Important Movies

Ian's list sounds good.

Next year:1997

The only movie from 1997 in the National Film Registry is Study of a River. Anyway...

Titanic
L.A. Confidential
Boogie Nights
Austin Powers
Men in Black

Good Will Hunting
LA Confidential
Titanic
Contact
Batman & Robin (#NeverForget)

1. Titanic: I think the pop-culture of impact of Titanic goes without saying. Beyond that, the film is a masterful example of great special effects and the film continues to find an audience with today's youth.

2. Boogie Nights: Though he'd made Hard Eight already, this is the true arrival of Paul Thomas Anderson and he made a big impression. It also features a huge cast of great performances of all ages, including Mark Wahlberg proving he had genuine ability as an actor and Burt Reynolds in his most dignified role. This is also Anderson's most accessible work and an entry point for a lot of people.

3. Princess Mononoke: One of the landmark titles in Japanese animation. Even people who don't like anime usually admit that Princess Mononoke is pretty good. It's an epic fantasy story told for adults that was a huge hit in Japan. While it's box-office success didn't translate in North America, the film formed a legacy on home video and is now widely loved.

4. Good Will Hunting: Gus Van Sant's biggest commercial hit, the arrival of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, and the pinnacle of Robin Williams' dramatic roles. The film is also permeated pop-culture in its own settle way and remains and it still resonates.

5. L.A. Confidential: Titanic may have won the Oscar, but the most critically respected film from 1997 is almost certainly L.A. Confidential. It was hailed as a great work back in it's day and is still considered a masterpiece by many who see it. The film turned Curtis Hanson from a nobody to a legitimate filmmaker over night and while he isn't really fulfilled that promise, this film still holds up.

Honourable Mentions

Jackie Brown: Personally, I love this movie and think it's one of Tarantino's best, but there's no doing that of all of his 90s films, this one made the least impact and even today isn't as well-regarded as Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction. The more mature and restrained style is also not very representative of where his career would go.

Contact: An intellectual and grounded science-fiction film, but it's still building its audience. I'm not ready to list it among the most important quite yet.

Gattaca: This movie definitely has its fans, but personally I don't think it's very good. It has some interesting ideas, but as a film, it seems kind of sub-par.

Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery: It launched a very successful movie franchise, created some iconic characters, and is a film that I personally think is hilarious. But I just can't list it among the more artistic and legitimate movies I selected.

The Game:A very well-crafted thriller with a great performance from Michael Douglas, but ultimately this is minor David Fincher.

1. Titanic: Hate it or love it, it was undeniably a sensation and it's in many ways the last major Hollywood epic to not be completely dominated by CGI.

2. Princess Mononoke: One of the movies that helped anime get greater respect when it finally came out in the west.

3. Funny Games: I sort of disagree with this movie philisophically, but there's no denying that it provoked a lot of discussion and helped inspire future deconstructionist cinema.

4. L.A. Confidential: An excellently stylized prestige noir that has many immitators, also made Russell Crowe a star. 

5. Taste of Cherry: The movie that won Abbas Kiarostami his Palm d'Or and brought Iranian cinema to a wider audience




Honorable Mentions

Boogie Nights: I love this movie to death but I have trouble trying to find a reason it's "important."  Many of its choices are openly derivitive of Scorsese's work and it mostly just executes really well on existing templates.

Jackie Brown: Kind of in the same boat as Boogie nights.  I love it, but the basic template of the post-Get Shorty Elmore Leonard adaptation had already been set and Tarentino just wasn't looking to make the same kind of splash with this one.

The Ice Storm: The movie that made Ang Lee's style finally click, also kind of did what Mad Men is doing a decade sooner.

Contact: Cool movie, but nah

Starship Troopers: It's become something of a touchstone in discussions of a certain kind of action movie

Good Will Hunting: I guess it launched the careers of two prominant actors and made South Boston a oft used location, but it was a step backwards for Gus Van Sant in many ways and didn't take the necessary risks to be considered "important."

Just a few that haven't been mentioned:

Lost Highway
Chasing Amy (I know there's a lot of Kevin Smith hate, but this is often considered his best film)

I'm one of the biggest Kevin Smith defenders around, but there's only one Kevin Smith movie that I would even entertain the idea of being in a top five most important films of any year, and it ain't Chasing Amy.

I agree that movies like Chasing Amy should be judged by the standards of their time, however, I don't think that movie was really all that groundbreaking by the standards of that time either.  The New Queer Cinema was already in full swing by 1997 and we'd already seen far more important depictions of homosexuals coming from directors like Gus Van Sant and Todd Haynes and on a more mainstream level we'd already seen things like In and Out and The Birdcage.  Chasing Amy had its place in that whole equation, but it was no landmark.

Lost Highway is another great one.

One of the best opening credits sequences: