Picture the scene. It’s a Friday night in 1999 and there’s only one thing to do, which is what everyone does: go to the local video rental and pick three new movies for £2.99.
You head down to Blockbuster and survey your options. But, well, there are simply too many. The Sixth Sense .
Cruel Intentions . A weird-looking film called..
. The Matrix ? That VHS with Brad Pitt on the cover holding a bar of pink soap reading Fight Club ? Hhhhmm maybe you’ll just go home and play Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation instead. Modern life is so weird.
It definitely won’t get weirder than this in the future. For real though, 1999 was very famously a top-tier year for movies (there have been whole books written about this year in film). Think Barbenheimer was a fun time? 1999 was cinema’s true golden era – a time before social media had us attached to our phones instead, and when studios loved to throw money at really quite off-the-wall concepts (have you seen James and the Giant Peach recently?), rather than endless franchises and, well, not-as-good remakes of ‘90s films.
But what is the crème de la crème of the crème de la crème? How do we separate the good from the iconic and the timeless? 25 years later, we ranked the ultimate movies from movies’ ultimate year. 15. American Beauty Not everyone likes American Beauty .
It rings hollow , people say. It's about middle-class people being bored..
. who cares?! And yeah, there is nothing more pathetic than watching an adu.
