Combustible Celluloid - The Film Year That Was 1999
Combustible Celluloid
 

The Films of 1999

Dreamin' When I Wrote This

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

I was lucky enough to be a critic full-time in 1999. I had some early encouragement by San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick La Salle, and I went to my first press screenings in 1997. By the end of 1998 had got the swing of things. (Although it would still be some time before I managed to get on the press list for Universal, since they were being handled from out of Los Angeles. Any Universal movies I saw were out of my own pocket.) I had a part-time job that had flexible hours, so I was free to go to whatever screenings I wanted. I saw around 250 movies, almost all on the big screen.

I made fast friends with the other critics, and we had spirited discussions after screenings. Seeing an early screening of The Phantom Menace was like a party, and seeing an early screening of Eyes Wide Shut was awe-inspiring. (Even more awe-inspiring was that I saw Hirokazu Koreeda's After Life later the same day.) We did interviews, sitting down with Johnny Depp, Hugh Grant, Tim Roth, Ben Foster, Joan Chen, and Madeleine Stowe, and directors David Cronenberg, Neil Jordan, Mike Leigh, Alexander Payne, and David O. Russell, and even screenwriter Hampton Fancher, of Blade Runner.

All the while, we knew we were experiencing something special. We had paid attention, and, despite the regular occurrences of bad films (there are always bad films), we appreciated the embarrassment of riches that was coming our way. It still makes my head spin when I think about all the radical, game-changing films that I saw in such a short span of time. There have been other great runs of movies since then, but that entire year just had the ring of something magical.

The following 130+ films are my favorites, my guilty pleasures, and a few others that I might have underrated at the time and have endured. (I'm missing a few, like Bowfinger and 10 Things I Hate About You, that I'm hoping to get posted soon.) Some opened in other countries in 1998 and 1999 in the U.S., and then others opened in other countries in 1999 and 2000 in the U.S., so there's a little cheating around the edges for this list. But it's all the same timeframe. And just look at that group of filmmakers! There was definitely something in the air that was inspiring a high volume of creativity. Maybe it was the end of the century and the end of the millennium all wrapped up in one. Or maybe it was something else. All I know is that I'm honored to have been able to write these reviews, and, as a result, perhaps been a tiny part of it.

- Fifty Standouts -

  1. After Life (Hirokazu Koreeda)
  2. All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar)
  3. American Beauty (Sam Mendes)
  4. American Movie (Chris Smith)
  5. Beau Travail (Claire Denis)
  6. Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze)
  7. The Blair Witch Project (Eduardo Sanchez & Dan Myrick)
  8. Boys Don't Cry (Kimberly Peirce)
  9. Bringing Out the Dead (Martin Scorsese)
  10. Buena Vista Social Club (Wim Wenders)
  11. Cookie's Fortune (Robert Altman)
  12. Dogma (Kevin Smith)
  13. Election (Alexander Payne)
  14. eXistenZ (David Cronenberg)
  15. Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick)
  16. Fight Club (David Fincher)
  17. Galaxy Quest (Dean Parisot)
  18. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (Jim Jarmusch)
  19. The Green Mile (Frank Darabont)
  20. Holy Smoke (Jane Campion)
  21. The Insider (Michael Mann)
  22. The Iron Giant (Brad Bird)
  23. The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg (Aviva Kempner)
  24. The Limey (Steven Soderbergh)
  25. The Lovers on the Bridge (Leos Carax) [Made in 1991, released by Miramax in 1999.]
  26. Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson)
  27. Man on the Moon (Milos Forman)
  28. The Matrix (Lana & Lily Wachowski)
  29. Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr. (Errol Morris)
  30. Notting Hill (Roger Michell)
  31. Office Space (Mike Judge)
  32. Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki)
  33. Ratcatcher (Lynne Ramsay)
  34. Ravenous (Antonia Bird)
  35. Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer)
  36. The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan)
  37. Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton)
  38. South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (Trey Parker)
  39. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (George Lucas)
  40. The Straight Story (David Lynch)
  41. Summer of Sam (Spike Lee)
  42. Sweet and Lowdown (Woody Allen)
  43. Tarzan (Kevin Lima & Chris Buck)
  44. Three Kings (David O. Russell)
  45. Time Regained (Raúl Ruiz)
  46. Topsy-Turvy (Mike Leigh)
  47. Toy Story 2 (John Lasseter)
  48. True Crime (Clint Eastwood)
  49. The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola)
  50. The Wind Will Carry Us (Abbas Kiarostami)

