Recently I have decided to undertake a large project. I will be reviewing the top 10 movies of every year since I was born, starting in 1991, all the way up to current day. This means I have to watch A LOT of movies. In order to get enough movies to make these lists possible I will be taking movies that I remember from growing up, movies that I’ve heard of but never watched cause I was too young at the time they came out, and lists of highest grossing movies of those years or have won awards. With that being said, there’s no way I can watch all the movies from each year so there will most likely be some movies that deserve to be on this list, but are not since I haven’t watched them. Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get on with the first list, the top ten movies of 1991.
#10 Hot Shots
Hot shots is one of those movies that are so stupid that you can’t help but enjoy how ridiculous it is. This movie is loosely a parody of the movie Top Gun, following a group of fighter pilots and their wacky adventures. I honestly love these kinds of movies. To get a grasp on the humor involved, there’s a scene where a pilot with the nickname “Dead Meat” is heading out on a practice run and his fiancee comes up to him on the field and tells him his life insurance papers have just come and he needs to sign them but he tells her that he will when he gets back. On top of that he states that he just discovered how to end global warming and that he also figured out the conspiracy behind the JFK shooting, but once again he will wait til he’s back to divulge. All while this conversation is happening he’s walking under ladders, a black cat runs in front of him, and he breaks a mirror. Sure enough during his practice run his plane crashes but he survives. Only to be run over by the ambulance that comes to get him. It’s random humor like this that determine whether or not you will enjoy this movie. Luckily for me, I enjoy it greatly.
#9 What About Bob?
I have to admit, I’m honestly not a big fan of Bill Murray. Sure I like him in Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day, but that’s about it. This movie wasn’t enough to change my mind about that, but there is plenty of humor to be found, mainly in how Richard Dreyfuss’s character reacts to Bill Murray’s character. To be honest, I would have been infuriated too with Bob, whom he has to deal with. The story follows Dr. Leo Marvin who has just started seeing a patient named Bob who has about every phobia you can imagine. Unfortunately for Bob, Dr. Marvin is going on vacation right after his first appointment and won’t be able to see him again for two months. So he does the logical thing and tracks him down to his vacation spot and follows him and his family around everywhere. While sometimes infuriating the movie is generally quite funny, except I can’t bring myself to like the ending that seemingly comes out of nowhere. But, pickings for this year were kind of slim so What About Bob still makes the list at #9.
#8 Toy Soldiers
Toy Soldiers ended up being exactly the movie I was expecting it to be when I watched it. A somewhat corny action movie, where a group of troubled boarding school students rise up against the terrorists who have taken over their school. Was it fantastic writing with gripping dialogue and nonstop action? No. But I wasn’t expecting any of that, so I didn’t end up hating this movie. It’s fun for what it is, and I liked seeing Sean Astin from The Goonies take on a group of terrorists. Nothing particularly stands out about the movie, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to watch.
#7 Frankie and Johnny
This is one of those movies where if it had come out nowadays, would be a complete trainwreck. But since this was early 90s and our culture isn’t what it was back then, I can let it slide. The main character played by Al Pacino is a creep, and a stalker. There’s no getting around that. He is a chef that was recently released from prison for forging a signature on a check and finds work in a diner where he meets a waitress. He instantly is attracted to her, and their names coincide with a popular love song, therefore in his mind they are destined to be together. She doesn’t want anything to do with it at first but he is persistent so eventually she agrees to go on a date with him. After the date he spends the night with her and he is even more in love, but she is not. He continues to stalk her everywhere she goes and professes his love for her multiple times. Eventually she opens up to him and she does fall in love with him. I personally did not buy the story at all, but at the same time, the dialogue in this romantic comedy is genuinely funny and had me laughing out loud at parts. And the reason this movie makes it on the list is that Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer are extremely good actors. Plus like I said, our mindset on romance was completely different during that time so while it wouldn’t necessarily work now, it did back then.
#6 Silence of the Lambs
This is one of those movies that I’ve always been told is a must watch and is absolutely fantastic, but have never watched until making this list. Is it everything that it was hyped up to be? Sort of, but like anything that gets hyped up, it fell flat for me. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a good story and the acting was great, but I admit I was expecting a bit more. Anthony Hopkins is chilling as Hannibal Lecter, but I’m slightly still used to Mads Mikkelsen’s version of the character from watching and loving the show Hannibal. However, Hannibal’s escape scene is sheer brilliance and I loved the execution behind that scene. Overall, this movie is still worth watching as long as you’re OK with dark storytelling and sometimes disturbing violence.
