Something very strange happened in the nineties. Genre movies got pushed to the boundaries of creativity and cleverness, over and over again, in such a way that has never been done either before or since. We’re not just talking about the rebellious seventies. In the nineties, films began hitting their strides on all levels. New directors with sensational breakout films were emerging around every corner, and seasoned directors were finally turning out some they very best work.
To give some examples right off the bat, Scorcese was arguably making his best movies that decade (Goodfellas and Casino,) Spielberg was making some of his best (Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan,) Tarantino broke out and made his best movie.. (Pulp Fiction,) Wes Anderson made his best movie (Rushmore,) the Coen Brothers and Danny Boyle were all making their best movies. It truly was as if there was something in the water during that decade that was just miraculously contagious in the all the best ways.
To help put things into perspective in a somewhat organized manner, let’s examine this in two ways… by genre and by director. And let’s see how it goes.
THE GANGSTER GENRE
The Godfather movies of the seventies established the gangster genre. Sure there were gangster films going all the way back to James Cagney and Edward G Robinson’s 40s and 50s days, but let’s be honest… it was the Godfather movies that were the first actual great gangster works of art. And how did the nineties answer the call of the Godfather? With Goodfellas and Casino. Easily two of Scorcese’s best (and he, of course, was a filmmaker who came out of the seventies.) Suddenly we were getting voice over narration in both movies, explaining the life of a gangster. Letting us feel like we were a part of it. The results were flawless.
THE POLICE INVESTIGATION MOVIE GENRE
Police investigation movies came out swinging in every direction. There were period piece film noirs (LA Confidential) or dark serial killer films (The Silence of the Lambs, Seven,) and even heist movies (Heat.) There were also plenty of fun B level movies, like Bad Boys and the Last Boyscout. But those probsbly bring more to the action movie category.
SCIENCE FICTION
The Star Wars series will always be the reigning champ of sci-fi movies, and those films came out in the seventies and eighties, but other than that, we got some of the very best of the genre in the nineties. Specifically Terminator 2 and The Matrix, two movies that both pushed special effects and computer effects to the next level. But there was also thinker sci-fi flicks, like Total Recall and 12 Monkeys, where the futuristic ideas were more important than the action. All of these sci-fi movies pushed the boundaries beyond whatever could possibly have been expected.
Terminator 2, in particular, was the rare sequel that not only surpassed the original film in terms of quality, but did so by completely reversing the idea of the first movie. Instead of Arnold being a villain, in this movie, he came back as the hero. Whereas most sequels try to just repeat the formula and beats of the first movie, Terminator 2 took the cannon of the world that had been established and presented a whole different story in there.
ACTION
Speaking of Terminator 2, the nineties were the time when Stallone, Shcwatzengger, and Willis all hit their strides. It was the decade that coined the phrase “Die Hard on a…” to characterize anction movies angsinst terrorists generally centered on a single location. And in many cases, these terrorist takeover movies were actually really good. We had Die Hard on Alcatraz (The Rock), Die Hard on a mountain (Cliffhanger,) Die Hard on a ship (Under Siege,) Die Hard on a bus (Speed,) and of course another Die Hard movie which was nearly as good as the first, (Die Hard With A Vengeance.)
MYSTERY
From The Fugitive to The Usual Suspects, we were given some of the greatest mysteries of all time. There never was a twist ending quite as good as that of Suspects, with the reveal of who Keyser Soze actually was, and how it truly changed everything we had seen that came before it. As far as cops and criminal suspense movies went, the Fugitive was the best of the bunch, with Tommy Lee Jones nailing his role as head of the US Marshalls team searching for Doctor Richard Kimble. And then there were movies that took the film noir genre and made it slimier, dirtier, and more solicitous than ever (Basic Instinct, Fatal Attraction, Malice, The Game.)
ANIMATION
This was the decade when Disney relaunched itself and came out swinging hard with their big four animated movies, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. The Little Mermaid was 1989, but all of those others permeated the first half of the nineties, culminating with Disney not only dominating the animated film playing field, but then revolutionizing it with Toy Story, the first CG animated movie. That studio literally went from The Lion King in 1994 to Toy Story in 1995. And ever since Toy Story, animated movies have never been the same. The genre completely changed with that film so that pretty much all animated movies these days are computer drawn and not hand drawn, 3D looking instead of 2D looking, and definitely the better for it.
Speaking of advancements in technology, the action genre got major bump ups in this department. That was courtesy of James Cameron who turned out Aliens, Terminator 2, and Titanic, all in the nineties. With Aliens and T2, we were looking at sequels to good movies that were far better than their predecessors. Now that just doesn’t happen. The only thing close was The Godfather 2 (many claim it’s better than the Godfather.) But in the case of Aliens and T2, it was pretty much definitive.
