Looking back on them now, the 90s were the last decade of film. We mean that in the traditional sense, of course, as fantastic movies (some greater than these impeccable titles) continue to be made to this day. But the 90s were the last decade of pure film, in the sense that the world had not yet experienced the digital takeover. Images of sometimes scratched celluloid still grazed movie theaters where stadium seating was not yet the mainstream. The popular films of the 90s pushed away from the techno mainstream set up by the 80s pop era. Here is our list of the films that have accomplished the daunting task of surviving; of remaining relevant, entertaining and compelling no matter what year they were released.
1. Pulp Fiction– For many, Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is the quintessential 90s film. The characters embody archetypes of movie misfits past, but they don’t quite belong in those movies anymore. Here, Tarantino infuses them with dialogue so alive it practically does the work for the camera. Not content with words, though, we get stunning set pieces like the 50s diner, which is filled with enough pop culture references for five films on its own. Together with his cast of misfits, including John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, and Bruce Willis, he created a movie where every single character is now embedded in pop culture history. The violence, the language, and the story are so off-kilter that they created their own movie universe, one that Tarantino still gleefully operates in. Narrative structure and good taste are gone with the wind, but that wind also helped usher in a new wave of independent filmmakers into the mainstream.
2. Goodfellas– This is often the first film that comes to mind when you mention Martin Scorsese. That’s because it is a summation of everything great about him as a filmmaker, and his heightened-realism style has never been more masterful than here. The down-and-dirty grit of Taxi Driver meets the formal beauty and narrative ambition of The Last Temptation of Christ to form a totally unique filmmaking vision. It’s a gangster picture like only he could do it, with a cast of violent lowlifes dabbling in the excesses America has afforded them. They meet their various downfalls as gruesomely as you would expect. The narration from various characters over the action was unprecedented at the time, and a tool Scorsese would bring back in films like Casino and The Departed. Filled to the brim with memorable scenes, from the masterful tracking shot through the backdoor of a night club to the hallucinatory helicopter fleeing. Along with his now-iconic cast of Ray Liotta, Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci, and Lorraine Bracco, Scorsese created an Italian mob film deserving of mention in the same sentence as The Godfather.
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