Reader Selection: The 50 Best Movies of the 1990s
Were the 90s really the best decade for cinema?
You asked, and we delivered!
While we didn’t have enough data to figure out the Top 100, we had enough votes to determine at least what you readers believe to be the top 50 movies of the 1990s! (If you want to see a full 100 for posts like this, make sure to vote next time if you didn’t this time around!)
Here you go!
#50: A Brighter Summer Day (dir. Edward Yang)
“Yang proves he is the master of longform cinema. A Brighter Summer Day feels like a life lived and experienced.”
#49: The Muppet Christmas Carol (dir. Brian Henson)
“Michael Caine plays Ebenezer Scrooge as straight drama surrounded by Muppets. Need I say more?”
#48: The Three Colors Trilogy (dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski)
“Kieślowski’s beautiful vignette to humanity and unity is one of the most impactful art films ever put together”
#47: The Age of Innocence (dir. Martin Scorsese)
“A masterful drama touching upon the repressed and complicated passions of its human characters, while showcasing the glamourous décor of New York’s Gilded Age. I rank film this high because of its storybook narration (provided by Joanne Woodward), dreamy score by Elmer Bernstein, grandiose ballroom scenes, and delicate performances (especially, Winona Ryder’s performance as the virginal fiancé, the film’s soul).”
#46: Sense and Sensibility (dir. Ang Lee)
“Arguably, the best theatrically released adaptation of a Jane Austen novel, and a stellar English-language debut for director Ang Lee. Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet are perfect as the Dashwood sisters: Emma’s Elinor is mature, sensible, and emotionally repressed, whereas Kate’s Marianne is naïve and romantic with hints of feminine wisdom.” - Voter
#45: Babe (dir. Chris Noonan)
“A quietly groundbreaking special-effects film written by the creator of the Mad Max movies that’s also a great movie for kids?"
#44: Fight Club (dir. David Fincher)
“The dark slow-burn other movies wish they could be.”
#43: Sleepless in Seattle (dir. Nora Ephron)
“Seeing this movie with my mom for the first time altered my brain. I have not been the same. It’s another film that brings me so much comfort and it makes me think of being a kid with my mom.”
#42: The Remains of the Day (dir. James Ivory)
“Adapted from the award-winning novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, the film is a love letter to the fading British aristocracy, while also a tragedy about loss, regret, and repressed passions. Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson are terrific together as the overtly dutiful butler and the headstrong housekeeper whose unspoken love for each other is tested by the constraints of their professions, and the creeping shadow of World War II.”
#41: The Game (dir. David Fincher)
“Michael Douglas teaches us all to appreciate what we have, and to avoid unnecessarily disclosing personal data.”
#40: The Last Days of Disco (dir. Whit Stillman)
“Whit Stillman’s final installment of his (unofficially titled) ‘Doomed Bourgeois. In Love’ trilogy is a love letter to an era gone by. Each of the three films represent echoes of a time when meaningful, witty conversation and discourse had a key place in uniting us as a society, especially when it came to romance. Also, disco!”
#39: The Green Mile (dir. Frank Darabont)
“While Shawshank remains Frank Darabont’s best Stephen King adaptation, The Green Mile is still in my opinion one of the most powerful and haunting tales ever put to the big screen. RIP Michael Clarke Duncan”
#38: Hoop Dreams (dir. Steve James)
“One of the greatest documentaries of the era”
#37: Se7en (dir. David Fincher)
“It doesn’t get much bleaker than this movie, but it’s an incredible premise for a crime-thriller movie. Fincher absolutely excels directly this type of procedural with moments of heart-pounding tension throughout. Pitt and Freeman are a perfect cop pair.”
#36: JFK (dir. Oliver Stone)
“Part historical piece, part investigative drama, and part conspiracy thriller. Kevin Costner gives a wonderful performance in this feverish masterwork.”
“Arguably still one of the most ambitious movies ever made”
#35: Tombstone (dir. George P. Cosmatos)
“One of the best Western films in history and possibly the last. Every actor did a superb job, especially the classic performance by Val Kilmer. One of the most quotable movies in history (I still quote it all the time). And another solid Billy Bob Thornton role!”
#34: The Hunt for Red October (dir. John McTiernan)
“John McTiernan may be the greatest action movie director of all time”
#33: Titanic (dir. James Cameron)
“James Cameron is always seeking to top himself, and Titanic is the quintessential example. Breathtaking in its scope and ambition, the final third of the movie is amongst the greatest set-pieces ever put on screen.”
