Still More 90s Movies 5: Oscar Winners and Nominees

This will be the last "Still More 90s Movies" entry.  For this entry I'll be delving into some of the Oscar winners from that decade.

By way of introduction I'm approaching this topic thusly: first, I'll be visiting the Wikipedia entry for every year listed below, and second, I'll be working my way down through the lists of Oscar winners until I find a) two movies I haven't seen before, and b) two movies also available on YouTube.  Yes, I could get movies through a variety of other legal and illegal methods, but these entries are intended for a more general audience, and some of the streaming services and torrents don't work as well in certain countries.

Besides all that I'm lazy.  Using VPNs, torrent clients and sites which force me to click off a thousand pop-ups is exhausting.

...oh, and one more thing -- since I'm basing this on the Academy Awards, be aware that all of the movies below came out the year before they won the award.

1990

1. Best Actress (Nominated): Pauline Collins: Shirley Valentine

The "middle-aged woman unsatisfied with her life thus far" movie is at this point a genre unto itself, but lead Pauline Collins, who played the same role in the stage production, pulls it off like nobody's business.  Shirley Valentine is a very charming, very funny movie with much to recommend it.

Director Lewis Gilbert, who helmed everything from Sink the Bismark! to Educating Rita, should be more widely known than he is.  My favorite of his movies is still, for all its ridiculousness, Moonraker, but Shirley Valentine also stands out in his long and accomplished filmography.

2. Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Nominated): Marlon Brando: A Dry White Season

An indisputably good movie, but in stylistic terms it feels like it belongs to the previous decade.

In A Dry White Season Donald Sutherland stars as a South African history teacher investigating his gardener's murder.  Most of the "action" in this film revolves around the securing of various documents, but it still manages to generate a fair amount of tension.

Sutherland's costar Marlon Brando is memorable as an attorney doomed to failure, but I think that Denzel Washington, who won Best Supporting Actor for Glory the same year, had much more claim to the award.  Brando was great in so many movies, but his role in this one is very abbreviated.

1991

1. Best Actor (Nominated): Richard Harris: The Field

Director Jim Sheridan is better known for his collaborations with Daniel Day-Lewis, but The Field, which follows his first movie My Left Foot, is still an impressive piece of work that should be better known.

To be fair it does meander a bit in the second half, but Richard Harris is outstanding as an Irish farmer with supposed blood rights to a local field.  Critics weren't kind to this movie, but I think they were too harsh.  It does feel a little too much like a play, but so do a lot of other movies, many of which have won Oscars.

2. Best Written Screenplay (Original Material) (Nominated): Whit Stillman: Metropolitan

A young man from the other side of the tracks befriends a group of Manhattan socialites.  The writer, director and producer of this film could have done with a bigger budget, but I appreciate the work he put into it.  The finished product is a triumph of resourcefulness.

1992

1. Best Documentary: In the Shadow of the Stars

I can't abide opera, but this documentary on the artform offers some interesting takes on what it means to be a singer in an opera chorus.  Did it change my mind about opera?  Not in the slightest, but I appreciate the work they put into what they do.

2. Best Documentary (Nominated): Death on the Job

An analysis of the three most hazardous professions, these being commercial fishing, construction (particularly tunneling) and anything in the petrochemical industry.  This documentary doesn't state much beyond the obvious, but the numbers and testimonials it puts behind its statements are well worth considering.

1993

1. Best Foreign Language Film (Nominated): Daens

A Belgian priest and social reformer tries (and largely fails) to assist textile workers in his parish.  As a historical account it rings true, but I don't think they managed to flesh out the priest as a character.  Making his personal struggles more central to the plot would have made this film much better.

2. Best Documentary: The Panama Deception

More American adventurism in Central and South America.  In this instance the U.S. props up the Noriega regime, which quickly grows to big for its britches.  The result is a highly staged intervention in that country's affairs, much of which is quite gruesome.

