Top 25 Movies of 1995: The Year Cyberpunk Broke
Thirty years ago, most people weren’t online yet, or at least hadn’t made Internet life a part of their regular life. It was still an intriguing novelty, a mostly silent virtual gathering space for X-Files conspiracy theorists and people earnestly searching for nudity. But Hollywood logged on, and even the movies that weren’t explicitly about the Internet had online-adjacent subtext. Pandora’s modem had been activated.
The year 1995 also saw the first wave of movies chasing the breakout success of Pulp Fiction, so there were lots of indie-leaning modern gangster tales about groups of tough guys who argue about songs and chase bags of money. But also there are a bunch of weird epics and big swings by auteurs. This was the year that I really started committing to going to the movies regularly, and thus there are a ton of deeply sentimental picks here.
I do not think of these movies as old but in 1995 I would have thought movies from 1965 were old so egg on my face.
25. The Horseman on the Roof
A lush romantic drama largely driven by an unfathomably alluring performance from Juliette Binoche.
24. Batman Forever
Deeply misshapen and unable to pick an energy, I still adore this because I think Val Kilmer looks great in the suit and Jim Carrey gives one of his most unhinged performances (and that’s really saying something). It does not hurt this movie’s legacy that it has a perfect soundtrack featuring a great PJ Harvey b-side, a Method Man rap about the Riddler, the Offspring covering the Damned, and the single best U2 song there ever was.
23. The Doom Generation
I wasn’t hip enough to be engaged with Gregg Araki at the time, but this would have blown my little mind had I caught it (likely on video) back in the day. It successfully delivers on the premise, “What if Natural Born Killers but with 1/50 of the budget and actually funny?” It cannot be said enough that Rose McGowan is so good in this.
22. Waterworld
When you get past the noise about its budget and the horror stories about the set being blown away by storms, this is an inventive-as-hell sci-fi epic that has a truly immersive quality and pretty amazing performances all around.
21. Kids
We were mostly piqued by its too-real sex scenes, but there’s a broad undercurrent of authenticity that runs through this thing that still feels jarring and unknowable today. The version of Washington Square Park in Kids was still mostly the one that I lived near when I moved to New York five years later, and that has to count for something.
20. Babe
No disrespect to Emma Thompson and her work on Sense & Sensibility, but this absolutely should have won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, if only for “That’ll do, pig.”
19. The Usual Suspects
This is possibly the most-canceled movie in history, but it’s still a ripping heist yarn.
18. Kicking & Screaming
I run very hot and cold with Noah Baumbach but the dude writes about arrested development better than anybody, and this meditation on the perpetual limbo of adulthood is actually funny and genuinely smart.
17. Seven
We don’t talk enough about how damp so many of David Fincher’s movies are. This thing is soaking wet, and it only makes Morgan Freeman’s weariness hit harder.
16. Get Shorty
Maybe the only time in his whole career Gene Hackman played somebody low-status, but he’s unbelievable as a dirtbag movie producer. John Travolta was among the most effective movie stars on the planet post-Pulp Fiction, and this is his best turn during that stint.
15. To Die For
Would have made this list just for its opening credits, which are bold and memorable enough to get a shout out here. Nicole Kidman rips in this.
14. Living In Oblivion
A Ginsu-sharp send-up of indie filmmaking, which is wild to think about considering the word “indie” was still relatively new to the populace at large.
13. Johnny Mnemonic
Keanu Reeves’ freak-out about wanting a Mexican beer is one of my favorite monologues. The rest of this cyber-noir thriller is delightfully bonkers.
12. The American President
It’s wild that Michael Douglas made his bones playing a lot of horny scumbags because he feels downright electable in this deeply earnest grown-up romcom. This gets bonus points because Gene Siskel was so enamored of Annette Bening in this.
11. Shallow Grave
The script is incredible for its premise and its twists but it also really gets into the weirdness of having roommates, a deeply strange thing we regularly take for granted.
10. Empire Records
Not actually the tenth best movie of the year, but it has a great soundtrack and captures a particular brand of energy that I have only experienced in retail establishments staffed largely by teens. It’s specific, and it hits different.
9. Before Sunrise
All three entries in the trilogy are swoon-worthy, but this is the swooniest. Who wouldn’t fall in love with Ethan Hawke or Julie Delpy after a few minutes of playing pinball together?
8. Clockers
He has plenty of movies that are more important, but this is my favorite Spike Lee joint. I love the almost claustrophobic sense of intimacy (the whole thing takes place on two or three blocks in Boerum Hill), and Mekhi Phifer—in his first film!—gets to the heart of the physical and psychological exhaustion of a life lived on the streets.
7. Apollo 13
One of the greatest entries in the extensive subgenre “Tom Hanks as a guy who is incredibly good at his job.”
6. Hackers
Deeply dumb but brimming with big swings and charismatic performances and astounding fashion choices. People will tell you this is not what ‘95 looked or sounded like, and they are wrong.
5. In the Mouth of Madness
Easily the best translation of Lovecraftian horror to the big screen, featuring an inimitable wild-eyed central performance from Sam Neill.
4. 12 Monkeys
Arguably the only time all the stars aligned for Terry Gilliam, this tells a convoluted time-travel tale that genuflects to all kinds of classic cinematic imagery but also feels entirely its own. I never felt smarter than when my eighth grade French teacher asked me to explain this movie to her after she had rented it.
3. Heat
Pacino’s introduction scene is a jaw-dropper: he rolls up on the crime scene, starts barking orders, and immediately starts breaking down what went wrong and the profiles of the men he’s dealing with. It’s a perfect scene, and there are like a dozen more of those throughout Heat.
2. Clueless
An actually perfect distillation of teen energy, and a hell of a visionary adaptation of Emma to boot.
1. Strange Days
The greatest vision of the end of everything—the millennium, pop culture, drugs, sex, civilization. Its vision of Los Angeles is as dystopian as Blade Runner, but just like that movie I kind of want to live in the margins of that society even though I wouldn’t last ten minutes.