The 100 Project: The Top 10 Movies of 1995

1995 was a year where my love of  both hood movies and more mainstream fare had a head-on collision. The result is an oddball list with some legitimately great movies sitting just outside my top 10. And I'm perfectly okay with that. Let's see what I mean.

My Top 10 Movies of 1995

• This is the year I started dating the woman I would marry. Splitting time between her and my guy friends, I spent lots of time at the theater (for me) and paid to see 22 movies on the big screen. Six of them are in my top 10 and some of the others are honorable mentions.
• According to my Letterboxd account, I've seen 80 movies that were released in 1995, my highest total for a single year, to this point.
• I only saw one of the movies nominated for Best Picture. It is an honorable mention.
• 4 films by African-American directors made the list
• 5 other films directed by people of color and 2 directed by women made honorable mention

10. Waiting to Exhale

This is one of the greatest girl power movies ever made, but doesn't get its just due simply because this is not a conglomerate of white women on screen. I feel confident saying it stands up nicely to comparison with A League of Their Own, Steel Magnolias, and the like. It's some of the best work ever turned in by Angela Bassett and Loretta Devine, with great supporting turns from Whitney Houston and a host of male foils. This one falls squarely into often imitated, never duplicated territory for me. Hell, Tyler Perry built his entire career on ripping it off, along with 1997's Soul Food. That's another rant for another day. Just know that this is a movie to be reckoned with.

9. Clockers

Spike Lee was one of John Singleton's inspirations for making Boyz N the Hood which spawned the 'hood movie genre. Clockers is Lee's stamp on the genre and one of its last big screen hurrahs. Like most of his work, the film is decidedly Brooklyn. It's also as much police procedural as it is the rise and fall of a gangsta. The cast is stacked and gets every ounce out of the material.

8. The Usual Suspects

For most of you, however you feel about this movie is entirely wrapped in what you think about the twist. I watched it and loved it. Then I sought out and read Roger Ebert's review of it because I greatly admire him. He hated it. In his eyes, the big moment is a cheat. I thought about it, figured he had a point, and contemplated it. Then I watched the movie again. And loved it.

7. Kids

This is easily the most disturbing and divisive film on this list. It follows a group of wayward kids ranging in age from about 12 to 17 over the course of a day. The plot involves a girl and her best friend (film debuts for both Chloe Sevigny and Rosario Dawson) desperately trying to find the only boy she's had sex with that she has just tested positive for HIV. He's busy roaming the neighborhood partaking in his favorite pastime, trying to find virgins to deflower. These are broken children. However, what struck me is that the movie isn't interested in how they got that way as much as it is how they behave based on whether or not they understand there are consequences for their actions. You will either love it like I do, or hate it as much I love it.

6. Toy Story

As a single 24 year old with no kids, I was too cool to go see this in theaters. I watched it a couple years later with my nieces and instantly knew that I had just watched a classic. It looked different than anything I had ever seen, but good looks only goes so far. What really sold me was the world-building, character development, and of course, its heart.

5. Dead Presidents

I can't remember why this happened, but this is the first movie I remember going to see in theaters alone. I sat mesmerized all the way through the film. When it ended, I sat for a moment to process what happened. It's part Vietnam war movie, part heist movie, part love story, all encapsulation of the predominant black male experience. I just knew it was going to be, at least, another 'hood classic - one of those movies you have to have seen multiple times and loved or risk getting your black card revoked. It's not that. The problem is the previous film made by its directors. The words "from the directors of Menace II Society" was all over the marketing for Dead Presidents. People wanted another Menace and didn't get it. For shame.

4. Heat

Without question, this is one of the greatest heist movies of all-time. Michael Mann gives us the perspective of both the lawman and the criminal with meticulous planning on both sides. With this comes some of most tense scenes and best shootouts committed to film. Even if none of that stuff worked it still would've been pretty good. Why? Al Pacino squares off with Robert De Niro.

3. Die Hard with a Vengeance

Like just about everyone else, I love Die Hard. I like, but don't love Die Hard 2.  Here's where the controversy is. Depending on what day you ask me, I might say that I love Die Hard with a Vengeance even more than the original. The self-contained Nakatomi Plaza of the original had grown to Washington Dulles Airport for the second film. That was blown up to the island of Manhattan for this installment. The action was bigger and better rendered, here. Jeremy Irons's Simon Gruber is every bit as good a villain as Alan Rickman's Hans from the first. Fight me. Elevating it all is the inarguable fact that the chemistry between Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson is magical.

2. Friday

A couple months after its release, me and a couple buddies went to a second run theater and checked out Friday. It was literally a two dollar cinema. We laughed from the first frame all the way through to the closing credits. We paused for a semi-serious moment during the climax. I was almost another decade before I got serious about collecting movies. When I did, I made sure that this was on my shelf, along with both of its sequels. At the time of this writing, I still have the same DVD and have watched, I don't know how many times. Whatever number that is, multiply it by however many times my three kids (the youngest is now 17) have watched it without me. Someone please release a blu ray, or better yet 4k, version of this entire series. I'm at the point where I say a prayer every time I put it in the player. But yeah, if I polled everyone in my house for this, Friday would be the easy #1. Consider this, Mrs. Dell's birthday is on Valentine's Day. I took her on a weekend getaway. When we got back, I was regaled with the tale of the kids getting a bunch of snacks, watching Friday together and quoting every line of dialogue. My work as a parent is done.

1. Se7en

I haven't watched this movie nearly as often as I have Friday. However, whenever I do watch Se7en I am amazed by how perfect it is. The tone, setting, framing, pacing, acting, and writing all complement each other and culminates in one of the most disturbing , yet satisfying endings in cinematic history. I mean, there's a very good reason "What's in the box?" survives as the part of the pop culture lexicon. Every single time I've ever seen this film, beginning with that first time in the theater, I've been completely absorbed by this movie. I empathize with both of our heroes every step of the way, up to, and including, the Ernest Hemingway quote that closes the movie. This is David Fincher's best movie. Fight me again. (my full review)


Honorable Mentions (alphabetically): 12 Monkeys, Bad Boys, The Basketball Diaries, Braveheart, Casino, Crimson Tide, Desperado, Devil in a Blue Dress, Empire Records, Higher Learning, Leaving Las Vegas, New Jersey Drive, The Quick and the Dead, Rumble in the Bronx, Strange Days, Tank Girl