1999: The Last Great Year For American Movies

Unique, original, perverse, exciting. People often cite the 70s as the best movie decade, but when it comes down to the single best year for film, I often find myself declaring 1999 as one of the best, if not the very best year, for motion pictures in America. Why is this? Compared to the rest of the world, we’re mostly seen as money hungry, obsessed with re-booting, “re-imagining” or churning out sequels because, well, we don’t have any interesting stories to tell anymore* [*note the sarcasm… sort of] 

This is why ’99 is so important. It was a game-changing year; a year without an aggravating amount of those sequels or prequels, but in fact a year with an explosive amount of original material and voices. Yes, this is the year that Episode I: The Phantom Menace sucked all the magic out of the beloved Star Wars saga, Will Smith went all Wild Wild West on our asses, and Jan De Bont delighted us with his version of The Haunting. But we can look past those.

We saw the directorial debuts of Sam Mendes (American Beauty), Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides), Brad Bird (The Iron Giant) and Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich). Jake Gyllenhaal and Jude Law jump-started their star power appeal with October Sky and The Talented Mr. Ripley. You were surprised as hell if someone didn’t know who M. Night Shyamalan was, or for that matter, what Haley Joel Osment could see. With Office Space, a cult favorite was born. Paul Thomas Anderson (magnolia), David Fincher (Fight Club) and David O. Russell (Three Kings) proved that they had well-defined visions on an epic scale. Toy Story 2 became the first sequel since The Godfather Part II and The Empire Strikes Back to be far superior than the originals. Stanley Kubrick’s very last film, Eyes Wide Shut, opened in theatres; a film that without a doubt becomes more terrifying with each viewing. Oliver Stone gave us his last momentous film with Any Given Sunday. The Green Mile was bigger and bolder than Frank Darabont’s previous prison story – oh you know, that one with the redemption and all. Jim Carrey didn’t receive an Oscar nomination for playing Andy Kaufman in Milos Forman’s Man on the Moon – I still can’t believe it.

There are several reasons this year stands out. The 70s is still my favorite movie decade, but ‘99 was certainly magnificent. What are you favorite films from 1999?

My top five.
1) Magnolia
2) The Insider
3) The Talented Mr. Ripley
4) Three Kings
5) Eyes Wide Shut


A Short List of Movies from 1999 -- it's out of order. I wrote the titles down as they came to me. 


Magnolia
Bowfinger
Bringing out the Dead
Galaxy Quest
The Iron Giant
American Pie
Dogma 
The Limey
Office Space
October Sky
Three Kings
Toy Story 2
Man on the Moon
Sweet and Lowdown
The Hurricane
The End of the Affair
Any Given Sunday
Mystery Men
Arlington Road 

The Virgin Suicides
Analyze This
The Insider
The Matrix
Being John Malkovich
The Blair Witch Project
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samuari
Boys Don’t Cry
Sleepy Hollow
The Straight Story
American Beauty
The Green Mile
The Sixth Sense
Eyes Wide Shut
Fight Club
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
The Talented Mr. Ripley