The Best 25 films of 1999
Article by Paul Douglas Moomjean
It’s 1999 and I’m a senior in high school January through June. I’m preparing for my wrestling team’s league finals, graduation, and getting Episode I: The Phantom Menace tickets. By July I quit my job at MANN movie theaters. By August I’m a full time college student, majoring in film, and I’m an assistant wrestling coach at Simi Valley High School. Oh, I’m also holding down 30+ hours a week at Costco in the gas station. Yet, with all the business, I’m still an avid movie goer. And what a year to go to the movies.
The 1990’s was maybe the most significant decade in cinema history. More and more multiplexes were being built, with AMC leading the charge, and the rise of independent cinema in the early to mid 90’s escalated to the place where films like The Full Monty and Good Will Hunting could compete at the box office and Oscars. So by 1999, the lines between high profile studio products and low budget art house films had blurred. With more experimental filmmakers like David Fincher, Spike Jonze, and Paul Thomas Anderson blending epic camera work, big stars in quirky, eccentric character driven stories filled with social commentary and fantasy elements (frogs falling from the sky, John Malkovich as a human puppet, and split personalities in Tyler Durden) the landscape of film was now a Pandora’s box of pleasures in big theaters with real marketing campaigns.
1999 would by the climatic end of a decade that has some of the most beloved filmmakers and actors still relevant today, 25 years later. Already, The Mummy and Episode I re-releases have been successes, showing how a quarter of a century later this year of cinema holds a special place in our cinema subconscious and zeitgeist.
After recently rewatching Episode I on the big screen, I decided to look back at the year that was 1999. A few takeaways that I didn’t mention above:
1. Many great filmmakers including Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen and Milos Foreman produced forgotten gems. Plus this was the year the world, for better or worse, was introduced to M. Night Shyamalan. Alexander Payne became an Oscar nominated filmmaker with Election, his political satire that still feels fresh and contemporary today. Of course, George Lucas returned to the directors chair 22 years after A New Hope.
2. A few major sequels and tentpole franchises came out this year that are still beloved including Toy Story 2 and Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me. The Mummy, American Pie, and The Blair Witch Projectcame out this year; say what you want about their sequels, each of the series made a lot of money and produced spin offs and influenced a lot of filmmakers to make their own similar films. Blair Witch alone inspired the “found footage” genre, and American Pie revamped the gross out teen comedies the early 80s were known for. The Mummy films made The Rock a star, and there have been a lot of dessert action films trying to recapture this film’s magic.
3. 1999 was also clearly a man in crisis, mid-life despair era in films. Bringing Out the Dead, Fight Club, American Beauty, Office Space and Being John Malkovich all dealt with the themes of men losing power and connection to their own lives and trying to get it back through sex, violence, work, and art. Sometimes mixing all four together.
What a time it was to be alive.
The Top 25 List
I’m excited to share these 25 films. While we can fuss over the order, here are the films 25 years later that still seem to hold a place within our society, and for me, a place in my movie loving heart. I could easily list another twenty that deserve recognition like The Matrix, The Phantom Menace, and other bigger budget fair, but they didn’t crack my top 25. So here you go, you filthy animals.
The Top 10
1. Magnolia
2. Fight Club
3. Being John Malkovich
4. Eyes Wide Shut
5. Toy Story 2
6. The Talented Mr. Ripley
7. The Sixth Sense
8. The Green Mile
9. American Beauty
10. Office Space
Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling masterpiece is a reminder that films must be alive to be remembered. A biblical allusion wrapped in a Robert Altman structured fairy tale, interlocking the lives of many Los Angeles strangers is still the most transformative film going experience I had in a cinema.
Of course, Fincher’s Fight Club is more beloved now than when it came out, And while many don’t feel American Beauty and The Green Mile have aged well, I still see all the metaphorical beauty, solid writing, and acting on the screen with every viewing.
Eyes Wide Shut is as haunting as it first was, and The Sixth Sense is the poster child for smart horror films, which has become a new norm now with A24 owing a lot to Shyamalan reinventing the genre.
The Talented Mr. Ripley is such a perfect thriller. Toy Story 2 is Pixar’s masterpiece with “When She Loved Me” still extracting tears upon every viewing. And don’t get me started on the cultural influence Office Space had my generation with “Someone has the case of the Mondays,” the Bobs, and PTS reports becoming regular office jokes.
Then there is Being John Malkovich, the most wildly original screenplay that year. Every scene is a masterclass in originality. I would argue if you catch me later in the week, I’d have this as the best film of 1999.
The Films We Can’t Forget
The next fifteen films are all wonderful watches. No reason to rank them, but let’s just say their order isn’t too far off. The quirky fantasy/sci-fi comedies Galaxy Quest and Dogma were both funny and challenging in different ways. Bringing Out the Dead established Nicolas Cage as the king of weirdo character leading men, and The Big Kahuna was that lost film about God and sales conventions where Danny Devito gave the best performance of his career.
Jim Carrey bled for us playing Andy Kaufman, Phil Collins bled for us writing music for Tarzan, and Run Lola Run was a thrill ride for the ages. Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence gave us two of their best performances in Life, and Kirsten Dunst deserved more awards consideration for her beauty pageant satire Drop Dead Gorgeous.
The Insider was Michael Mann’s thriller without all the gun shots, and The Hurricane gave Denzel Washington a shot to win his second Oscar at the time. All of these are worth searching for on streaming and VOD. All of them are worthy of two hours of your life, because they just might improve it upon watching.
Bringing Out the Dead
Galaxy Quest
Dogma
Election
The Insider
The Big Kahuna
The Blair Witch Project
Man on the Moon
The Hurricane
Run Lola Run
Tarzan
Drop Dead Gorgeous
Sweet and Lowdown
American Pie
Life
Follow Paul @TheMoomAbides on INSTAGRAM and X
