1999's Best Movies: 25 Years Later

Burn After Reading's all-timer ending is built on the characters admitting that none of it makes any sense

I did find the movie Fracture w/ Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling humorous because the same thing essentially happens - he's arrested for the attempted murder of his wife, then takes her off life support after acquittal, and says "you can't try me again, that's double jeopardy", and Gosling is all like "lol u stupid fuck, no it isn't, you let her die so now it's a murder charge, new charges, new case".

actually that was kind of a big letdown cos a dude as smart as Hopkins would have known that. or should have.

I am def voting for Outer Space but American Movie also has been gaining in my estimation incredibly in recent years, and I was already a pretty huge fan of it back then

My love for The Iron Giant knows no bounds.

Audition was horrifying and has stayed with me for 25 years.

Iron Giant >>> Toy Story 2

https://i.ibb.co/wrJDfDC/img-3817.gif

the wind will carry us

Beau Travail, probably. The Insider isn't far behind tbh, when you think about what kind of absolutely pedantic and mediocre film could have been made from the same material, for Mann to turn it into something like this is vv impressive. Really like Being John Malkovich, Ripley is solid, Eyes Wide Shut is great, Matrix is almost good enough to make you forget the rest of the series.

actually the runner-up list has films i like even more than most of my faves from the main list -- Ghost Dog, Three Kings, The Limey, and maybe especially The Mission (it's where Johnnie To really came into his own, just such a disciplined and unusual action film.)

I'm surprised to not see Bringing out the Dead on the runner-up list but i guess it really is considered an also-ran in Scorsese's filmography, even if it is arguably the best film he made between Casino and The Departed, though i'd probably rather rewatch it than anything else made between Casino and The Irishman, bc it's a very dynamic and off-kilter oddity that was the last time he made a film that seemed like a quick and fast, zero expectations project.

My favorite film of 1999 was and remains The Dreamlife of Angels.

This feels like a movie time forgot and I wonder why. (Never saw it, myself.)

I ... don't get this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VNFuc5cfZ0

Three Kings and The Limey are still my favorite films from those two directors. The Insider is easily my favorite Michael Mann film that has nothing to do with bank heists. While I'm at it, Magnolia is probably my favorite Paul Thomas Anderson movie before he broke new ground for himself with There Will Be Blood. And Being John Malkovich is definitely my favorite Spike Jonze movie. Amazing to think those were all major studio films - how times have changed.

Love Ghost Dog too, and The Wind Will Carry Us is a masterpiece by one of my favorite filmmakers. I can't remember if it was the first one I saw by him (I saw Taste of Cherry at virtually the same time), but the idea of a filmmaker with the moral sense to consider how filmmaking (or rather a film being made) impacted everyone around it was amazing. It really was a great year for a lot of reasons. My favorites were still outside of Hollywood, but it's just sad what used to be considered viable at a place like Warner Bros.

I can’t with their movie drafts - I don’t get the point.

Right? The movies are old, they've had their box office day, their overall place in the cultural canon is pretty much set (at least in the short range) ... what the hell are the stakes here?

For years after I saw L'humanité I thought that it was the last film I saw that was both highly original and also touching, in its very cold way (its only competition was probably In Vanda's Room). I felt completely attuned to the main character and the point of view of the film. In the years since, I found some of Dumont's other films pretty good but none reached me half as much.
I finally decided to watch the film again last year and it had nearly gone dead on me, which is rare (I usually appreciate most films more on a second viewing). I would still recommend it, but most of the transcendence behind the everyday setting had gone. So I’m voting for it, but mostly on behalf of my past impressions.

I remember being very impressed by l'humanité when I saw it at the time. It was a police procedural, but not much happened except internally with the main detective character Pharaon, who had experienced a great loss but only slowly revealed himself. It felt profound, and I would like to see it again

Rosetta by the Dardennes was a pretty great film, maybe their best. It starred Émilie Dequenne (most recently seen in Close), who was 17 when it was filmed and who portrayed a teenager desperate to lead a normal life and care for her alcoholic mother. It was very memorable

I would vote Office Space if available, but I'll go with Being John Malkovich.

