lemmons

This one is a gem that I feel like has been lost to time a bit, which is a shame because it was such an assured debut for Kasi Lemmons. 

Embraced by Roger Ebert as the best film of 1997, Eve's Bayou is a little bit of everything.

It's a coming-of-age film, it deals with voodoo, you have Samuel L. Jackson at his most reserved and haunting all wrapped up in a Southern Gothic vibe with gorgeous cinematography.

A young Journee Smollett plays Eve who was fresh off of playing Denise on Full House and she's wonderful but it is Debbi Morgan, most known for her role as Angie on All My Children, who steals the film as Aunt Mozelle, a Hoodoo practitioner known locally as "The Black Widow". I would've loved to have seen her get an Oscar nomination for this.

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THE TOP 10:

#10 - THE SWEET HEREAFTER

Written & Directed by Atom Egoyan

I feel like despite them being our neighbors to the north...with better weather and a seemingly better country I would rather live in than here...we don't seem to see a surge of Canadian films coming over here. Instead, we got a lot of Canadian TV whether it be children's shows or comedy programs.

However, The Sweet Hereafter is a wonderful film; a strong effort from Atom Egoyan. 

Egoyan was part of a Canadian film movement called the Toronto New Wave, but this movement was certainly not as prominent as others. Admittedly, a lot of the filmmakers from this group are shamefully a bit of a blind spot for me.

Set in a small Canadian town, we follow the grieving lives of various parents/children after a school bus accident takes the lives of 14 kids. The parents are seeking to file a class action lawsuit, while a lot of the community's personal issues come to light and create further turmoil. 

Perhaps one of the brightest spots from this was a young Sarah Polley, who was fresh off her stint as Sara Stanley on one of the many Canadian television imports aired on The Disney Channel back in the 90s, Road to Avonlea. In the film, she plays 15 year old Nicole, who survives the bus accident but is now paralyzed from the waist down. She had hoped to become a successful musician and had thought of it as an escape from her sexually abusive father. 

With the likes of actors like Ian Holm and Bruce Greenwood doing effective work with such an intelligent and moving script, The Sweet Hereafter is an unflinching look at grief and how its ramifications affect us in ways we don't even realize. 

With its score based in medieval influences and snowy landscapes, it feels almost like we are witnessing a beautiful but dreary dream that follows a tragic nightmare.

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#9 - HAPPY TOGETHER

Written & Directed by Wong Kar-wai

Welcome back to the Wong Kar-wai universe!

Happy Together is very much a film with themes that Wong loved to tackle: longing and regret.

However, what made Happy Together feel particularly exciting, at least for that era, was that it depicted a gay couple at its center. With Tony Leung as the sensitive Yiu-Fai and Leslie Cheung as the extroverted promiscuous Po-Wing, we watch this couple disintegrate before our eyes but it doesn't feel exploitative or degrading, it presents the story as it is without judgment. 

The two frequently breakup only to reconcile shortly thereafter, but their goal is to take a trip to Argentina as a means to add a little more excitement to their lives. The two end up getting lost while traversing Iguazu Falls and have yet another fight that leads to a breakup, only to realize they no longer have enough money to fly home. Yiu-Fai tries to get work while Po-Wing essentially pimps himself out, until a violent encounter leads the two to reconsider yet another reconciliation. 

Happy Together is clearly not a happy film. 

This is a clear case of a couple that doesn't belong together, and one of the pair finally having the courage to say that he knows that there is more out there for him and prepares to make that change. It may not have been the most glorious representation of love between two gay men, but it felt like an honest one with dignity.

That is certainly all one could've asked for, especially circa 1997.

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#8 - L.A. CONFIDENTIAL

Written & Directed by Curtis Hanson 

Co-written by Brian Helgeland

At that year's Oscars during Billy Crystal's opening musical number, he sang the lyric "L.A. Confidential, you could be the iceberg tonight!"

Prior to the televised award ceremonies that lead up the Oscars, all of the major critics organizations rallied behind L.A. Confidential and in theory, it seemed like it would be the film to beat.

But alas, the gargantuan success of Titanic made it catnip for the Oscars who were very prone to opt for sweeping epics throughout the 80s and 90s.

I do have to think that if the preferential ballot existed back then, L.A. Confidential might've put up more of a fight, but the real truth is I feel like people talk about the film less these days.

Set in 1950s LA (and the visual aesthetics are absolutely glorious, we follow various detectives in the corrupt LAPD who resort to trying unusual methods to solve a mass murder in an all-night diner. 

It's a stellar ensemble. You have the two Aussies, Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe; the now disgraced Kevin Spacey; legendary character actors Danny DeVito, James Cromwell, David Sraithairn, and Ron Rifkin...and then somehow it was Kim Basinger who got the only acting nod and win for the film.

I still don't think Kim Basinger was as effective in this role as it could've been. While I do think she had a certain presence that worked, it wasn't Oscar worthy...especially considering she beat out Julianne Moore in Boogie Nights (more on her later) and Joan Cusack's comedic tour-de-force in In & Out.

A gritty but glossy and seductive mystery that felt like the film Curtis Hanson had been building to his entire career.

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#7 - TASTE OF CHERRY

Written & Directed by Abbas Kiarostami

I guess we will never escape the world of Kiarostami, it seems.

I think the crazy thing about doing these posts is how I didn't truly realize how solid a track record Abbas Kiarostami had back in the 90s, and it was clear that a surge in Iranian cinema was booming as evidenced by the previous inclusion of Children of Heaven. 

Taste of Cherry stars Homayoun Ershadi who, like a lot of Kiarostami's actors, was not a professional actor when he made the film. Kiarostami noticed Ershadi while sitting in Tehran traffic and offered him a chance to star in the film.

How wacky is THAT?!

It is like the story of discovering Lana Turner sitting at a soda counter, but even more crazy in that he saw something in Ershadi and said "Yes, you. I want you to lead my film that will end up winning the Palme D'or at Cannes 1997".

Ershadi plays Badii, a middle-aged man who we see driving around Tehran. All he wants is for someone to do a job for him and in turn they will receive a large sum of money.

The job? 

Badii doesn't want to live anymore. He intends on killing himself and he wants the person he hires to bury him with dignity.

Okay, no pressure there. 

Taste of Cherry is a brooding character study that somehow feels so grand despite being so small and simplistic in its scope. It even latches on to the idea of how you'll be handled after you are dead, something that I used to have a morbid fear of.

Hilariously though, despite the high acclaim, Roger Ebert famously loathed the film to the point that he called it "excruciatingly boring" and would put it on his most hated films of all time list. You really can't please everyone!

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#6 - CHILDREN OF HEAVEN

Written & Directed by Majid Majidi

My introduction to Children of Heaven was when it got nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars a year after its release; an award it would lose to Best Picture nominee Life is Beautiful. 

Now, I am not saying I hate Life is Beautiful, but I do think it has suffered a lot over time in how Roberto Benigni presented that material...let alone him winning Best Actor...

Upon seeing Children of Heaven, I found myself enamored it and wished it had been the winner of that category. It's like Majidi made a children's film, but found a magic touch to make it very palatable for adults.

