I'm making the most definitive list of favorite movies ever.

For every year, I'm listing every movie I've seen and compare them all to each other asking one question; Which movie do I like more. Movies that score in the 80th percentile or higher, advance to the next round: Favorite of the Decade. After each Decade is done, an All Time list will be formed.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Favoritest Movies of 1996



What a waste of a year of movies.  Take the bottom 60 titles on this list, I'll never watch any of them ever again.  We will not see a year this bad until 2010, but being fair 1996 is worse.  As I continue this trip back, I hope I don't come across another year that stinks as badly.  BUT, maybe just maybe its the number of movies I saw.  106!  That's the third highest count on my list following 1990 at 109 and 1994 at 112 movies seen.  So... maybe just maybe the more movies one sees the more crap they see.  That's a shame.  I was really hoping the the more you saw, the more likely you are to find hidden nuggets to treasure and enjoy...  Well, maybe there were... where's my optimists hat?  Oh, here it is covered in dust caked on by age.  Well look at you two...



There were two gems that I probably would not have seen at the time If I only saw the popular movies to see.  The Phantom is one of the worst marketed... screw the rhetoric here, the poster says "SLAM EVIL"  I have no idea what that means, but it feels lame to me.  It looks like it's trying to appeal to eight year olds, not real ones, but the tertiary characters on Leave it to Beaver.  I know we're a year before South Park here, but how could you not know that that poster and everything about the movie looks lame to... humans.  Everywhere, everywhen.  But, The Phantom is a good movie.  It's a fun to watch, Indiana Jones movie but the guy is in a purple body suit.  Best of all, on Blu-Ray this movie looks good, really really good.  To me this is the gold standard for how an old catalog title should be treated.  I've read some complaints about the video quality, but lets put things into perspective.  The Phantom is a BD from Lionsgate of a 1996 movie that grossed 17 million dollars.  And it looks almost brand new.  If an old popcorn flick that's life was somewhere between flop and bomb can look this nice; no movie you care about has any excuse.  The other nugget, was the first movie I saw by Peter Jackson.  It's fun too, but Peter Jackson's done better.  On to the list.


  1. Independence Day
  2. Star Trek: First Contact
  3. The Rock
  4. Hamlet
  5. The Phantom
  6. Mars Attacks!
  7. The English Patient
  8. Mission: Impossible
  9. My Fellow Americans
  10. Jerry Maguire
  11. From Dusk Till Dawn
  12. Muppet Treasure Island
  13. Dragonheart
  14. Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie
  15. The Frighteners
  16. Space Jam
  17. Romeo + Juliet
  18. Scream
  19. The Long Kiss Goodnight
  20. The Truth About Cats & Dogs
  21. Escape from L.A., aka John Carpenter's Escape from L.A.
  22. Ransom
  23. Up Close & Personal
  24. The Arrival
  25. That Thing You Do!
  26. The Ghost and the Darkness
  27. Broken Arrow
  28. Rumble in the Bronx
  29. Swingers
  30. Spy Hard
  31. Tin Cup
  32. Police Story 4: First Strike
  33. Executive Decision
  34. Jingle All the Way
  35. A Time to Kill
  36. Twister
  37. Last Man Standing
  38. The Craft
  39. Bound
  40. The People vs. Larry Flynt
  41. Courage Under Fire
  42. Happy Gilmore
  43. Evita
  44. Eraser
  45. Multiplicity
  46. Beautiful Girls
  47. 101 Dalmatians
  48. The First Wives Club
  49. The Crow: City of Angels
  50. The Nutty Professor
  51. Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
  52. Maximum Risk
  53. Looking for Richard
  54. Mulholland Falls
  55. Dear God
  56. Bed of Roses
  57. Barb Wire
  58. Daylight
  59. Flipper
  60. Phenomenon
  61. Chain Reaction
  62. Michael Collins
  63. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  64. One Fine Day
  65. Down Periscope
  66. The Island of Dr. Moreau
  67. Fargo
  68. In Love and War
  69. Michael
  70. Dunston Checks In
  71. Mary Reilly
  72. Alaska
  73. Bulletproof
  74. Striptease
  75. The Mirror Has Two Faces
  76. Larger than Life
  77. Extreme Measures
  78. Ghosts of Mississippi
  79. Sgt. Bilko
  80. City Hall
  81. She's the One
  82. Mother
  83. The Portrait of a Lady
  84. The Adventures of Pinocchio
  85. All Dogs Go to Heaven 2
  86. Sleepers
  87. The Preacher's Wife
  88. The Associate
  89. Diabolique
  90. Jack
  91. Eddie
  92. Mr. Wrong
  93. Heaven's Prisoners
  94. Kingpin
  95. Beavis and Butt-Head Do America
  96. Kazaam
  97. The Crucible
  98. The Fan
  99. The Pillow Book
  100. Thinner
  101. The Stupids
  102. Black Sheep
  103. Joe's Apartment
  104. Fear
  105. The Cable Guy
  106. Big Bully


Legend: Onto the next Round! ( >/= .8) In the middle. I do NOT enjoy. (< / = .2)

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