Cinefix's Top 9 Movies of the 1990s

quote:

---

9. Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson)- The characteristic PTA's brilliance is all there, the way his camera moves, the way he handles dialogue, and the way he manages subtlety are all mature beyond Anderson's years and a worthwhile showcase for the best the true indies had to offer.

8. Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino)- The film we ended up with is whip smart, original as hell, and it quickly launched Tarantino into the stratosphere where he still takes up residence and stores his collection of disembodied feet. The narrative's freewheeling take on chronology set off a reevaluation of temporality in popular filmmaking and the combination of massive critical and financial successes emboldened the many majors to continue supporting original cinema.

7. The Matrix (Wachowskis)- The Matrix remains the benchmark for smart, original high concept blockbuster filmmaking that few films have reached since. The action is ultra badass even as the story grapples with philosophy. The world-building is as rich as the relationships are lively and fun. It is unbelievably cool without the hyper-masculine excess and apart from the trench coats, it still feels forward-thinking, futuristic, and stylish to this day.

6. The Iron Giant (Bird)- The Iron Giant manages to appeal to children and adults both attempting and succeeding at operating on multiple levels at one time, confident that a mature thematic backdrop of Cold War mistrust wouldn't alienate younger audiences as long as there was still a simple powerful emotional story about a boy and his new friend at its core.

5. Se7en (Fincher)- Se7en drips with grimy style even as it cuts with the sharp edge of classic Fincherian perfection. In his own words, what could have been a typical police procedural ends up more of a meditation on evil which was probably a great opportunity for him to work out some of that aggression he felt towards the film industry after Alien 3. First presenting as an impossibly chilling serial kille whodunit, Se7en's investigation of deadly sins inspired murders rips the rug out from under you as it upends the nature of its suspense making a very solid argument for how knowing can actually be way scarier than not.

4. La Haine (Kassovitz)- The film crackles with youthful energy from its actors on screen to its lively staging and camerawork.

3. A Brighter Summer Day (Yang)- With almost 100 speaking roles, it manages to extend its massive reach towards both the deeply personal and the very specifically political. It wraps its immense arms around struggles with identity as a culture and a team around young love around the feeling of long summer nights and encircles an almost hyper specific recreation of time and place.

2. Being John Malkovich (Jonze)- It's a testament to how bold Hollywood had gotten by the end of the '90s that a bunch of untested maniacs were given multiple seven figures to make their first feature about a couple puppeteers who get addicted to taking a portal into the subconscious of actual actor John Malkovich. The movie is an absolute delight, hilarious and smartly bonkers in a way that just keeps escalating into an absurdist existential war that we would name Kaufmanesque in the next decade. It exists with the rest of his work in a category of its own and we're very glad that there was a period of ten years where everybody lost their mind enough to let it happen.

1. Schindler's List (Spielberg)- Going into the '90s, Spielberg was mostly known as a really, really talented blockbuster filmmaker until practically out of nowhere he goes from Hook and Jurassic Park to one of the most profoundly emotional and empathetic looks at the Holocaust and it's actually spectacular.

---