Great Movies of the 90s You May Have Missed

Everyone sees the blockbusters, and eventually everyone sees the Best Picture Oscar winners. Most years have films that became culturally significant, and most everyone sees those too. But every year there are great movies that didn't garner much attention that should have – not necessarily because they are “great films” but because they are damned fine entertainment.

Below is a list, with some brief reviews, of some of the movies released from 1990 to 1999 that you may not have seen, but that you should have.... they are all tremendously entertaining films.

1990

Best Picture Oscar: Dances With Wolves

My Favorite Film of the Year: Pump Up The Volume

The Great One You May Have Missed: State of Grace

Ten years ago Terry Noonan (Sean Penn) left Hell's Kitchen, leaving all of his friends behind. When he returns he finds his childhood pals Frankie (Ed Harris) and Jackie Flannery (Gary Oldman) are running the Irish mob in New York. Terry is on the run from a shooting in the Bronx, and begins to become part of the Flannery's criminal fold. But is Terry what he appears to be, or does he has another agenda?

“State of Grace” is filled with terrific performances, but none better than Gary Oldman's turn as Jackie. His combination of devoted friend and borderline psycho is almost surreally good, and made me a lifelong fan. Penn is (as always) terrific and supporting work from John C. Reilly, Ed Harris and John Turturro make this one among the best gangster movies ever made.

1991

Best Picture Oscar: The Silence of the Lambs

My Favorite Film of the Year: The Silence of the Lambs

The Great One You May Have Missed: L.A. Story

Smack in the middle of Steve Martin's 12 year run of great movies is this satirical gem about the hollowness of the jet-set LA lifestyle. He plays a weatherman who falls in love with a visiting journalist and they try to get to know each other among the empty-headed LA crowd. In the meantime, Martin finds that a highway sign is communicating with him and he continues to go to it for advice, even as his life seems to be falling apart around him.

Funny and engaging, “LA Story” is a bit out there but tons of fun if you don't take it too literally. And you may find yourself in a cafe ordering a “half-double-decaffeinated half-caff.... with a twist of lemon” just to see what happens.

1992

Best Picture Oscar: Unforgiven

My Favorite Film of the Year: Unforgiven

The Great One You May Have Missed: Of Mice and Men

There are still people out there that will argue that this version is inferior to the 1939 version that won Best Picture. For anyone who thinks that I can only say you should give yourself a shake. Malkovich's Lenny is superior in every way to Lon Chaney's, and Gary Sinise's George is every bit as good as Burgess Meredith's. A beautiful telling of Steinbeck's depression-era story of two friends, one simple minded but incredibly strong, hoboing across the south and trying to find work. When they get steady employment where they hope to earn enough to buy their own homestead, they run into problems with prejudice and ignorance that eventually lead them to ruin.

1993

Best Picture Oscar: Schindler's List

My Favorite Film of the Year: Carlito's Way and My Life

The Great One You May Have Missed: My Life

This is one of those “I don't give a shit what mainstream critics say” movies – they didn't like it. I LOVE it.

Michael Keaton is a Public Relations superstar who finds out that he has terminal cancer. His wife (Nicole Kidman) is pregnant with their first child, and he secretly begins videotaping himself to leave messages behind for his unborn son. But when he starts trying to get people he knows to talk about him, he finds out that nobody really knows him at all, and he comes to realize he has a rather superficial existence. His self discovery as his disease progresses, the messages he is leaving behind for his son, and his desire to continue living tug hard at your heartstrings until the inevitable conclusion that will leave the most stone-hearted person biting back tears.

Keaton is just incredible as Bob Jones/Ivanovich in “My Life”. Absolutely everything about his performance is totally authentic. Add to that the fact the screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin has created dialogue that rings so true, so melancholy, that you feel Bob's loss deeply. I am a big fan of well written dialogue, and this film is loaded with it. The scene that affected me most is one where Bob and his wife go to an amusement park, and while there he tells her that this is his “death day” - the doctors initially told him he'd be dead by that day. From this moment forward he'll be living on borrowed time. Then he and his wife slow dance in the middle of the crowd to music that only they can hear. Truly a lovely, painful scene, and one of my favorites.

1994

Best Picture Oscar: Forrest Gump

My Favorite Film of the Year: The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction

The Great One You May Have Missed: When a Man Loves a Woman

Despite looking initially like a romantic comedy, this film is another about addiction, recovery and how it affects your life. Meg Ryan is Alice, the mother of two little girls and wife to Michael (Andy Garcia), an airline pilot. She used to be a social drinker, but now finds herself drunk most of the time, to the point where she is becoming a danger to her little girls. Michael generally isn't bothered by her drunkenness as he is a “fixer”; one of those guys that needs problems to exist so he has something to do with himself by taking care of them. But as she starts to sober up and change her life, it changes their relationship to the point where there may not be one anymore.

This role isn't Meg Ryan's usual thing but she does a very effective job with it, being a convincing drunk and an even more convincing ex-drunk . Andy Garcia is very good as Michael, a hero that doesn't realize that he isn't very heroic, and a villain who doesn't realize he is villainous at all. But his slow realization that he isn't in control of some things, just as her realization that she needs to live in her own skin despite her loathing of herself, are definitely worth the watch.

