The 1990s saw studios entrusting their creatives more than ever, and that led to some of Hollywood’s most exciting and unique movies. But what’s more impressive is that studios even let newcomer directors with little to no background steer the ship of a movie, and they all had distinctly different filmmaking styles.
So many visionary filmmakers came into the fold in the 1990s, and the decade is a treasure trove of epic dramas led with authorship. Between Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and Sam Mendes, these beloved filmmakers showed the world what they had to offer in the ’90s, and they came right out of the gate swinging.
Paul Thomas Anderson: Hard Eight (1996) – 7.2
Anderson is best known for epic dramas such as Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, and the most recent Licorice Pizza. But before that, the filmmaker released a relatively modest and lean 100-minute, low-budget crime thriller, Hard Eight.
Where Anderson usually works with huge ensembles, this crime film features a small but great cast, as it follows a veteran gambler taking a naive and lost-in-the-world 20-something under his wing in Las Vegas. And while the movie didn’t completely establish the director’s style, it did see Anderson scoop up actors who would become his longtime collaborators, including Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, and Philip Baker Hall.
Peter Farrelly: Dumb And Dumber (1994) – 7.3
Dumb and Dumber is exactly that — one of the dumbest movies ever made — but it’s also so much fun, and it’s now considered a classic comedy. It was the movie that opened the Peter Farrelly floodgates, as so many more ridiculous comedies in the same vein followed, and almost all of them were huge moneymakers at the box office too.
Interestingly, while Farrelly became the go-to director for outrageous comedies full of toilet humor, the filmmaker went on to direct Green Book, a Best Picture-winning drama. The difference between Green Book and Dumb and Dumber is night and day, but the 1994 comedy is well-respected in its own right.
Christopher Nolan: Following (1998) – 7.5
As a director, Christopher Nolan has so much power, arguably even more than the likes of elder statesmen like Steven Spielberg. There was a bidding war for the director when he left Warner Bros. last year, and even Netflix was willing to bend their strict rules for him. And the signs of that genius were there in his very first movie, Following.
The movie is about a London-based writer who follows people around the city, using their lives as inspiration for his novels. And just as is the case with Nolan’s movies, it leads to an unbelievable final act. It almost makes viewers wish studios stripped him of huge budgets, as he excels with thrillers with low budgets, whether it’s this or Memento.
Kevin Smith: Clerks (1994) – 7.7
Clerks is a day in the life of two slackers who work at a convenience store and a video rental store, and it marked a totally unique way of independent filmmaking. Kevin Smith achieved something great with the comedy, and it’s the foundation of his whole career.
The influence of Clerks has rippled throughout Smith’s entire filmography, and what he achieved with a microscopic budget is unbelievable. It holds such a great legacy, there was a sequel with another one on the way, and there was even a cartoon based on the iconic movie. While the cartoon was short-lived, more Clerks of any kind is worth watching.
John Singleton: Boyz N The Hood (1991) – 7.8
John Singleton might not be a wunderkind like many of the other filmmakers who had directorial debuts in the 1990s, but he went on to be a very established director and have a ton of successful movies under his belt.
The director often casts rappers and makes films based around inner-city tensions, and Boyz N The Hood is a shining example of both of those trademarks. The Ice Cube-starring movie is about three young men who do everything they can to avoid the violence and dangers of their rough Crenshaw neighborhood. The movie left such a lasting cultural impact, and it’s still relevant today.
Spike Jonze: Being John Malkovich (1999) – 7.8
Being John Malkovich features one of the strangest romances in fantasy movies, as it follows a man who finds a portal into the mind of the titular actor, and he then uses that to try and win over the love of his life. The 1999 movie blends surrealism, comedy, and romance, all of which have been the three primary elements of every Spike Jonze-directed movie.
However, while Jonze is an incredible director and has proved time and again how original of a filmmaker he is, the success is also owed to Charlie Kaufman too, who wrote the movie and went on to write the surreal romance classics like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Kevin Costner: Dances With Wolves (1990) – 8.1
Dances with Wolves is one of the greatest westerns of the past 40 years. As the genre hasn’t been anywhere near as popular as it was 70 years ago, the 1990 movie is the closest it has gotten to being as adored in the time since. The film was directed by Kevin Costner himself, and he didn’t give himself an easy challenge for his debut.
Instead, he set his sights on a four-hour western epic, and his grand ambitions paid off more than anybody could have ever thought. Amazingly, despite its astounding runtime, it was one of the biggest box office successes of the 1990s.
Brad Bird: The Iron Giant (1999) – 8.1
The Iron Giant is an origin story unlike any other. The movie doesn’t just tell the story of a lovable alien lifeform, but it introduced the world to Brad Bird too, who went on to be an ace in Pixar’s pocket and a terrific live-action director.
The classic 1999 movie had all the staples of a classic Bird movie, such as the complex but easy-to-follow action sequences, the clever set pieces, and most of all, heart. While Bird directed classic Pixar movies like the Incredibles movies and Ratatouille, it’s The Iron Giant that’s his best movie, and fans are dying to see The Iron Giant 2.
Quentin Tarantino: Reservoir Dogs (1992) – 8.3
The term “wunderkind” was endlessly thrown around in the early 1990s, and that tag was underserved for many directors, but for Tarantino, it was more than appropriate. Though Reservoir Dogs didn’t popularize non-linear storytelling like its follow-up, Pulp Fiction, or change screenwriting forever, it still has some modest achievements of its own.
For starters, it’s a heist movie without the heist, and despite that, it’s still one of the best heist movies ever according to Reddit. Not only that, but it’s mostly set in one location too, and it’s an incredible feat. It showed at a very early stage what Tarantino was capable of achieving, even with a microscopic budget.
Sam Mendes: American Beauty (1999) – 8.4
Some think that American Beauty doesn’t quite hold up today as it did when it was released back in 1999. However, it tackles what everybody will eventually go through, which is a crisis, whether it’s a midlife crisis, an identity crisis, or a family crisis. And in the 1999 movie, it’s all of the above.
The movie has so many themes and it’s one of the best movies to debate the meaning of because, in reality, everybody’s interpretation is probably correct. And like so many other movies of 1999, such as Fight Club and Magnolia, the film encourages people to live more meaningful lives. Director Mendes hasn’t been able to beat his directorial debut, but few other directors could ever reach the benchmark that he set.