I guess you like movies about offices

xxp Rosetta is my favorite Dardennes film. Incredibly powerful, and also a great example of how well the Dardennes understand the effect socioeconomic forces can have on morality - not in broad, simplistic terms but what happens when it's inextricably tied to one's survival in an unforgiving and uncaring society. I think the first retrospective I attended here in NYC was for their films - what a run they had, from 1996's La Promesse through 2014's Two Days, One Night. The revelation was how they changed their entire approach to filmmaking with La Promesse - if you didn't know the credits, their earlier films are unrecognizable as their work. They haven't had the same reception in recent years, but even if their later films aren't on the same level, they can be still be fairly potent, particularly the last one Tori and Lokita.

pretty sure i voted for malkovich which completely blew my mind when i was 14 or so

Going with Beau Travail but that was a film I encountered years later, and have still never seen on the big screen... but holy shit, Blair Witch Project sure made an impression in the theater, in those innocent days before found footage became the budget horror filmmakers' crutch

I thought Beau Travail was interesting but inconsequential when I first saw it, but it has really grown in my estimation, and it is interesting now to see it in the light of all of Denis' other films

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Voted Outer Space over Eyes Wide Shut. American Beauty is the worst one.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

American Beauty voter, step forward!--I've got your back. (Thought about it, but think I went with The Virgin Suicides in the end.)

Most of those films feel like 25 years ago for me, but I had to check Mr. Ripley... I honestly thought it was more recent that '99, like 2006 or something

and I'm sorry to see that Ratcatcher attracted no votes, including my own

The Sixth Sense was probably the highest grossing of the poll choices, yeah? I mean The Matrix ended up becoming a huge film in afterlife, but that movie was huge at the time

the worst is definitely american beauty

Three Kings, the last good David O Russell movie

If I'd known Malkovich was going to win I would've voted for Election.

jesus, awful result that

not sure whether the 12 votes for that or the 1 for american beauty is the worse

how is it worse

im not sure i said

make yr case!

Interested to hear the case that Being John Malkovich is not a significantly better film than American Beauty, on any level.

haven't seen them in 25 years, neither of them are films I would have picked out as great, but I'm interested in rewatching both of them

No judgement but the fact that one person on this board voted for amer. beauty and no one voted for 6th sense is interesting to me

Ratcatcher's the real one that got robbed here.

not sure whether the 12 votes for that or the 1 for american beauty is the worse

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Tuesday, May 14, 2024 7:21 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lol, see how those two in an isolated poll turn out

It’s not in the same league as the best films in the poll, but I still like it - very likely my favorite Spike Jonze feature-length film.

Interested to hear the case that Being John Malkovich is not a significantly better film than American Beauty, on any level.

― chap,

bizarre reading tbh

I missed this poll, really wouldn't have expected Being John Malkovitch to win, but can't really think of any good argument against it, I remember being amazed by it when I saw first (and possibly the only time?) saw it in a packed theater. It has a kind of wackiness which is generally confined to TV these days, which is a shame because seeing something like it in a crowd is a lot of fun.

I like that it is kind of melancholy and utterly ridiculous at the same time

Yeah, its balancing act has a higher degree of difficulty than I think it's generally given credit for these days

I picked up the BJM Criterion when it came out and showed it to a friend who hadn't seen it before (I myself hadn't seen it since the VHS days); we were both knocked sideways by how dark it was, particularly all the Cusack-Diaz marriage breakdown stuff (the cage, my god).

And the least optimistic (read: grossest) reincarnation scenario imaginable

Topsy-Turvy a lot of fun but I wonder how it would feel to someone who's indifferent to its subject matter.

That's me and I love it.

― Chris L, Tuesday, April 23

Same, largely for the reasons omar posted upthread - its very immersive in a way that makes you really feel like you're watching people & events in another time, which is a tough trick to pull off.

I dont really care about Gilbert & Sullivan one way or the other, but when it comes to movies about artists, particularly with music, I usually could care less about whether I like the actual art being created in the story - if the movie's good that should be totally beside the point imo. If thats all I was looking for, I would watch an actual concert film or something.

I usually laugh at #eureka moments in movies but Gilbert's here works.