1994

1. Best Actress (Nominated): Debra Winger: Shadowlands

Anthony Hopkins stars as the celebrated Narnian C.S. Lewis, with Debra Winger as an American poet visiting the author.  In some ways this movie is almost too subtle for its own good, and I'm not surprised that Winger didn't win the Oscar.  She's great here, but more bombastic films and performances usually take the prize.

Slight Disappointment: I would have enjoyed a glancing shot of J.R.R. Tolkien at one of the Oxford functions.  He and Lewis were friends at the time.

2. Best Foreign Language Film (Nominated): Hedd Wyn

How many Welsh language movies have you seen?  In my case Hedd Wyn brings the grand total to one.

This movie is... OK.  I had trouble understanding what the big deal about the national poetry chair was, and also why it was of such overriding importance to the protagonist.  Absent that understanding I was left with yet another film in which our hero, wounded in battle, reflects back upon his life.  This life isn't in itself that interesting, and I think that the Academy made the right decision in passing over Hedd Wyn in favor of Belle Epoque, the Spanish nominee and winner from the same year.

1995

1. Best Foreign Language Film: Burnt by the Sun

Suicide, totalitarianism and paranoia in an idyllic Russian dacha.  This movie tested my patience early on (in particular the annoyingly precocious child), but its conclusion is satisfyingly weird.  Those able to wade through books like The Master and Margarita or The Gulag Archipelago will find a lot to like in Burnt by the Sun.

The two sequels to this movie were also very well received.  I'll watch them if I can track them down.

2. Best Documentary (Nominated): Freedom on My Mind

Notes from the civil rights struggle in Mississippi.  Many of the lessons (almost) learned from this chapter in U.S. history remain very, very relevant today, and learning more about the backgrounds of many participants adds another dimension to the events they took part in.

1996

1. Best Supporting Actress (Nominated): Mare Winningham: Georgia

Jennifer Jason Leigh.  She's one of those actors/actresses who chooses well.  If I see her name in the opening credits I know that the movie will be good, maybe even great.

Georgia I'd put in the "good" category.  Leigh played a similar role four years earlier in Rush, but there's enough of a difference between that role and her role in Georgia to overlook the similarities.  Mare Winningham is good as her older (and more famous) sibling, but in terms of story I couldn't quite figure out why people are so drawn to Leigh's character, and what kind of hold she has over them.

I think that Leigh taking the role showed a lot of courage, especially since her character is so often a source of embarrassment, but I would have liked more of this movie from the older sister's point of view.

2. Best Foreign Language Film: Antonia's Line

Several generations of women transform a Danish village.  Antonia's Line has been described as "a feminist film," and yeah, the men in this movie don't amount to much.  I enjoyed the first third of it, but found the second two thirds a little pretentious and hard to follow.  If you're familiar with films like Hospital of the Transfiguration or The Hotel New Hampshire you'll have a larger frame of reference for Antonia's Line.

1997

1. Best Foreign Language Film: Kolya (a.k.a. "Kolja")

An aging Czech bachelor looks after a Russian boy abandoned by his mother.  Unlike, Antonia's Line (above) this film isn't trying so hard to make a point, and instead offers a gripping story full of well thought-out characters.  Many of Kolya's reflections on the Russian presence in Czechoslovakia are also very funny.

I've seen a few Czech films in the course of writing these entries, and I'd have to say that Kolya is the best I've seen so far.

Fun Fact: 1984's Amadeus is, to some extent, a product of Czechoslovakia.  It was filmed there, much of the crew was Czech, and director Milos Forman immigrated from that country.

2. Best Documentary: When We Were Kings

An account of the "Rumble in the Jungle" bout between Ali and Foreman in Zaire.  I'd already been introduced to this event in 1974's Rumble in the Jungle, a much earlier BBC documentary.  In my opinion When We Were Kings adds little more than what was offered in Rumble in the Jungle.

1998

1. Best Director (Nominated): Atom Egoyan: The Sweet Hereafter

Ian Holm sells this movie like nobody's business (he really should have been nominated for Best Actor), but I had trouble with several aspects of his character.  For example, where is his office?  And why isn't he recording those home visits?  And how likely is that conversation on the plane?  And why isn't the plane moving?