The premise is simple: Zohre no longer has her shoes because her older brother Ali lost them. Since they are from a poor family, they can't afford a new pair so they decide to share a pair of shoes. 

Iranian cinema is endlessly fascinating in that these filmmakers can often take the simplest seeming idea, and weave it into something magical/profound/bittersweet. It may be about shoes, but it is also about the bond between siblings, the way one wants to protect the other, but they know they truly can't to the potential they desire.

A magical, bittersweet effort that feels like Majid Majidi was tapping into the world of Vittorio De Sica.

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#5 - PERFECT BLUE

Directed by Satoshi Kon

Written by Sadayuki Murai

Beyond the works of Studio Ghibli, I can't say that I have much of a history with anime as an artform. Aside from 1988's Akira, the only other anime film I remember watching and loving was Perfect Blue. 

I will admit: I used to sort of scoff at the idea of anime. It was a toxic trait of my younger film bro days, but I fell upon Perfect Blue in an unexpected way.

While I was in college, I briefly had a roommate who was a bit...eccentric. By "eccentric", I mean that he would practically watch C-Span or CNN several hours a day (this was during the 2008 election) and if he wasn't watching those, he was watching webcam footage of Shiba Inu puppies where he would quietly chant "Puppies, puppies, puppies, puppies..." and also proclaimed "I want them to fight for my pleasure".

...anyway.

This guy randomly gave me a DVD of Perfect Blue when he heard it was my birthday. Looking back, I was barely civil when he gave it to me. Maybe it was because of the snobby nature, but to be fair, he had done and said some things that were either weird or borderline offensive (including saying I needed to lose weight even though I was arguably much closer to my healthiest weight).

I finally watched the DVD when I went home for the winter break and it felt like a slap in the face. Every now and then, I have to be put in my place when it comes to film snobbery.

Perfect Blue is the kind of animated film that proved you could tell darker and far more complex stories despite the stigma of animation being for children. A J-Pop star named Mima Kirigoe leaves her group CHAM! with the hope of becoming an actress. However, her journey is affected by a stalker and a series of murders occurring at the same time, which sends her down a spiral.

Dark and stylish and brimming with gloom, it is a beacon for the genre...and with the next film on this list, we will stay in Japan and deal with similar themes.

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#4 - CURE

Written & Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

No relation to the legendary Akira, Kiyoshi Kurosawa was a major reason that that Japanese cinema became synonymous with horror in the late 90s and beyond.

Before we had Memories of Murder or Zodiac, we had Cure. 

The great Koji Yakusho plays Detective Kenichi Takabe, who is investigating a series of murders in which the victims have the letter X carved into their neck or chest. The twist is that each of the murderers are found near the victim...but despite confessing to the murder, they don't have any real motive to show why they actually did it.

Procedurals are never a genre I gravitate towards with any kind of regularity, but it is a key example of a style that is compelling when done well. We watch this investigation descend to levels of obsession and psychosis; there is a strong desire for him to understand evil but it is putting him right in the heart of the beast.

It becomes a film where you second guess every little thing: a quiet liminal space, a cup of water, a flickering light, a waitress holding a knife.

Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho once stated that Cure was among his favorite films ever made, and you can totally see the influence on him in not just Memories of Murder but even in some of his other works like Mother. I also see the influence in Park Chan-wook's works, especially Decision to Leave.

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#3 - FUNNY GAMES

Written & Directed by Michael Haneke

Michael Haneke is one of those dark and dreary filmmakers that I admire for how far he tries to take his material, and when I revisited Funny Games during my oft-mentioned COVID Quarantine Film Marathon, it played out a lot better than I remembered. 

This is not a film for just anyone. It isn't even for all film lovers. 

When the film got screened at the Cannes Film Festival, it was met with boos and about a third of the audience walked out. Filmmakers like Jacques Rivette dismissed the film as being vile and a disgrace...but while what happens in the film is truly vile, the film is speaking on so much more.

Set in along a remote lakefront in Austria, a couple named George & Anna (Ulrich Muhe & Susanne Lothar) along with their son Georgie and dog Rolfi, are set to have a quiet and relaxing stay at a cabin. 

Upon arrival, they notice their neighbors are conversing with two young men which they find a little unusual. The neighbor, Fred, shows up with one of the young men who says his name is Paul. The other young man shows up, named Peter, and proceeds to ask if he can borrow some eggs. He outstays his welcome by breaking multiple eggs and "accidentally" knocking the phone into the kitchen sink. 

What progresses from here is perhaps one of the cruelest and most sadistic concepts you could ever conceive: a family being tortured for no reason simply because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

I am not going to say that Funny Games is some easy watch or that it is something I will promote as a film all of you should watch, but this is a prime example of how absolutely brutal subject matter is presented in a compelling way. 

This isn't just a film that could be deemed "torture porn". It is a highly volatile, yes, but it has this meta edge as Peter and Paul frequently break the fourth wall...even to the point of rewinding the very film we are watching to make sure that THEY have the happy ending and not the family they are having fun with.

The film does go a bit too far at times where I wish Haneke hadn't gone that route, but he walked a really precarious tightrope with this one and he succeeded.

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#2 - PRINCESS MONONOKE

Written & Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

A list for the best films of a given year will likely include a film by Miyazaki if he made a film that year. In the past, I have discussed My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service and we will see more work of his in other years I've yet to discuss.

The simple truth is that very few filmmakers, live action or animation, have the stellar consistency that Miyazaki has. He is literally on par with the likes of fellow Japanese filmmakers like Ozu and Kurosawa or those such as Stanley Kubrick or Ingmar Bergman. 

Set during the Muromachi period in Japan, we meet a young prince named Ashitaka who placed under  a curse by a demonic god. As he begins a journey west to find a cure, he encounters a younger woman named San who is trying to protect the forest while Lady Eboshi is trying to destroy it. 

We had seen Pixar come out with so many stellar animated films, particularly their stretch from 2007-2010, and it seemed to prove to a lot of people how affective animated films could be.

Miyazaki was proving this to be true about a decade or two prior, and at an even higher level.

This could be said about many of his films, but Princess Mononoke is stunning, profound, and spellbinding. It takes a story about the destruction of nature in favor of industrialization and finds a way to make it accessible enough for younger audiences while truthfully being a film that caters to mature ones. Everything about this film drips with passion and fervor and creativity and in the end, I think the better thing one can do about Miyazaki is to just shut up, sit down, and go experience his work for yourself. 

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#1 - BOOGIE NIGHTS

Written & Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Although this was only his sophomore outing after 1996's Hard Eight, it was clear that this Paul Thomas Anderson fellow was going places. 

Now here we are nearly 30 years later and I would consider him to be in the running as the best English language filmmaker working today. I have even described him as the closest living equivalent we have to Stanley Kubrick in that his output is so consistently strong and varied in genre that it is yet another reason to marvel at the guy. 

Boogie Nights showcases a lot of the elements that would go on to become early trademarks of his style: vivid colors, one-shot continuous takes, a vast ensemble of performers. The ensemble angle feels very reminiscent of Robert Altman's works, namely Nashville or The Player or Short Cuts. 

