30 for 30: 1993 Retrospective List | Submissions Closed | 31 Lists Received | Reveals Start This Weekend

[Cap]

 

GREATEST FILMS OF 1993

 

Usually we try not to have too many lists going at the same time, but this one is time sensitive and pretty contained, so I'm gonna sneak it in.

 

 

Hey, Millennials, guess what?  We're old.  1993 was 30 Years Ago.  To celebrate getting old, let's reflect on an excellent year of movies. To quote our eldest boy:

 

  

 

I wanted to do this in January, but my life blew up, and my "I need a couple of days" break turned into a longer sabbatical.  Thankfully most of the drama has cleared, Comic Con worked as a nice reset vacation, and Barbieheimer sparked my interest in this again.  After all, the variety and counterprogramming in 1993 is what makes it go so hard:

 

Family Films?

 

 

 

 

Romance?

 

 

 

 

Action?

 

 

 

 

Drama?

 

 

 

Comedy?

 

 

 

And of course...

the ultimate Double Feature before Barbieheimer,

 

Berg's pest de la resistance

 

 

 

I could keep going!  It's an embarrassment of riches.  A lot of fun films that truly have that "they just don't make 'em like they used to" vibe.  I'm also excited to see how the chips will fall: Will Berg run away with this? Will the Much Ado About Nothing Telegram Gang push it up to the Top? Is Mrs. Doubtfire just the best? Everyone going to declare Batman: The Mask of Phantasm the best of the Best?  Will folks actually believe my threat that I won't count your list if you don't put Hocus Pocus as #1?  (That is a joke... or is it?) 

 

So let's get into this. 

 

Scoring Lists

 

We always seem to go back and forth over how to score a list.  There's no perfect answer.  We can only hope to be clear and concise.  Last time for the Attack of the Fangirls: 69 Greatest Ships of All Time, I used a system of asking of either a list of 40 or 20.  It worked pretty well, so I'm going to modify it for this.  (The big issue was we had a lot of ties in the ranking cause of the point spread.  So I tighten that up.)

 

Since people always want to submit half lists, I will accept your list in two ways.  Either send me a list of THIRTY or a list of FIFTEEN. 

 

The list of 15 will be counted ROUGHLY 50% of a list of 30, since there's 50% less entries.

 

LIST OF 30		LIST OF 15
Rank	Points	Rank	Points
1	10	1	5
2	9.5	2	4.75
3-4	9	3	4.5
5-6	8.5	4	4.25
7-8	8	5	4
9-10	7.5	6	3.75
11-12	7	7	3.5
13-14	6.5	8	3.25
15-16	6	9	3
17-18	5.5	10	2.75
19-20	5	11	2.5
21-22	4	12	2
23-24	3	13	1.5
25-26	2	14	1
27-30	1	15	0.5

 

 

Film Eligibility 

 

List of Hollywood Films Released in 1993

List of Bollywood Films Released in 1993

 

• ANY FEATURE FILM (aka over 40 minutes) released from 1993.
• ANY GENRE
• ANY LANGUAGE
• ANY MEDIUM

 

Due Dates

September 1, with a built in Extension to September 15.

 

please pm me your list

 

TEMPLATES

 

BEST 30 MOVIES OF 1993
Rank	Pts	Movie
1	10
2	9.5
3	9
4	9
5	8.5
6	8.5
7	8
8	8
9	7.5
10	7.5
11	7
12	7
13	6.5
14	6.5
15	6
16	6
17	5.5
18	5.5
19	5
20	5
21	4
22	4
23	3
24	3
25	2
26	2
27	1
28	1
29	1
30	1

 

BEST 15 MOVIES OF 1993
Rank	Pts	Movie
1	5
2	4.75
3	4.5
4	4.25
5	4
6	3.75
7	3.5
8	3.25
9	3
10	2.75
11	2.5
12	2
13	1.5
14	1
15	0.5

[baumer]

This is definitely one of my favorite years for movies probably my favorite year of the '90s. Thanks for putting this together I will absolutely 100% unequivocally submit a list.

