Garçon Means Boy: The 10 Best Films Of The Nineties

 Garçon Means Boy: The 10 Best Films Of The Nineties

Join us in our decade-based film retrospective, as we delve backwards all the way from 2009 to 1910. Most decade-based best movie lists grant you a whooping 50-100 entries, which makes perfect sense given all the years you have to take into consideration. But what if you were defining a decade in just ten films? Which movies would you recommend to somebody who might only watch a handful from a given decade? This week, join us as we look back at the Nineties.

The further we seem to move away from the Nineties, the better it seems to appear as a decade for filmmaking. And as you delve deeply into its rich canon, you begin to realise that this is a ten-year period that has truly defined the stylistic tendencies still clinging to cinema today. Here, after all, was where cinematic post-modernism began to make a name for itself, where irony and genre deconstruction thrived, and where audiences were treated to narrative innovation and sequences of sexual and violent realism like they’d never seen before.

The Nineties changed the scene. This is where some of today’s best directors like Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson moved in to take the reigns from masters like Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. Is this cinema’s coolest decade? That’s arguable, though many might reserve such a tag for the Seventies. But for its hipness, its willingness to experiment, to tackle narrative in new and interest ways, and with CGI finally coming full circle in ways we might’ve never dreamed, the Nineties is a period to be treasured: Here’s our pick of its ten best films.

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  • http://twitter.com/MinimeJer05 Jeremy Lebens

    The Shawshank Redemption! That is all. Love this list! Hopefully we’ll see THE TERMINATOR on the 80s list or else I riot.

  • http://www.facebook.com/christine.magda Christine DeCrane Magda

    Where’s Forest Gump?

  • lol wut

    Sad Keanu with a Cupcake in the Goodfellas picture, anyone? anyone?

  • betomora

    Where is Fight Club ?

  • http://twitter.com/Cureguy5 Brian

    Predator and Aliens over Fargo and Once upon a time in America. There is no way Fargo is better than Pulp Fiction. Not even close.

  • Henka

    Three films do not belong on a list like this imho:

    Toy Story: It’s by far NOT the best children’s movie of the decade and if that is the only reason for it to be on the list (animations aren’t the only other thing that should make a movie impressive), then one should go with The Lion King Instead!
    The Matrix: Need I even say more? Keanu Reeves is the worst actor in history, like… EVER! He destroys the Neo Character so completely that you almost forget that there’s actually one decent performance in the film… Morpheus. The rest are at best mediocre (aside from Keanu) and this also only sounds like it’s been chosen for it’s “cool” effects. And according to me that isn’t a good enough reason to put a film on a “best of the decade-list”.
    Eyes Wide Shut: Please wake me when the movie ends. Simply not one of Kubricks best and has no place in this type of list. Yes, Kubrick made films that would make you think and reflect. But this film is simply just… strange! And Nicole Kidman (although very beautiful) simply makes an awful performance!

    Also, two films on this list are way overrated, but could perhaps fit in on a 20-best-list: Seven and Fargo. The first isn’t that impressive in my opinion and the only thing that makes it watchable is the performance of Kevin Spacey who was at the prime of his career in the mid- and late Nineties. Fargo is also overrated and simply plain and utterly boring. You never get to root for any character in the movie, bad guy or good guy. I just can’t see how this film would top the list… it’s simply not that good!

    Movies missing: someone mentioned it earlier… where’s Forrest Gump? Or Philadelphia for that matter? Gee, I would even pick The Green Mile before a film like Matrix! And you could easily replace Seven with another Spacey movie if you absolutely must have a crime/mystery movie in the list: The Usual Suspects! I can think of a few other films as well, but I’ll settle for this… the list is yours (of course) but I must say that you are totally wrong on a few of your selections.

  • Oniönhead

    Toy Story included and no Fight Club??
    I beg to differ.

  • DoctorX

    I have to say this list is way off! Eyes Wide Shut – kudos to tits and ass? NO! L.A. Confidential – any movie with Kim Basinger – NO! Goodfellas – predictable and done before. NO! And then the one that hurts the most – Fargo – NO! NO! NO! This is a really boring movie! Forest Gump, Sixth Sense, Aliens (I can tell you have no love for horror movies), Silence of the Lambs, Fight Club, Groundhog Day, Jurassic Park and Boyz N the Hood. No room for error with so many good movies in this era. Where in the hell is Saving Private Ryan!!!