It is 1977 in the San Fernando Valley (a setting that is also a frequent staple for PTA), we meet college dropout Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) who still lives at home with his father and abusive, alcoholic mother. While working one evening, he meets a porn producer named Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) who has an interest in using him in his films.

He takes on the stage name of Dirk Diggler, and a legend is born in that industry. Not only is he viewed as handsome and youthful, but he just so happens to have a rather large penis. The image of Phillip Seymour Hoffman holding a boom mike lusting over after this penis will always stay with me. 

Boogie Nights embraces the idea of depicting sex on film, but it also doesn't shy away from the more disenchanting elements or the negative stigmas. We live in a society that would sooner allow a child to watch someone's head get blown apart than catch a glimpse of a woman's breasts. 

Perhaps one of the more emotional and grounded bits of the film revolves around Julianne Moore as Maggie, who goes by the porn name of Amber Waves. 

She has a young son that she really wants to raise and take care of, but her ex-husband takes her to court and they instantly deem her unfit since she is a porn star with drug issues and a criminal record. When we see Moore crying outside the courthouse, it feels devastating. It is easily some of Moore's finest work and I think she should've won the Oscar that year...certainly over Kim Basinger in the previously discussed L.A. Confidential. 

Boogie Nights might not be as praised as strongly when put up against some of PTA's later work, but I still think it stands pretty high on his list...but it is also a very mighty list considering the man has only made one film I truly didn't care much for (Licorice Pizza) and perhaps only two pretty good efforts: Hard Eight and Inherent Vice.

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FINAL THOUGHTS:

1997 is an important year for me. When I wrote about 1998 a couple of years ago, I talked about how it was the year that I began my journey as a film lover but a lot of that also stemmed from the films of 1997.

In that post, I talked about watching that year's Oscar ceremony and a lot of these films were nominated or won in some capacity so they now feel very engrained in my mind. 

I really sound like a broken record, but it hard for me not to marvel at the quality and the variety of these films above. The fact a film like Eve's Bayou is my #11 is a kind of a shocker considering there are quite a few years post-2000 where it would likely be a top 3-5 contender for those lists.

Since 1998 has been done, that means we are about to reach the final year of the 90s and the 20th Century. 

1999 is one of those legendary years where it seems like all the excitement and energy of the decade behind it led for films to explode with even more vibrancy and intensity than before. 

It'll be a challenge of a list, especially because some of the most beloved films from that year (much like I had occur in 1994) will not factor as strongly on that list.

"SUNDANCE BY THE SEA" - A Look at the Best Films of 1996

As we continue our journey through the glorious cinematic mecca that was the 1990s, I want to take a moment to talk about one film: The English Patient.

The response to this film, complete with it winning 9 Oscars and managing to gross a rather impressive $230+ million worldwide against a $30-40 million budget was a major success story. However, that success also came with immense backlash. 

To me, The English Patient is the prime example of the kind of "Oscar bait/prestige" film that gives the whole idea of that awards show a bad reputation. It's overlong and plodding, but also gets buoyed up by good performances and gorgeous visuals. This negative reaction was so prominent that even Seinfeld had an episode devoted to Elaine Benes getting shafted by friends/colleagues and even getting temporarily fired from her job because she said that the film "really SUCKED". 

It must be noted that The English Patient was a Miramax film, so you may have guessed it already: the campaign for this film was led by Harvey Weinstein...just to rub salt into that wound.

These days, I wouldn't say The English Patient is among the absolute worst winners. I believe I ranked it in the 70s out of nearly 100 Best Picture winners, but the simple truth is that the film beat out two films that I really loved...and will be so happy to talk about today.

1996 was a year I used to consider to be pretty weak, but I think a lot of its power is similar to that of 1993. When I made that list, I only singled out 10 films but felt that it was a pretty mighty list of 10.

I will be listing 10 films here as well, but also including 5 Honorable Mentions. Much like 1991, I am kind of surprised at how much I really do like or love all of these. Let's go ahead and get started!

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Kolya

Directed by Jan Sverak

Written by Zedenek Sverak

As the winner of that year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, Kolya came into my life strangely due to a girl I was sort of seeing in high school. To be fair, she lacked a lot of culture looking back on it but for whatever reason, she had been shown this movie, loved it dearly, and pushed people to watch it. 

Strangely I had not seen the film at that point even though I was pretty deep into watching foreign films, and yes, I did enjoy the film. Directed by his son Jan and with a script written by himself, Zedenek Sverak stars as a Czech man who ends up having to care for the son of a Russian immigrant who was posing as his wife and grows to develop a relationship with him. 

It is very well done for what it is, but I mostly chose this as a 15th film to round out the list.

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That Thing You Do

Written & Directed by Tom Hanks

While I will acknowledge that there were certain aspects to the script that perhaps didn't truly mesh well with how the story evolved (namely Hanks using Tom Everett Scott's character as a voice for the band even though he wasn't even a founding member), I can't help but say how much I do enjoy this film and a lot of the wit and assuredness Hanks had for his first writing/directing outing.

I love the score written for this, not just the title song, but the variety of all the music styles that blended and collided with each other throughout the 60s.

Plus - some great one-liners, and while it won't make sense out of context, I will always love the moment Steve Zahn comments on Jonathan Schaech's exit in one scene saying: "There he goes, off to write his song 'Alone in my Principles'".

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Scream

Directed by Wes Craven

Written by Kevin Williamson

Scream signaled that there was a new spark in the horror genre. After over a decade of slasher films saturating the market, this was a film turning the subject on its ear and giving it not just a fresh look but a meta look. 

The first scene with Drew Barrymore, kind of serving as her true return to the spotlight after spending the first half of the 90s battling her addiction and bad girl image, is iconic. It has got to be one of the best introductions in a horror film ever...and I do think there was a world where Barrymore and Williamson for Original Screenplay, should've been in the Oscar nomination conversation.

It's just a shame that less than a decade later, the promise of Scream would only lead to the dire subgenre of horror "torture porn".

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Lone Star

Written & Directed by John Sayles

John Sayles is one of those indie filmmakers who never quite got the intense amount of mainstream success that some of his contemporaries managed to achieve, but he did manage his sole Oscar nomination for writing Lone Star, a neo-noir western in which a local sheriff (Christ Cooper) is trying to solve the cold case of his predecessor's murder (Kris Kristofferson).

It's a great example of how a lot of these small southern communities are still deeply rattled by the racial tensions that had occurred in decades prior...and haven't truly left.

Oh and shout out to the late great Elizabeth Pena, who was such an underrated and wonderful character actress.

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Matilda

Directed by Danny DeVito

Written by Robin Swicord & Nicholas Kazan

There are certain films that speak strongly to the joy and nostalgia of millennials like myself. I think a very prime example of this was Matilda, an absolutely whimsical gem that Danny DeVito brought to life with such a quirky vision that I still wish he would try returning to the director's chair.

Also - as a young kid, it was hard to not be enamored with Mara Wilson. She was basically THE child star of that era, and she had such a natural and effortless screen presence.

Oh and Pam Ferris as Miss Trunchull? Talk about PERFECT casting. If you see this actress in interviews, you will be blown away by what she achieved with this performance. 