[Michael Gary Scott]

I used to hate submitting lists because it's hard to think of all the movies and I'd be worried about forgetting something thankfully letterboxd has made this very easy. 

[Eric Duncan]

If Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 isn’t #1, I will personally shut down the whole forum.

[abracadabra1998]

Wow this will give me a great chance to catch up on some old movies!

 

(just wanted to make some peeps feel old, but excited to use this as an excuse to do some 1993 homework!)

[CoolioD1]

43 minutes ago, Michael Gary Scott said:

I used to hate submitting lists because it's hard to think of all the movies and I'd be worried about forgetting something thankfully letterboxd has made this very easy. 

Same I've done top 10s for every year I've been alive lol

 

btw

 

The Heroic Trio, Much Ado, In The Line of Fire, Farewell My Concubine, Three Colors Blue, Demolition Man all great too

[RTPCR]

(1) Three Colours: Blue

(2) Naked

(3) The Age of Innocence

(4) Schindler's List

(5) The Piano

(6) Carlito's Way

(7) GroundHog Day

(8) Dazed and Confused

(9) Short Cuts

(10) Philadelphia

(11) The Fugitive

(12) The Baby of Macon

(13) The Puppetmaster

(14) The Remains of the day

(15) In the name of the father

(16) Cronos

(17) True Romance

(18) Sleepless in Seattle

(19) The Firm

(20) This Boy's Life

(21) A Bronx Tale

(22) Manhattan Murder Mystery

(23) Arizona Dream

(24) Calendar

(25) What's eating Gilbert Grape

(26) Farewell my concubine

(27) Much Ado about nothing

(28) King of the Hill

(29) Searching for Bobby Fischer

(30) Jurassic Park

[4815162342]

35 minutes ago, Eric the Hatbox Ghost said:

If Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 isn’t #1, I will personally shut down the whole forum.

 

Nice knowing y'all 

[baumer]

I'm your huckleberry

I didn't kill my wife. I don't care.

Life....will find a way.

You're giving these people hope.

What's a Dirty Dog?

I know things about people, Lilly.

I eat breakfast 300 yards away from 4,000 Cubans that were trained to kill me. So don't think for one second you can come down here flash a badge and make me nervous.

Phil?!! Ned Ryerson!

I don't want to die. You're not going to die, Sara just give me your hand I'll pull you up.

You think I'm a thief? Oh I'm not the thief. I'm not the one who's charging 85 cents for a stinking soda.

And what about our innocence? What becomes of our innocence if we survive by becoming cannibals?

 

There really is so many good movies in 1993

[Cap]

50 minutes ago, Eric the Hatbox Ghost said:

If Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 isn’t #1, I will personally shut down the whole forum.

 

That's the spirit.  That's the chutzpah we need for ranking around this place.

 

 

14 minutes ago, 4815162342 said:

Nice knowing y'all 

 

Not the worse thing that could happen. 

[Cap]

1 hour ago, Hildagarde25 said:

 

I hadn't realized how many great movies actually came out that specific year. Age of Innocence, Schindler's List, Jurassic Park, The Firm, Philadelphia, Joy Luck Club, Much Ado About Nothing... wow.

 

That's kind of how this whole thing came about.  I was talking to @Plain Old Tele about it, and went wait... those ALL came out in 1993?!

 

1 hour ago, Hildagarde25 said:

 

I remember when my English teacher showed Much Ado in class when we were studying Shakespeare, and everyone kept laughing every time Keanu spoke. Love him in other stuff, but he was terrible in this. 

 

He's SOOOOOOOO good in this as being SOOOOOO bad.  Pure camp.  Just love him.  

 

[dxmatrixdt]

i was looking for the GIF from Jason Goes to Hell at the end of the film, when Jason is resurrected from "that book", and he jumps up from the basement through a hole in the floor and lands in the kitchen.  so the GIF is here in spirit

[dxmatrixdt]

4 hours ago, baumer said:

This is definitely one of my favorite years for movies probably my favorite year of the '90s. Thanks for putting this together I will absolutely 100% unequivocally submit a list.

