Wiping out the original meat of the OP in hopes that it will reduce confusion.
We are compiling consensus community rankings of various decades of movies history (potentially moving on to an all-time ranking at some point).
Nothing complicated is happening here. There are two phases to ranking a decade:
The brainstorming phase: just name as many movies as you feel should be considered for ranking when the voting starts. No wrong answers. Participating in this phase is not a requirement for voting. It is, however, a good idea to participate if you particularly want to ensure that specific movies from that decade are considered by the community when we start voting.
The ranking phase: participants will PM me their top 20 list from the decade we’re working on. In order. All films from this decade are eligible whether they came up during the brainstorming phase or not. 1st place votes count more than 2nd place votes, which count more than 3rd place votes, etc. Don’t worry too much about this part; I’ll do the tabulating.
After these phases are complete: sit back, relax, and enjoy the reveal.
CURRENT PHASE: Top 20 of the 2010s is posted. New decade’s brainstorming phase will begin soon.
I’ll start (again, mine are in no ranked order whatsoever and this will surely not reflect an order of my ranking):
Se7en
Before Sunrise
Dazed and Confused
A Few Good Men
The Shawshank Redemption
Notting Hill
The Insider
The Silence of the Lambs
Titanic
The Big Lebowski
Jackie Brown
Goodfellas
Legends of the Fall
Pulp Fiction
Jurassic Park
Fargo
Casino
Malcolm X
Reservoir Dogs
Thelma & Louise
Glengarry Glen Ross
The Remains of the Day
Meet Joe Black
Schindler’s List
Heat
Just putting stuff I don’t see on LKJ’s list that I think are at least worthy of consideration:
Saving Private Ryan
Apollo 13
Forrest Gump
The Matrix
Fight Club
LA Confidential
Trainspotting
Terminator 2
American History X
The Lion King
Clueless
Groundhog Day
Office Space
The Usual Suspects
Toy Story
Princess Mononoke
Run Lola Run
Unforgiven
L.A. Story
Misery
Thelma and Louise
The Usual Suspects
L.A. Confidential
Pump Up the Volume
Quick Change
The Paper
Philadelphia
The Shawshank Redemption
Good Will Hunting
A Few Good Men
Saving Private Ryan
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Notting Hill
Pretty Woman
Rushmore
Election
Braveheart
Schindler’s List
The Silence of the Lambs
Reservoir Dogs
Pulp Fiction
Unforgiven
Quiz Show
Rounders
Fight Club
Se7en
Boyz N the Hood
The Truman Show
Toy Story
Jerry Maguire
A League of Their Own
That Thing You Do!
Can’t Hardly Wait
10 Things I Hate About You
Maybe a little off-topic because it’s not one of my favorites and I don’t think it’s one of the best movies of the 90s, but I stumbled across this trailer the other day and I couldn’t think of a movie that LOOKS more 90s than this
Note: people shouldn’t worry too much about whether a movie has been posted before they mention it (potentially again). I can put together a master list and nuke duplicates before posting it.
Just looked through the International/foreign language Oscar nominees to see if I’d missed anything, and I haven’t seen a single one. (Compared with 9 already in the 2020s)
Is world cinema actually better now, or just more accessible? I’m assuming it’s the latter.
I haven’t seen most of the 90s nominees either, so I can’t make a value judgment. I still have too many blind spots. But I would also guess it’s mostly an availability thing, because I don’t particularly like the foreign films of today better than I like a long list of pre-90s foreign films.
The Academy also isn’t the greatest barometer, and especially weren’t in the past. Wong Kar-wai isn’t showing up anywhere in that list, and lots of people absolutely love, e.g., Chungking Express (1994).
Some are weird, others disturbing, some graphic, others intense or romantic but they’re all worth watching. I don’t know how easy you can stream them.
