Best Picture: #71 Original Release Date: December 11, 1998 Rating: RRuntime: 2 hours, 3 minutes Director: John Madden Quick Impressions: The summer before my senior year of high school, I decided that Queen Elizabeth I must have written at least some of Shakespeare’s plays herself. Why? I think the real …
Best Picture: #70Original Release Date: December 19, 1997 Rating: PG-13Runtime: 3 hours, 14 minutes Director: James Cameron Quick Impressions: When Titanic first came out, all of my younger sister’s friends thought of nothing else. It was the talk of the middle school. Everyone she knew ceaselessly vied to prove their …
Best Picture: #69Original Release Date: December 6, 1996Rating: RRuntime: 2 hours, 42 minutesDirector: Anthony Minghella Quick Impressions:My senior year of high school I asked myself in shock and dismay, “Why are Billy Crystal, Tom Cruise, and Lauren Bacall the only people I recognize at the Academy Awards this year?” (In …
Best Picture: # 68 Original Release Date: May 24, 1995 Rating: R Runtime: 2 hours, 58 minutes Director: Mel Gibson Quick Impressions: Back in the summer of 1995, not even Mel Gibson spent as much time thinking about Braveheart as my younger sister. She was ten, and Braveheart quickly became …
Best Picture: # 67 Original Release Date: July 6, 1994 Rating: PG-13 Runtime: 2 hours, 22 minutes Director: Robert Zemeckis Quick Impressions: What can be said about Forrest Gump that hasn’t already been set to music by Weird Al? Probably plenty, but the lyrics of his parody of “Lump” kept …
Best Picture: # 66Original Release Date: November 30, 1993Rating: RRuntime: 3 hours, 15 minutesDirector: Steven Spielberg Quick Impressions:I anticipated that watching Schindler’s List with my twelve-year-old might be difficult because of her age. Since she’s so young, I had considered carefully pre-screening the film, preparing her for difficult scenes, asking …
Best Picture: #65Original Release Date: August 7, 1992Rating: RRuntime: 2 hours, 10 minutesDirector: Clint Eastwood Quick Impressions:Never in my life have I seen a film that inspired me to take action more than Unforgiven. What did it inspire me to do, you ask? Shoot that sheriff. Despite my jokes about …
Best Picture: # 64Original Release Date: February 14, 1991Rating: RRuntime: 1 hour, 58 minutesDirector: Jonathan Demme Quick Impressions:The Silence of the Lambs is one of my favorite Best Picture winners because it’s just so watchable. I’m tempted to say, “It’s impossible not to like this movie,” but that’s not true. …
Best Picture: #63Original Release Date: November 21, 1990Rating: PG-13Runtime: 3 hours, 1 minuteDirector: Kevin Costner Quick Impressions:My sister got trapped in Alaska last week. She and her fiancé took a vacation, then their flight home got cancelled, leaving them stuck in the airport for two days living their own personal …
Best Picture: #62Original Release Date: December 13, 1989Rating: PGRuntime: 1 hour, 39 minutesDirector: Bruce Beresford Quick Impressions:Like Oliver!, the first cinematic obsession of my young childhood, Driving Miss Daisy is a Best Picture winner that people usually bring up so they can complain about how it’s not as good a …
