25. THELMA & LOUISE
90 LISTS | 4 TOP SPOTS Ridley Scott | 130 mins | Adventure/Crime/Drama Susan Sarandon | Geena Davis | Harvey Keitel | Michael Madsen
“Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis likely will be competing against each other at the Oscars with their loopy, yet tough, portraits of women who rebel against the manipulative, violent and spineless men in their lives. The red rocks of Moab offer the perfect backdrop for a seamless mix of politics and adventure.” – Terry Orme, Salt Lake Tribune
24. MALCOLM X
103 LISTS | 7 TOP SPOTS Spike Lee | 202 mins | Biography/Drama/History Denzel Washington | Angela Bassett | Delroy Lindo | Spike Lee
“Spike Lee’s biography of the black nationalist leader was one of the great screen biographies, celebrating the sweep of an American life that bottomed out in prison before its hero reinvented himself. The movie made two points that needed making: (1) Malcolm gave voice to painful truths that were impolitic for mainstream leaders to utter; and (2) he was a strong role model who began on the streets and through application of his intelligence, will and courage, became someone who made a difference. Denzel Washington’s performance in the title role makes him a front-runner for the Oscar. Aging more than 20 years in the role, he gave us the entire canvas of a man’s lifetime, from orphan to street hoodlum, from prisoner to self-taught preacher to political leader. Lee’s visual style mirrored these changes. It was lush and romantic in the youthful days in Harlem, stark and antiseptic in prison, sharp-edged and fast-moving afterward. In a time when political currents are moving quickly, Lee is one of the few American filmmakers with the clout and the will to make a controversial film like this. Many of his critics are really responding, I think, to his abrasive public personality. Think anything you like about Lee, but listen to his films and you will find they speak for themselves, clearly and with a fair mind.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
23. THE SWEET HEREAFTER
162 LISTS | 30 TOP SPOTS Atom Egoyan | 112 mins | Drama Ian Holm | Sarah Polley | Caerthan Banks | Tom McCamus
“Atom Egoyan’s heartbreaking drama takes place in a small Canadian town in the dead of winter, as a cloud of grief settles over it. Fourteen children are killed in a school bus accident, and a lawyer (Ian Holm) arrives to interview possible clients for a class-action suit. He may seem to some like an ambulance chaser, but he’s only going through the motions; his own daughter may die any day from drug abuse, and he shares more with the grieving parents than they know.
Egoyan’s story circles around the central fact of the accident, moving back and forth in time as the lawyer and the audience come to know the people in the town. Some of them have secrets that the accident will betray. All have a deep hopelessness, evoked by the film’s sad, beautiful cinematography. Egoyan, whose last film was the seductive (and also sad) “Exotica,” is a director whose films see human weakness with a special poignancy.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
22. BOOGIE NIGHTS
162 LISTS | 20 TOP SPOTS Paul Thomas Anderson | 155 mins | Drama Mark Wahlberg | Julianne Moore | Burt Reynolds | Luis Guzmán
“Paul Thomas Anderson’s delirious porn-world epic is the most sheerly pleasurable movie I saw all year, and what makes it such a kicky and resonant experience is that its very subject is pleasure. Tracking the rise and fall of Dirk Diggler, a triple-X superstar who rides the waves of post-counterculture hedonism until he can’t stand up anymore, Anderson roots his movie in a definitive recreation of the funky, bedazzled, cocaine-and-disco ‘70s, an era that is only just beginning to enter the realm of pop mythology because it now seems like the last moment in American life when people simply did what they wanted. Anderson embodies that ecstatic, shoot-the-works spirit in the gleeful freedom of his filmmaking. You feel, at every moment, that he’s in love with what he’s showing you, whether it’s Mark Walhlberg, as Dirk, flashing his beautiful gaze of macho innocence as he dreams of becoming a “big bright shining star”; the high comedy of on-set porn shoots that play like Ed Wood without clothes; the cocky desperation of Burt Reynolds’ flashpot auteur saying “sexy!” in the back of a limo as he “directs” a gruesomely unerotic hardcore video; the ferocity of Heather Graham’s Rollergirl removing her cheerleader mask to reveal the scary rage beneath; or – the year’s most indelible scene – the thrill-happy dementia of Alfred Molina’s motormouth addict merging himself with the chorus of “Sister Christian,” a song that, in Boogie Nights, becomes a heavy metal requiem, a shrine to the eternal, unholy American quest for the next high.” – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
21. SECRETS & LIES
131 LISTS | 19 TOP SPOTS Mike Leigh | 136 mins | Comedy/Drama Timothy Spall | Brenda Blethyn | Phyllis Logan | Claire Rushbrook
“Such a simple idea, brilliantly executed. Writer-director Leigh posits the notion that many family troubles could be done away with if the combatants would honestly confront each other instead of allowing jealousies, hurts and angers to fester silently. In this story, a working-class woman receives a call from someone claiming to be her grown daughter, put up for adoption unseen at birth.” – Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune
20. THE ENGLISH PATIENT
132 LISTS | 26 TOP SPOTS Anthony Minghella | 162 mins | Drama/Romance/War Ralph Fiennes | Juliette Binoche | Willem Dafoe | Kristin Scott Thomas
