Writing hispersonal list of what he deemed the bestof all time,Roger Ebertadditionally curated a class of movies across the decades that he believed were Great Movies. Those films earned a second review with a Great Movie badge, many times earning a higher star rating than his first published review. Ebert’s selection of Great Movies from the 1990s includes Oscar legends, comedies, and Shakespearean adaptations. Each features aunique combination of breathtaking visuals, masterful performances, diligent direction, and well-crafted narratives.
Many of the best of the 90s aremovies that are perfect from start to finish. Ebert was candid in his second-glance reviews that there were meanings and nuggets of genius he missed the first time around, further deepening his appreciation for the craft of filmmaking. Not bound to any genre, the movies Ebert believed werethe best from 1990 and 1999have withstood the test of time.
10’Groundhog Day' (1993)
Directed by Harold Ramis
Whether 1990s film lovers have seen it or not, it’s universally known thatGroundhog Dayis a movie about a man, Phil (Bill Murray) wholives the same day over and over again. As Ebert experienced when adorning the comedy witha Great Movie distinction, it’s about much more than a comedic time loop, additionally exploring self-destruction and emotional revelations that lead to a greater understanding of life.
“Certainly I underrated it in my original review; I enjoyed it so easily that I was seduced into cheerful moderation. But there are a few films, and this is one of them, that burrow into our memories and become reference points. When you find yourself needing the phraseThis is like ‘Groundhog Day’to explain how you feel, a movie has accomplished something.”
The four-star rated movie thrives off of Murray’s careful attention to the character without making him insufferable to the audience and theHarold RamisandDanny Rubin-written screenplay that negotiated the limits of the narrative. Ebert describesGroundhog Dayas a movie withan effortless, inevitable genius that “you have to stand back and slap yourself before you see how good it really is.”
Groundhog Day
9’Se7en’ (1995)
Directed by David Fincher
Ebert claimed audiences that were able to sit throughSe7enin its entirety were witnesses to"one of the darkest and most merciless films ever made in the Hollywood mainstream.“One ofthe best scariest crime filmsof the 90s starsMorgan Freemanas the seasoned, ready-to-retire Detective Somerset as he gains a new partner, Detective Mills (Brad Pitt). Together, the pair chase down a serial killer inflicting punishment by way of the Seven Deadly Sins.
“What could become a routine cop movie is elevated by the evocation of dread mythology and symbolism. ‘Seven’ is not really a very deep or profound film, but it provides the convincing illusion of one. Almost all mainstream thrillers seek first to provide entertainment; this one intends to fascinate and appall.”
The film’s construction, including the killer’sreveal at the tip of the third actand the actor’s dynamic portrayal, is one that audiences still can’t get over. Morgan’s performance as the emotionally detached detective expertly balances Pitt’s fresh-faced rookie. It’s a devastating whodunnit movie that rightfully earnedEbert’s four stars and Great Movie badge.
8’Richard III' (1995)
Directed by Richard Loncraine
Ebert titledhis Great Movie reviewofRichard III: “Shakespeare’s most malevolent, hateful and delicious villain.” A rendition of Shakespeare’s “Richard the Third,” the film findsIan McKellenas the titular villain set in 1930s England as he takes advantage of the civil war to pursue a fascist dictatorship, seeking to eliminate obstacles like his brother’s family. Ebert called directorRichard Loncraine’s adaptation"a film with a dread fascination.”
“The movie is really McKellan’s, and with director Loncraine, his co-writer, he comes up with one sly touch after another to make Richard a satisfactory villain.”
The movie’s glory and success hinges onMcKellen’s deeply multi-faceted performance. Ebert compared McKellen’s Richard to Hannibal Lecter, a seductive predator the audience knows better than his fellow characters onscreen.Maintaining Shakespeare’s dialogue and cadence created a line of continuity and integrity that could have otherwise been botchedin the hands of a different filmmaker and leading role.