1999 is my favorite year of the 90s for obvious reasons because of The Phantom Menace and The Matrix, but 1998 is my second favorite and i am looking forward to doing a revisiting of the full year in a few months for the 25 year anniversary and doing a deep scoring.  anyways, isn't 1998 the best year for horror?  depending on your love for H20, 1998 has Halloween H20, The Faculty, Urban Legend, Bride of Chucky, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Blade, Psycho, Strangeland, Vampires, Disturbing Behavior, Species 2, Deep Rising, Phantoms, Apt Pupil, Ringu... and then direct to video Puppet Master 6, Phantasm 4, The Prophecy 2, Children of the Corn 5, The Dentist 2 and The Clown at Midnight.  i always love to think about this combination, right near the millennium!

[Jake Gittes]

Keanu's limitedness is used perfectly in Much Ado. His assignment is to state "I am the villain", glare at everyone and then leave, and you can't accuse him of not doing exactly that.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Jake Gittes

[Porthos]

Fun Fact:

 

My online nom de plume comes from the fact that I was told on more than one occasion that I resembled Oliver Platt's Porthos from Disney's 1993 The Three Musketeers.  

 

As such, that film will always have a special place in my heart even if it isn't a particularly faithful adaptation.

 

(besides, the film is so.... fun that I find I don't care if it isn't a particularly faithful adaptation)

((no, really, worth watching for Tim Curry's performance alone as well as Platt's)

Edited August 2, 2023 by Porthos

[baumer]

42 minutes ago, dxmatrixdt said:

1999 is my favorite year of the 90s for obvious reasons because of The Phantom Menace and The Matrix, but 1998 is my second favorite and i am looking forward to doing a revisiting of the full year in a few months for the 25 year anniversary and doing a deep scoring.  anyways, isn't 1998 the best year for horror?  depending on your love for H20, 1998 has Halloween H20, The Faculty, Urban Legend, Bride of Chucky, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Blade, Psycho, Strangeland, Vampires, Disturbing Behavior, Species 2, Deep Rising, Phantoms, Apt Pupil, Ringu... and then direct to video Puppet Master 6, Phantasm 4, The Prophecy 2, Children of the Corn 5, The Dentist 2 and The Clown at Midnight.  i always love to think about this combination, right near the millennium!

1999 is fantastic of course. The Matrix and The Phantom menace are two immensely enjoyable films. And yeah there's some great horror movies as well. But when I just think of the overall movies that were out in 1993, it's just a slice better than other years. The Matrix is probably my favorite movie from the 90s and Scream is pretty close behind. But for me when you have films like tombstone, schindler's list, Cliffhanger, The Firm, A Few Good Men, Jurassic park, The fugitive and then films that maybe other people really haven't heard of like Indian summer, which has one of the sweetest most poignant scripts ever written in my opinion. And has a ridiculously likable cast like Bill Paxton Alan Arkin Vincent Spano and Diane Lane just to name a few, it just makes 1993 a cut above.

[4815162342]

BTW @Cap ESPN has called with a trademark claim for the 30 for 30

[Cap]

22 minutes ago, 4815162342 said:

BTW @Cap ESPN has called with a trademark claim for the 30 for 30

 

fixed the intro post to accommodate our corporate overloads. 

[DC Rich]

2 hours ago, 4815162342 said:

BTW @Cap ESPN has called with a trademark claim for the 30 for 30

 

1 hour ago, Cap said:

 

fixed the intro post to accommodate our corporate overloads. 

 

[Joel M]

according to my letterboxd I've only seen 40 movies from '93, which means might have to include Beethoven's 2nd and Dennis the Menace to make it to 30.

 

but top-10 is easy

1.Dazed & Confused

2.Nightmare before Christmas

3.Naked

4.Remains of the Day

5.Jurrasic Park

6.The Piano

7.Carlito's Way

8.Age of Innocence

9.Groundhog Day

10.Sleepless in Seattle