“For so many European wanderlusters who found an Eden in the Sahara, the desert was a woman–dazzling, enveloping, with a vastness that held all their dreams. In such a place, just before World War II, the Hungarian aristocrat Count Laszlo de Almasy finds his ideal desert woman and follows her to hell. He then lives, just barely, to tell the tale to a ministering angel (Juliette Binoche) who can give him what he needs: not absolution but understanding. The lovers are Ralph Fiennes–all coiled sexiness, threat shrouded in hauteur–and Kristin Scott Thomas, who has the gift of making intelligence erotic; they come together in a dance of doom that is abrasive, mysterious, powerful, inevitable. Anthony Minghella’s beautiful film, based on the Michael Ondaatje novel, gets the rapture right, with a scope and intimacy rarely seen on film since the David Lean days.” – TIME Magazine
19. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
101 LISTS | 10 TOP SPOTS Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise | 84 mins | Animation/Family/Fantasy Paige O'Hara | Robby Benson | Jesse Corti | Rex Everhart
“An instant classic in every sense of the word. This 30th full-length feature from the Disney wizards not only offers more enchantment per minute than any other movie this year but more genuine artistry as well, from the canny updating of its classic source material to its resplendent animation and sprightly, tightly integrated score. Fifty years from now, future generations are likely to be as entranced as we are by such earlier Disney treasures as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “Pinocchio.”” – Carol Cling, Las Vegas Journal-Review
18. TITANIC
174 LISTS | 26 TOP SPOTS James Cameron | 194 mins | Drama/Romance Leonardo DiCaprio | Kate Winslet | Billy Zane | Kathy Bates
“If you want a brilliantly well-written, convincing film account of the ill-fated voyage of the “Titanic,” you’ll have to rent the 1956 Eric Ambler-scripted British picture “A Night to Remember.” This movie is something else. It’s a wild romance and one of all-time top cliffhanger movies. For two hours, Cameron draws a superheated, over-the-top, class-crossing romance between frustrated society girl Rose (Kate Winslet) in first class and the poor but dashing Irish artist jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) in steerage. Then, for the last hour and 14 minutes, he pulls out all stops, putting his lovers, and the thousands of “Titanic” crewmates and passengers, through heaven and hell as the ship, with maximum high tech special effects, strikes an iceberg and sinks spectacularly. Breathlessly exciting and deliriously crazy, “Titanic” is one of a kind: a knockout extravaganza whose inflated budget produces delightfully mad and entertaining results.” – Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
17. THE TRUMAN SHOW
178 LISTS | 24 TOP SPOTS Peter Weir | 103 mins | Comedy/Drama/Sci-Fi Jim Carrey | Ed Harris | Laura Linney | Noah Emmerich
“Along with “Pleasantville,” here is the most inventive concept film of the year. A middle-class man named Truman Burbank, played by an innocent, no-joking Jim Carrey, is followed by a camera crew every minute of his life from birth, and this video is broadcast 24 hours daily, to a worldwide audience that becomes rabid about the drama of his everyday existence. You could call it “As the Truman Turns.” He lives in a town called Seahaven, which might as well be Pleasantville for all of its seeming innocence. But unlike Pleasantville, Seahaven holds some dark secrets. In addition to noting the omnipresence of video in contemporary life, director Peter Weir’s “The Truman Show” offers genuine drama as we follow Truman’s growing awareness that his whole life has been TV programming. Jim Carrey’s restrained performance extends our estimation of his acting range.” – Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune
16. LONE STAR
140 LISTS | 17 TOP SPOTS John Sayles | 135 mins | Drama/Mystery Chris Cooper | Elizabeth Peña | Stephen Mendillo | Stephen J. Lang
“John Sayles, the Steven Spielberg of independent filmmaking, could have filled this elaborate mystery with lots of big-bucks special effects. Instead, he chose to do things the old-fashioned way, using intriguing characters, intricate plotting and clever staging. Set in a small Texas town, it’s a story about a 40-year-old murder mystery. A skeleton found in the desert leads to a lot of skeletons in people’s closets.” – Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune
15. AMERICAN BEAUTY
210 LISTS | 72 TOP SPOTS Sam Mendes | 122 mins | Drama Kevin Spacey | Annette Bening | Thora Birch | Wes Bentley
“One spectacularly dysfunctional suburban family (led by Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening, both in Oscar-worthy form) and their equally twisted neighbors explore the hollow darkness of the American Dream – and nightmare – in a movie that shifts from eerily unsettling drama to scabrous satire, sometimes in the same heartbeat. Under director Sam Mendes’ sly guidance, “American Beauty” never goes quite where you think it’s headed – and never misses a step along the way. And those footsteps – foolish, frenzied, skipping toward disaster – may echo in your memory long after its rueful illusions fade to black.” – Carol Cling, Las Vegas Review-Journal
14. DANCES WITH WOLVES
116 LISTS | 19 TOP SPOTS Kevin Costner | 181 mins | Adventure/Drama/Western Kevin Costner | Mary McDonnell | Graham Greene | Rodney A. Grant
“In the aftermath of the Civil War, an infantry officer is posted all by himself at a remote outpost in the Dakotas, where he is eventually driven by loneliness and curiosity into responding when the local Sioux Indians make an overture. Slowly, cautiously, tentatively, the man opens himself to Indian culture, and the film follows him as he is adopted into the tribe.
