Was "the '90s" the Best Decade for Cinema?

Looking back through these forums, I saw a post like this for the '70s (of course) and the '80s (controversial!) but I thought I'd put up an argument here for the '90s.

Hear me out.  Firstly, I think the way we divide decades works mathematically, but not very well culturally.  For example, people often talk about "the '60s" as being an era of free love, great music, experimentation and exploration.  But what they're talking about didn't start until a couple years into the '60s, and really they're probably thinking about like '67 to '72 or so.  I'd argue that culturally, there's usually a couple years hangover from the previous decade before we shift modes, and that's probably reflected in films, too.  So, for example, when people talk about the darkness and realism in film of the '70s, they may be thinking of films in '71 like The French Connection, Dirty Harry, or A Clockwork Orange.  But you could argue that those have a lot in common with films from '69 like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Easy Rider, or even the darker James Bond- OHMSS.  Compare that to films of the later '70s like '74: Blazing Saddles and The Longest Yard, or '78: Grease, Animal House, and Revenge of the Pink Panther.  I'd argue that the '70s were a lot less gritty than some people think, and critics have a tendency to cherry pick in order to make that argument.

Nevertheless, I'll be somewhat typical and look at the '90s from let's say: '91 to 2000.  I'd argue you could stack up the best films of most years against any other decade and the '90s usually comes out looking very impressive.  Just a few of my favorites from '92 for example:
Last of the Mohicans, Basic Instinct, Reservoir Dogs, Aladdin, and of course, Under Siege. 
Compare that to say, '52: Singing in the Rain...High Noon...The Quiet Man if those Wayne films do it for you.  What else?
Or '72: The Godfather, sure, but what else?  Frenzy, Jeremiah Johnson...Sleuth maybe?  Maybe The Getaway?  Kind of depends on your tastes...

Or let's look at '94: Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption, Natural Born Killers, The Lion King, Speed, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Clerks, The Crow, Leon, The Last Seduction, Legends of the Fall, even Dumb & Dumber.

Or '99: The Matrix, Fight Club, Being John Malkovich, The Blair Witch Project, The Sixth Sense, American Beauty, Three Kings, Office Space, The Iron Giant, Toy Story 2, The Insider, The Green Mile, Cruel Intentions, Go, Galaxy Quest, Any Given Sunday, Man on the Moon, Election, even Austin Powers, South Park, and American Pie if you go for broad comedies.

You can do cross-comparisons of similar years, and the '90s always impresses.  There's not a bad year in the decade.  Prove me wrong, Internet! 

Agreed for the most part.

I've posted this before somewhere, but I'd say 1994 to 2004 or so was the best 10ish year span for movies. Starting around the release of Pulp Fiction and ends around the release of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The early 90s had some good movies but not at the level of the mid-90s. And quality, creativity and originality seemed to drop off the cliff around the mid-00s.

Yeah, the '90s might just have been the best. I was in my 20s and working at a movie theater at the time, so sometimes I'm concerned that any strong feelings on my part for the decade in cinema might just be seen through nostalgia-covered glasses. So it heartens me to read posts like this, or to see (for instance) how many films from the ‘90s still dominate the IMDB voters’ list of greatest movies ever made.

The ‘90s proved to be a fertile ground for experimentation. Filmmakers primarily known for making accessible pop-culture hits tried their hands at something artistic, often around 3 hours in their runtime. Spielberg had Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan; Robert Zemeckis gave us Forrest Gump; Mel Gibson had Braveheart; and the biggest of them all, James Cameron brought us Titanic. (While I’m not a huge fan of that one, I can’t deny its importance or impact.)

While popular filmmakers do make artistic statements from time to time, what’s unusual is that audiences showed up in droves for these films. They knew and trusted the names behind those films. At that point, the cost of a night out at the movies was still reasonable enough that people were willing to try something risky, and were richly rewarded for taking that chance. For heaven's sakes, Titanic was a tragedy, and it was the most popular one of the bunch!

Of course, those same filmmakers still gave us great thrill rides in the form of movies like Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park, movies that the studios are still trying to emulate today with the latest sequels. Even Die Hard 2 was top-notch.

Meanwhile, Disney was in the middle of its animation renaissance with the aforementioned Lion King and Aladdin as well as Beauty and the Beast and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Then just as Disney’s in-house team started to filter a little bit, the studio produced Pixar’s first feature film, Toy Story, which blew everyone’s minds and revolutionized the animation industry.

You like broad comedies? Here’s Liar Liar and Home Alone, the latter of which also became a Christmas classic. You like your comedies with a bit of fantasy? Try Groundhog Day, a film so unique that, to this day, any similar time-loop stories will automatically get compared to it (probably because they’re just copying it). For something completely different, try The Sixth Sense, a movie that introduced people to M. Night Shyamalan and made them love them (before they got tired of him). 