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THE TOP 10:

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 #10 - PONETTE

Written & Directed by Jacques Doillon

The main reason this film is making my top 10 is due to the performance of 5 year old Victorie Thivsol. The film itself is very effective, but a lot of it is due to her astonishing work which could very well be the best performance by a child ever captured on film. Her work was so highly regarded that she won the prestigious Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival.

The main premise is that she survives a car crash in which her mother perishes. In order to better assist with raising her, her grieving father leaves her with a caring aunt and her children. 

I do find it fascinating how this film does tap into the issues with how some religions view death. For example, as a kid, I was not the least bit comforted by death. Everything about it made it seem like a terrifying process where I might never see my loved ones again...and what Doillon is able to achieve with that here is spot on.

While not the easiest watch compared to my honorable mentions, Thivsol's work alone was what made it reach this list. 

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#9 - A MOMENT OF INNOCENCE

Written & Directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf

Taking a page from fellow Iranian Abbas Kiarostami, we see Mohsen Makhmalbaf taking a real life incident that happened to him and finding a way to create a film around it.

When he was 17, he had been arrested at a protest after having stabbed a police officer. His goal with A Moment of Innocence was to have a director trying to find this officer and make amends for his actions. 

I don't even know how to truly describe A Moment of Innocence. It almost has this dreamlike quality that feels as though it is from another world. I could understand if someone might find the film as bordering on some kind of indulgent territory, but I have always viewed it as a film that speaks a lot to how people treat each other in society. A lot of its themes sadly feel just as urgent, if not more so, in today's political climate.  

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#8 - WAITING FOR GUFFMAN

Written & Directed by Christopher Guest

Co-written by Eugene Levy

Christopher Guest always loved the idea of improvised mockumentaries dating back to his work on This is Spinal Tap or how his one season on SNL gave birth to some truly iconic pre-tapes where his normally dry and stoic demeanor would come alive with such a bizarre group of characters.

While I do admittedly prefer Best in Show, which got singled out on the 2000 list, I obviously hold a great love for Waiting for Guffman.

As one of those infamous theatre kids growing up, I could relate to this story of a bunch of quirky small town locals putting on a show. They are led by Guest's Corky St. Clair, a very eccentric director who wants no more than to express his art. Due to his "off-off-off-off Broadway" connections, he tells his rag-tag group of actors (containing the usual players of Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Parker Posey, and Michael McKean) that he will be able to bring in Mort Guffman, a Broadway producer to review their production of Red, White, & Blaine, a musical about the 150th anniversary of their town Blaine, Missouri. 

Considering the play on Waiting for Godot, you can probably already assume the direction the film is heading in.

Not a big success at the time, Waiting for Guffman has gone on to endure in the decades since...and rightfully so. While not as consistently strong as Best in Show, it does have a rawness to it that feels far more grounded in reality...if you can imagine that.

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#7 - BIG NIGHT

Directed by Campbell Scott & Stanley Tucci

Written by Stanley Tucci & Joseph Tropiano

Is it any wonder that Stanley Tucci has made a new career for himself traveling about eating lots of Italian food?

Co-directed, written, and starring him, Tucci plays one of two immigrant brothers, the other played by Tony Shalhoub, who run an Italian restaurant on the Jersey Shore in the 1950s. 

They are choosing to open their restaurant one night promising free meals as a means for their restaurant to gain better exposure and, hopefully, a stronger reputation. 

A lot has been said about how this is one of the great "food" films of all time, and I would wholeheartedly agree with that; especially as someone who absolutely adores Italian food. However, this film is a lot more than just being a great advertisement for far better Italian food than you'd ever get at an Olive Garden.

This is such an endearing film and while it does have an aura of tension and melancholy surrounding the idea of a family business potentially failing, you can't help but fall for these two brothers and their family around them.  

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#6 - A SUMMER'S TALE

Written & Directed by Eric Rohmer

Of all the filmmakers to come out of the French New Wave, Eric Rohmer seemed to be one with the most longevity in terms of his vitality. He also got a slightly later start than some of his contemporaries like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, but only because he was busy as the editorial of the highly influential film publication Cahiers du Cinema from 1957 to 1963. 

Rohmer films often have a warmer aesthetic, with the main characters spending time at the beach or at some kind of resort setting. Even more remarkable is that as Rohmer aged, he still often wrote about people far younger than him and it never felt forced or unnatural.

A Summer's Tale might not be his absolute best overall, but it is a prime example of his style and how well he adapted to the changing times while still talking about areas very personal to him.

A lot of A Summer's Tale is based on encounters he had while he was in film school in the 40s, which is what also makes the film a bit different as he tends to love using female protagonists rather than male ones.

As part of his "Tales of the Four Seasons" series, I do think this was the best of the foursome.

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#5 - THE WATERMELON WOMAN 

Written & Directed by Cheryl Dunye

The fact that Cheryl Dunye, a black Lesbian filmmaker, was not able to given enough support to continue a successful filmmaking career should come as no shock to anyone. Dunye is a fascinating figure, and her voice should've been put forth a lot more after what she gave us with The Watermelon Woman.

Starring as a version of herself, Cheryl is an aspiring black lesbian filmmaker who works at a video rental store in Philadelphia. After watching an old film from the 30s called Plantation Memories, she sees that the black actress in the film playing the stereotypical Mammy role is credited as "The Watermelon Woman". She becomes inspired to track the woman down who played her and address the rather heinous architype of the "Mammy" that these days is mostly remembered via Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen's characters from Gone with the Wind. 

A film like The Watermelon Woman is a true test of a great filmmaker because Cheryl Dunye clearly tells it like it is, but finds ways to do it that don't feel preachy or self-indulgent. The final results make for a truly entertaining film that also shines a spotlight on a very racist and once beloved film trope in Hollywood. 

Much like Wendell Harris Jr several years before with Chameleon Street, it is another prime example of a black filmmaker who shows great promise and then was instantly marginalized. 

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#4 - CRASH

Written & Directed by David Cronenberg

No, not THAT Crash. 

Prior to the infamous Paul Haggis film Crash which would win the Best Picture Oscar nearly a decade later, there was David Cronenberg's Crash. No relation to the future film as this was based on a 1973 novel of the same name by J.G. Ballard.

The subject matter is certainly the kind of thing you'd expect Cronenberg to be drawn to: a film producer named James Ballard (James Spader) is an open marriage with his wife Catherine (Deborah Unger) and they have many extramarital trysts. One night, James is in a head-on collision that he manages to survive but he comes out of the accident developing symphorophilia, a person who is aroused by car crashes.

As one might suspect, Crash was met with a lot of harsh critiques at the time for its disturbing subject matter and the amount of graphic violence depicted; so much so that it got the very rare NC-17 rating from the MPAA. 

When it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, it got booed and had several walkouts but many people on the Grand Jury loved it and banded together to give it a Special Jury Prize mostly to acknowledge it as the president of that year's committee, the legendary filmmaker Frances Ford Coppola, loathed the film with a passion. He hated the film so much that when this jury prize was announced, Coppola refused to be the one to present it to Cronenberg. 

Truthfully, I won't mock Coppola for that. This film is abrasive and highly uncomfortable...but dear fucking god, it is simply one of the most fascinating and disturbing pieces of work I think you could ever come across. 

