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Also,Robocop.

Emvan, how was there a fallow period between 1985 and 1996, considering you listed several great movies from the early 1990s? (I agree with many of the movies you listed from that time period and would also add "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Unforgiven.")
I'd say the fallow period began right when the New Hollywood era (1967-1980) ended. In particular, I'd say "Raging Bull" was the last great movie of that era. This fallow period lasted for the entire decade of the 1980s and didn't end until 1990 with "Goodfellas." The 1990s saw a return to great film-making, almost on par with the New Hollywood era.
Look at the Oscars Best Picture nominees from the 1980s. Then compare those to the Best Pic nominees from the 1990s. Pretty much every single Best Pic nominee from the 1990s was still a very good, if not great, movie. By contrast, with maybe the exception of 1982, the Best Pic nominees in the 1980s included only one or maybe two really good movies any given year. In the 1980s, movies like "The Big Chill" were being nominated, and movies like "Out of Africa," "Terms of Endearment" and "Driving Miss Daisy" were winning.
The most memorable movies from the 1980s were, for the most part, in one of two categories: (1) great, fun adventure/fantasy/sci-fi movies ("Aliens," "The Terminator," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "E.T."), or (2) overly-sentimental schlock that received more awards or nominations than it should have ("Out of Africa," "Chariots of Fire," "Terms of Endearment," "The Big Chill," "Driving Miss Daisy," "Rain Man").
It's perhaps too soon to judge the last decade (2000-2009), but it seems much better than the 1980s and almost as good as the 1990s.

I don't see the 90's as a particularly great decade for film. In fact, I think there was somewhat of a fallow period for great films between 1985 and 1996.
You've got Pulp Fiction, Schindler's List, Goodfellas, Groundhog Day, Ran, Blue Velvet, Do the Right Thing, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Wings of Desire, A Fish Called Wanda, Broadcast News, Aliens, Brazil, Star Tek IV, and a few I think are hugely underrated: That Thing You Do, Six Degrees of Separation, Man Facing Southeast, The Stepfather.
Compare those 12 years to the last 12 (mixing the acknowledged greats with lesser-known movies I'm sure are brilliant):
The Lord of the Rings, Donnie Darko, Memento, A Separation, Winter's Bone, The Fall, Inception, The Prestige, Hugo, In the Mood For Love, Lars and the Real Girl, Primer, Once, Spirited Away, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Avatar, Greenberg, Milk, Sideways, School of Rock, Punch-Drunk Love, Amelie, Talk to Her, Secretary, Spring Summer Fall Winter and Spring, Half Nelson, No Country for Old Men, Minority Report, Spiderman 2, Almost Famous, In Bruges, The Lives of Others, Let the Right One In, Moulin Rouge!, Whale Rider, Before Sunset, Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Michael Clayton, Kill Bill, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Squid and the Whale, The Social Network, High Fidelity, Inside Job, The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, Pan's Labyrinth, 127 Hours, Hotel Rwanda, Monster, The Tree of Life.
Granted, I'm much more aware of obscure movies from this millennium than the last, and the first list will probably expand some once I track some down. But I think that we are in absolute Golden Age of cinema that started, in fact, in 1997 with L.A. Confidential, Gattaca, In the Company of Men, Face/Off, and Chasing Amy and saw that decade finish with Dark City, Henry Fool, the original Insomnia, and then a spectacular 1999 with The Sixth Sense, Run Lola Run, Magnolia, Fight Club, Boys Don't Cry, and Open Your Eyes.
I just think that movies have gotten a lot
smarter
in the last fifteen years. Notice how many of the movies I've listed really require multiple viewings to fully appreciate. I think it's a generational thing: we now have a bunch of directors who've never known anything but VHS and DVD availability and are willing to challenge audiences with films that need to be seen more than once.
Prepare your minds for a new scale of physical, scientific values, gentlemen.

Dances with Wolves, Forrest Gump, Titanic, and Braveheart were all good movies. Yesthey beat superior films (from a quality standpoint at least), but most of the 90s films are better than the 80s and the 2000s.

Agree wholeheartedly.In fact the 90's had some of the worst robberies in Oscar history,i.e DANCES WITH WOLVES over GOODFELLAS, FORREST GUMP over PULP FICTION, TITANIC over L.A CONFIDENTIAL, BRAVEHEART over ALL THE OTHER NOMINEES,THE ENGLISH PATIENT over FARGO,SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE over SAVING PRIVATE RYAN!!!!!!!!
"THE THINGS THAT U OWN,END UP OWNING U".

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The following is a quote lifted from a review on blu-ray.com that summarises my own thoughts about L.A. Confidential better than I ever could.
While teenage girls began to weep when Titanic's Jack Dawson slid beneath the icy waves, I began to weep when it was declared Best Picture at the 70th Academy Awards, handily leaving four more satisfying films As Good As It Gets, The Full Monty, Good Will Hunting and, of course, director Curtis Hanson's pulpy tale of cops, corruption, and celebrity, L.A. Confidential gasping for air in its wake. Now I don't claim to understand what goes through an Academy voter's head when making their final selection, and I don't like to definitively declare one Oscar-nominated film's value over another, but, in this case, I have to cry foul. Everything about Hanson's golden era Hollywood epic, from its searing screenplay to its pitch-perfect performances to its sweltering cinematography, makes Titanic look superficial and inadequate. As a sprawling ensemble piece, it's a masterwork; as a tri-pronged character study, it's a stunning achievement; as a period film, it's a mesmerizing glimpse into the dark depths of a seemingly idyllic decade. Make no mistake, L.A. Confidential is one of the finest films of all time.
Again, this is NOT my review (and is copied here without permission), but it sums up my feelings better than I can.
Never defend crap with "It's just a movie"
http://www.youtube.com/user/BigGreenProds