#32: The Double Life of Veronique (dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski)
“Beautiful cinema, engaging music & plot mystery, exquisite acting”
#31: Beauty and the Beast (dir. Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise)
“Began one of the greatest runs of animated movies ever made, only rivalled in the next decade by Pixar’s monster run in the 2000s. Endlessly rewatchable.”
#30: Dark City (dir. Alex Proyas)
“The Matrix before it was cool”
#29: Toy Story 2 (dir. John Lasseter)
“Normally, sequels don’t belong in a top 10 list, yet an exception must be made for Toy Story 2, a sequel which manages to retain the soul of its predecessor, while possessing a heart of its own. From its imaginative creation of the Howdy Doody-inspired Woody’s Roundup to its hilarious one-liners to its exciting finale set inside an airport, Toy Story 2 is a rich experience to savor on each viewing.”
#28: Life is Beautiful (dir. Roberto Benigni)
“One of the most simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking movies ever made. Pure cinema.”
#27: Pulp Fiction (dir. Quentin Tarantino)
“The dialogue. The dancing. Samuel L. Jackson.”
#26: L.A. Confidential (dir. Curtis Hanson)
“Russell Crowe, for a time, was one of our greatest actors”
#25: The Usual Suspects (dir. Bryan Singer)
“Redefining excellence of twist endings.”
#24: Princess Mononoke (dir. Hayao Miyazaki)
“Caught this on the big screen for its re-release last year: worth every penny. Animation that is meant to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Disney could never.”
#23: The Sixth Sense (dir. M. Night Shyamalan)
“This film has one of the greatest twists in movie history, but it is also a surprisingly moving story.”
“Horror is actually my least favorite genre, but this decade had a few great ones and The Sixth Sense is on top.”
#22: The Iron Giant (dir. Brad Bird)
“With a filmography that includes The Incredibles and Ratatouille, somehow this still remains Brad Bird’s most quietly powerful film.”
#21: The Fugitive (dir. Andrew Davis)
“Tommy Lee Jones. That’s all.”
#20: The Big Lebowski (dir. The Coen Brothers)
“The greatest comedy of the 1990’s and perhaps the best Coen Brothers movie, The Big Lebowski offers endless laughs and rewatchability to make it the perfect hang out film.”
#19: The Thin Red Line (dir. Terrence Malick)
“A poem put to celluloid. Possibly the greatest war film ever made.”
#18: The Lion King (dir. Roger Allers & Rob Minkoff)
“It’s hard to go wrong borrowing from Shakespeare for major aspects of your plot. The music, characters, and beautiful animation are all legendary.”
“The crown jewel of the Disney Renaissance, a beautifully animated coming-of-age story in the vein of a Shakespearean tragicomedy and a biblical epic. Featuring the best troupe of actors assembled for a Disney film (including the late, great James Earl Jones as Mufasa and Jeremy Irons as the villainous uncle, Scar), as well as the best compilation of orchestrated music and Broadway-esque showtunes for an animated feature.”
#17: Forrest Gump (dir. Robert Zemeckis)
“Possibly the most quotable movie of all time.”
#16: Silence of the Lambs (dir. Jonathan Demme)
“High quality acting, writing, and directing. A dark and grisly story is balanced by Jodie Foster’s refreshing purity and level-headedness.”
#15: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (dir. James Cameron)
“James Cameron does spectacle better than just about everyone, and he delivers the goods with T2 probably being the best action film of the decade. The switch up of having Arnold serve as a protective figure was a brilliant choice that elevates this story highlights into one that succeeds emotionally as well.”
“On one of the extras visual effects legend Stan Winston says a sequel needs to have everything from the original plus a little extra, has that specific calculation ever been as mathematically precise as here?”
#14: The Truman Show (dir. Peter Weir)
“Like Network, The Truman Show is a TV satire that’s still extraordinarily relevant today.”
“I mean, you guys already wrote about this excellently, so I don’t really have much to say. It’s a true modern classic.”
Editor’s Note: Shucks
#13: The Prince of Egypt (dir. Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, and Simon Wells)
“This has got to be the best faith-based film of the decade, making the Exodus story engaging to kids and adults alike. The burning bush and parting of the Red Sea scenes are as good as it gets. Oh, and it also has several awesome songs throughout.”
#12: Groundhog Day (dir. Harold Ramis)
“Basically a modern fairy-tale, based on a very original concept of repeating the same day over and over. Bill Murray at his funniest, which is saying a lot. A good romance that didn’t distract from the main plot of his spiritual growth. A yearly tradition to watch!”
