1994 was a seminal year in the history of cinema: firstly, because of the consistent quality of films produced and, secondly, because of how long-lasting the names and titles have been across a bevy of genres. Indeed, 1994 saw the launch of superstar comedian Jim Carey, who had three massive hits, Ace Ventura, Dumb & Dumber, and, The Mask, all of which are still watched today. It gave us Quentin Tarantino, who launched into immediate auteur status with the release of Pulp Fiction. Also, thanks to the rise of independent cinema during this filmmaking renaissance, were films like that possible. There’s also the Gen-X time capsule Reality Bites and Clerks. Hollywood produced classics in the action canon like Léon: The Professional, Speed, True Lies, and The Crow.
What 1994 promised, was Hollywood creating cinema for everyone. A year when there wasn’t a boring film in the theater. You could watch a groundbreaking documentary,Hoop Dreams, or wait to see the quirky biopic from Tim Burton about Ed Wood. 1994 showed the promise of artistic integrity, high art, and popcorn fun, all colliding together. That’s what made the year one to remember.
Updated, September 2022: To keep the article fresh and relevant by adding more information and entries, this article has been updated by Kassie King.
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12 Four Weddings and a Funeral
Rank Film Distributors
Mike Newell’s romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral was made in six-weeks with a small budget and became a surprising hit as the highest-grossing British film ever, at the time of its release. It stars Hugh Grant in the lead role as a perpetually single man named Charles, and follows him and a group of his friends as they find love, lose it, and find it again across several weddings — and one funeral. The success of Four Weddings and Funeral catapulted Hugh Grant into international fame and he became the go-to actor to play romantic leads for many years. This was the first project from screenwriter Richard Curtis that starred Grant, though not the last; others include Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Love Actually.
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Four Weddings and Funeral was highly praised by both critics and audiences alike. The film won a slew of awards, including four Golden Globes and a BAFTA, and was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Additionally, it placed 23rd on the British Film Institute’s list of Top 100 British Films of the 20th Century and has been included in a plethora of other ‘best of’ lists by other publications.
11 Speed
20th Century Fox
Speed is an iconic action thriller and the directorial debut from Jan de Bont. Keanu Reeves stars as LAPD SWAT Officer Jack Traven, who becomes embroiled in a cat-and-mouse game with a criminal, played by Dennis Hopper, and must do everything in his power to prevent a public transit bus full of people from exploding. The formidable Sandra Bullock plays the passenger-turned-driver Annie Porter, who must keep the bus running at all costs, while Jack negotiates with the bomber and tries to disarm the explosive. What follows is a high-intensity race against the clock (and through LA) that leaves audiences on the edge of their seats no matter how many times they’ve seen the film.
Speed was released to rave reviews from critics who deemed it an absolute success in terms of plot, pacing, and the actors performances. Critic Roger Ebert gave the film a full four out of four stars, a high achievement, calling it a “bruised forearm movie” because it’s so exciting that viewers are constantly grabbing on to the person next to them. Speed earned over 35 award nominations, winning 18, including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA, and several others related to its sound editing.
10 Natural Born Killers
Warner Bros.
The early ’90s belonged to Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone. Stone previously set the early part of the decade ablaze with his box-office smash hit, an Oscar-winning epic on the JFK conspiracy. Tarantino immediately became a brand name with Reservoir Dogs. So, it would seem like the perfect alchemical combination when one of Quentin’s scripts landed in Stone’s lap, and of course, it was! A psychedelic nightmare that satires the media quench for ratings over substance, Natural Born Killers gave us the serial killer couple of Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis as they shoot their way to American fame.
The film became an iconic movie of the 90s with its unstable, over-the-top violence, boiling point performances, and spot-on critiques of the media’s coverage of killers. Tarantino has been extremely vocal about his dislike of the Natural Born Killers, which greatly detours from his original script. However, both audiences and critics seem to disagree, as it was featured on several “best of” lists and debuted at number one at the US box office upon its release.
9 Dumb & Dumber
Jim Carey had an undoubtedly successful year in 1994 with several smash hits. After spending a few years making his manic energy known to households around America in the Wayans sketch comedy show In Living Color, Carey arrived on the scene in three massive films, including Dumb and Dumber. A hilarious buddy comedy, Carey is joined by Jeff Daniels as their characters embark on a road trip hoping to return a briefcase full of money that was left as a ransom.
From driving a truck built like a dog to “Our pets heads are falling off!”, Jim’s goofball zaniness found its perfect vessel with Dumb and Dumber. In 2000, Total Film magazine named the project the fifth greatest comedy film of all time. It also spawned two follow-ups, a prequel called Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd in 2003, and a sequel, Dumb and Dumber To, released in 2011.
8 Clerks
Miramax Films
If there’s one independent filmmaking success story to tell from the ’90s, Kevin Smith should be near the top of that list. With no backing from a major studio — Smith maxed out several of his credit cards to finance his script and shot the film in black-and-white, with no one other than his friends — Clerks somehow found its audience. A cult-hit with a non-story that moves from one slacker conversation to the next fueled by pot smoke and cigarettes, the film laid the blueprint for conversational comedy in independent cinema. Also birthing two iconic characters in Jay and Silent Bob, Kevin Smith built his cinematic universe before Marvel ever did.
The success of Clerks spawned several more iterations of the film, including a short-lived animated series, a series of comics penned by Smith, and a biographical dramedy about the making of the film called Shooting Clerks. A sequel to the original film, Clerks II, was released in 2006, and a third in the series, Clerks III, is in production and will be released in September 2022.