Richard III
7’L.A. Confidential' (1997)
Directed by Curtis Hanson
L.A. Confidential’s labyrinth of seemingly episodic cases and no clear-cut antagonist depicted the 1950s era of crime sensationalism, dropping, whatEbert called, “all the pieces into place before we fully realize they’re pieces.“The critic believed it to bemuch more than a film noirin its expression of character psychology with its three central cops played byRussell Crowe,Guy Pearce, andKevin Spacey. Set in Los Angeles, these three lawmen use their methods, guided by their individual principles, to solve a murder complicated by corruption.
“The dialogue is lovely; not the semiparody of a lot of film noir, but the words of serious people trying to reveal or conceal themselves. And when all of the threads are pulled together at the end, you really have to marvel at the way there was a plot after all, and it all makes sense, and it was all right there waiting for someone to discover it.”
Rooted in the1950s celebrity debacles magazineConfidential, the movie depicts a city with hundreds of stories while digging deep into the culture of Los Angeles.Ebert’s original four-star reviewhailed it asone of the best movies of 1997, and the critic would later solidify his appreciation for it with a Great Movie badge.
L.A. Confidential
6’The Shawshank Redemption' (1994)
Directed by Frank Darabont
What wasa box office flop with seven Oscar nominationsturned into a home-viewing, word-of-mouth phenomenon and was regarded as one of the top films of all time, and certainly one of Ebert’s four-star picksfor the greatest movies of the 1990s.The Shawshank Redemptionis the film adaptation of theStephen Kingnovella about a former banker, Andy (Tim Robbins), convicted of killing his wife and her lover. He maintains his innocence and befriends a fellow life-sentence inmate, Red (Morgan Freeman), the film’s narrator, as the pair grapple with the idea of hope inside prison.
“The key to the film’s structure, I think, is that it’s not about its hero, but about our relationship with him - our curiosity, our pity, our admiration. If Andy had been the heroic center, bravely enduring, the film would have been conventional, and less mysterious.”
From the cinematography to the writing, and the performance execution in between,The Shawshank Redemptionis a movie that completely absorbs the viewer for Ebert, breaking the cinematic barrier so effortlesslythat audiences forget they are watching. The film is yet another one of the classics that the critic discovered a deeper appreciation for after watching it again.
The Shawshank Redemption
5’The Big Lebowski' (1998)
Directed by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
What he originally rated a three-star movie becamea four-star great movieafter Ebert revisitedThe Big Lebowski’s signature style crafted by theCoen Brothers. In one of his most iconic roles,Jeff Bridgesstars as Jeff Lebowski, an unemployed, aging hippie who prefers to go by The Dude. When the Dude is mistaken for a millionaire called The Big Lebowski (David Huddleston), he is jumped by a pair of hitmen seeking ransom for The Big Lebowski’s kidnapped wife. When they urinate on theDude’s rug “that really tied the room together,“the Dude sets off on a mission for rug restitution and stumbles into a twisted conspiracy.As Ebert put it, “‘The Big Lebowski’ is about an attitude, not a story.”
“This is a plot and dialogue that perhaps only the Coen Brothers could have devised…Only a steady hand in the midst of madness allows them to hold it all together–that, and the delirious richness of their visual approach.”
Ebert is clear inhis original three-star reviewthatThe Big Lebowskiis not a Coen Brothers film that equalsFargo. However, the movie works because the Dude is engaging and everyone knows someone like him (or is him). From colorful hallucinations to colorful characters,The Big Lebowskiis a meticulous stylistic comedy that could only have come from the minds of the Coen Brothers.
The Big Lebowski
4’The Silence of the Lambs' (1991)
Directed by Jonathan Demme
The critic first rated this Academy Award Big Five winner with three-and-a-half stars in his original review, later donning it with theremaining half-star for a full four-starsand Great Movie title.The Silence of the Lambsis a “thriller that doesn’t age” with its timeless ability to distill fear, according to Ebert. The crime movie starsJodie Fosteras a fresh FBI trainee assigned to court information from the incarcerated cannibal psychiatrist, Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), to catch a serial killer skinning young women.The way in which director Jonathan Demme and writer Ted Tally constructed the story to be Clarice’s alone and told through her eyes solidified its success.