1995

Best Picture Oscar: Braveheart

My Favorite Film of the Year: Mr. Holland's Opus and Heat

The Great One You May Have Missed: Leaving Las Vegas

Brace yourself for this one..... it ain't no feel good movie.

Ben Sanderson (Nicolas Cage) has nothing to live for. His wife has absconded with their daughter, he hates his lonely and directionless life, so he decides to sell everything and go to Vegas to drink himself to death. While there he meets Sara (Elizabeth Shue), a prostitute who falls in love with him, but nothing will stop him from his self destructive path.

There is no other way to describe Cage's performance other than astounding. Not because of the physical deterioration of Ben but because of how he conveys Ben's single mindedness so completely. “Leaving Las Vegas” is a gritty, glamour-less film that leaves you rather depressed – but that doesn't mean it isn't great. However its greatness sits squarely in its ability to tell the story, and to make you feel something about it even if it isn't a very positive feeling.

1996

Best Picture Oscar: The English Patient

My Favorite Film of the Year: Bound

The Great One You May Have Missed: Bound

If you have never seen “Bound”, I envy you. I wish I could watch it again for the first time. It's one of those films where I went in knowing nothing about it, expecting nothing at all, and was totally swept away by what a wonderful film it is. In my opinion the Wachowskis (who wrote and directed) never came close to doing anything this good ever again.

Violet (Jennifer Tilly) lives with Cesar (Joe Pantaliano), a low-level accountant for the Italian mob. Corky (Gina Gershon) is a recently released convict who starts renovating the condo next door. Violet and Corky begin a relationship (including some graphic love scenes) and they would like to run away from their lives together. Only problem is they have no money and Cesar would search for and find them. But when Cesar discovers another accountant has embezzled millions from the mob that he now has to find and account for Violet and Corky devise a plan to get the money, get away, and leave Cesar holding the bag. Of course, not everything goes according to plan.

This film is a true classic. Every member of the cast is excellent in their roles, the pacing and tension of the movie are perfect, and on first viewing you honestly have no idea how it's all going to unfold. Highest possible recommendation.

1997

Best Picture Oscar: Titanic

My Favorite Film of the Year: Good Will Hunting

The Great One You May Have Missed: Cop Land

It's funny to call a Stallone/DeNiro/Liotta/Keitel movie an “under the radar” one, but this truly is. Stallone plays Freddy Heflin, the sheriff of a New Jersey town just across the Hudson river from New York. This town is a bedroom community for many of the NYPD, resulting in its nickname “Copland”. Freddy is a nice guy but considered by the New York cops to be a bit of a joke, and he more-or-less lets himself be that joke by looking the other way at all the police corruption he sees. But when a hero cop accidentally kills a couple of black kids on the George Washington Bridge and an internal affairs officer (Deniro) starts asking questions, Freddy finds himself forced to choose a side and deal with the consequences.

Stallone is so well known for playing over-the-top action heroes that not much attention was given to his subdued role in “Copland”. But he dials it down perfectly for his role as Freddy, and Ray Liotta is equally good as Freddy's coke snorting, twitchy best friend. Deniro is Deniro, and Harvey Keitel is fabulously evil as the bad cop running the show. Not an action packed or fast movie, “Copland” is a slowly developing dramatic turn for everyone that culminates beautifully at the climax.

1998

Best Picture Oscar: Shakespeare in Love

My Favorite Film of the Year: The Big Lebowski

The Great One You May Have Missed: Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

One of the greatest caper films ever made. Four pals scrape everything they have together to enter one of them (Eddie) in a local mob-run poker game. Thanks to some devious dealings by the mobster (Hatchet Harry) in question, not only does the player lose the whole lot, but ends up 500,000 pounds in debt. Harry's plans collect Eddie's father's pub in payment, but the four devise an alternate scheme – their next door neighbours are big-time armed robbers, and when they return from their next score the boys will relieve them of their take. But their take was to rob the HQ of a local drug lord who will stop at nothing to make an example of anyone that steals from him. Mayhem ensues.

“Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” is one of the funniest films of the decade, even if most of the humour is in brilliantly written dialogue and wink-wink-nudge-nudge moments. It's full of sub plots driven by hilarious secondary characters, and when they all come together and the shit hits the fan, it hits the fan spectacularly. It made a name for director Guy Ritchie, though I feel he never hit these great heights again. A must see.

1999

Best Picture Oscar: American Beauty

My Favorite Film of the Year: American Beauty

The Great One You May Have Missed: Stir of Echoes

Tom (Kevin Bacon) is a skeptic of all things supernatural. So one night at a party, to prove what hokum it all is, he challenges one of his wife's friends to hypnotize him. Turns out he is very open to suggestion and is easily hypnotized but the friend, who thinks he is too close minded, leaves him with the suggestion to “be more open to things”. This unleashes Pandora's Box on him, as his house is haunted by the spirit of a dead girl who clearly wants him to do something, and figuring out what she wants becomes his dangerous obsession.

Kevin Bacon's name has become a bit of a joke in recent years, what with “The Oracle of Bacon” and him parodying himself on any show that will allow him to. But he is terrific in this little thriller, which while having some aspects of horror is anything but a horror movie. And much as “The Arrival” was overshadowed early in the 90s by “Independence Day” (both about alien invasions), this film was lost in the shuffle of “The Sixth Sense”, another movie about convening with the dead. In both cases the film that got lost was superior, and in the case of “Stir of Echoes”, far superior.