Best Thrillers of the 1990's
Submitted by ash_campbell on Sat, 08/30/2003 - 01:28
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- 1990: Jacob’s Ladder. This is truly spine tingling, in the best possible ways. Director Adrian Lyne crafts great suspense, Tim Robbins is perfect in the lead, with nice supporting roles for Elizabeth Pena (as his wife, Jezebel) and Danny Aiello as a philosophical chiropractor. Lots of people feel cheated by the resolution of this film, but I think it strikes a perfect bulls-eye.
- Best Foreign: La Femme Nikita. Anne Parillaud rules in this dark and gritty film from Luc Besson.
- 1991: Silence of the Lambs. It’s been said before, but it should be said again, the anticipation of scary things happening is almost always way scarier than the actual moment. This film understands that completely.
- Best Foreign: Zentropa. No matter what you think of Lars Von Trier now, go check out this early effort; it's mesmerizing and quite scary.
- 1992: Red Rock West. Some might say Basic Instinct is creepier, and others might find Patriot Games more to their liking, but this is a great low-budget film noir that doubles back on itself in nifty ways, and Nicolas Cage perfectly plays his impulsive character.
- Best Foreign: Man Bites Dog. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, this has moments of shockingly brutal violence and pumps up the intensity all the way to the end.
- 1993: The Fugitive. Not only did it put Tommy Lee Jones on the map and reinvigorate Harrison Ford, it also happens to be a fantastic film that sucks the viewer in all the way. Certainly this is director Andrew Davis’ best triumph.
- Best Foreign: Sonatine. This one isn’t a thriller per se, but between its punctuation marks of violent outbursts, it quietly makes it case with an evolving story arc that fits within its unique framework.
- 1994: The Professional. Besson hit his apex as a director here, and American audiences finally got to meet Jean Reno, and were introduced to Natalie Portman. Gary Oldman is the real key here though, and it brings home an important point about bad guys in thrillers; the audience doesn’t have to have a psychological profile explaining the character’s every move in the movie as long as they can understand the motivations of the bad guy. If you need a James Bond style monologue explaining why the bad guy does what he does, you’ve failed.
- Best Foreign; Tie between Angel Dust (which I’ve talked about here) and The Kingdom. Lars Von Trier directed a television series in Denmark, which can be seen (the Danish title is Riget) in 4 hour parts, though only the first two (eight of the twelve total episodes) seem to be available. The first 4, released in 1994, set up an amazingly creepy world in a large state-run hospital. This is TV at its best (let’s just say if it had been American it would have been on HBO, not network TV).
- 1995: The Usual Suspects. The biggest no-brainer in the group, this is one of the best thrillers ever, much less the year of 1995. If you haven’t seen it, I don’t know where you’ve been. If you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about.
- Best Foreign: The City of Lost Children. Probably the most questionable “thriller” on the list, it gave me goose bumps at several points when I watched it, so here it is.
- 1996: Fargo. The Coen brothers scored huge with this intelligent and Oscar-winning scripted story. Frances McDormand deservedly won a Best Actress Oscar for this, while it’s incomprehensible that William H. Macy lost to Cuba Gooding Jr.
- Best Foreign: Trainspotting. Danny Boyle followed up on his successful Shallow Grave (1994) with this adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel. Great central performance from Ewan McGregor, and Robert Carlyle is absolutely frightening as the scummy Begbie.
- 1997: Lost Highway. You could probably convince me that L.A. Confidential is a better thriller, but I’m hard pressed not to include this insidious film from David Lynch. There are a lot of visual sequences from this film that are very memorable, and even when the plot gets confused, Lynch continues to riff on ideas of identity, memory, and passion. It works for me.
- Best Foreign: Open Your Eyes. Or in Spanish: Abre Los Ojos. I’m still not convinced that Penelope Cruz is a particularly good actress, but this film gives some credence towards that idea. Director Alejandro Amenabar (who directed The Others) is a pretty fabulous director, and Eduardo Noriega well cast as the snotty Cesar. This is part of a growing genre where the whole nature of reality is brought into question.