Then the fragile structure is broken when more U.S. Cavalry arrive, and we are reminded of the tragic and short-sighted racism that led to the genocidal destruction of Native Americans.
The movie stars Kevin Costner, who also makes his directing debut. He shows a sure feeling for the land, for gesture, for language and silence. And the movie expands in its epic form, freeing us from the notion that a plot must be hurried along, freeing us to grow and explore as the protagonist does, as we gradually learn about another culture. One of the key decisions is to allow the Sioux to speak iin their own language, instead of in the demeaning pidgin English so common in films about Indians. The fim is filled with strong, effective performances by actors by Mary McDonnell as the woman Costner falls in love with, and Graham Greene and Rodney A. Grant as two of the Sioux leaders.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
13. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH
226 LISTS | 23 TOP SPOTS Spike Jonze | 113 mins | Comedy/Drama/Fantasy John Cusack | Cameron Diaz | Catherine Keener | John Malkovich
“The Telluride and Toronto festivals had already started lobbing in great new films, and by the time I saw “Being John Malkovich” and “Three Kings” early in October, it was clear that Hollywood’s hounds of creativity had been set loose and were running free. The last four months of 1999 were a rich and exciting time for moviegoers–there were so many wonderful films that for the first time in a long time, it was hard to keep up. “Being John Malkovich” was the year’s best, a film so endlessly inventive that I started grinning at the way it kept devising new ways to surprise me. Most movies top-load their bright ideas in the first half hour; this first feature from music video vet Spike Jonze, with screenplay by Charlie Kaufman, is a continuing cascade. And unlike many MTV refugees, Jonze doesn’t crank up the volume and the visual overkill; his film unfolds slyly, with delight, like a magician showing you the trick is far from over. John Cusack stars, as a man who gets a job on floor 7 1/2 of a very strange building (the visuals inspire sustained laughter). Behind a filing case, he finds a hole in the wall that is a portal directly into the brain of the actor John Malkovich (playing himself). First Cusack and then a series of paying customers line up to take their trip inside Malkovich, and in one dizzying scene Malkovich even enters his own brain, which is like turning your consciousness inside-out. The movie is funny and very smart, metaphysical in a way, and so bountiful you feel not just admiration but gratitude.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
12. QUIZ SHOW
141 LISTS | 10 TOP SPOTS Robert Redford | 133 mins | Biography/Drama/History Ralph Fiennes | John Turturro | Rob Morrow | Paul Scofield
“Though it did not catch on with ticket buyers, this examination of the rigged TV programs of the late 1950s is the best film to come out of the studio system this year. Directed by Robert Redford from a script by Paul Attanasio and starring Ralph Fiennes as a trapped Charles Van Doren, “Quiz Show” is a Hollywood rarity: a thoughtful, absorbing drama about moral ambiguity and the affability of evil.” – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
11. HOWARDS END
135 LISTS | 23 TOP SPOTS James Ivory | 142 mins | Drama/Romance Anthony Hopkins | Emma Thompson | Vanessa Redgrave | Helena Bonham Carter
“There’s also more change than immediately might be apparent in the virtually flawless Ismail Merchant-James Ivory “Howards End.” It’s filled with civilized epiphanies and sensual delights as it plays out E. M. Forster’s favorite theme — the human heart’s skill in outmaneuvering lesser, stifling forces. We appreciate the generous and imaginative woman played by Emma Thompson because of the humane energies she’s able to release in the clenched businessman (Anthony Hopkins) she marries. And Vanessa Redgrave’s performance as the most generous character of all is magical to the point of otherworldliness.” – Jay Carr, Boston Globe
10. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
210 LISTS | 92 TOP SPOTS Steven Spielberg | 169 mins | Drama/War Tom Hanks | Matt Damon | Tom Sizemore | Edward Burns
“When I went to see Steven Spielberg’s cataclysmic World War II masterpiece on opening weekend (it was my second viewing), most of the audience sat right through to the end of the closing credits. Few of us moved, or even spoke. We were too thunderstruck. Any movie that can do that can create in its viewers this hushed and staggering a contemplation of the defining military conflict of the 20th century is nothing less than a seismic work of art. Yet such is the nature of our myopic media culture that I now feel compelled to defend Spielberg against the charge that he has filmed two extraordinary battle sequences and sandwiched some Hollywood combat clichés in between. I could go on about the performances (Tom Hanks’ authority and clandestine turmoil, Jeremy Davies’ terror), but the ultimate brilliance of Saving Private Ryan is the way it depicts the horror of World War II right alongside its heroism – indeed, the two are organically intertwined. As a vision of hell, the opening D-Day massacre may, in movie terms, rank with Picasso’s Guernica, but when it’s over, the spectre of war doesn’t disappear. It haunts the soldiers’ every breath. The final battle is wrenching in a less existential, more clear-eyed way. That’s because the men know each other, and they understand why they’re fighting: not to save Private Ryan but to save what he stands for – the belief that another man’s life is really your own.” – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
9. THE PIANO
143 LISTS | 35 TOP SPOTS Jane Campion | 121 mins | Drama/Music/Romance Holly Hunter | Harvey Keitel | Sam Neill | Anna Paquin
“Is it a coincidence that the filmmaker who spoke this year with the most passionate and hypnotic voice chose as her heroine someone without a voice–a Victorian Scotswoman who remains mute because she believes that no man will hear he anyway? In this haunting drama of love and revenge, director Jane Campion merges the brooding romantic grandeur of a Wuthering Heights with a sexual and emotional nakedness that is bracingly contemporary. As the silent, piano-playing Ada, who journeys to the misty wilderness of colonial New Zealand to join in an arranged marriage, Holly Hunter gives a performance of transporting purity, her looks and gestures expressing a fire-bright will that words could only hint at. For all of Campion’s jagged visual poetry, what’s timeless about The Piano is the way it cuts to the torn heart of women’s experience–the boundless desire for romantic consummation in a world where true love hinges on the power to be heard.” – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
8. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
123 LISTS | 30 TOP SPOTS Jonathan Demme | 118 mins | Crime/Drama/Thriller Jodie Foster | Anthony Hopkins | Lawrence A. Bonney | Kasi Lemmons
“After years of schlock horror movies, the word nightmare has been devalued — we hear it and think, thrills and chills. A true nightmare movie, though, does more than just scare us or give us the cold creeps. It can also be a dark fairy tale for adults, a vehicle for recapturing our childlike wonder in the face of the primal unknown. So it is with Jonathan Demme’s great thriller, the most magical act of storytelling I saw all year. Adapting Thomas Harris’ best-seller about a rookie FBI investigator on the trail of a serial killer, Demme spins a shimmering web of dread and suspense. Jodie Foster plays Agent Starling as a brave, exploratory, life-size heroine: It’s her desperate need to know — to uncover the true face of evil — that propels the movie forward. And Anthony Hopkins’ Dr. Lecter is that face in all its disturbing, seductive glory. As the glittery-eyed genius psychopath whose malevolence is a direct extension of his intelligence, Hopkins — witty, charming, monstrous — gives the most memorable performance of the year, creating a timeless portrait of the demonic made human.” – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
