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Grex Cinema Item 70: The online film critics society's "Top 100 overlooked films of the 1990s"
Entered by jvmv on Mon Nov 29 00:22:58 UTC 2004:


The Online Film Critics Society's "Top 100 Overlooked Films of the 1990s"

It was the decade of Tarantino and Titanic. From Schindler's List to The
Blair Witch Project, movies and the hype that went with them seemed
bigger than ever.

However, too many great films somehow got lost in the shuffle. While
some were recalled by Oscar voters and many managed to squeak out a
modest box office return, these films nonetheless failed to click in the
memory banks of both the critics and with audiences.

The writers of the Online Film Critics Society recalls the half- and
completely-forgotten treasures of the past decade cinematic canon with
its list of the Top 100 Overlooked Films of the 1990s. Join us for a
trip back into the not-so-distant past and see if you recall the titles
celebrated here by the OFCS writers:

http://www.listsofbests.com/list/92

3 responses total.

#1 of 3 by slynne on Mon Nov 29 00:28:08 2004:

I have seen a good many of those. I have liked the ones I have seen.

#2 of 3 by remmers on Mon Nov 29 12:13:39 2004:

Interesting list.  I wish I could find an explanation of how the rank
order was arrived at -- what does being #1 actually mean?  Total number
of votes?  Average of individual ranking?  Something else?

In any case, several of the first 10 films in the list are among my
favorites from the '90s also:  "Miller's Crossing" (early Coen Bros.
film, and one of their best), "Safe", "Sweet Hereafter", "Waiting
for Guffman", "Hudsucker Proxy", "Fearless".  Looking down the list,
I spot a few more personal favorites:  "The Straight Story", "Hamlet",
"The Spanish Prisoner", "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me" (lots of
people hate that one, I like it), "One False Move".

Movies that are big with critics or audiences at the time of their
release are not necessarily the same movies that stand the test of
time.  Hitchcock's "Vertigo" got little attention when it first came
out; now it's a classic.  Similarly "Psycho", which did good box
office but was hardly an unqualified success with either the public
or critics in 1960, the year of its release.

I expect that a number of the films in the "List of Bests" list will
come to be regarded as classics (some already are), long after lots
of the "big" films of the '90s are forgotten.

#3 of 3 by jvmv on Wed Dec 1 05:36:12 2004:


         Good question; to know how this kind of rank works. 

         I'm not quite sure these lists reflect the truth. I don't 
         understand how exactly criterion and selection of films 
         work but I realized these lists are very unjust because take 
         into consideration only production market U.S. movies and 
         because [besides] there are a lot of great films which wasn't 
         classified there.   
  
         It's interesting to note this list "The Bad Cinema Society's 
         The Worst Films" - http://listsofbests.com/list/54/ - talk 
         about the worst films, however, sincerely I don't believe the 
         critics would indicate "Natural Born Killers" or even "Heaven's 
         Gate" as a bad film.

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