1999 has the highest quantity of really great movies of any movie year in my estimation. 1994 has a decent list of backups too: Clerks, The Mask, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Natural Born Killers, True Lies, Reality Bites all didn’t make my list. However, 1994 has an intimidating amount of all time films. Like, a hilariously intimidating amount. Any of the top 7 could be #1 on most movie years, and are very high on my 100 favorite films of all time. I was giddy putting this top 10 together because of how awesome all these films are, which makes 1994 my personal favorite movie year.
Louisa May Alcott’s novel gets another smart, evolved upgrade from Gillian Armstrong. Winona Ryder is wonderful as Jo March, effusing the story with her power of the female mind and spirit. It’s faithful to the text, while pushing the March sister’s agency and prospects into more modern times without becoming a fantasy.
The finale of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s brilliant trilogy is the best of the bunch. Irene Jacob and Jean Louis Trintignant are excellent playing a pair of lost souls in search of a connection, finding an unlikely one in each other. In addition, there’s an ephemeral quality to the story that stays under the radar until it snaps into focus right at the end, wrapping up the whole trilogy.
Atom Egoyan’s strip club set film is a mess. A beautiful, glorious mess. Emotionally complicated, dense, and satisfying, this movie uses its surface appeal to pull you into a story that will hit you square in the heart, and stay with you long after it ends, with stellar performances from great character actors Bruce Greenwood, Elias Koteas, and Mia Kirshner.
Most documentaries aren’t 3 hours long about high schoolers playing basketball. Most documentarians aren’t Steve James. Shooting the film over years, James records more than just basketball games; he also shows the rise and fall of African American men as they work their way through the American student athlete system and how hard it is to succeed inside of it. So many amazing things happen here, that you’d accuse a screenwriter, if it was fictional, of being manipulative. Truth is stranger and more interesting than fiction, I guess.
Die Hard on a Bus. But thanks to Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper, and Jan de Bont’s direction, this movie is even more of a thrill ride than that derivative description of the movie. This movie has you exhausted from minute one, and keeps you cemented to your seat, hoping that bus doesn’t go below 50 mph.
As much as people like There’s Something About Mary, this movie in my opinion is The Farrelly Brothers’s best. Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels (big year for him!) form a formidable comic duo out of time, as they try to deliver a briefcase to a woman Carrey’s become infatuated with, giving us famous lines (shrimp on the barbie) and beautifully cringey humor (the dead parakeet runner is brilliant) that will be seared into minds forever.
This movie is a nostalgic hug. Tom Hanks uses his chocolates and feathers to take us through America’s history as seen through his eyes. If you are someone who lets movies wash over you, this one leaves you with that fuzzy feeling all the great inspirational stories leave you with.
The pinnacle of Disney’s 2nd golden age. After one of the great animated openings in movie history, we also get a great animal kingdom take on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, entertaining, perilous, slimy and satisfying. The songs are some of Disney’s best (what means no worries?), and Jeremy Irons’s scar is on the short list of great Disney villains.
My favorite friendship ever committed to film. Frank Darabont directs this movie to feel like a parable about friendship, and the triumph of the human spirit. Tim Robbins is excellent playing the stoic Andy Dufresne, Bob Gunton is terrifying as Warden Norton, and Morgan Freeman narrates this tale so perfectly that all narration in film after this point is compared to Freeman.
Everything about Quentin Tarantino’s best movie is special. The 20+ specifically drawn, completely original and interesting characters are special, the dialogue is special, especially one of cinema’s legendary monologues, the story – a loosely connected series of vignettes – is interesting until the last vignette makes it all time special. This movie’s so beloved it inspired generations of copycats: people like Martin McDonagh owe their careers to this movie.