7 Léon: The Professional
Gaumont Buena Vista International
Jean Reno became the ultimate anti-hero in Luc Besson’s violent but strangely affectionate Manhattan odyssey Léon: The Professional. With an incredibly mature debut from Natalie Portman as a young girl named Mathilda who gets rescued from the gun-for-hire, Léon, following the massacre of her family by a gang of dirty, drug-dealing cops. The film became canonical because of the beautiful dynamic between Reno and Portman as they lean on each other for moral support as their recluse, contained world around them begins to crumble at the hands of vengeful police officers.
Considered a slick urban thriller, Léon was praised by most critics for its incredible dramatic directing, its visual prowess, and its formidable acting performances. Director Besson wrote a script for a sequel called Mathilda, which he intended a grown-up Portman to star in. However, the rights to the film remained with Gaumont Film Company following Besson’s departure, effectively eliminating any chance of the film’s creation. He has said, however, that the script heavily influenced his 2011 film Colombiana.
6 The Lion King
Part of the creative renaissance happening at Disney in the ’90s, where they seemed to be at the height of their hand-drawn, animated powers, The Lion King became an instant hit released to universal adoration. With the classic Shakespearean story of revenge and power vying for the throne, the plight and evolution of Simba appealed to everyone. With a soundtrack full of hits, including the carefree anthem “Hakuna Matata”, The Lion King is full of moments that helped it grow in popularity as years went on.
The Lion King was a collaboration between directors Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff and was each of their first feature debuts. The original film won two Oscars, as well as 30 other awards, and many more nominations. It has also been inducted into the National Film Registry and has become a staple of American culture.
5 Forrest Gump
“Life is like a box of chocolates.” Did the year 1994 have any line reading that became an instant quotable like this? Forrest Gump was an instant classic because of the humble innocence of its main character, played with a charismatic earnestness that only Tom Hanks could bring. Taking us through the ires of American history during a cultural revolution with an open heart and good nature made people fall in love with the movie. With some groundbreaking VFX splicing at the time, Gump became the most decorated film at a stacked Oscars after topping the box office.
Directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring a supporting cast that included Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, and Sally Field, it’s no surprise that the film earned so many accolades. It won six Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Visual Effects, and Best Film Editing. Truly one of a kind, Forrest Gump broke genre barriers to become the kind of iconic movie that viewers will be talking about for generations to come.
4 Chungking Express
The film that put director Wong Kar-Wai on the international map and would launch him to household name status to arthouse and movie lovers everywhere, Chungking Express, is a romantic elegy to the fleeting nature of love. Creating a world where rituals felt monumental and everyday items became the price of heartbreak, Kar-Wai crafted a love story between two depressed cops in Hong Kong who fall in love with two beautifully mysterious women. It’s a story that continues to reinvigorate people’s love for film as years go on because of Kar-Wai’s storytelling craft and the gorgeous, ethereal cinematography from the renowned Christopher Doyle.
Told as two sequential stories, the script wasn’t even completed when the project began filming and Kar-Wai reportedly wrote the second story in a single day while production was on break. Another film of his, Fallen Angels, was originally penned to be a third act of Chungking Express, but was ultimately cut due to length. Critics praised the film for its depth, relatability, and mastery of feeling, and it won several well-deserved awards.
3 Hoop Dreams
A definitive piece of documentary storytelling, Steve James has made a career of documenting his hometown of Chicago and all of its sociopolitical problems with a clear-eyed vision full of humanity. Hoop Dreams resonates because we spend four years with two tremendous kids who have only one thing in mind, basketball. But, the film doesn’t only tell the story of uninhibited ambition; it shows the corrupt cycle of basketball recruiting, how the system fails people of color who are on the brink of poverty, and how broken dreams cross generations in families. It’s riveting work, a cross-cutting procedural, with the adrenaline rushes of great basketball games, and will almost definitely bring a tear to your eye.
Despite its length (coming in at 171 minutes) and genre, Hoop Dreams was both a critical and commercial success. It grossed over $11M at the box office against a $700k budget and has been celebrated as one of the most important documentaries of our time. In 2005, the film was added to National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for its cultural significance.
2 Pulp Fiction
Tarantino became his brand of American filmmaking because of Pulp Fiction. A cultural phenomenon and still a rite of passage for anyone who fancies themselves a film lover, Pulp Fiction combines aesthetic, script, dialogue, and character to create an iconic ride through 90s California. Between Jules Winfield’s “Ezekiel” speech, the adrenaline revival scene, and Travolta’s dance moves, Pulp presented a world of filmmaking that many have tried to replicate in the wake of its success. However, no one can distill what is cool about cinema quite the way Tarantino did with this film.
Considered a black comedy crime film, Pulp Fiction combines humor and violence in a way that is appealing to mainstream viewers, yet its craftsmanship also makes it worthy of critical and academic analysis. No wonder it is often considered one of the greatest films of all time.
1 The Shawshank Redemption
The Shawshank Redemption is one of the great American films ever made and one of the finest adaptations of a Steven King novel, next to The Shining. The film stands as a seminal piece of American cinema because of its transcendent storytelling in the confines of prison and how it manifests hope in a seemingly hopeless place. With Morgan Freeman’s god-like narration as “Red” driving the story, The Shawshank Redemption creates beautiful moments of understanding and empathy amongst prisoners facing the worst of times. The film creates iconic moments like the lead Andy Dufrense (Tim Robbins) playing classical music for the prisoners and the heartbreak of the “Brooks was here” realization. The film shows how some men become institutionalized beyond rehabilitation while others break free.
Though it was released theatrically to dismal audience numbers — it was competing with Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump at the time —The Shawshank Redemption overcame its box office flop with a re-release in 1995 following seven Academy Award nominations. It was also selected for preservation in the National Film Registry along with several other films on this list, proving just how impactful the year 1994 was in cinema.