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#3 - BREAKING THE WAVES

Written & Directed by Lars von Trier

Leading the charge of Dogme '95 along with fellow Dane filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg, one can't help but tense up when thinking about the films made by Lars von Trier. 

Aside from many stories revealing the man to be an abusive individual, his films usually tap into very dark and uncomfortable territory. Breaking the Waves was the film that put him on the map with English language audiences when then young unknown British actress Emily Watson got such rapturous notices for her performance as Bess that a lot of critics and film fanatics said she should've been the rightful winner of the Oscar that year.

Bess is a young Scottish woman who suffers from a lot of mental anguish after the death of her brother. When her older husband Jan (Stellan Skarsgard) is at first presumed dead, she prays for his return and once he is found alive, he has been paralyzed from an oil rig accident. Bess is challenged by this not because of feeling put off by Jan, but rather he is adamant that she start sleeping with other men for her satisfaction...which descends into a darker arena that one likely wouldn't even be expecting if they didn't know they were watching a Lars von Trier film.

Watson in this film is ASTOUNDING. It was a great breakthrough performance and she completely throws herself into it which such abandon that it was one of the first performances I can remember thinking took the artform to a whole other level. 

I will admit that films of dark and depressing subject matter don't bother me as much. I am not saying I want to put them on all the time, but I love when a film can challenge me emotionally and make me feel uncomfortable. While Lars von Trier would eventually make a couple of films that would be a little better, I do think Breaking the Waves is one of his most successful from a purely emotional level.

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#2 - SECRETS & LIES

Written & Directed by Mike Leigh

My late Nan had been a pretty avid movie watcher for most of my childhood, but she sort of dropped off that habit as the 90s came to a close. 

However, one of the last films I can remember her talking about with a lot of love was Secrets & Lies, which I still consider to be the best outing to date from British filmmaker Mike Leigh. 

People have called Mike Leigh "the British Woody Allen" and when I was younger, I thought that was a very astute observation, but I don't agree with it now. I think it sells him short on what he often tries to tackle with his work. A lot of Woody Allen's films had a filter over them of showing people who had a certain amount of comfort in their lives...at least financially; OR - they had a level of fantasy and whimsy a la The Purple Rose of Cairo. 

Mike Leigh was a filmmaker who always seemed eager to show people in a working class setting, or at least people who seemed very grounded in some kind of reality. It also helps that a lot of his films were stemmed from extensive rehearsals where a lot of the dialogue was born out of improvisation which makes them feel very engaging but naturalistic. 

Secrets & Lies begins with Hortense (the divine Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a black optometrist in London who is mourning the death of her adoptive mother. She decides it might give her some sense of comfort just to see if she could find her biological mother, which turns out to be Cynthia (the delightful Brenda Blethyn), a white working class woman who lives in East London.

As one might expect, Cynthia and Hortense both feel a sense of shock over the ordeal. While not explicitly stated, Cynthia's reaction as she comes to term with the parentage implies she was likely raped as a teenager and gave Hortense up for adoption. 

As is the case with Mike Leigh films, he does have some further world building as we also get to meet Cynthia's daughter Roxanne, with whom her relationship is strained. We also meet Cynthia's brother Maurice and his wife Monica, who are going through a bit of a rough patch due to their inability to conceive a child. 

I once had a coworker at an old job who claimed that the Brits can't make good films. At first glance, I got what he meant, but by golly, he couldn't be more wrong. I especially love when a British film tackles stories about class, because in England, class is FAR more snobbish a topic than it is here. I think that the kind of work Leigh does is rather effective, and it usually leads to glorious final results for his actors.

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#1 - FARGO

Written & Directed by The Coen Brothers 

Talking about Fargo is nothing new for this blog. If anyone reading this has been following my posts rather intently, this selection shouldn't be surprising at all.

In fact, when I did my post about Best Films of the 90s a few years ago, Fargo topped that list. I have also been very effusive in my praise of William H. Macy's performance as Jerry, one of the best examples of a villain you somehow pity and laugh at.

On paper, Fargo sounds like a pretty solid story. Famously, The Coen Brothers started the film with a statement saying the incidents in the film occurred in 1987 when in reality, it was mainly a work of fiction. A pathetic, mousy car salesman named Jerry hires two goons named Carl and Gaere (Steve Buscemi & Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife in order for her father (his boss) to pay a ransom that would then be split up amongst the three of them so he can pay down debts. It would net the goons upwards of $40k while Jerry will supply them with a new 1988 Oldsmobile. 

However, what is hoped to be the perfect crime begins to unravel when Carl & Gaere get involved in an incident with a cop and two innocent civilians that leads to a local pregnant sheriff named Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand, in her first Oscar winning performance) to begin investigating what occurred on that desolate snowy road and why did it happen?

I am not going to claim that any film can be perfect, but if there was a small list of films that I could claim come as close to perfection as one could get, Fargo would undoubtedly be on that list.

This was a small film made for only $7 million and also, to really drive the point home, is just under an hour and 40 minutes long. The Coens told a story with such a tight, swiftly paced narrative that never lets up and contains such glorious dialogue to be matched by the iconic "Minnesota Nice" accent. 

Fargo may be a dark comedy at heart, but its also a truly tragic story at the same time. I think this is really driven home by McDormand with her scene in the car with Stormare near the end of the film. I do have to say that McDormand winning for this film is such an inspired choice and I want to love that she did, but I would've been inclined to vote for the two ladies that headlined my two previous selections: Brenda Blethyn in Secrets & Lies or Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves. Nevertheless, McDormand does wonderful work here as does the entire cast, with Macy giving one of my favorite performances ever. 

Fargo is sublime and truly a magnificent piece of work. It goes to show that you don't need a flashy big budget to get a great story across nor does your film have to be a 3+ hour epic in order to be worthy enough to win awards.

Granted it lost Best Picture and Director to The English Patient, but I firmly feel that if Fargo came out today, it would likely win the top awards. In some ways, it felt ahead of its time if only for how Hollywood embrace films like these. Keep in mind, the Academy just recently gave 5 Oscars to Anora, a film that was made for even less money than Fargo.

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FINAL THOUGHTS:

At the 69th Annual Academy Awards, host Billy Crystal joked that it should've been called "Sundance By the Sea" as it seemed as though every major film studio flopped with getting their films nominated for Best Picture. 

Of the five nominees, only Jerry Maguire came out under one of the major banners (TriStar). 

A year like 1996 was further proof the 1990s were a true renaissance for independent filmmaking soaring to heights it truly hadn't since the 70s. I don't want to be too hopeful or quick to jump the gun...and it is something I have addressed in another post fairly recently...but I sort of see signs that we could slowly be creeping back into more of a wider embrace of indie filmmaking. Maybe they won't make huge money, but they could get more exposure a la Anora. 

1996 is a year that was a pleasant surprise, and I am happy to say that a lot of that energy/vibe will continue into 1997 as well. 

"Are any of these good??" - A Look at the Best Films of 1994

Let me start this start this off with an incredibly piping hot take: 

The Shawshank Redemption will NOT be on this list. 