7. SCHINDLER’S LIST
152 LISTS | 59 TOP SPOTS Steven Spielberg | 195 mins | Biography/Drama/History Liam Neeson | Ralph Fiennes | Ben Kingsley | Caroline Goodall
“Steven Spielberg’s epic film, more than three hours long and shot in black and white that brings the stark feel of actuality to the screen, tells the story of an enigmatic man named Oskar Schindler, who began the Second World War hoping to become a millionaire, and ended it by spending his fortune and risking his life to try to save some 1,100 Jews who worked in his factory.What Schindler did was heroic, but the man himself was not a conventional hero, and the film is subtle and patient in showing how, as Schindler’s motives slowly changed, his grandiose personality remained constant. Spielberg says he waited 10 years to tell this story because he wasn’t sure he was ready. During that time he seems to have internalized it, so that the story isn’t told by depending on his usual skill with narrative and melodrama; it’s told simply by being seen, in powerful and unforgettable images.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
6. FARGO
180 LISTS | 43 TOP SPOTS Joel Coen and Ethan Coen | 98 mins | Crime/Drama/Thriller William H. Macy | Frances McDormand | Steve Buscemi | Peter Stormare
“The best scene in this film is probably the one where the pregnant police chief goes to question the car dealer who has hired a couple of guys to kidnap his wife. The chief asks her questions according to inexorable procedure, very business-like. The dealer grows increasingly so nervous–he’s so taut we’re waiting for him to explode. She asks sensible questions in a sweet voice. He answers in tortured evasions. What’s best about the scene is that it’s in complete command of the characters. We know these people, how they’re thinking, how they feel. Frances McDormand, playing the chief, doesn’t use the kind of overbearing tone another actor might have brought to the scene; instead, she seems to sense that sweetness will more quickly crack this guy. And William H. Macy, as the dealer, projects guilt and nerves so urgently we almost feel like kidnappers ourselves. Ethan and Joel Coen’s “Fargo” is a remarkable tour de force: A comedy, a police procedural, a violent crime thriller and a human-interest melodrama, all wrapped up in a vivid sense of time and place, of frigid midwinter Minnesota, where even the police chief needs a jump for her car battery in the morning. This is clearly the year’s best film.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
5. THE PLAYER
151 LISTS | 21 TOP SPOTS Robert Altman | 124 mins | Comedy/Crime/Drama Tim Robbins | Greta Scacchi | Fred Ward | Whoopi Goldberg
“Long after it seemed his creative juices had run dry, director Robert Altman returned to greatness with this hypnotic Tinseltown satire. Altman has great fun skewering the rituals of today’s moviemaking elite: the pitches and power breakfasts, the mud baths and mineral water, the insular celebrity chic (incarnated by a dazzling galaxy of star cameos). At the same time, he recognizes that modern Hollywood is a place at once vacuous and infinitely mysterious — a fantasyland that is fast running out of dreams, a metaphysical hall of mirrors in which the movies that get made are mere reflections of the status-mad, superstar-crazed culture that surrounds them. Tim Robbins, as the production-executive hero, isn’t just a sleek, murderous cad; he’s a likable cad. As his life is transformed into a ”movie” far more gripping than any of the trash he produces, The Player becomes sublime entertainment, a deadpan comic thriller that, in its ingenious design, its delicate ripples of nastiness and joy, embodies the very moviemaking magic it says has leaked out of Hollywood.” – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