- 1998: Dark City. I love this movie, though I seem to be in a minority opinion on it (At least Roger Ebert gives me a little love on it.) I think Rufus Sewell gives the performance of a lifetime, the effects are astounding, and the story is intricate and involving. The rest of the casting is inspired as well, including Jennifer Connelly as his wife and William Hurt as a tired detective.
- Best Foreign: Croupier. It’s always nice to witness the film that introduces the world to a budding star. This film does that for Clive Owen, who stars in this neat little British thriller. Good stuff.
- 1999: Fight Club and The Sixth Sense. Two great films that go completely different routes to scare the crap out of you.
- Best Foreign: Run Lola Run. Not Tykwer’s best film, and it is more style than substance, but I like it.
Author Comments:
I probably pushed the definition of 'thriller' a little bit here and there, but lots of movies slide between genres. Any gross oversights?
Finally,another person who liked Croupier.
Croupier rocks. Not just because of Clive Owen, but he makes a huge impact.
If you like him there, try to track down his series for BMW, The Hire Series. Pretty cool stuff that allows Owen to do some very different things.
I dislike Jacob's Ladder and not even because of the end. I just didn't know what the hell was going on. It was like watching In THe Mouth Of Madness gone all intellectual. Can you tell me what was going on?
Tallyho
:?)
Sure...Jacob (Tim Robbins) is in Vietnam when he gets shot and injured. (Note: there are several major story threads; I'll take them one at a time) He comes back traumatized and his psychological recovery is slow. He starts seeing demons (the faceless creatures at several points, the first time pretty early on in the NY scenes), and as he traces back he finds fellow veterans who are experiencing the same things. He finds out that they were exposed to a test drug, which went badly, they're going to sue, but they're being targeted by shadowy governmental agencies. That's the main "real" story, and we'll come back to it in a bit.
The seconde major story arc is the supernatural one involving the various influences on Jacob: his wife Jezebel (Elizabeth Pena), and his chiroprachtor Louis (Danny Aiello). These two essentially play opposing roles, giving Jacob very different advice, with Jezebel's being very earthly and direct, while Louis's is heady and philosophical. Let's leave that for a moment.
What really happened to Jacob in Vietnam? My take is that he was part of an experiment, but the important aspect is that he not only got shot, but he got killed. All of the post-Vietnam NY scenes take place in his head nearly instantaneously. Now, we can back to the two major stories.
The first, very straightforward reconstruction tale of what happened in Vietnam (the experiment) is Jacob figuring out what happened. The second is what he is going to do about it. Jezebel represents his bodily, earthy desire to live, while Louis is the spiritual side, telling him to let go. That's what Louis means when he tells Jacob "Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth." And after that, Jacob realizes he has to let go, and that's when the faceless demons are transformed into his son Gabe (Macaulay Culkin), who represents an angel and leads Jacob up the stairs, presumably to heaven. And we're left with Jacob, dead in Vietnam.
A couple of notes; there are biblical names and references throughout the movie. Moreover, the story of Jacob's ladder (in Genesis, Chapter 28), the actual Hebrew word translated as "ladder" is probably more like stairway. The point of the verse, though, is that Jacob sees the angels ascending and descending the ladder, and God is at the top.
Does it make a little more sense now? It's a heady movie that doesn't appeal to everyone, but I love it.
Thankyou. That does make sense. I'll have to give it another watch sometime and see if that changes my point of view.
Tallyho
:?)
Also I'm wondering about the inclusion of Miller's Crossing, The War Zone, American Beauty and Proof?
Tallyho
:?)
I don't really consider American Beauty a thriller per se, especially against either Fight Club or Sixth Sense. Same probably goes for Miller's Corssing. I haven't seen either The War Zone or Proof, the latter of which I've really wanted to see for some time.
If you don't consider American Beauty a thriller you probably won't think The War Zone is either. Proof on the other hand is a thriller for the mind, slow moving and tantilizingly sour.
Tallyho
:?)