- Other Notables -

  • The Acid House (Paul McGuigan)
  • The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland (Guy Halvorson)
  • Anna and the King (Andy Tennant)
  • The Apple (Samira Makhmalbaf)
  • Audition (Takashi Miike)
  • Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (Jay Roach)
  • Autumn Tale (Éric Rohmer)
  • Bedrooms & Hallways (Rose Troche)
  • Besieged (Bernardo Bertolucci)
  • The Best Man (Malcolm D. Lee)
  • Better Than Chocolate (Anne Wheeler)
  • Beyond the Clouds (Michelangelo Antonioni)
  • Blast from the Past (Hugh Wilson)
  • La Bûche (Danièle Thompson)
  • Cabaret Balkan (Goran Paskaljevic)
  • Charles Mingus: Triumph of the Underdog (Don McGlynn)
  • Cradle Will Rock (Tim Robbins)
  • Cruel Intentions (Roger Kumble)
  • Dead or Alive (Takashi Miike)
  • Dick (Andrew Fleming)
  • Dr. Akagi (Shohei Imamura)
  • The Emperor and the Assassin (Chen Kaige)
  • The End of the Affair (Neil Jordan)
  • Eternity and a Day (Theo Angelopoulos)
  • Fantasia/2000 (Various directors)
  • Felicia's Journey (Atom Egoyan)
  • Flowers of Shanghai (Hou Hsiao-hsien)
  • For Love of the Game (Sam Raimi)
  • 42 Up (Michael Apted)
  • Getting to Know You (Lisanne Skyler)
  • Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold)
  • Girl on the Bridge (Patrice Leconte)
  • Go (Doug Liman)
  • Guinevere (Audrey Wells)
  • The Hurricane (Norman Jewison)
  • Kikujiro (Takeshi Kitano)
  • Lake Placid (Steve Miner)
  • The Last Days (James Moll)
  • Last Night (Don McKellar)
  • The Legend of 1900 (Giuseppe Tornatore)
  • The Letter (Manoel de Oliveira)
  • Liberty Heights (Barry Levinson)
  • Life (Ted Demme)
  • Limbo (John Sayles)
  • The Love Letter (Peter Ho-sun Chan)
  • Man of the Century (Adam Abraham)
  • Mansfield Park (Patricia Rozema)
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream (Michael Hoffman)
  • The Minus Man (Hampton Fancher)
  • The Mod Squad (Scott Silver)
  • Mumford (Lawrence Kasdan)
  • Muppets from Space (Tim Hill)
  • The Muse (Albert Brooks)
  • Music of the Heart (Wes Craven)
  • My Name Is Joe (Ken Loach)
  • My Voyage to Italy (Martin Scorsese)
  • Never Been Kissed (Raja Gosnell)
  • On the Ropes (Nanette Burstein & Brett Morgen)
  • One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich (Chris Marker)
  • One Day in September (Kevin Macdonald)
  • Oxygen (Richard Shepard)
  • Playing By Heart (Willard Carroll)
  • The Red Violin (François Girard)
  • Ride With the Devil (Ang Lee)
  • She's All That (Robert Iscove)
  • Show Me Love (Lukas Moodysson)
  • Sicily! (Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet)
  • Sitcom (François Ozon)
  • SLC Punk! (James Merendino)
  • Spectres of the Spectrum (Craig Baldwin)
  • Stir of Echoes (David Koepp)
  • Stuart Little (Rob Minkoff)
  • Sugar Town (Allison Anders)
  • The Swindle (Claude Chabrol)
  • The 13th Warrior (John McTeirnan)
  • Titus (Julie Taymor)
  • Tumbleweeds (Gavin O'Connor)
  • Twin Falls Idaho (Michael & Mark Polish)
  • 200 Cigarettes (Risa Bramon Garcia)
  • The War Zone (Tim Roth)
  • West Beirut (Ziad Doueiri)
  • The Winslow Boy (David Mamet)
  • Wisconsin Death Trip (James Marsh)
  • The Woman Chaser (Robinson Devor)
  • The Wood (Rick Famuyiwa)
  • The World Is Not Enough (Michael Apted)
  • Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl (Joan Chen)

    •

    Hulu
    TASCHEN
    Movies Unlimtied
    300x250