Aside from Holm the perennially underrated Bruce Greenwood appears as the tormented father of two dead children, the rest of the cast being then (and now) relatively unknown.  I liked the first third of this movie, but after that point it seemed very implausible.

I can remember thinking that Atom Egoyan was overrated at the time.  Extra points for style, but not so many for substance.  My opinion on the matter remains unchanged.

Huh?: The director viewed this film as a metaphor for the Armenian Genocide.

2. Best Foreign Language Film (Nominated): Beyond Silence

A young girl born to deaf parents aspires to be a musician.  Those watching this movie in 2026 (or thereafter) might be reminded of 2021's CODA, which tackled similar themes.  The 2014 French film La Famille Belier is credited as the inspiration behind CODA, but as CODA, La Famille Belier and Beyond Silence all explore similar ideas it's hard to say which chicken came before which egg.

1999

1. Best Supporting Actress (Nominated): Brenda Blethlyn: Little Voice

It took me a minute, but as I watched Little Voice I slowly realized that I'd seen it before.  I'm not buying the turnout for "Little Voice's" debut concert, but once this hurdle is cleared it's not a bad movie.  The "breakdown" Little Voice experiences is probably the highlight of the film.

2. Best Documentary: Dancemaker

A study of the famed choreographer Paul Taylor.  I liked its inclusion of interviews which spoke against some of its subject's legacy, and the footage of the performances was well done.

Related Entries:

Some Other Movies From 2026

Still More 90s Movies 4: 1997-1999

Still More 90s Movies 3: 1995-1997

Still More 90s Movies 2: 1992-1994

NOTE: Some of the above movies won or were nominated in other awards categories.  The category listed is the first I came across.

Still More 90s Movies 4: 1997-1999

1999 was the year I moved to Taiwan.  I'm still here, almost 26 years later.

1. Eye of God (1997)

Those who enjoy Cormac McCarthy's novels will probably also enjoy this movie.  Kevin Anderson stars as a religious man in small town Oklahoma looking to make a new start after prison, with Martha Plimpton as his trusting if damaged wife.

Tim Blake Nelson is a good director, and I'm sure the script he wrote was impressive by anyone's standards.  Eye of God won several indie awards upon its initial festival run, and in my opinion these awards were all richly deserved.

2. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Fear and Loathing or Where the Buffalo Roam?  For me it's no contest: Fear and Loathing is far better.  Terry Gilliam's interpretation of the book is far closer in spirit to the source material, and both Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro are excellent in the lead roles.

Watching this from the vantage point of 2026, it definitely seems a lot less weird than it did when it first hit theaters.  The surreal parts are still effective, but in more recent years we've seen far stranger cinematic takes on drugs and those who love them.  I think Fear and Loathing losing some of its "shine" in this regard is a good thing, in that it allows the more serious/political overtones of Hunter S. Thompson's journey their proper place in the story.

Fun Fact: That maid they accost in their hotel room?  That's Jenette Goldstein, who played "Vasquez" in Aliens.

3. Snake Eyes (1998)

Nicolas Cage stars in this Brian De Palma-directed bit of film noir.  The characters in this film (including Cage's) are hard to sympathize with, but I think its virtues far outweigh its faults.  It's an inventive film and a bold attempt at storytelling.

Fun Fact 1: Snake Eyes originally had a completely different ending.  This ending was cut at the last minute and replaced with the standoff between Cage's and Sinise's characters.

Sobering (?) Fact: The assassination which takes place near the beginning of this movie bears several similarities to the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

4. Cube (1997)

I'd seen it before, but it had been a while.

In my opinion this is one of the more inventive horror movies, though I'm deducting points for the "drama class scenes" placed throughout the film.  Maybe they'd be confronting each other in that manner after hours and hours of walking through a giant puzzle box, but those moments needed to be earned.  As it is they feel like exchanges ripped from any number of disaster movies.