(BTW, mnky kungfu, I agree with your assessment that the lines between decades in filmmaking are not clear-cut when it comes to decades. 1989’s Batman felt very different from any superhero film we had gotten up to that point, and the Disney renaissance actually started in the ‘80s.)

Of course, no decade is perfect. You still have films like Waterworld and Baby Geniuses. But the batting average of the decade is astonishingly high. 

I’m not going to shake my fist at this decade like an old man and say, “Anything old was automatically better!” This period of filmmaking is what it is. Movies cost more than ever to make, which means tickets are more expensive, which means that audiences are more risk-averse. Hence, there’s more reliance than ever on branding and franchises (although those have always been a thing). Experimentation is much more likely to be seen on a streaming service, where audiences will take a chance on something since they’re already paying the monthly subscription fee.

There may still be good times ahead for cinema. (Certainly, the movie theater I used to work at is still there, while its competition--the Blockbuster Video in the same shopping plaza--is long gone. So one can never predict how things will go.) All the same, we may never see such a fascinating time in movies as we did in the 1990s.

I'm all about them 1890s films, they was the most impactful. "Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory" and "Demolition of a Wall" are teh best.

Neglify said:

I'm all about them 1890s films, they was the most impactful. "Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory" and "Demolition of a Wall" are teh best.

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I prefer "Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat", but each to their own.

Yeah Adabisi and TomH1138, I'm all for films going into the "Noughties" and beyond as well.  2001 and 2008 were insane years for movies, for example.  I would give the '90s the edge though, as I think it was a time of real movement and experimentation.

Tom, as I first got interested in cinema in a critical way in the '90s, I've also had that worry that maybe I had too much personal attachment to be objective.  Then I read "Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film" (Peter Biskind's follow-up to "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls") and got some perspective.  No, I wasn't imagining that all these films were revolutionary, those in the film industry were also talking about this being a 2nd New Wave (after the young transformative film-makers of the '70s).  I'd argue that the experimentation in the '90s kind of led to a new style of big Hollywood movie in the 2000s, similar to the directors' transitions from the '70s into the '80s.  Only, compared to '80s big hits, a lot of the films in the '00s were more cohesive and more substantive.  They didn't have the whimsy and zaniness of the '80s, but they often hit a lot harder and displayed a more masterful range of skills and craft.

But I digress, I'm not here to bag on the '80s, which has a ton of amazing films in its own right.  However, if you were to level the accusation at people that idealize some of those films and bash more modern films that "You're letting nostalgia affect your judgement and looking at those films through rose-colored glasses", I think you'd have a real case.  The typical venom thrown at any new film in an old franchise or any reboot/remake is often disproportionate to the shortcomings of the film.  Sure, these films have plenty of flaws, but a lot of the '80s films did, too.  People just gloss over those and say "but they worked!"...well sure, they worked for you as an 8 year old or 14 year old.  Film critics at the time were much more critical though, pointing out tons of flaws in Empire Strikes Back for example, now held up as the unimpeachable bastion of Star Wars stories to which all sequels are insulting.  (Look, I love Empire, I'm just saying.)

So yeah, I think I can say with objectivity that there are a million reasons to love '90s films, not only from personal attachment.  And I also love films of the past decades, which have all their own strengths.  We'd just have to consider the totality of film being produced, meaning streaming and the much more robust international film industry as well.

I'm a total '90s kid, but I prefer '80s films. The aesthetic/atmosphere of that period resonates strongly with me, for whatever reason. The '90s film aesthetic is ... a tad bland for me, though I agree there're plenty of excellent films from the decade.

mnkykungfu said:

Neglify said:

 

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However, if you were to level the accusation at people that idealize some of those films and bash more modern films that "You're letting nostalgia affect your judgement and looking at those films through rose-colored glasses", I think you'd have a real case.  

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Mnkykngfu, I agree with pretty much everything you said. I only hope you don't think I was leveling accusations at anybody, and that the "you" above was the hypothetical, generic "you" rather than referring to me specifically. I only know my own propensity for nostalgia, and so work hard to view things as objectively as possible.

TomH1138 said:

Mnkykngfu, I agree with pretty much everything you said. I only hope you don't think I was leveling accusations at anybody, and that the "you" above was the hypothetical, generic "you" rather than referring to me specifically. I only know my own propensity for nostalgia, and so work hard to view things as objectively as possible.

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Oh, sorry!  Not at all.  I probably chose my language poorly, I didn't mean for it to sound testy.  I also was speaking kind of more of the general 'if someone were to...' when I said "you" in that part.  I would welcome some "accusation leveling" here in terms of a spirited debate, lol.  Generally everyone is very considerate and thoughtful on these boards, and it's a nice place to toss around ideas without disagreements getting personal.  Please do go on, TomH1138.  

(Btw, I just watched the doc "Star Wars Begins" yesterday and heard for the first time that Mark Hamill ad-libbed the 1138 line in A New Hope, setting the reference pattern.  So I guess he's to thank for your moniker, in part!)