The Ten Best Films of 1993

Best Dumb Action Film

Three Way Tie:  
1993 was a year where the action movie got the royal treatment with Andrew (Under Siege) Davis directing Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. Tommy Lee Jones has been living off the fumes from his Oscar winning role as a U.S. Marshall ever since, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of brainless violence.

Cliffhanger – You wouldn’t expect it, but Stallone actually had the biggest hit of his career this past year with Spy Kids 3D. It is a mighty strange thing watching the action hero adjust to old age. Ten years ago, Stallone and Renny (Die Hard 2) Harlin teamed up to make a fast paced, blood and guts stunner about  mountain men going up against sophisticated criminals after a botched heist above snow peaked cliffs. The film sports one of the most devastating prologues of all time and lets us relish a reptilian villain as depicted by John Lithgow before he became a comedian.


Nemesis –Veteran B action director Albert Pyun gets most of the credit for this one. The better B action movies of the sci-fi genre rise above the rest by stocking the flick with a true B movie cast, providing a provocative story, and knowing how to stretch the dollar. Nemesis does all three by including Olivier Gruner, Brion (Blade Runner) James, and Tim (Trancers, Dollman) Thomerson in the proceedings and by putting an interesting spin on the old cyborg cop premise. Extra points for filming exciting action sequences without the boom mike creeping into the frame. Pyun directed a straight to video film this year starring Master P and Traci Bingham.

Striking Distance – Technically, this bizarre movie about cops on boats in Pittsburgh and a serial killer is a “suspense thriller” but back in 93’, a mere two years removed from The Last Boy Scout and Hudson Hawk, Bruce Willis movies with guns were actioners. The plot is deranged and the mood somber and spooky  as we try to get to the bottom of the mystery, all while appreciating the fine work of Sarah Jessica Parker, who had to do something to pass the time between Girls Just Want to Have Fun and Sex and the City.

Best Horror Film

The Good Son – When I say “Horror”, I may be referring to what happened to Macaulay Culkin only one year after he played troublemaking cherub Kevin McAllister in Home Alone II. Let’s see…we have a child actor who can’t act but is really cute…got it! Let’s give him a really challenging role where he plays a psychotic tyke who tries to murder members of his family. If you want to actually witness the transition of Culkin from America’s darling to some has been, this is the best way to do it. The film is scary at times, but mainly because Culkin’s strange acting “technique” is so unsettling and the mere gimmick of watching him play evil is a guilty pleasure (or was at the time). Culkin is grown up and acting again. He appeared in this year’s forgettable Party Monster as a flamboyant club kid from the 80’s. His young costar from The Good Son, Elijah Wood, also came out with a movie this year – that’s right – Gollum isn’t the only maniacal beast in Frodo’s life.    

Schindler’s List – Spielberg took everything about cinema to the next level with his meticulous, love laden Holocaust drama. For sheer brutality, unyielding realism, and magnificent acting (highlighted by Ralph Fiennes monstrous Nazi), you can’t rise above this Oscar winning masterpiece. 

Best spawn of Boyz N' the Hood

Philadelphia – Ok, so the first mainstream AIDS epic doesn’t really have much to do with the Hood, but the category is already locked in place from last year, Poetic Justice sucked, and Philadelphia had to make the list somehow…and Denzel is in it…and he’s black. I wonder if anyone has seen this movie twice just to double check it’s touted excellence. It kind of came out, made a lot of noise because of the topic and Tom Hanks’ powerhouse performance as a homosexual lawyer fired after contracting the virus, and disappeared. What is undeniable is that it broke new ground in that Hanks won an Oscar every year since and ten years later, queers are totally the rage!

Best Tom Cruise Film

The Firm – This one was an easy pick. It was Cruise’s only movie. The cast is jam packed with eclectic talents including Gary Busey, Holly Hunter, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, and even Wilford (Quaker Oats dude) Brimley. It’s important to acknowledge this movie for the simple reason of it being the first of many John Grisham movies. In 1993, everyone was talking about the lawyer turned writer and his thriller about a young attorney getting in over his head at a Memphis firm. The movie version lived up to the hype and provided an intense, unsettling look at our desire to live the good life, but at what cost?