4. UNFORGIVEN
152 LISTS | 38 TOP SPOTS Clint Eastwood | 130 mins | Drama/Western Clint Eastwood | Gene Hackman | Morgan Freeman | Richard Harris
“Not just the last nail in the coffin of the American western, Clint Eastwood’s authoritative howl of agony may be the last word on the failure of western civilization. Perfecting the form and themes of his earlier cowboy movies, Eastwood lashed out, well, unforgivingly at the violent frontier pathologies that still traumatize our society.” – Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News
3. L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
230 LISTS | 80 TOP SPOTS Curtis Hanson | 138 mins | Crime/Drama/Mystery Kevin Spacey | Russell Crowe | Guy Pearce | Kim Basinger
“Director and co-writer Curtis Hanson’s adaptation of the James Ellroy novel is the finest example of modern film noir since “Chinatown.” Set in the early ’50s, it untangles a police scandal that reaches from the Hollywood precinct to Mickey Cohen’s mob to City Hall, and features some of the year’s most memorable performances from Kevin Spacey, James Cromwell, Russell Crowe, Danny DeVito, and Kim Basinger.” – Jack Mathews, Newsday
2. GOODFELLAS
147 LISTS | 48 TOP SPOTS Martin Scorsese | 146 mins | Biography/Crime/Drama Robert De Niro | Ray Liotta | Joe Pesci | Lorraine Bracco
“The mob picture that had the moral clarity to label Mafioso and their attendant hustlers as vicious animals. We meet them through the wide-eyed reminiscences of a gofer-turned-informant (Ray Liotta) who wanted to become a mobster in the way that other kids wanted to become baseball players. The essential scene has thug Joe Pesci fake getting angry at Liotta`s idolatrous remarks, then relax, and then go nuts when a bar owner respectfully asks him to pay part of his long overdue bill. Very scary. The best line of narration is when Liotta tells how wiseguys think that people who work for a living are suckers. Scorsese mixes music and photographic styles to cover years of a changing landscape of crime. For the third time a Scorsese picture tops my best-of-the-year list (”Raging Bull,” 1980; ”The Last Temptation of Christ,” 1988), breaking a tie he held with director Eric Rohmer (”My Night at Maud`s,” 1970; ”Claire`s Knee,” 1971).” – Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune
1. PULP FICTION
189 LISTS | 79 TOP SPOTS Quentin Tarantino | 154 mins | Crime/Drama John Travolta | Uma Thurman | Samuel L. Jackson | Bruce Willis
“From its opening frames, Quentin Tarantino’s wild, shocking, impassioned, zigzaggy, rudely hilarious crime thriller is more sheer fun than a great movie has any right to be. It’s as packed with pleasures as a toy store for adults, and the pleasures are right there on the surface. Just think of Uma Thurman’s gimlet-eyed moll doing a coked-up dance of eternal-adolescent rapture to ”Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon”; of Bruce Willis’ scruffy-noble palooka escaping an S&M torture den, and then pausing to pick the perfect weapon (the chainsaw … no, the samurai sword!) so that he can go back and save the man who’d sworn to kill him; of John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, as the two most eloquent hit men in history, transforming their workaday discussions of foot massages and Parisian Big Macs into goofily irreverent moral debates — mental cross fire for the age of pop. For two and a half hours, Tarantino dedicates all his energies as a filmmaker to keeping you blissfully entertained. Yet it’s his instincts as an artist that make Pulp Fiction take up permanent residence in your imagination. In a brilliant act of cinematic time juggling, Tarantino kills off one of his main characters, only to confront us, in the end, with the stubborn reality of his existence — a structural coup that becomes a kind of sleight-of-hand resurrection. In Pulp Fiction, what Tarantino has resurrected is the primal joy of American moviemaking.” – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
Full Top 100:
