80s/90s
By I’ll have some thoughts about the Sight and Sound list and related issues myself, but since it’s generated some discussion I thought I’d spur more discussion of the more recent movies that generally aren’t in serious contention to generate the consensus to make it on a best-films-ever list. I did 80s and 90s list back in the early days of the blog that didn’t survive the migration to WordPress, so while nearly 10 years later these won’t be the same here’s where I am now:
1980s
- Raging Bull
- The Decalogue
- Crimes and Misdemeanors
- The Vanishing (needless to say, not the Hollywood travesty)
- This Is Spinal Tap
- Atlantic City (On a general point, Malle is exceptionally underrated)
- The King of Comedy
- Once Upon A Time In America
- Do the Right Thing
- The Thin Blue Line
1990s
- GoodFellas
- The Dreamlife of Angels
- Fargo
- The Sweet Hereafter
- Out of Sight
- To Live
- Boogie Nights
- Lone Star
- The Big Lebowski
- American Dream
The bottom starts to get really arbitrary there. I really like the Kieslowski trilogy, although not as much as The Decalogue; Glengarry Glenn Ross is my favorite filmed play; Short Cuts is uneven but is exceptional at its best, the strongest post-Nashville Altman; I love Trainspotting, which I think is still Boyle’s best picture; I might include Pulp Fiction if you gave me a cut without the Willis/de Medeiros scenes; I like both 90s Solondz movies; Being John Malkovich is real good. Election. That’s not an exhaustive list of stuff that could have been included. Secrets and Lies is very good. I need to revisit 90s Wong Kar-Wai too…