Fun Fact: There was a Japanese remake of this film in 2021.  The original was a huge hit in that country.

5. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Anyone remember The Bare Wench Project?  The porn version?  I never actually saw that movie, but I remember seeing it displayed somewhere not long after The Blair Witch Project's theatrical run.

I saw The Blair Witch Project in the theater, by the way.  I remember thinking that it wasn't very good, but having watched it again from the vantage point of 2026 I'd now say that it's aged very well.  It's certainly better than Paranormal Activity, another film that helped establish the found footage genre.

In Blair Witch a group of young people set out into the woods to document a local legend.  You can probably guess the rest - let's just say it doesn't end well for them.  The Blair Witch Project remains one of the most successful independent movies of all time ($250 million worldwide against a budget of several hundred thousand) and has spawned many imitations.

6. But I'm a Cheerleader (1999)

A comedic take on conversion therapy.  I can get how this film went over a lot of people's heads at the time, but it's very funny and deserves to be seen.  I also appreciated the presence of Mink Stole, whom some may remember from several John Waters' films.

7. Who Am I (1998)

Medium-grade Jackie Chan.  In this one he falls out of a helicopter and loses his memory.  By 1998 Chan was far from his Hong Kong glory days and the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong was imminent.  These days he's more of a CCP apologist and someone whose newer films I avoid.

8. Oxygen (1999)

Adrien Brody pulls a Hannibal Lecter whilst Maura Tierney sorts through both her own conflicting feelings and Brody's conflicting accounts of where he may or may not have buried someone alive.  It's definitely not the most original movie ever made, but the two leads do a lot with what they're given.

9. Random Hearts (1999)

It was probably a much better, more cohesive novel.  As it is director Sydney Pollack's adaptation leaves a lot to be desired.  It's not bad up until Kristen Scott Thomas and Harrison Ford start fondling each other in the airport parking lot, but after that point their respective actions don't make a lot of sense.

10. Deceiver (1997)

Tarantino-adjacent noir picture featuring Tim Roth as an epileptic man accused of murder.  The first 3/4 is pretty good, but the last 1/4 gets a little silly.

11. The Rat Pack (1998)

I got excited when I saw Ray Liotta and Don Cheadle in the opening credits, but this film misses the point.  Nobody really wanted to see Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin and the other guy in some off-center political thriller, and the leads aren't all that convincing in their respective roles anyway.  It was the good times that were interesting, and for this reason I'd recommend 1960's Ocean's 11 over this clumsily written TV movie.

This said, the dinner table scene featuring Marilyn Monroe and JFK is pretty good.

12. Desperate Measures (1998)

Michael Keaton does a good psychopath, but this movie gets real dumb real fast.  Toward the end of it I was having trouble figuring out why Andy Garcia isn't the film's villain, given the unreasonable lengths to which he goes to "save" his son.  Honestly, who endangers more people in the course of this movie, the convict or the rogue cop?

I will say, however, that the second half of this movie encroaches upon "so bad it's good status."  As we neared the end credits we were actively making fun of it, and this made for a pretty enjoyable evening.

13. Limit Risk (a.k.a. "One Tough Cop") (1998)

Stephen Baldwin, one of the lesser (if non-lethal) Baldwins, stars alongside Chris Penn, the other Penn.  As cop movies go it couldn't be more derivative if it tried, but at least Gina Gershon is very easy on the eyes.

Fun Fact: Justin Bieber is Stephen Baldwin's son-in-law.

14. Silent Predators (1999)

Featuring Harry Hamlin, star of Clash of the Titans and husband of Lisa Rinna, one of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills!  Judge me if you will, but I've seen more than a few episodes of that show.

Silent Predators?  It's basically Jaws with rattlesnakes instead of a shark.  Near the end some real estate developer has the brilliant idea of blowing up the cave where the snakes hang out with dynamite.  You can guess how that turns out.

Fun Fact: This movie was based on a script John Carpenter wrote in the 70s, and was filmed in both Los Angeles and Queensland, Australia.

