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1990 Top Ten List

Miami Blues (George Armitage)

Metropolitan (Whit Stillman)

Miller's Crossing (Joel Coen)

Truly, Madly, Deeply (Anthony Minghella)

Slacker (Richard Linklater)

The Nasty Girl (Michael Verhoeven)

Joe Versus the Volcano (John Patrick Shanley)

Trust (Hal Hartley)

GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese)

Bullet in the Head (John Woo)

Additional 1990 Films By Rating

Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-wai)

Life Is Sweet (Mike Leigh)

After Dark, My Sweet (James Foley)

The Hunt for Red October (John McTiernan)

Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton)

Tremors (Ron Underwood)

A Shock to the System (Jan Egleson)

Sink or Swim (Su Friedrich)

Postcards From the Edge (Mike Nichols)

Reversal of Fortune (Barbet Schroeder)

The Freshman (Andrew Bergman)

Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami)

American Dream (Barbara Kopple)

An Angel at My Table (Jane Campion)

King of New York (Abel Ferrara)

Q & A (Sidney Lumet)

Mister Johnson (Bruce Beresford)

Nikita (Luc Besson)

The Disenchanted (Benoît Jacquot)

I Hired a Contract Killer (Aki Kaurismäki)

Darkman (Sam Raimi)

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Joe Dante)

To Sleep With Anger (Charles Burnett)

Pump Up the Volume (Allan Moyle)

Jacob's Ladder (Adrian Lyne)

Ghost (Jerry Zucker)

Die Hard 2 (Renny Harlin)

Eating (Henry Jaglom)

Industrial Symphony No. 1: the dream of the brokenhearted (David Lynch)

The Godfather, Part III (Francis Ford Coppola)

Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven)

¡Ay, Carmela! (Carlos Saura)

Hardware (Richard Stanley)

Texasville (Peter Bogdanovich)

By Nightfall (Francesca Archibugi)

Wild at Heart (David Lynch)

Kindergarten Cop (Ivan Reitman)

Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (Akira Kurosawa)

The Two Jakes (Jack Nicholson)

Betsy's Wedding (Alan Alda)

Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall)

Home Alone (Chris Columbus)

Predator 2 (Stephen Hopkins)

Revenge (Tony Scott)

Echoes From a Sombre Empire (Werner Herzog)

Come See the Paradise (Alan Parker)

Flatliners (Joel Schumacher)

The Hairdresser's Husband (Patrice Leconte)

Privilege (Yvonne Rainer)

Stephen King's Graveyard Shift (Ralph S. Singleton)

Men at Work (Emilio Estevez)

Marked for Death (Dwight H. Little)

Nouvelle Vague (Jean-Luc Godard)

For archival purposes, I file everything by the year it had its world premiere. Many of these films will have been commercially released in the U.S. a year or two later, so my lists won’t always match up with other folks’ lists.

Ratings are on a needlessly precise 100-point scale.

Films I haven’t yet rated on that scale are marked with if I currently think they belong in my top ten. These films are subject to being shifted around or yanked altogether at any moment, after I revisit them and they get a numeral. (Lists from prior to about 1988 are especially suspect, as I compiled them long ago from memories that were in many cases already pretty dusty.)

Seen but currently unrated (and not presumptively among my top 10): Air America (Spottiswoode); Alice (Allen); All the Vermeers in New York (Jost); Another 48HRS. (Hill); Antonia & Jane (Kidron); Arachnophobia (F. Marshall); Avalon (Levinson); Awakenings (P. Marshall); Back to the Future Part III (Zemeckis); Bad Influence (Hanson); Bird on a Wire (Badham); Blue Steel (Bigelow); Boiling Point (Kitano); The Bonfire of the Vanities (De Palma); Cadillac Man (Donaldson); C'est la vie (Kurys); Chicago Joe and the Showgirl (Rose); Coupe de Ville (Roth); Courage Mountain (Leitch); Crazy People (Bill); Cry-Baby (Waters); Cyrano de Bergerac (Rappeneau); Daddy Nostalgia (Tavernier); Dances With Wolves (Costner); Days of Thunder (T. Scott); Desperate Hours (Cimino); Dick Tracy (Beatty); Downtown (Benjamin); DuckTales: The Movie—Treasure of the Lost Lamp (Hathcock); Europa Europa (Holland); Everybody Wins (Reisz); The Field (Sheridan); Fire Birds (Green); Flashback (Amurri); Funny About Love (Nimoy); Ghost Dad (Poitier); The Golden Boat (Ruiz); Green Card (Weir); The Grifters (Frears); The Guardian (Friedkin); Halfaouine, Boy of the Terraces (Boughedir); Hamlet (Zeffirelli); The Handmaid's Tale (Schlöndorff); Havana (Pollack); Heart Condition (Perriott); Henry & June (Kaufman); Hidden Agenda (Loach); The Hot Spot (Hopper); House Party (Hudlin); I Love You to Death (Kasdan); I, the Worst of All (Bemberg); Impulse (Locke); Internal Affairs (Figgis); Journey of Hope (Koller); Ju Dou (Zhang & Yang); The Krays (Medak); The Last of the Finest (Mackenzie); Lisa (Sherman); The Long Walk Home (Pearce); Look Who's Talking Too (Heckerling); Loose Cannons (Clark); Lord of the Flies (Hook); Love at Large (Rudolph); Madhouse (Ropelawski); The Match Factory Girl (Kaurismäki); May Fools (Malle); Meet the Applegates (Lehmann); Memphis Belle (Caton-Jones); Men Don't Leave (Brickman); Mermaids (Benjamin); Misery (R. Reiner); Mr. & Mrs. Bridge (Ivory); Mr. Destiny (Orr); Mister Frost (Setbon); Mo' Better Blues (Lee); Mountains of the Moon (Rafelson); My Blue Heaven (Ross); My Father's Glory (Robert); Narrow Margin (Hyams); Navy SEALS (Teague); Nightbreed (Barker); Nuns on the Run (Lynn); Opportunity Knocks (Petrie); Pacific Heights (Schlesinger); A Paper Wedding (Brault); Paris Is Burning (Livingston); Pastime (Armstrong); Presumed Innocent (Pakula); Problem Child (Dugan); Quick Change (Franklin & Murray); Quigley Down Under (Wincer); The Reflecting Skin (Ridley); The Rescuers Down Under (Butoy & Gabriel); RoboCop 2 (Kershner); Robot Jox (Gordon); Rocky V (Avildsen); The Rookie (Eastwood); Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Stoppard); The Russia House (Schepisi); The Sheltering Sky (Bertolucci); Shipwrecked (Gaup); Short Time (Champion); Sibling Rivalry (C. Reiner); Singapore Sling (Nikolaidis); Stanley & Iris (Ritt); State of Grace (Joanou); Stella (Erman); Strangers in Good Company (C. Scott); Strike It Rich (J. Scott); Sure Fire (Jost); Taking Care of Business (Hiller); A Tale of Springtime (Rohmer); Tales From the Darkside: The Movie (Harrison); Tatie Danielle (Chatiliez); Thousand Pieces of Gold (Kelly); 3 Men and a Little Lady (Ardolino); Tune in Tomorrow... (Amiel); Uranus (Berri); Vincent & Theo (Altman); Waiting for the Light (Monger); Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael (Abrahams); Where the Heart Is (Boorman); White Hunter, Black Heart (Eastwood); White Palace (Mandoki); The Witches (Roeg); Without You I'm Nothing (Boskovich); Young Guns II (Murphy)