That is a comment that will likely start a riot amongst some of you, but if there was ever a film that seemed to wear out its welcome with me based on the combo of hype and how frequently it got played on TV, it was clearly Shawshank for me. 

That isn't to say the film was without its great qualities. I still think Morgan Freeman and Tim Robbins make an excellent duo, and the ending feels emotionally earned but I never considered more than just a good film at best. 

With that out of the way, I should probably also go ahead and state that Forrest Gump will also not be on this list. Saying that is not going to strike up as much negative fervor as the former, but I will say that I do find a lot of entertainment value in Forrest Gump. I think the real issue with the film is that it plays so much like a Baby Boomer's wet dream of what America should be.

Hot takes aside, 1994 might one of the years from that decade that truly represents the quality and the styles that have come to immortalize so much about it. While maybe not my personal favorite year of the 90s, it does offer some true classics that people still talk about today...even some of the ones that could be dubbed "popcorn flicks".

I will start off with a few Honorable Mentions as I do think a year such as this warrants the extra spotlight. 

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Serial Mom

Written & Directed by John Waters

I have always found this film to be something of a pinnacle for John Waters. Sure, it was a bigger budget than his most famous films are typically known for...but the energy and the wit and the dark undertones are truly enjoyable in the best way. I love that Kathleen Turner gave her all to this role and knew exactly what it needed. Horror comedic camp at its best!

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The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert

Written & Directed by Stephan Elliott gby6by7h

While elements of the film haven't aged as well (such as a cis man playing a trans woman), it is clear that for a product of its time and that it was a VERY important film for the LGBTQ+ community. The trio of Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, and the late Terence Stamp made for a truly indelible ensemble and in the end, the film nails a lot of the discourse within the community rather well.

This was also a pretty big film in terms of putting Australia onto the worldwide film forum again, which was also followed by the next film getting a mention.

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Muriel's Wedding

Written & Directed by P.J. Hogan

The film that unleashed Toni Collete onto the world. That alone is enough to praise it, but this is a truly quirky and enjoyable Australian gem about a very socially awkward girl who wants nothing more than to have a glamorous wedding move from her dead-end town of Porpoise Spit to Sydney.

Collete is, as she would go on to prove time and time again, an absolute marvel here. Oh, and the soundtrack featuring a ton of ABBA is iconic...before Mamma Mia stormed in to try to steal its thunder.

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Clerks

Written & Directed by Kevin Smith

A true indie vision and an inspiring filmmaking story to boot, Clerks was shot for only $27,575 and then managed to get distributed by Miramax. An additional $230,000 would be spent on music licensing which is crazy to think that the music was the most expensive part. 

Smith is clearly a master at writing such quirky, quotable, and often brilliant dialogue. With his debut, Kevin Smith showed such confidence with his abilities, and it is always so exciting when a filmmaker comes in and gives you that surge right off the bat.

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Through the Olive Trees

Written & Directed by Abbas Kiarostami

Back in the land of Kiarostami again! The fact that this film didn't even make my top 10 is a testament to the strength of 1994. 

When I talked about Life, and Nothing More... on my 1992 list, I did mention that Through the Olive Trees would likely be an Honorable Mention at the very least. It actually took many years for me to be able to see this film as it never received a Home Video release in the US. It would be the final entry in the "Koker trilogy" that would blur the line between art and reality as filmmaking continues in earthquake-stricken Northern Iran.

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Leon: The Professional

Written & Directed by Luc Besson

In recent years, this film is mainly known as Leon: The Professional, but upon its release, it was known as Leon in France and The Professional in the US. 

I always put this film on a very high pedestal even if I didn't quite respond to it as strongly at first. Back in the late 90s/early 00s when I was truly becoming a film fanatic, those on the internet that would wax incessantly about fantastic films from the 90s would bring up this one. 

To younger me, I was still at a stage where a lot of my film knowledge (at least in terms of what was "prestige") came from what got nominated for mainstream awards. Leon was one of the first films I can recall that didn't get any real mainstream awards attention but would continuously get singled out as a masterwork. That isn't to say that the film was well-received in 1994. Roger Ebert and Janet Maslin were certainly not as pleased with it, nor did it even receive the best reviews in Besson's native France. This was a film that's reputation grew over time, to be sure.

Our titular lead is a hitman (Jean Reno) who is forced to care for a young 12-year-old girl named Mathilda (Natalie Portman in her film debut, and she's great) after her family is killed by corrupt DEA agent Norman Stansfield (Gary Oldman).

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THE TOP 10:

#10 - CRUMB

Written & Directed by Terry Zwigoff 

Crumb was one of the many films from the 90s that I got introduced to by watching old episodes of Siskel & Ebert, who both adored the film. I can't quite remember if Ebert had it up there, but I do remember Siskel calling it the best film of 1995 (as it didn't technically get a theatrical release till that Spring).

Crumb goes into the story of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb and his family, and how he goes about interpreting life. I talk a lot about how art saved me as a kid, and I know that isn't an uncommon feeling people have had. Everything about this film feels so incredibly honest; it holds no punches and manages to straddle a line between being truly endearing and leaving you feeling a bit shaken and unsettled.

There is a vibrancy to how Zwigoff presents his subject and certainly leaves the concepts of race and sexuality and pornography all on the table.

As far as documentaries go, this one certainly falls under a provocative banner.

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#9 - QUIZ SHOW

Directed by Robert Redford

Written by Paul Attanasio 

As a kid, I was very drawn to game shows for whatever reason. I don't think I can truly explain it, but I do recall the cable channel USA having afternoon blocks of game show reruns that would include the likes of The $25,000 Pyramid, Scrabble, Joker's Wild, and Press Your Luck. Don't even get me started on the cheese fest that was Supermarket Sweep! There was also the split battle in my house growing up where my mom & I loved Jeopardy! while my dad and sister responded more to Wheel of Fortune as those two would be, and still are, indelibly linked in syndication for decades.

Not surprisingly, hearing of a film about a game/quiz show scandal was very much up my alley.

Based on the true story of the Twenty-One quiz show scandal from the late 1950s, we see a contestant by the name of Herb Stempel (John Turturro) winning night after night to the point that the producers are worried about him causing ratings to drop. The producers, Dan Enright & Albert Freedman (David Paymer & Hank Azaria), become entranced when Columbia professor Charles Van Doren (Ralph Fiennes) comes to their office with the goal of being on the far sillier game show Tic Tac Dough. Instead, they want to rig the game for him to be the successor that will beat Herb Stempel. 

They coerce Stempel to blow an answer live on air, which was regarding which film had won the Oscar for Best Picture the year prior (the answer was Marty, and it is implied in the film that EVERYONE knows that...good luck getting that kind of recognition if you've won an Oscar these days). The film then becomes about the legal investigation against the game show by congressional lawyer Richard N. Goodwin (Rob Morrow), whose eventual book would be the basis for the film.

Quiz Show is a film made with such sleek style and feels like such an immaculate relic in the best possible way. This was also one of the better directorial achievements of actor-turned-director Robert Redford who, as of this writing, just passed away a few days ago. 

The dichotomy of Fiennes and Turturro is also very compelling. Considering this was Fiennes' first big film following Schindler's List, it served as such a great contrast. Then you have Turturro, who shamefully got snubbed for an Oscar nomination for what was one of his best performances as the nebbish Stempel.