“It is easy enough to construct a geek show if you start with a cannibal. The secret of ‘Silence’ is that it doesn’t start with the cannibal–it arrives at him, through the eyes and minds of a young woman.”
Ebert meticulously details howHopkin’s iconic portrayal of Lectermade him not only a likeable character despite his proclivities but compares him to movie monsters of the past like Nosferatu, King Kong, Norman Bates, and Frankenstein. “They behave according to their natures, and they are misunderstood,” describes Ebert.Lecter’s stillness is terrifyingand his affection for Clarice provided audiences with a mind-bending balance that Ebert hoped would immortalize the film.
The Silence of the Lambs
3’Dark City' (1998)
Directed by Alex Proyas
Considered by Ebert one ofthe greatest science fiction filmsof all time,Dark City"leaps into the unknown,” earning a four-star review and greatest movie accolade. The film is a stirring story of identity as protagonist John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) can’t remember if he committed the brutal murders he’s wanted for, his long-term memories shattered into fragments. As he unravels the enigma of his past, other-worldly shape-shifters called the Strangers, are hot on his heels.The film was a triumph of imagination and technical execution for Ebert.
“[Alex Proyas’s] film shows the obsessive concentration on visual detail that’s the hallmark of directors who make films that are short and expensive. There’s such a wealth on the screen, such an overflowing of imagination and energy.”
A sci-fi noir film supported by cinematography,Dark Citysatisfies both genre narrativeswith on-the-run murder mystery, dream-state realities, dystopian worldbuilding, and outer space creatures. Ebert is direct with his belief that the movie is geared less toward comic book fans, rather appealing tocinephiles who seek visual feats that exceed the creative expectationsfor the film’s genre.
2’Pulp Fiction' (1994)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino’s dialogue is the foundation of the greatness that isPulp Fiction,according to Ebert. The iconic “What?” film about two hitmen, a boxer, a gangster and his wife, and a pair of lovers turned robbers whose stories all coalesce into four tales of violence. Theseven-time Oscar nominated rollercoaster ride astounded Ebertwith its execution of dialogue that he believed “would work as an audio book” and is actuallya movie viewers will quote with glee.
“But it isn’t the structure that makes ‘Pulp Fiction’' a great film. Its greatness comes from its marriage of vividly original characters with a series of vivid and half-fanciful events and from the dialogue.”
Ebert’s four-star review declaresPulp Fictionas one of the greatest movies of the 1990s and of all time. He spends his review marveling atthe deliberateness of Tarantino’s writing and how it furthers the action without the need for expository paragraphs, while also keeping the time-jumping movie in order through the dialogue. It’s a masterclass in screenwriting and directing.
Pulp Fiction
1’Schindler’s List' (1993)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Ebert’s greatest film of the 1990s lies withSchindler’s List. Hisfour-star review was republishedamong a collection of other movies by his contributorson the 10th anniversary of his death. Ebert’s belief thatmovies are “empathy machines"is the driving force behind the republication of this review and why Ebert admiredSteven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning historical drama. Based on the true story of industrialistOskar Schindler,Liam Neesonstars as the titular character who convinces the Nazis to send Jews from concentration camps to staff his factories that were allegedly making products to support the war; however, the products were unusable.
“In ‘Schindler’s List,’ [Spielberg’s] brilliant achievement is the character of Oskar Schindler, played by Liam Neeson as a man who never, until almost the end, admits to anyone what he is really doing. Schindler leaves it to ‘‘his’’ Jews, and particularly to his accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), to understand the unsayable…Schindler leaves it to Stern, and Spielberg leaves it to us; the movie is a rare case of a man doing the opposite of what he seems to be doing, and a director letting the audience figure it out itself.”
Ebert commended Spielberg for crafting a story that may not have had a “happy ending,” but rather one that “affirm[s] that resistance to evil is possible and can succeed.“Neeson’s Oscar-nominated performance astonished Ebert from the very first scene in the nightclub where he makes contact with Nazi officers to earn their approval. The strategic portrayal and the technical execution makeSchindler’s Listthe greatest movie of the decade and one ofthe best war movies of all time.
