THE NEW ANNUS MIRABILIS: On Thursday I listed my favorite films of 2009. Now we'll go back another decade, to a year with a well-deserved reputation as one of the best in Hollywood history. (Later in this series, we'll cover a year with an undeserved reputation as one of the best in Hollywood history. And also a year that should have a reputation as one of the best in Hollywood history yet somehow doesn't. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.)
When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looked back at 1999, it gave its Best Picture award to American Beauty, an ungainly mixture of smart, closely observed human comedy and dumb, ham-fisted social commentary. The first time I saw it, I zeroed in on the good stuff; if I hadn't watched the movie a second time, it might have found a spot on this list. But with viewing #2 I had to admit the film's critics were more right than I'd initially acknowledged. It didn't make the cut.
1. Election
Directed by Alexander Payne
Written by Payne and Jim Taylor, from a novel by Tom Perrotta
A year later, this one came true.
2. The Limey
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Written by Lem Dobbs
A tough crime story with a raw sense of loss at its core.
3. Being John Malkovich
Directed by Spike Jonze
Written by Charlie Kaufman
A century from now, viewers won't quite get just how brilliantly absurd this setup is. Fortunately, that's not the only thing about it that's great.
4. Mr. Death
Directed by Errol Morris
Along with its other virtues, this documentary should inoculate any sensible viewer against taking David Irving seriously.
5. Toy Story 2
Directed by John Lasseter with Lee Unkrich and Ash Brannon
Written by Andrew Stanton, Rita Hsiao, Doug Chamberlain, and Chris Webb, from a story by Lasseter, Brannon, Stanton, and Pete Docter
"And this is the Buzz Lightyear aisle. Back in 1995, short-sighted retailers did not order enough dolls to meet demand."
6. Belfast, Maine
Directed by Frederick Wiseman
An engrossing, almost hypnotic portrait of a little New England town, told at a slow but never plodding rhythm.
7. Magnolia
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Like Robert Altman crossed with Charles Fort.
8. South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
Directed by Trey Parker
Written by Parker, Matt Stone, and Pam Brady
"I'm sorry, I can't help myself. That movie has warped my fragile little mind."
9. Fight Club
Directed by David Fincher
Written by Jim Uhls, from a novel by Chuck Palahniuk
You know that scene in The Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls back the curtain and reveals the real wizard? This story makes a point of doing that to everything and everybody—including, by the end, to the smug smartass who keeps pulling back those curtains.
10. Limbo
Written and directed by John Sayles
This is the only one of Sayles' portrait-of-a-place movies that I like. That's largely because it's the only one with three-dimensional, unpredictable characters, as opposed to gamepieces in a tedious didactic scheme. The characters are so unpredictable, in fact, that midway through the story they push the picture into a different genre altogether and it stops being a portrait-of-a-place movie at all.
Honorable mentions:
11. Three Kings (David O. Russell)
12. All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar)
13. Felicia's Journey (Atom Egoyan)
14. The Sopranos (David Chase)
15. Ghost Dog (Jim Jarmusch)
16. Time Regained (Raúl Ruiz)
17. Oz 3 (Tom Fontana)
18. The Matrix (Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski)
19. Boys Don't Cry (Kimberly Peirce)
20. Titus (Julie Taymor)
Just in case it isn't clear: The Sopranos refers to the first season of the TV series The Sopranos, and Oz 3 refers to the third season of Oz. Chase and Fontana are listed in their capacity as showrunners, not directors. I am not completely consistent in how I deal with TV shows, but by this point in cinematic history it feels a little ridiculous to ignore the strides that were happening in television. If I extended this list to 30 slots—and in a year as good as 1999, that would be doable—the third season of Buffy the Vampie Slayer would be somewhere in the vicinity of #22.
Of the films of 1999 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in The Wind Will Carry Us.
