American Beauty robbed...

And The Usual Suspects, too.

Joe Hollerman of the St Louis Post-Dispatch recently posted his list of the best films of the 1990's in honor of The Truman Show coming out on DVD, and his list is a pretty good one...(quick recap)...

1. Pulp Fiction
2. L.A. Confidential
3. The Truman Show
4. Shawshank Redemption
5. Fargo
6. Goodfellas
7. Silence of the Lambs
8. The Matrix
9. The Big Lebowski
10. FIght Club

With honorable mention going to:

• Apollo 13
• Chasing Amy
• Clerks
• Lone Star
• My Cousin Vinny
• Payback
• The Player
• Tombstone
• The Usual Suspects
• Unforgiven

First off, I kind of dig that this is a movie critic who's keeping to the fairly mainstream releases. I like a lot of art house films, but there's something to be said to reviewing and enjoying the big popcorn flick, too. Second, I've seen every movie that he mentions except for Lone Star, so I feel a decent ability to comment on his listing.

So, my gripes. I think he's got Fargo overrated and probably The Big Lebowski as well. I'd probably also drop Shawshank down some, as well. All three are very good movies, with Shawshank probably being the best of them, but I think there are three other films that deserve to be moved up in their place. I'd easily move The Usual Suspects and Unforgiven into the top ten from his honorable mentions, and I think he's absolutely forgetting one of the handful of best movies of the decade in American Beauty.

So, my list...quickly thrown together from what I've mentioned...

1. The Usual Suspects
2. Goodfellas
3. American Beauty
4. Silence of the Lambs
5. Pulp Fiction
6. Unforgiven
7. The Truman Show
8. The Matrix
9. Fight Club
10. The Truman Show

And I think he's got My Cousin Vinny and Apollo 13 and Payback way overrated. I enjoyed the last of those especially well, but I don't know that it's a great film. The other two are solid films but far from deserving of a top 10 of the decade look. Chasing Amy is one of my favorite films and an excellent one at that, but I'll admit that Kevin Smith's film is a little too rough around the edges to be in this conversation, as is Clerks which deserves a note for being the revelation of a great original talent and a fine film, but if we're looking at best of the decade, then you can't have as many rough spots as Clerks has. The Player deserves to be mentioned here. It is an excellent, intelligent, suspenseful film that didn't get nearly the love that it should have, but I find it just outside the top ten. Same feeling about Fargo, L.A. Confidential, and The Big Lebowski - excellent but just not quite top of the decade.