#11: Fargo (dir. The Coen Brothers)
“Endlessly rewatchable, funny, tense, shocking. Marge Gunderson is one of cinema’s all-time great heroines.”
“Maybe the definitive classical tragedy of the past few decades, that also happens to be a ton of fun to watch”
#10: Braveheart (dir. Mel Gibson)
“A true epic. While historical liberties may have been taken, Mel Gibson delivers an emotional and thrilling story in one of the better actor/director performances of all-time.”
“Despite its many historical inaccuracies, it’s undeniably one of the best films ever made. Its brutality rarely feels gratuitous but serves to heighten the dramatic tension. Arguably Mel Gibson’s best role of his career.”
“As William Wallace once said, ‘If you support primae noctis, I will attack you with Scotland.’"
#9: Heat (dir. Michael Mann)
“Michael Mann directing Pacino acting opposite De Niro, both absolutely still in their prime. Yes, it’s as good as it sounds.”
“Michael Mann may be the most cinematically gifted filmmaker I have ever seen, here telling one of the best realized films I have ever seen”
#8: Good Will Hunting (dir. Gus Van Sant)
“This deserves to rank highly purely for the incredibly touching scenes between Damon and Williams. Watching Will Hunting absolutely roast people with his wicked smarts is also incredibly entertaining.”
#7: Saving Private Ryan (dir. Steven Spielberg)
“Arguably the best war film ever made, but maybe just for the opening D-Day sequence. The rest is pretty good, too. Matt Damon.”
#6: The Matrix (dir. The Wachowskis)
“I mean c’mon. No 90’s list would be complete without one of the most iconic films of the era, if not all time. So many movies pushed action filmmaking forward during this decade, and The Matrix is what caps it all off. An incredible mix of genre, philosophy, filmmaking, and Keanu. Whoa.”
“Groundbreaking effects. Dazzling visuals. And the introduction to an epic struggle between good and evil that is all too easy to translate from the screen to the streets. Does cinema even get better than this? No it does not. No need to talk about the sequels.”
#5: Jurassic Park (dir. Steven Spielberg)
“Steven Spielberg gave audiences three new masterpieces in the 1990s, but Jurassic Park is my pick for his best of the three. Nobody does the summer blockbuster better.”
“Introduced a whole generation to paleontology. Some of the best CGI in any movie before or after. Excellent acting jobs by everyone involved. It managed to make what is essentially a monster sci-fi movie both heroic and relatable, which is difficult.”
#4: Toy Story (dir. John Lasseter)
“This movie has it all - great premise, humor for kids and adults, exciting action, and a good moral lesson about the pitfalls of envy and the importance of friendship.”
“Who would have thought that an animated movie about toys would change the entire industry? While the computer animation was of course revolutionary for its time, its the movie’s care for story above all that makes Toy Story stand the test of time.”
#3: Goodfellas (dir. Martin Scorsese)
“Considered by many to be Scorsese’s peak, Goodfellas is a non-stop, adrenaline-pumping dive into the gangster life. The life of sin and excess may seem enticing to many, that is, until it is decidedly not.”
“This is Martin Scorsese’s harsh, unflinching look into the world of organized crime. And yet, all the evil and depravity he shows on screen is never glorified; rather, Scorsese shows its ultimately tragic results in the lives of these sad and finally empty characters.”
#2: The Shawshank Redemption (dir. Frank Darabont)
“There’s a reason why it tops so many lists as the greatest movie ever. A perfect story to encapsulate the power of hope with enduring characters and classic scenes like the playing of the opera music through the speaker system. It also functions well as an allegory for the Exodus story or even more fundamentally Andy as a Christ-figure.”
“Shawshank is a masterclass of filmmaking, with everything down to the smallest detail being of the highest quality. It’s impossible to understate the emotional and cultural significance that it has had since its quiet release in 1994, and it has only improved with age.”
#1: Schindler’s List (dir. Steven Spielberg)
“This is Steven Spielberg’s most mature and unforgettable masterpiece.”
“The best film of the decade; a cinematic monument and an engrossing testament to one man’s search for hope, community and redemption amidst one of the darkest chapters in human history. Supported by grand performances, beautiful black-and-white cinematography, and a heart wrenching score, Steven Spielberg’s magnum opus is an inspirational work of art which demonstrates the banality of evil, and contrasts it with images of self-sacrifice, charity, and community – three gifts more powerful than death itself.”
Hope you enjoyed! We’ll for sure be doing a poll on the 1980s next, so stay tuned!