15. Ravager (1997)

Yancy Butler a third time!  Triple points!

In this one she's a frustrated pilot aboard a... spaceship?  Aircraft of some kind?  I'm really not sure.  Anyway, there's a virus aboard ship and she does a terrible job of avoiding the infected.

If you bother to watch it it'll remind you a lot of Alien.  The scientific jargon employed by the characters is sometimes amusing, and the CGI is extremely primitive.

Fun Fact: Butler's costar Juliet Landau is Martin Landau's daughter.

16. Woo (1998)

Remember when Jada Pinkett Smith was known for her personal hotness and NOT her unsettling creepiness?  Those were the days.

Tommy Davidson deserved a better movie.  He spends most of this one in the grip of Smith's questionable charms, all the while mouthing dialogue he probably didn't believe in.  Woo is a lot like some of the black-oriented sitcoms of the era, with the addition of swear words and sexual innuendo.

17. Beyond Paradise (1998)

A California boy adjusts to life in Hawaii.  The lead actor couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, and the story isn't interesting.  Apparently many native Hawaiians see it as a decent reflection of their way of life, but it sure wasn't doing anything for me.

18. R.E.M.: Falls to Climb (1999)

Documentary on the making of R.E.M.'s album Up.  I've never been a big fan of the band and this short tour of their history and discography did nothing to change my mind.  I'll always like "Orange Crush," but even among pretentious rock stars Michael Stipe stands out for his ability to take himself seriously.

19. Survivor (a.k.a. "Nightworld: Survivor") (1999)

Alien, The Thing, Predator... take your pick.  This one will remind you of any other number of other, better sci fi/horror outings, and in the end it won't matter because this TV movie is more sleep-inducing than a Russian film retrospective on tranquilizers.

Hey, what's this bluish goo seeping up from the bottom of the ocean?  Let me just rub it all over my skin and find out!

20. Kiss Toledo Goodbye (1999)

Few things are worse than unfunny comedies.  I can sit through a scary movie that's not scary, I can watch action movies that aren't particularly exciting, but unfunny comedies are the worst.  I have no idea what Christopher Walken's doing in this film, but hopefully he fired his agent afterward.

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Still More 90s Movies 3: 1995-1997

Still More 90s Movies 2: 1992-1994

Still More 90s Movies: 1990-1992

Still More 80s Movies 5: Oscar Winners

Still More 90s Movies 2: 1992-1994

A lot of these movies were direct-to-video.  It was the early- to mid- 90s after all, and Blockbuster was still king.  YouTube just isn't as reliable for this time period due to a combination of factors.  Below is what I could find, make of this selection what you will.

1993, by the way, was the year I graduated high school.

1. LA 92 (2007)

Not a 90s movie but a powerful documentary very relevant to the time period.  Rodney King's beating at the hands of L.A. police and the subsequent L.A. Riots are both pivotal events in recent history, and this still-cogent analysis of what led to those two events offers many insights which remain, for the most part, outside of public discussion.

2. Little Women (1994)

Pitch perfect adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel.  As evidenced by the movie selections in these entries I'm a dude who likes dude things, but just the same Little Women had me tearing up at certain points.  It deserved its three Oscar nominations.

3. Short Cuts (1993)

Some of the scenes are implausible and some of the characters' motivations are a mystery, but this movie's been on my mind a while now.  Robert Altman directed this after The Player, and like that earlier film it was something of a return to form for him.

It's hard to describe the plot aside from "things happening in L.A. before a momentous event," but don't let the intricacy of this film (or its length) put you off.  Despite its occasional obscurity it's still worth the effort.

My favorite scene has to be the argument between Julianne Moore and Matthew Modine near the end.  I don't want to give too much away, but the juxtaposition of her vulnerable state and the kind of conversation they're having is very arresting.

4. Gladiator (1992)

No, not that Gladiator!  The other one, from 1992!

It's a fairly derivative boxing movie in which a white boy battles his way through the hood, but the performances are solid and the screenplay was watertight.  The only puzzling thing about it is the montage near the end, which consists of a series of scenes which feel like they should have been the most important parts of the movie.

