My Favorite Films from Every Year I’ve Been Alive (Part Three: 1990–1999)

It was a very good decade

When I reached the 1990s on my favorite albums series, I said that it was a weird decade. The same cannot be said regarding movies; the 1990s were so chock full of great films that picking my favorite for each year has been, at some points, nearly impossible. Even using the “desert island” method to break ties wasn’t always sufficient, especially through the middle part of the decade.

But I started this insanity (and dragged poor Eric Pierce and Simon Dillon into it as well), so I can’t stop now. It’s been an eye-opening experience in at least one respect, which you’ll see with the very first year of the decade.

I probably don’t need to say this again, but I will: this is a list of my favorite films for each year of the 1990s. Sometimes the pick will also be the one I consider the greatest from that year, but just as often it won’t. And some surprised even me.

Enough prologue; let’s get to the films.

1990: Goodfellas. Martin Scorsese’s gangster classic had no real competition for this slot; my honorable mention, Dances With Wolves, was a good movie but doesn’t even deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence. Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta set the standard by which all future Mafia films will be judged, and the supporting cast was stellar (Paul Sorvino was particularly menacing in the most understated way). The use of music in the film is, as we’ve come to expect from Scorsese, perfect.

I watched it again last night while working on this, and I have to amend something I wrote in the first installment of this series. The Godfather is still my favorite film ever and the one I think is the greatest of all time, but I will now admit Goodfellas is the greatest Mafia movie. The Godfather is essentially about the rise and fall of an Italian American family who happen to also be gangsters, and it presents a romanticized view of mob life. Goodfellas, being based on a true story, shows the mafia as it is: a bunch of murderous thugs in really nice suits.

1991: Point Break. Is it cheesy at points? Yes, it is. It’s also a lot of fun. Where else will you get to see Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze surf, skydive, and rob a bank wearing a Ronald Reagan mask? As a bonus, Gary Busey exercises his acting chops by playing a normal character, no small feat for him. Honorable mentions: Boyz N The Hood, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and The Doors.

1992: Malcolm X. This was where it started getting tough. Denzel Washington’s incredible portrayal of Malcolm X was the first film that came to mind when I thought of this year, and then I was reminded of some of the others from ’92: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Last of the Mohicans, Reservoir Dogs, and A Few Good Men. While I love all of those, none can match what I think is Denzel’s greatest performance and one for which he absolutely should have won the Oscar for Best Actor. Interestingly, he said he was not upset about not winning because it was Pacino’s time after having been denied for so long. Go to a dictionary and look up the word “class:” you’ll see Denzel’s picture there.

1993: (Tie) Groundhog Day and Tombstone. 1993 simply hates me; how else can you explain two of my all-time favorites being released the same year? No mental contortions on my part could break this tie, so for this year, you get two.

Many critics consider Groundhog Day the greatest comedy of all time, and with good reason. Watching Murray navigate the same day over and over again with hilarious results never gets old (film geeks more mathematically inclined than me calculate that he actually relived the same day for 12,395 days or roughly 34 years). It’s not often that a film forces Webster’s to add a definition to their dictionary, but Groundhog Day did; they now have a second entry for the phrase “Groundhog Day” (after the normal one about the February 2 holiday): “a situation in which the same, usually negative or monotonous experiences occur repeatedly or are felt to occur repeatedly with no change or correction.”

Tombstone should have marked the comeback of the Western film genre, as it perfectly captures everything a Western is supposed to be (seriously, does it get any more Western than the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral?). Kurt Russell played Wyatt Earp perfectly, Sam Elliott was his usual Sam Elliott cowboy self, and Val Kilmer literally became Doc Holiday. This was Kilmer’s finest role (though his portrayal of Jim Morrison in The Doors comes close), and the fact that he wasn’t even nominated for an Academy Award is a travesty. It’s the best Western made in the past 30 years and was what my best man used to calm me down on the day of my wedding.

1994: The Shawshank Redemption. This was another year that produced some of my favorite movies (Pulp Fiction, Clerks, and Speed to name just three). But there’s something about Shawshank that defies explanation (in his article on this decade, Eric Pierce summed it up perfectly when he said that words fail him in trying to describe how good it is). For me, the key is probably Morgan Freeman and his relationship with Tim Robbins’ character, but that just scratches the surface.

1995: Heat. The last in the stretch of years with an overabundance of film riches, 1995 also gave us Casino, The Usual Suspects, and Before Sunrise. But Heat gave us Al Pacino and Robert De Niro onscreen together for the first time (they both starred in The Godfather Part II but shared no scenes, as De Niro played a young Vito Corleone). They didn’t share a lot of scenes in the cat-and-mouse game that was Heat, but their diner scene together was worth the 20-year wait.

1996: Scream. I am not a huge fan of the horror genre (especially slasher films), but this was easily my favorite movie of 1996. Mixing humor with horror has always been a winning combination for me, and Scream does it brilliantly (as with Randy’s rules for surviving a horror movie). The core cast of Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette took what should have been a typical B-movie and turned it into a blockbuster franchise. The studio should pay Neve Campbell whatever she is asking for Scream 6; she has more than earned it. Honorable mentions: Tin Cup and Beautiful Girls.

1997: Chasing Amy. This pick may prompt the most comments, given the passionate love/hate response Kevin Smith seems to always generate; those who hate his work really hate it, and those who love it will ask why I didn’t pick Clerks for 1994 (I love Clerks as well, and also don’t understand the vitriol cast at Mallrats by almost everyone). As for Chasing Amy, it’s easily Smith’s most mature film; it’s a low bar, I know, but it gives a glimpse of what he is capable of when he leaves the Quick Stop behind. It features a completely over-the-top performance by Jason Lee, one of the few times I actually like Ben Affleck and should have made Joey Lauren Adams a star. Yet for all the praise she received for her role as Amy, this did not happen, proving yet again that Hollywood is dumb. Honorable mention: Donnie Brasco and Good Will Hunting.

1998: Saving Private Ryan. I expected to put The Big Lebowski here, erroneously remembering Steven Spielberg’s epic World War II film as having been released in 1999. The Dude may abide, but not enough to leapfrog Saving Private Ryan for this spot. The first 20 minutes are rightly legendary as the most accurate depiction of the D-Day landings ever put on film; it’s a hard 20 minutes to watch, but we need to see it, both to appreciate the rest of the film and, more importantly, to appreciate the sacrifices that were made nearly 80 years ago that allowed us to be free today.

1999: Office Space. It’s possible that 20 years of working in a cubicle-farm office job influenced my love of this film. Even if you’ve never had that experience, you have certainly worked for a boss like Bill Lumbergh; we’ve all heard some version of his dreaded line: “Um, yeah, I’m gonna need you to come in on Saturday.” And we’ve all dreamed of that moment when, like Peter Gibbons (played perfectly by Ron Livingston), we would get to say: “it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care.” Maybe the Great Resignation movement of the past few years proves it’s not just a dream after all. Honorable mentions: Fight Club, The Sixth Sense, and For Love of the Game.

That wraps up Part Three of my favorite movies from every year I’ve been alive; let me know some of yours in the comments, or better yet, take up the challenge and write an article of your own. Next time, we venture into the new millennium, with even more surprising picks. Until then, remember to silence your cell phones; the film is about to begin.

You can find Parts One and Two in the series below:

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