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#8 - TO LIVE

Directed by Zhang Yimou

Written by Lu Wei

We have yet another entry in the Zhang Yimou/Gong Li pairing to discuss!

After Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern, we now have To Live, yet another prime example of how Gong Li is one of our finest actresses and how Yimou is a filmmaker who was able to create such bleak and tragic stories amidst such gorgeous color palates. 

Set during the Chinese Civil War, the film delves into the lives of the Xu family as their lives descend from relative wealth to a life of peasantry. 

My introduction to the film was actually in a World History class my sophomore year of high school. Strangely enough, I had seen Raise the Red Lantern at that point but somehow To Live alluded me. For the most part, my class responded to the film surprisingly well. If I recall, it was the only time a film with subtitles was shown to me during my public-school years. 

No wonder this film is frequently shown over here in schools when addressing Chinese history because the decades scope of To Live has been said to be a truly accurate portrayal of what many families faced in China at that time. 

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#7 - PULP FICTION

Written & Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Co-written by Roger Avary

I find myself at a weird and complicated crossroads with Pulp Fiction. 

Yes, it was a game changer of a film. Yes, it is iconic, Yes, it is entertaining. Yes, it is made with great verve and style...and yet, for whatever, I find myself a bit more distant with it as time goes on.

I wouldn't be lying if I said a lot of that has to do with Quentin Tarantino himself, whose grandiose and cocky demeanor makes him almost insufferable to listen to. Some also complain that a lot of his work is simply him stealing very basic ideas and giving them a fresh coat of paint. Even he himself has said he knows he works with a lot of common tropes, but alas..."great artists steal" as Ginsberg once said. 

There is no denying that Tarantino as a filmmaker has an immense vitality, and in the case of films like Pulp Fiction, I will still succumb to his prowess. 

As one of the two films that often gets cited as the unfortunate loser to Forrest Gump for the Best Picture Oscar along with The Shawshank Redemption, there is a sense with Pulp Fiction that you are watching a film of that moment. It was a watershed beacon for indie film and it signaled that there was a new kind of filmmaker in town...particularly with how his scripts would be dripping with fast-paced and very verbose dialogue. Who could forget Travolta and Jackson riffing on something as simple as what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris? What about the tension of Travolta having to save Uma Thurman from OD'ing as she is his boss' wife and her dying on his watch would undoubtedly lead to his own demise?

However, the elements of misogyny and homophobia do rear their heads in moments of the film...particularly with the latter...but I will still find the film to be rather important to igniting the success of indie cinema that had been experiencing such a surge in the 90s after it mostly struggled in the 80s. 

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#6 - HOOP DREAMS

Written & Directed by Steve James

Co-written by Frederick Marx

Much like Crumb, I was introduced to Hoop Dreams by watching Siskel & Ebert. In fact, both of them even named it the best film of 1994 which is saying something considering how passionate they both were about Pulp Fiction.

Hoop Dreams, along with Crumb, got a lot of press attention at the time not necessarily because of their quality but rather how they were overlooked. Both documentaries got snubbed for Best Documentary nominations when some felt that not only were either of them far and away the best options, but they were also good enough to be in the Best Picture race; something that no Documentary has ever achieved.

*UNLESS - you want to count Chang, which was a silent documentary released in 1928 that got nominated for "Unique & Artistic Picture" at the very first Academy Award ceremony. 

Not surprisingly, as you will be seeing a lot in this post, it was Roger Ebert who led a lot of the uproar. In interviews, reliable sources told him that during nomination committee screenings, a lot of those in the room would wave a flashlight at the screen if they gave up on the film. The majority of the room did so, and the film was shut off. The response was so vitriolic that it became one of the rare instances in Oscar history that the Academy and the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse which tabulates the votes, released data to explain on how the snub occurred. 

Ebert's colleague Gene Siskel made another very valid point: the snub gave the film more promotion than if it had actually gotten the nomination.

With that all out of the way, I need to address what Hoop Dreams is actually about...I mean, I shouldn't ramble all day about the awards details, but I suppose I am known for that after all.

We follow two Chicago high school students: William Gates and Arthur Agee, and their dream to become professional basketball players. What began as a modest piece that Steve James and Frederick Marx hoped to air on PBS evolved into a multi-year shoot and editing process that became one of the most engrossing sports films ever made. It is so compelling that it truly plays out that some might think it is a work of fiction.

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#5 - ED WOOD

Directed by Tim Burton

Written by Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski

Perhaps one of the most well-known directors to the general public of the last few decades is Tim Burton. Sort of in the same vein that Wes Anderson's style is so instantly recognizable, there is usually no mistaking a Tim Burton film. Often dark in tone and look, maybe it has quirkier elements mixed in with splashes of bright colors. 

His filmography does contain work I have a fondness for such as Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice, but I can't say that I am truly enamored with his work. Most of his films wouldn't even make the top 10 of the given year that they came out. Even a film like Edward Scissorhands that I do really like ended up barely missing my 1990 list.

However, Ed Wood is the one film of his that I think reaches a high masterwork level. 

For those not familiar with Ed Wood the person, he was a director who made many B movies throughout the 50s up until his death in 1978. A lot of these films fell into obscurity until film critic Michael Medved and his brother Harry wrote a book called The Golden Turkey Awards in 1980 in which they named Ed Wood as the worst film director of all time. 

Writers Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszweski saw this as their official break as their biggest films prior to Ed Wood were the Problem Child movies that starred John Ritter and were played relentlessly via cable reruns throughout the 90s. Alexander first devised the film as a documentary while he was a student at USC, but then it evolved into a narrative form.

           The major focus of the film revolves around Ed Wood's (Johnny Depp...in what still remains his best performance in my humble opinion) relationship with aging horror actor Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau, in his Oscar winning performance) and also how Wood's goal is to purchase the story rights of Christine Jorgenson for a film, who was the first widely known person in the US to have sex-reassignment surgery. This topic has some area of interest for Wood as he has been known for wearing women's clothes as a source of comfort since childhood, something that his girlfriend Dolores (Sarah Jessica Parker) has a very hard time accepting. 

Much like Quiz Show earlier, Ed Wood really captures an aesthetic of the 1950s that is incredibly alluring. It manages to feel like a very well-done B movie, and in terms of all-out confidence, Tim Burton has never been better.

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#4 - SATANTANGO

Written & Directed by Bela Tarr

Co-written by Laszlo Krasznahorkai

I have talked about films on this blog that were over 3 hours; I've talked about films that were roughly 4 hours; I have even talked about films that were originally presented as a miniseries but were screened in the US as films.

However, we haven't dealt with something quite like Satantango yet. This is a narrative film that runs for more than 7 hours in length. This is not a film that I would recommend easily to anyone as it does require a lot of stamina to sit through. I don't even know if I would necessarily sit down to watch it again any time soon, but what I will say is that the experience of watching was extremely worthwile.

How can one really condense Satantango down to a brief synopsis? 

Set in the early 90s following the fall of Communism, we meet a group of people living in a small Hungarian village that are struggling as the local source of revenue, a large factory, shuttered leaving many without a job.