| R | Film | L | #1 | AR | L% | #1% | TCL | TCL1 | TCL% | TCL1% | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pulp Fiction | 189 | 79 | 2.59 | 86% | 43% | 81 | 33 | 83% | 40% | 1994 |
| 2 | Goodfellas | 147 | 48 | 3.07 | 80% | 38% | 70 | 20 | 80% | 33% | 1990 |
| 3 | L.A. Confidential | 230 | 80 | 3.07 | 77% | 32% | 107 | 33 | 72% | 26% | 1997 |
| 4 | Unforgiven | 152 | 38 | 3.68 | 76% | 23% | 69 | 16 | 75% | 21% | 1992 |
| 5 | The Player | 151 | 21 | 3.43 | 76% | 13% | 66 | 10 | 72% | 13% | 1992 |
| 6 | Fargo | 180 | 43 | 2.92 | 75% | 21% | 88 | 21 | 73% | 20% | 1996 |
| 7 | Schindler's List | 152 | 59 | 2.69 | 73% | 35% | 69 | 23 | 79% | 34% | 1993 |
| 8 | The Silence of the Lambs | 123 | 30 | 3.06 | 70% | 26% | 48 | 12 | 61% | 20% | 1991 |
| 9 | The Piano | 143 | 35 | 3.27 | 69% | 21% | 59 | 17 | 68% | 25% | 1993 |
| 10 | Saving Private Ryan | 210 | 92 | 2.43 | 69% | 35% | 104 | 40 | 61% | 29% | 1998 |
| 11 | Howards End | 135 | 23 | 4.29 | 68% | 14% | 64 | 8 | 70% | 11% | 1992 |
| 12 | Quiz Show | 141 | 10 | 4.44 | 64% | 5% | 62 | 5 | 63% | 6% | 1994 |
| 13 | Being John Malkovich | 226 | 23 | 4.15 | 64% | 8% | 116 | 10 | 58% | 6% | 1999 |
| 14 | Dances With Wolves | 116 | 19 | 3.82 | 63% | 15% | 52 | 9 | 60% | 15% | 1990 |
| 15 | American Beauty | 210 | 72 | 3.04 | 59% | 25% | 106 | 35 | 53% | 22% | 1999 |
| 16 | Lone Star | 140 | 17 | 4.42 | 58% | 8% | 73 | 12 | 60% | 12% | 1996 |
| 17 | The Truman Show | 178 | 24 | 4.26 | 58% | 9% | 90 | 10 | 53% | 7% | 1998 |
| 18 | Titanic | 174 | 26 | 4.14 | 58% | 10% | 78 | 11 | 52% | 9% | 1997 |
| 19 | Beauty and the Beast | 101 | 10 | 4.28 | 58% | 9% | 44 | 4 | 56% | 7% | 1991 |
| 20 | The English Patient | 132 | 26 | 4.18 | 55% | 13% | 56 | 7 | 46% | 7% | 1996 |
| 21 | Secrets & Lies | 131 | 19 | 4.02 | 55% | 9% | 78 | 10 | 64% | 10% | 1996 |
| 22 | Boogie Nights | 162 | 20 | 4.50 | 54% | 8% | 75 | 11 | 50% | 9% | 1997 |
| 23 | The Sweet Hereafter | 162 | 30 | 4.29 | 54% | 12% | 91 | 21 | 61% | 16% | 1997 |
| 24 | Malcolm X | 103 | 7 | 5.54 | 52% | 4% | 41 | 3 | 45% | 4% | 1992 |
| 25 | Thelma & Louise | 90 | 4 | 5.68 | 51% | 4% | 35 | 3 | 44% | 5% | 1991 |
| 26 | Toy Story | 112 | 12 | 4.41 | 51% | 7% | 41 | 3 | 41% | 4% | 1995 |
| 27 | Apollo 13 | 110 | 15 | 4.70 | 50% | 9% | 47 | 6 | 47% | 7% | 1995 |
| 28 | The Crying Game | 101 | 17 | 4.06 | 50% | 10% | 51 | 5 | 55% | 7% | 1992 |
| 29 | Trainspotting | 118 | 7 | 5.01 | 49% | 3% | 54 | 2 | 45% | 2% | 1996 |
| 30 | Four Weddings and a Funeral | 108 | 6 | 5.72 | 49% | 3% | 44 | 2 | 45% | 2% | 1994 |
| 31 | The Age of Innocence | 102 | 17 | 4.05 | 49% | 10% | 39 | 8 | 45% | 12% | 1993 |
| 32 | Forrest Gump | 105 | 22 | 3.40 | 48% | 12% | 38 | 5 | 39% | 6% | 1994 |
| 33 | The Remains of the Day | 97 | 4 | 3.96 | 47% | 2% | 32 | 0 | 37% | 0% | 1993 |
| 34 | Shakespeare In Love | 144 | 10 | 4.58 | 47% | 4% | 77 | 4 | 45% | 3% | 1998 |
| 35 | Short Cuts | 97 | 8 | 4.57 | 47% | 5% | 48 | 5 | 55% | 7% | 1993 |
| 36 | Boyz N the Hood | 81 | 4 | 5.93 | 46% | 4% | 32 | 1 | 41% | 2% | 1991 |
| 37 | Sense and Sensibility | 101 | 15 | 4.63 | 46% | 9% | 53 | 4 | 52% | 5% | 1995 |
| 38 | Crumb | 98 | 10 | 4.06 | 45% | 6% | 54 | 6 | 53% | 7% | 1995 |
| 39 | Reversal of Fortune | 82 | 2 | 5.31 | 45% | 2% | 38 | 2 | 44% | 3% | 1990 |
| 40 | Ed Wood | 97 | 6 | 5.27 | 44% | 3% | 39 | 1 | 40% | 1% | 1994 |
| 41 | Election | 156 | 9 | 5.36 | 44% | 3% | 90 | 5 | 45% | 3% | 1999 |
| 42 | Hoop Dreams | 95 | 13 | 3.93 | 43% | 7% | 47 | 6 | 48% | 7% | 1994 |
| 43 | Bugsy | 75 | 2 | 4.34 | 43% | 2% | 32 | 1 | 41% | 2% | 1991 |
| 44 | Big Night | 102 | 5 | 5.22 | 43% | 2% | 54 | 1 | 45% | 1% | 1996 |
| 45 | Babe | 90 | 8 | 4.07 | 41% | 5% | 44 | 6 | 44% | 7% | 1995 |
| 46 | Leaving Las Vegas | 90 | 17 | 5.13 | 41% | 10% | 43 | 9 | 43% | 11% | 1995 |
| 47 | The Fugitive | 81 | 1 | 6.17 | 39% | 1% | 29 | 0 | 33% | 0% | 1993 |
| 48 | The Straight Story | 137 | 15 | 4.82 | 39% | 5% | 85 | 9 | 43% | 6% | 1999 |
| 49 | Aladdin | 77 | 3 | 5.72 | 39% | 2% | 30 | 2 | 33% | 3% | 1992 |
