' ' Cinema Romantico: Ranking Ten 1990s Blockbusters (That I Have Seen) Ranked by Someone Else

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Ranking Ten 1990s Blockbusters (That I Have Seen) Ranked by Someone Else

Was Gen X, my generation, so surly all the time because we didn’t realize how good we had it, here in America, anyway, and specifically within the parameters of a certain sort of white American experience. I mean, maybe. That’s what anyone not in Gen X will tell you while also telling you that they, understand, had it rougher than any generation, ever, period and underline, because, like the youngs whining about the olds and the olds whining about the youngs, that’s how every generation do. But man, Newt was already in there in the mid-90s laying the groundwork for screwing everything up, so, I don’t know, maybe all the all-seeing, all-knowing folks who kept telling Gen X to pucker up in those days would have been better off paying attention. Honestly, despite my own personal travails, and the dreaded emergence of the BCS ruining college football on New Year’s Day (don’t get me started), I mostly remember the 90s as an era of good times more than the era of grunge. My favorite grunge album was Hole’s Celebrity Skin which I think is classified as pop? So, there you go. Where was I going? Right. A list at Defector concocted by Lauren Theisen who as someone too young to go to movies in the 1990s aside from kid offerings, and sort of inspired by the release of Twisters, ranked 1990s blockbusters she has not seen.


The list includes 21 total movies, and the bottom 11 are not as good as the top 10, at least not from my perspective. But those first 10, or at least, most of those first 10, well, it’s good no one was near me when I read through them because they would have been subject to a deluge of wistful sighs. Reading it was like walking through my old hometown and pointing out where things used to be. Indeed, as someone who has seen all the movies Theisen ranked, I felt compelled to rework her Top 10 into an altogether different order. Cope, enemies of nostalgia.

Ranking Ten 1990s Blockbusters (That I Have Seen) Ranked by Someone Else 

10. The Sixth Sense. I didn’t dislike M. Night Shyamalan’s breakout, necessarily, but it also didn’t blow me away like so many others. Me? I still prefer “Signs.” 

9. The Mummy. The irony is, up until The Mummy itself shows up, I loved this movie, an old-fashioned adventure effused with genuine spirit. Brendan Fraser’s charisma is so natural that it’s hard to tell just how good a performance he’s giving. Also, is Rachel Weisz comedian one of our most under-utilized movie resources?

8. Saving Private Ryan. Though I had certain qualms about Steven Spielberg’s war epic, I appreciated it in many ways too, and I probably do think of it as a better, quote-unquote, movie than the one following it in my own rankings. But that’s also because I don’t think of “Saving Private Ryan” as a blockbuster, exactly, though I suppose it was one. I would sub out “Saving Private Ryan” for “Crimson Tide” and move that up to #2 here, if not #1, honestly, though I cannot confirm if Theisen has, in fact, not seen “Crimson Tide.” Anyway.

Steak and eggs > CGI tornadoes

7. Twister. More than the storm chasers bickering over divorce papers as protagonists, more even than the array of eccentric supporting characters, what I love is the texture, the distinct Plains States atmosphere. It’s the location work, and the second unit photography, really, that stands out as much as the CGI tornadoes, intrinsically reminding us of what stands to be lost.  

6. Basic Instinct. Can you imagine this movie finishing eighth at the box office now? 

Even the J.T. Walsh scenes are good.

5. A Few Good Men. Theisen indicates that in seeing that scene on YouTube, by which, of course, she means the You can’t handle the truth scene, she has seen the whole thing. But she hasn’t! “A Few Good Men” is all good scenes! That’s why it’s the perfect TNT Movie; you turn it on at any point, beginning, middle, or end, and you are guaranteed a great scene. The first Nicholson scene is virtually as good as the last one.

4. Speed. Rarely has a model movie pitch been executed with such aplomb. 

3. Men In Black. In re-visiting one a few years ago for the first time in a long, long time, I was surprised to find a movie that still felt alive and expressive, not diminished not one iota by its inferior and unnecessary sequels. Its star Will Smith concocted his infamous box office formula of creatures, special effects, and love story, but really, “Men in Black” goes to show that the only formula you need for a blockbuster is honoring your creative people’s creative freedom. Would that it were so simple. 

Little pink houses for you and me

2. Independence Day. In Thiesen’s piece, she discounts this one by noting “suits > military uniforms.” But that’s the thing, there are as many suits as military uniforms! Plus, Jeff Goldblum’s flannel, and Judd Hirsch’s sport jacket, and Randy Quaid’s southwestern thrift store collection, and Vivica A. Fox’s adult dancer attire. Ain’t that America? 

1. The Fugitive. It might have a twist ending, but Andrew Davis’s thriller only gets better every time you see it, really letting you get a handle on the immense craft and the way the performances of Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones seem to be communicating with one another even though they only share a couple scenes together. An exemplar.

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