Best Absurd Comedy

Freaked – What movie teamed up Mr. T, Bobcat Goldthwaite, and Brooke Shields? What movie stars both Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, but isn’t a Bill & Ted movie? If you guessed Freaked, then I made it too easy by having the word “Freaked” in bold black letters right in front of this paragraph, because you weren’t supposed to know that one. Alex Winter (Bill) never quite made the impact of his Wyld Stallyns counterpart, but he did prove his warped comedic talents by writing and starring in this tripped out tale of a diabolical freak show ringmaster (Randy Quaid) who mutates those unfortunate enough to cross his path. Awards like Best Absurd Comedy were created for movies like this one.

Best Independent

Naked – Mike (Secrets & Lies) Leigh made perhaps his greatest contribution to cinema ten years ago with this dark, depressing, unflinching film about a man (David Thewlis, who never quite made it, although he starred in this years Timeline and was added to the Harry Potter cast for the next segment) traipsing about the streets of London while trying to avoid being beaten by the family members of a girl he has raped. If that isn’t grave enough, wait until you see the misery he encounters along the way. Uplifting material this is not, but as daring filmmaking exposing the raw nerve endings of our little planet; it is worth a look if you have the stomach.

Best Date Movie

Sleepless in Seattle – This one I’ve actually seen and not on a date. I believe Camp Raleigh took the staff to Jamesway one rainy night and served up this dandy. Did I cry? I don’t remember. Did I try to sit next to the hottest girl who would be willing to sit next to me? I would bet on it. Otherwise, women love this movie because it’s romantic and it is the ultimate Siyata Dishmaya love story. When two people are made for each other like Tom and Meg, the climactic meeting is destiny. Nora (Silk Wood, When Harry Met Sally) Ephron, a talented director who later directed the pair again in the universal punchline You’ve Got Mail, obviously struck a cord with daters everywhere because Sleepless was one of the biggest hits of the year.

Best Underrated Drama

Short Cuts– Robert (The Company – in theatres now) Altman’s symphony of life comes together with his usual large and diverse casts including Jack Lemmon, Julian Moore, and Robert Downey Jr. The film is not underrated by critics in the sense that it is widely praised as one of Altman’s best, but it never quite made the connection with audiences as his other films like The Player, Nashville, or M*A*S*H. The film covers such a vast array of characters and situations that it is impossible to do the multiple stories justice in a short paragraph. Needless to say this film is so under the radar that even I have never seen it…and that tells you a lot about how much I respect this movie.

Best Film

Jurassic Park – Sure I could have gone artsy with The Piano or Jewish with Schindler’s List, but I have to give Spielberg’s rousing dinosaur adventure the nod here because not only did he make one of the most satisfyingly frightening sagas of our time, but he managed to do it with a broken heart while working simultaneously on a personal project about his people’s history during World War II. Jurassic Park, based on the Michael Crichton novel, succeeds on so many levels that it is nearly unflawed. The suspense and violence are mixed with a perfect blend of camp and viciousness, the risky lead casting of virtual nobodies Sam Neil and Laura Dern was a brilliant gamble, and the thoughtfulness behind the themes of man versus G-d as creator come together marvelously in the ultimate thrill ride with a brain. The film also stands out and set the standard at the time for what has subsequently become par for the course in movies, computer generated effects. Spielberg’s ultra-real dinos were the best ever to hit the screen and filmmakers have been clamoring to repeat the trick ever since. The third installment of the downhill series came out in 2001 and was not directed by Spielberg.

Worst Film of the Year 

Sliver  – It took Hollywood almost a full ten years to realize that Sharon Stone was one of the biggest stars in the business simply because she bared all in Basic Instinct.  A year after Instinct, Sharon who could not have been hotter in every sense of the word, was transplanted into Phillip (The Quite American) Noyce’s awkward voyeurism thriller where she matched up against the acting talents of her male thespian rival, Billy Baldwin. Of course she was naked again and simulating sex again, but this time there was no reason to care. We had seen it all before and the plot was a convoluted mess capped off by a cop out finale. Sharon has slowly crept (or was forced) out of the limelight for making a string of unwatchable movies and for refusing to do any more nude scenes. When Stone said in 1995 before filming Casino that she wanted to be seen as a “serious actress” and would no longer play the willing and able vixen, one could smell the smoke throughout California. Her next “serious” role is alongside Halle Berry in 2004’s Catwoman.