Fun Fact: Star James Marshall would appear in A Few Good Men the same year.

5. Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

I'd seen this movie, but as I was scrolling through Netflix one day I realized that I couldn't remember a single thing about it.

In case there's somehow someone on this Earth that doesn't know already, Sleepless in Seattle is a romantic comedy set in - you guessed it - Seattle.  I watched it for views of my hometown in the early 90s, but taken on its own merits it still holds up.

6. Boiling Point (1993)

Surprisingly... not a bad movie.  Or at least the screenplay was good, with indifferent direction and bad editing.  The only question is whether Wesley Snipes is really the lead in this movie, given that Dennis Hopper has as much, if not more screen time as Snipes does.

It was fun seeing Valerie Perrine and Viggo Mortenson in Boiling Point, and Lolita Davidovich brought back a lot of memories.  In the hands of a better director this movie could have been amazing, but as it is I'd only give it a passing grade.  Wesley Snipes would appear in both Rising Sun and Demolition Man the same year, so this one quite naturally fell by the wayside.

7. Excessive Force (1993)

On par with Boiling Point above, though I'd give a slight edge to Boiling Point on account of Dennis Hopper.

In Excessive Force Thomas Ian Griffith front kicks, side kicks, spin kicks and jump kicks his way through a host of bad guys, while Burt Young, Tony Todd, James Earl Jones and Lance Henriksen handle most of the acting.  If someone had given the lead role to a more polished, less kick-happy actor this movie would have been something else altogether, but as it is Excessive Force is very comfortable within its chosen genre.

I like to imagine a trilogy of Excessive Force films, each worse than the one before it.  Excessive Force would spawn Unreasonable Force, and by the time they got around to Ridonkulous Force they'd be filming in some formerly communist country, where people drink far too much soup and smoke cigarettes with unpronounceable brand names.

Fun Fact: Griffith's first movie role was "Terry Silver" in The Karate Kid Part III.  He later revisited this role in the Cobra Kai TV show.

8. Ordinary Magic (1993)

Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds!  This was his first movie ever.

Ordinary Magic is about a Canadian boy raised in India returning to his home country.  Once established in the Great White North this boy discovers that an evil land developer (played by Paul Anka!) has designs on his family estate.  What's our yoga-practicing hero to do?

I kind of enjoyed this one.  Reynold's accent is not awesome, and the recreations of India look very staged, but Paul Anka hams it up nicely and the ending, despite a failure to demonstrate why the townspeople are so affected by Reynold's character, does manage to make an impression.

9. Ladybugs (1992)

Rodney Dangerfield coaches a girls' soccer team.

1992 was probably the height of both Dangerfield and costar Jonathan Brandis' careers.  After Ladybugs (and in Brandis' case, Sidekicks) followed a series of movies that few remember.

Director Sidney J. Furie also helmed classics such as The Ipcress File and The Boys in Company C in the 70s, as well as The Entity and Iron Eagle in the 80s, but by 1992 he was just glad to have another movie.

I'd put Ladybugs very far down in Dangerfield's filmography.  By 1992 movies like Back to School and Easy Money were distant memories, and he'd spend most of Ladybugs "doing standup at people" rather than acting.

Fun Fact: Jonathan Brandis won his role over Leonardo DiCaprio, whom the producers passed on because he was too convincing as a girl.

10. Monolith (1993)

Not so much a movie as a cry for help, but hey, at least it's not as boring as some of the movies below.

Whatever happened with this movie, mistakes were clearly made, and one can only feel sorry for Bill Paxton, Louis Gossett Jr. and John Hurt, three actors who probably regretted their involvement in this film later on.

The weirdest thing about Monolith aside from its somewhat nonsensical sci-fi premise is the scenes wherein a minor character is clearly carrying on a conversation with no one at all.  I'm guessing that by that point the principal actors had all fled to safety, and that these connecting scenes were only added to make the film slightly more coherent.