COURT ROOM MOVIES
From A Few Good Men to Primal Fear to My Cousin Vinny, the court room would never be the same after being hit by this decade. A Few Good Men took us into a military trial, complete with arch villain (Jack Nicholson,) where an actor truly nailed his supporting role. Primal Fear did the same for Edward Norton, while also giving us one of those massive twists that could rival the one in the Usual Suspects. But it wasn’t just the dramas that excelled in the courtroom movie genre. My Cousin Vinny proved that this type of movie could actually be used for comedy as well, and boy was it right.
DRAMA
This was the decade of hood movies, and by those I mean the very best of the movies about characters growing up in the hood. Do The Right Thing and, Boyz N The Hood were only about two years apart, and boy did they both deliver. Then there were the period piece genre movies, like, Legends of the Fall and Sleepers. And who could forget the psychological drama of Good Will Hunting, taking what had been done a decade earlier with Ordinary People, and elevating it beyond recognition.
HORROR MOVIES
From Scream to From Dusk Till Dawn, Dimension was doing it all in the nineties. It was the horror branch of Miramax, the studio that seemed to be doing it all that decade. And while not all of their horror movies worked, for every Phantoms there was also a Mimic. Looking elsewhere, besides Dimension, studios gave us the space horror classic Event Horizon, and the ghost psychological thriller The Sixth Sense. While these movies aren’t some of the best of all time, the way most other genre categories picks from the nineties are, there’s no denying the cultural impact of Scream, and how it brought horror movies back to the mainstream.
COMEDY
The nineties were Bill Murray time, when it came to comedy. Rushmore, Scrooged, What About Bob, Groundhog Day. He was doing it all. Headlining some of the smartest comedies out there. Even when he took supporting roles (like in Kingpin,) Murray just hit it out of the park. Every time (ok, maybe the Man Who Knew Too little wasn’t as good as those others, but it was still pretty good.)
Aside from Bill Murray movies, there were plenty of other great comedies in the nineties. Swingers and My Cousin Vinny are definitely towards the top of the list, but there were quite a few of other memorable ones, such as Half Baked. Kevin Smith had three great movies, all in the nineties (Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy.) The Fahrley Brothers went from Dumb and Dumber to Kingpin to There’s Something About Mary, their best film to date. There was definitely something special going on during that decade.
DIRECTORS
And now let’s talk about directors during this time. We already mentioned that Scorcese and Spielberg, who had already established themselves starting in the seventies, really got to demonstrate how great they could be in the nineties. From Goodfellas and Casino to Jurassic Park and Saving Private Ryan, both of these iconic directors were doing some of their very best work.
But then there were the breakout directors, and quite a lot of them. It’s no coincidence that the very best movies the Coen Brothers (Fargo and the Big Lebowski,) were just two years apart, with Fargo in 1996 and Lebowski in 1998. It’s no coincidence that David Fincher’s most iconic two movies, Seven and Fight Club were four years apart (Seven in 1995 and Fight Club in 1999.) We are talking about directors who have gone on to have careers that spanned decades, and the best work they were doing came during this brief window of time.
It’s no coincidence that PT Anderson’s Boogie Nights was in the same year as Good Will Hunting (1997.) Or that Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting was in the same year as Swingers and Primal Fear (1996.) These are all movies that have easily stood the test of time, and are some of the best to exist in their genre, ever.
When we look back at the filmmakers to come out of the nineties, the list has got to include Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, PT Anderson, David Fincher, Wes Anderson, Danny Boyle, and the Coen Brothers, (technically the started in the eighties, but boy was the nineties their time to shine.)
In fact, it was really nearly everyone’s time to shine. Steven Soderbergh, who had made great movies before (Sex, Lies, and Videotape,) and also after (Traffic,) had his best movie in the nineties, (Out of Sight.) Brian De Palma was capping off an amazing filmmaking career by turning out the first Mission Impossible film. John Woo, who had been doing Hong Kong movies for some time, finally got to move into American cinema with movies like Broken Arrow and Face Off. And while these movies weren’t great, they were certainly the most high profile films of Woo’s career. It was the decade of the Nicolas Cage action movie (The Rock, Con Air, and Face Off,) and the Michael Bay action movie (Bad Boys, the Rock, and Armorgeddon.) And here’s the thing. It all existed only in the nineties. Cage never made another action movie like those, after that. Bay never did either. Neither did The Farheley Brothers or Kevin Smith with comedy. Did they make other movies, sure. But nothing memorable like what they were doing during that decade. It was truly a special time, and one that will forever be remembered.
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