For a 7+ hour film shot in black & white, this film manages to be one of the best I have seen in terms keeping you engrossed despite a lot of long slow takes. Very few films manage to succeed so strongly on atmosphere/world building quite like Satantango, because despite the unnatural black & white cinematography (unless one is severely colorblind), it really felt like we were watching a beautifully filmed documentary. 

It isn't a film with a strong plot, but a lot of it is based on the world of these characters within a very dire construct...and even with that all in mind, it is all the more remarkable that the film turned out as engrossing as it did.

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#3 - THE LION KING

Directed by Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff

Written by Irene Mecchi, Linda Woolverton, & Jonathan Roberts

"Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it".

Oh, that line...

I don't know what it was about The Lion King that didn't make me respond to it as rapturously as others did. There were certain films I would watch as a kid that seemed to be pretty beloved by a lot of people, but something about them would leave me feeling off. Even the original Toy Story was among that group, but the simple truth is that The Lion King is the pinnacle of the Disney Renaissance.

While I would still consider Beauty & the Beast to be my favorite Disney film from that era, I do think The Lion King represents such a high level of animation, voice work, music, and story to create such an immersive and monumental achievement for the animated genre.

I think the monumental nature of the film stems from the fact that we are delving into Shakespearean territory. The Lion King is Disney veering away from tales by the likes of Hans Christen Anderson and giving us Shakespeare's Hamlet...plus who can forget the iconic opening.

The sun rise, "Circle of Life", the sweeping scope of the animals approaching the reveal of young Simba...everything about this film screams epic and truthfully, it is kind of insane that after Beauty & the Beast managed to break the barrier of being the first animated film nominated that The Lion King couldn't achieve it. Even from a critical and box office standpoint, The Lion King was a smash right out of the gate and proved to be far more beloved than the other Disney film that was being groomed to be a prestigious Oscar player: 1995's Pocahontas.

And that is the only time you will see Pocahontas mentioned on a list about good films!

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#2 - CHUNGKING EXPRESS

Written & Directed by Wong Kar-wai

Whenever I see a pineapple, I often think of the song from Cabaret called "It Couldn't Please Me More" where Herr Schultz gifts Fraulein Schneider a glamorous pineapple. Perhaps in the case of Chungking Express, the pineapple is canned but the exchange about the sell by date being just "2 hours away" on a can of pineapple has weirdly resonated with me over the years. Then again, sell by dates likely became more prominent when my late Nan insisted that the milk in her fridge was fresh despite a sell by date of the next day only for me to take a sip of curdled milk.

Moving past that random memory, let's talk about yet another glorious outing for one of my personal favorites: Wong Kar-wai. 

Chungking Express is an example of a type of film that rarely works: the anthology film. It tells two stories in sequence; both are about policemen in love with a woman.

The funny thing about Wong with a lot of his earlier films, at least the ones from the 90s, are that they received mixed to tempered praise from mainstream American critics like Roger Ebert, Janet Maslin, and Peter Travers.

In fact, Maslin specifically called out the film for having too much of an MTV-like "aggressive energy". Frankly, she spoke a year too soon as the succeeding year's Fallen Angels has this vibe far more than Chungking Express...and I think despite my admiration for that film (it DID place on my 1995 list), that film has a little less substance compared to this one.

Chungking Express is very captivating as a romance, and it is yet another prime example of how Wong Kar-wai has become a master of the genre in ways that feel refreshing rather that stale. It is a shame that he hasn't made another film since 2013.

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#1 - THREE COLOURS: RED

Written & Directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Co-written by Krzysztof Piesiewicz

As his final outing before passing away in 1996, Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski completed his Three Colours trilogy with Red.

Kieslowski's intent with the trilogy was that each film would represent a color of the French Revolutionary ideals: Blue, White, and Red.

Released in that color order, I think that White is a very good film, but it was the weakest of the three. As for Blue and Red, I honestly love them both pretty equally. If you had asked me which was my favorite several years ago, I likely would've said Blue, but I think a lot of that was due to Juliette Binoche's exquisite performance and how the film addressed grief.

Red, which I revisited during my oft-discussed COVID Quarantine Film Rewatch Marathon, would likely be my choice by a hair as I do love the construction of this story more. 

Blue referenced liberty, White addressed equality, while Red tackled fraternity. Pairings that might not seem to work on paper can sometimes become to most intriguing or indelible to watch, and that is what get here. 

Irene Jacob (who had headlined Kiselowski's fantastic 1991 film The Double Life of Veronique) stars as Valentine Dussaut. She is a student at the Univesity of Geneva who supports herself by working part-time as a model who accidentally hits a pregnant Malinois dog named Rita with her car. When she takes the dog back to her owner, a retired judge named Joseph Kern (the legendary Jean Louis Trintignant), he refuses to take her back in. After taking Rita to a vet herself, she decides to keep the dog...quickly followed by money being sent to her apartment anonymously.

Shortly thereafter, Valentine takes Rita for a walk, and she leads her back to Judge Kern's home. He admits that he sent her the money for the vet but still said he would like her to keep Rita. While there, Rita discovers that Judge Kern has something of an unsavory hobby: he loves listening in on his neighbors' phone calls. From there, a complicated and eventually solid friendship forms.

There is something that feels so familiar and yet so original about Red. We've seen films about unlikely friendship pairings before, but there is something whimsical and mysterious and alluring about how Kieslowski presents this story. 

The film, not surprisingly, didn't receive a Best Picture nomination. However, it did manage to net Kieslowski a nod for Best Director along him with and Piesiewicz getting a Screenplay nod. Nowadays, it feels more common for films in another language to slip into the BP race...especially with extra slots. Not to mention we have since had Parasite win the top prize, which hopefully paved the way for more international offering to do so.

If I were to list nominations over the years that bring me a lot of joy, it would be those Directing and Screenplay nods because Kieslowski was a filmmaker who was seminal. It felt fitting that what was to be his final film less than two years before his passing would give him this kind of recognition and not only that, but it also still managed to be his best work. That is truly remarkable considering how strong a lot of his earlier efforts were. 

Everything about this film is as close to perfect as a film can get. It's beautiful to look at, the script is intelligent, the performances are glorious, the score is wonderful...and it goes into the idea of how platonic love can be just as valuable and important as romantic love.

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FINAL THOUGHTS:

Full disclosure, I started making this post last year with the intention of making it for 1994's 30th Anniversary...but I couldn't get myself to have the drive to complete it.

I think a major reason for that was 1994 is one of those years that a lot of film buffs love and therefore, I don't feel like I am saying anything new. I find myself more drawn to discussing years with hidden gems, especially if there is a surprising abundance of them. 

It is a similar reason as to why I struggled to put together a list for 1999's 25th Anniversary but felt more inclined to discuss 2000 as I felt so many films deserved a spotlight that don't get talked about as much.

I do still think pretty highly of 1994 and think it was one of the banner years from the 90s. It definitely has one of the strongest #1s of that decade for sure. 

I have already tackled 1995 and 1998, so next up we will continue with 1996, 1997, and 1999. I will be doing this for other decades as well but as of this writing, I do not know which decade I will tackle next. 

Such suspense... ;-)