"L.A. Confidential" may have lost the Oscar and Golden Globe Best Picture awards to "Titanic," but it is one of the few movies in history to be named best picture by the "big four" film critics' groups in the U.S. Also, "L.A. Confidential" received a Palme d'Or nomination at the Cannes film festival, which may be the most prestigious and elite film festival in the world. Needless to say, "Titanic" didn't.
Historically, "L.A. Confidential" is a very important modern movie for many reasons, whereas "Titanic" is important probably only because of its record-breaking box office gross and ground-breaking special effects. This is why a couple film classes I took as an undergrad watched, studied, and wrote about "L.A. Confidential," while "Titanic" was relegated to the status of a footnote.

LAC is a much better film, the only thing i dislike about it is that it's a little cheesy in places.
Titanic has some great visuals, and i did enjoy the "disaster-documentary" aspect of the film. The love affair is just unconvincing and contrived though IMO, and as that dominates the film, it kinda takes it down a peg or two.

LA CONFIDENTIAL should have won but Titanic is not undeserving
RETURN OF THE KING deserving winner in my honest opinion, 11 oscars is stretching it but it is not a travesty
Crash deserved it more than Brokeback Mountain but Capote was perhaps the best movie of the lot

to me, Good Will Hunting is the winner wiith this closely behind it
"Are You Watching Closely?"

So just because it was an event movie it deserved to win? Nice job.

That example has no bearing on a film's quality. Michael Bay's Armageddon was an epic event as well - it made over $200 million and is constantly played on TV and viewed online. That does not mean it's better than Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho which I constantly see on sale for $5 or less on the bargain shelves.
I would have awarded Cameron for best director for that year because he did deserve some recognition - he changed the way modern CGI is used in film (for better or worse) - but when you stack up the writing, directing, production design, and acting of LAC against Titanic, there is no doubt in my mind that Titanic's one note romance story is nothing compared to the multi-layered, nuanced narrative that LAC provides.

The IMDB top 250 means nothing as far as TITANIC is concerned. There are many great films that are not on the list and many films on that list that shouldn't be there. I see TITANIC is back in the theatres and still drawing an audience and LA CONFIDENTAL is in the bargin racks at Best Buy. I'm just saying it was an epic event film that deserved to rewarded. And I don't sppreciate being called an I****.

return of the king wasn't beaten by mystic river, it beat mystic river. and gangs was beat by chicago.

"The Oscars have given up the right to be considered best picture because there are so many best pictures that are meant to send messages. I loved the Departed, but the only reason it won was as a lifetime achievement award to Martin Scorsese. Million Dollar Baby won as a way to make it up to Clint Eastwood for passing over Mystic River, and that is from the mouths of several voters."
That is about the dumbest thing I've ever read and I'll tell you why. Clint Eastwood won best picture and Best director for Unforgiven. So to me it doesn't matter that he didn't win for Mystic River and he shouldn't have won for Million Dollar Baby. But that's just my opinion. I mean how many Oscars does a person need!?
"You want me to roll 6,000 of these!? What? Should I quit my job!?" George Costanza, Seinfeld

unrelated: Appreciate the use of the phrase "Streets Ahead."
heres my youtube check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/user/hayward1991/videos?view=0

I loved both titanic and LAC, but Return of the King (for me) was so incredibly boring, I left the theater about 2/3 through, went to a restaurant and ate, then came back and watched the end.
I probably would have liked it better forty years ago when I was in my twenties.
Coffee's for closers.

• the guy from Mitch and Murray (Alec Baldwin)

If you want to get into editing comments, how about some punctuation? And it depends on who's doing the remembering. If it's by people with the emotional depth of a puddle, as seemingly you are, I guess it is LOTR. But, by people who actually want more than dated CGI from their movies, Mystic River stands the test of time better. You can have Peter Jackson. And for that matter, take Michael Bay, Stephen Sommers, and McG, too.
And that goes for Titanic, too. Though, I enjoy Cameron's work by and large, he has no business winning anything other than technical awards. LA Confidential is the superior work, and good points brought up about Good Will Hunting and As Good as it Gets. I forgot about them being from that year, and they both are more meaningful movies than Titanic. Wow. Here's a hint, if a movie doesn't win best actor or actress, or a writing award, then it probably isn't the best picture.

"he was not a great writing."
Hmm i feel like you have no place to say Tolkien wasnt a great writer* haha. But seriously Return of the King is more than a movie. Its one of the greatest fantasies of all time. Whats gonna be remembered more in 10 years?
Dear Warden, You were right. Salvation lies within.

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This comment is the real joke. If scope was all it took then Waterworld would be an Oscar magnet. Mystic River had phenomenal acting and a tight plot that didn't take 45 minutes to end and, unlike LOTR, didn't have dialogue that would make Michael Bay embarrassed for the writer. It's not like it was a straight adaptation. Peter Jackson curiously added and subtracted from the books. The stuff he cut was better than all of his additions.
And while we're on the subject, with all due respect to JRR Tolkein for what he did for fantasy, he was not a great writer. George RR Martin beep better writing, though it does take forever for him to do it.
Stupid ass quote

How did return of the king lack writing? The script was drafted from one of the greatest writers of all time! And on scope and scale Mystic Rivers a beep joke compared to ROTK.
Dear Warden, You were right. Salvation lies within.