| 50 | Husbands and Wives | 75 | 2 | 5.95 | 38% | 1% | 28 | 1 | 30% | 1% | 1992 |
| 51 | The Insider | 132 | 4 | 5.57 | 37% | 1% | 69 | 2 | 35% | 1% | 1999 |
| 52 | The Usual Suspects | 81 | 8 | 5.15 | 37% | 5% | 31 | 4 | 31% | 5% | 1995 |
| 53 | Speed | 79 | 0 | 7.02 | 36% | 0% | 30 | 0 | 31% | 0% | 1994 |
| 54 | Happiness | 110 | 13 | 4.66 | 36% | 5% | 67 | 8 | 39% | 6% | 1998 |
| 55 | Toy Story 2 | 124 | 10 | 5.30 | 35% | 3% | 57 | 4 | 29% | 2% | 1999 |
| 56 | JFK | 61 | 7 | 5.20 | 35% | 6% | 28 | 4 | 35% | 7% | 1991 |
| 57 | Much Ado About Nothing (1993) | 71 | 1 | 5.26 | 34% | 1% | 29 | 0 | 33% | 0% | 1993 |
| 58 | Avalon | 63 | 2 | 5.19 | 34% | 2% | 29 | 0 | 33% | 0% | 1990 |
| 59 | Shine | 82 | 10 | 4.51 | 34% | 5% | 39 | 6 | 32% | 6% | 1996 |
| 60 | Out of Sight | 104 | 3 | 6.13 | 34% | 1% | 56 | 2 | 33% | 1% | 1998 |
| 61 | Life is Beautiful | 103 | 12 | 4.31 | 34% | 5% | 48 | 6 | 28% | 4% | 1998 |
| 62 | Barton Fink | 58 | 1 | 4.77 | 33% | 1% | 21 | 0 | 27% | 0% | 1991 |
| 63 | The People Vs. Larry Flynt | 81 | 5 | 5.80 | 33% | 2% | 44 | 2 | 36% | 2% | 1996 |
| 64 | Glengarry Glen Ross | 66 | 2 | 5.77 | 33% | 1% | 26 | 1 | 28% | 1% | 1992 |
| 65 | Nixon | 72 | 7 | 4.86 | 33% | 4% | 29 | 3 | 29% | 4% | 1995 |
| 66 | The Lion King | 72 | 1 | 5.96 | 33% | 1% | 32 | 0 | 33% | 0% | 1994 |
| 67 | The Ice Storm | 95 | 6 | 6.56 | 32% | 2% | 47 | 2 | 32% | 2% | 1997 |
| 68 | Get Shorty | 69 | 6 | 5.96 | 32% | 4% | 28 | 3 | 28% | 4% | 1995 |
| 69 | Miller's Crossing | 58 | 1 | 5.69 | 32% | 1% | 29 | 1 | 33% | 2% | 1990 |
| 70 | The Godfather, Part III | 58 | 3 | 5.20 | 32% | 2% | 32 | 2 | 37% | 3% | 1990 |
| 71 | The Full Monty | 94 | 5 | 5.08 | 31% | 2% | 32 | 1 | 21% | 1% | 1997 |
| 72 | The Commitments | 55 | 2 | 6.79 | 31% | 2% | 23 | 0 | 29% | 0% | 1991 |
| 73 | A River Runs Through It | 62 | 6 | 5.83 | 31% | 4% | 29 | 2 | 32% | 3% | 1992 |
| 74 | Breaking the Waves | 74 | 15 | 4.51 | 31% | 7% | 51 | 14 | 42% | 13% | 1996 |
| 75 | Reservoir Dogs | 60 | 3 | 5.24 | 30% | 2% | 28 | 1 | 30% | 1% | 1992 |
| 76 | Boys Don't Cry | 106 | 4 | 5.53 | 30% | 1% | 67 | 3 | 34% | 2% | 1999 |
| 77 | Bullets Over Broadway | 65 | 3 | 6.06 | 30% | 2% | 24 | 0 | 24% | 0% | 1994 |
| 78 | Little Women | 64 | 1 | 6.22 | 29% | 1% | 27 | 0 | 28% | 0% | 1994 |
| 79 | The Joy Luck Club | 60 | 1 | 5.98 | 29% | 1% | 24 | 0 | 28% | 0% | 1993 |
| 80 | The Shawshank Redemption | 63 | 0 | 4.16 | 29% | 0% | 25 | 0 | 26% | 0% | 1994 |
| 81 | The Butcher Boy | 88 | 8 | 4.84 | 29% | 3% | 60 | 6 | 35% | 4% | 1998 |
| 82 | Terminator 2: Judgment Day | 50 | 0 | 7.24 | 29% | 0% | 16 | 0 | 20% | 0% | 1991 |
| 83 | Three Kings | 101 | 7 | 5.58 | 29% | 2% | 57 | 4 | 29% | 2% | 1999 |
| 84 | In the Line of Fire | 59 | 2 | 7.00 | 29% | 1% | 22 | 2 | 25% | 3% | 1993 |
| 85 | The Wings of the Dove | 85 | 2 | 5.24 | 28% | 1% | 36 | 1 | 24% | 1% | 1997 |
| 86 | Edward Scissorhands | 52 | 0 | 6.73 | 28% | 0% | 22 | 0 | 25% | 0% | 1990 |
| 87 | Farewell My Concubine | 59 | 0 | 5.50 | 28% | 0% | 30 | 0 | 34% | 0% | 1993 |
| 88 | Red | 61 | 9 | 5.48 | 28% | 5% | 34 | 7 | 35% | 9% | 1994 |
| 89 | Magnolia | 99 | 14 | 4.53 | 28% | 5% | 57 | 6 | 29% | 4% | 1999 |
| 90 | Ulee's Gold | 81 | 3 | 5.58 | 27% | 1% | 45 | 2 | 30% | 2% | 1997 |
| 91 | The Sixth Sense | 95 | 8 | 5.47 | 27% | 3% | 46 | 2 | 23% | 1% | 1999 |
| 92 | As Good As It Gets | 80 | 5 | 5.70 | 27% | 2% | 30 | 2 | 20% | 2% | 1997 |
| 93 | Jerry Maguire | 64 | 2 | 6.55 | 27% | 1% | 19 | 0 | 16% | 0% | 1996 |
| 94 | In the Company of Men | 79 | 3 | 6.20 | 26% | 1% | 45 | 0 | 30% | 0% | 1997 |
| 95 | Raise the Red Lantern | 52 | 1 | 5.12 | 26% | 1% | 31 | 1 | 34% | 1% | 1992 |
| 96 | Donnie Brasco | 77 | 1 | 6.13 | 26% | 0% | 30 | 0 | 20% | 0% | 1997 |
| 96 | Chasing Amy | 77 | 1 | 6.04 | 26% | 0% | 34 | 0 | 23% | 0% | 1997 |
| 98 | Heavenly Creatures | 56 | 1 | 5.08 | 26% | 1% | 27 | 1 | 28% | 1% | 1994 |
| 99 | Gods And Monsters | 78 | 5 | 4.78 | 25% | 2% | 47 | 4 | 27% | 3% | 1998 |
| 100 | Cape Fear | 44 | 2 | 5.87 | 25% | 2% | 16 | 0 | 20% | 0% | 1991 |