#5 Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
I’m no history buff, but I’m fairly certain Robin Hood was never a prince trying to regain his kingdom from the man who killed his father and took over while he was busy fighting in the crusades. But no matter, it had Alan Rickman and Morgan Freeman in it, so that’s worth watching just for them. Even though all I could hear whenever the Sheriff talked was Severus Snape’s voice. And I really liked the contrast Morgan Freeman’s character offered in the movie. He plays an Islamic man who owes a life debt to Robin Hood and for that, nobody quite trusts him except for Robin himself. There’s one scene that got to me in particular when Little John is saying he doesn’t like Morgan Freeman’s character because he’s “a savage” to which Robin Hood responds by saying “yes, he is a savage, but no more so than you or me”. The movie is quite long though and I feel as though it could have been shortened a bit by cutting out some unnecessary stuff, but in the end, it’s still an enjoyable movie.
#4 Beauty and the Beast
Now we get to the section of the list where I found it difficult to sort what was going to go where. I feel like #4 – #1 are mostly interchangeable in terms of how much I enjoyed them but, some have different strengths than others so this is my decision on their order. Coming in at #4 we have Beauty and the Beast. If you’ve never seen the movie, I have to wonder if you ever had a childhood. I remember watching this movie at an extremely young age, and still to this day I enjoy this movie just as much as I did back then, if not more now that I’m older and can understand facets of the story I didn’t’ before. The early 90s were pretty much the golden age of Disney movies in my opinion. In fact, I doubt that we will ever achieve kids movies as good as we had them in these years. Beauty and the Beast stands the test of time, and if you haven’t seen this movie, seriously, what is wrong with you?
#3 City Slickers
This one honestly was a huge surprise for me. I wasn’t particularly excited to watch it, and wasn’t expecting a whole lot out of it. Turns out, it’s full of a lot of heart, and a quite touching story. There were several moments where I actually teared up and that was the last thing I thought would happen. It’s the story about a guy going through his mid life crisis and wondering why he doesn’t enjoy life anymore. So his wife convinces him to go on a two week vacation with his best friends cattle ranching. Sound like a boring movie? I thought it would be too. Until I watched it that is. Seriously, I don’t want to spoil the surprise of what makes this movie so good. All I can say is that you will love the old cowboy mentor, and by the end you will want a baby cow for a pet.Also, Marv from Home Alone is in this movie, which is all kinds of great. Now go watch the movie. After reading the rest of this list.
#2 Terminator 2 Judgement Day
Terminator 2 is one of those rarities where a sequel is not only phenomenal, but also superior to the original film. Re watching it again this year, it still looks good despite it’s age. The special effects are fantastic, and I really wish directors would go back to using practical effects because if this movie proves anything, it’s that great practical effects can still look impressive 20 years later. Thankfully Mad Max and Force Awakens seem to indicate that we are slowly heading back to directors realizing this. Terminator 2 is also great in that you don’t necessarily had to have watched the original to understand the sequel. Everything you need to know is summed up at the beginning of the movie: in the future there’s a war between man and robots, the robots send something called a terminator back in time to kill the mother of the greatest human general that can defeat them, but the humans send a protector back as well. They kill the terminator and everything is fine. Or so they think. Turns out the robots try time travel a second time, and this time they send the newest model to kill not the mother, but the actual guy this time when he’s a kid. The biggest change in dynamic is that now, the same model of terminator that was sent back in the first movie is sent back as the protector this time. From there you have big action sequences, and typical cheesy one liners. This movie is timeless, and the chemistry between the terminator and young John Conner was perfect. Too bad this is really the only good terminator movie.
#1 Hook
What else was it going to be? It’s Robin Williams in one of his best roles. Not the best Robin Williams movie, but damn close. This movie was a big part of my childhood and still brings out fond memories every time I think about it. It was such an odd twist on the Peter Pan story. Peter Pan having lived in the real world for so long has grown up and forgotten all about his time in Neverland. He comes back in order to get his children who have been kidnapped by Captain Hook and along the way he has to learn how to become Peter Pan again. On paper this sounds like such an awful movie, but somehow it worked and it was a fantastic film. Maybe it’s my nostalgia that’s making me give this movie #1 but I can’t deny that out of everything else that came out during 1991, this is my all time favorite.
Well, that’s my list for 1991! Do you agree with my choices? Have anything from that year that should have been included that I might not have watched? Feel free to let me know.
The Reviewzone Blog 
Only Yesterday
LikeLike