11. A.P.E.X. (1994)

Watchably awful Terminator ripoff involving no one who went on to fame and fortune afterward.  It features some truly primitive CGI and a killer robot that wasn't fooling anyone.  If you can make sense of the ending you were paying much, much more attention than I was.

12. Zero Tolerance (1994)

FBI agent Robert Patrick (minus his liquid metal shapeshifting ability) escorts a friendly cartel member back to the loving arms of the U.S. of A.  The somersault count in this movie is off the charts, it makes almost no sense, and whatever reason Miles "Tarzan" O'Keefe is in it.

I was very drunk off rum when I watched this.  Its sheer ridiculousness was very welcome.

13. Airborne (1993)

A laid back California surfer dude brings the exotic sport of "rollerblading" to the Midwest.  Or something.  I wasn't paying that much attention.  Seth Green was an industry veteran by this point, but Airborne was Jack Black's second movie following a brief appearance in Bob Roberts the year before.

14. T-Force (1994)

The only actors I recognized in this were "Bennett" (!) from Commando, "Malibu" from the American Gladiators TV show and Erin Gray from the Buck Rogers film and TV show.  The plot is buddy cop movie meets Universal Soldier and the budget was LOW.

15. Dark Angel: The Ascent (1994)

A smokin' hot demon fresh from hell dispenses justice on the streets of... Romania?  It's about as "direct-to-video" as you can get.

The theology employed by this movie is somewhat interesting.  Would demons pray?  And what would that even mean?  This movie is a far cry from Paradise Lost, but it does offer a couple interesting ideas of the relations between heaven and hell.

I just can't help but wonder whether the humor is intentional or otherwise.  They had to have known what the protagonist's fake wings would look like on camera, but then again there's an earnestness to some of the performances that seems to belie that fact.  Fearless Vampire Killers it's definitely isn't, but it did have me thinking.

16. Martial Outlaw (1993)

Don't ask me what the title means.  I guess they thought the words "martial" and "outlaw" sounded cool together.

I have nothing positive to say about this movie aside from the fact that it's not nearly as excruciating as Peter's Friends below.  Two brothers in law enforcement part ways over Russian mobsters operating in Los Angeles.

17. The Stand (1994)

Life imitates art.  Art imitates life.  Around and around we go.

Stephen King's book wasn't the first novel centered around a virus, but it was the first novel to put both the virus and its aftermath into a more epic context, something more akin to J.R.R. Tolkein that Robin Cook or Michael Crichton.

And while I'm a big fan of some of Stephen King's books, I can't say that I'm a big fan of The Stand, a book I read in high school.  In my opinion the 1000+ page tome doesn't have enough of a plot to justify its length, and its ending has to be one of the most frustrating things ever.

All of the problems present in the novel are also present in this 6-hour long TV miniseries, and on top of that there's both its relatively low budget and its soap opera-level dialogue to consider.  I can remember people liking it at the time, but it didn't do much for me.

18. Lightning Jack (1994)

Cuba Gooding Jr. learns how to be an outlaw from Australian Paul Hogan.  The ending of this movie is a complete nonevent, with the two protagonists sneaking out of town without ever really encountering the men chasing them.  I'll give it a few points for Beverly D'Angelo, but for the most part it's painfully unfunny.

19. Only You (1994)

One of the more nauseating rom-coms I've seen lately.  Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr. were dating at the time, having met on the set of Chaplin a couple years earlier.

The ending of this movie is completely and utterly unconvincing, even by rom-com standards.

Fun Fact: Marisa Tomei's first movie was 1984's The Toxic Avenger.

20. Peter's Friends (1992)

Insufferable British people (plus one American) gather at a manor to celebrate New Year's Eve.  This film only further confirmed my strong dislike for Kenneth Branagh.  Yes, he's been in a few good movies, but I am, overall, not a fan.

Related Entries:

Still More 90s Movies: 1990-1992

Still More 80s Movies 5: Oscar Winners

Still More 70s Movies 5: Oscar Winners

Still More 60s Movies 5: Oscar Winners