Your Guide To Binge-Watching The Oscar-Winning Best Pictures: Part Five, The 1990s

One of the great, fun things about Oscar season is that it puts everybody in the mood for a project. Some kind of regimented viewing plan to get them some damn culture already. Sure, 11 months out oStarzf the year, you’re vegging out to Southern Charm and old seasons of Friends, but for one month a year, it’s time to watch some FILMS, damn it! Some people like to make a point to see all the current year’s Best Picture nominees. Other lunatics (hello!) try to see every movie nominated in any category that year. But you? We’re banking on you looking to the past for your project.

Taking a tour through the Academy Award winners for Best Picture is like using a Cliff’s Notes guide through Hollywood history. You won’t get the whole story, and you’ll miss out on a lot of great details along the way, but it’s an economical way to get caught up quickly. Of course, with 90 years of Oscar history to work with, it’s still daunting. Which is why we’re here to guide you through. Which Best Picture winners to prioritize? Which can you skip? Which are easier to stream than others?

Previously:
Part 1: The 1950s
Part 1: The 1960s
Part 1: The 1970s
Part 1: The 1980s

Today we’re tackling the 1990s. After the ’80s had everybody thinking that the Oscars were in the bag for stuffy British fare of the Merchant/Ivory variety and spunky old people of the Golden Pond / Trip to Bountiful / Miss Daisy variety, in came the ’90s and pretty much immediately ushered in a new era. The Silence of the Lambs opened up the Best Picture categories genre requirements, Miramax established itself as a major player on the indie scene with Best Picture squarely in its sights, and Steven Spielberg went from being official Oscar bridesmaid to one of its all-time favorites.

Not ever Best Picture winner in the ’90s holds up, and almost every year there were better options that might have won instead, but the ’90s were a hugely pivotal decade that took Best Picture from Kevin Costner to Kevin Spacey, and … okay, well maybe that’s not the feel-good progression we’re looking for, but still. Some fascinating and telling choices here.

The One You Cannot Miss

Shakespeare in Love
Year: 1998
Directed by: John Madden
Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Joseph Fiennes, Judi Dench, Geoffrey Rush, Ben Affleck, Colin Firth
Why it’s essential: This might seem like an odd pick for the single most essential Oscar-winner of the ’90s, given that Shakespeare in Love beating Saving Private Ryan in a Miramax-backed last-minute coup that seemed to annoy even presenter Harrison Ford (who was clearly chosen to hand Best Picture over to his Raiders of the Lost Ark director Steven Spielberg). And while it’s definitely no fun to look back and see Harvey Weinstein being so jubilant, it’s long past time to get past the idea of Shakespeare in Love as a lightweight pretender. Which is why it’s the Cannot Miss of this group: this movie deserves an image rehab. Taking nothing away from Saving Private Ryan, but Shakespeare in Love holds up! It’s bright, it’s nimble, it’s romantic; it’s a refreshingly un-serious Oscar winner. And the cast is amazing. You’ll even by charmed by Gwyneth and Ben Affleck!
Movies that it beat that you could also watch: This was the year where Best Picture included three World War II movies and two Elizabethan ones. Saving Private Ryan is the best of the four, but you should check out Elizabeth, if only for Cate Blanchett making herself a star in the span of a single movie.

Where to stream Shakespeare in Love

The Ones That Are Readily Streaming

Schindler’s List
Year: 1993
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley
Why it’s essential: Spielberg finally broke through the weird “populist we love but can’t quite hand a trophy to” bubble that the Academy had imposed on him for almost two decades with this essentially bulletproof Oscar movie: an impeccably filmed, gorgeous-looking, harrowing-as-hell Holocaust movie with a message that was easy to get behind. That’s a pretty cynical way to look at Schindler’s List‘s triumph, which is why you should go back and watch it again and appreciate the filmmaking for what it is.

Where to stream Schindler’s List

The Ones You Might Have a Subscription For

Unforgiven
Year: 1992
Directed by: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Frances Fisher
Why it’s essential: It’s weird to think about after Eastwood became such a reliable Oscar fave, but back in 1992, he was really just another actor who wanted to direct. But Oscar voters fell in love with the revival of the Western here, and honestly, it’s a movie that works even if that dusty genre isn’t always your fave.
Movies that it beat that you could also watch: ’92 was a strong year, and you’re never going to go wrong with the Aaron Sorkin fireworks in A Few Good Men, but if you haven’t experienced The Crying Game, even if you know the “twist,” do yourself a favor and watch it immediately.
Where it’s streaming: It’s currently streaming on on Amazon Prime with a Cinemax subscription.

Where to stream Unforgiven

The Silence of the Lambs
Year: 1991
Directed by: Jonathan Demme
Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn
Why it’s essential: For all the reasons you already know. To be a horror movie released in February and go on to not only win Best Picture but to sweep all the top Oscars that year, you have to be talking about a masterpiece, and Jonathan Demme’s film absolutely is. You’ve seen it a billion times, why not go for once more?
Where it’s streaming: It’s currently streaming on HBO GO.

Where to stream The Silence of the Lambs

The English Patient
Year: 1996
Directed by: Anthony Minghella
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe
Why it’s essential: This is basically the Out of Africa of the ’90s, in that it’s long, it seems like it might be boring, and a lot of people dismissed it without ever seeing it. I mean, when Elaine Benes is dunking on a movie, you know it’s reputation is rough. But here’s the thing: The English Patient is a marvel of a movie, a sweeping romance that looks like a bajillion bucks, and Ralph Fiennes looks like a bajillion more. Don’t be fooled; you should watch this.
Where it’s streaming: You can currently stream The English Patient on Amazon Prime with the Cinemax subscription.

Where to stream The English Patient

American Beauty
Year: 1999
Directed by: Sam Mendes
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley, Chris Cooper
Why it’s essential: Just when you thought American Beauty couldn’t age any worse, Kevin Spacey comes along and makes it even weirder. This movie was an audacious slap in the face to American cinema, and while it’s easy to imagine we were all taken in by an Alan Ball confidence scheme that had us mistaking artsy-fartsy rose petals and white-male-ennui as profound, there is a confidence to this movie that manages to justify itself. Also Annette Bening is fantastic.
Movies that it beat that you could also watch: Notoriously, 1999 was a watershed year for movies (The Matrix; Election; Being John Malkovich) with a comparatively safe Best Picture slate. Watch The Sixth Sense again, you’ll be fine.
Where it’s streaming: It’s streaming on Amazon Prime with a Starz subscription.

Where to stream American Beauty

In Descending Order Of Essential-ness

Titanic
Year: 1997
Directed by: James Cameron
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Gloria Stuart, Kathy Bates
Why it’s essential: It’s … Titanic. What more do you want? We as a culture have gone through several phases of hand-wringing about whether James Cameron is too much of an arrogant bastard to root for (he is), whether the dialogue in Titanic is cringe-worthy (it is), and whether this movie is just fancied-up popcorn movie with an iceberg in place of a T-Rex. And … yeah, probably. It’s still just a phenomenal piece of high-end blockbuster filmmaking that holds you in the palm of its hand throughout. Quit fighting it.

Where to stream Titanic

Dances with Wolves
Year: 1990
Directed by: Kevin Costner
Starring: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene
Why it’s essential: A decade after Robert Redford won big for Ordinary People, another handsome Hollywood leading man decided that he wanted accolades as a director too, and so Kevin Costner went and gambled on a movie about a Civil War officer who gets taken in by a Lakota tribe. American audiences flipped their shit for it, and Costner became the second actor to direct his way past Martin Scorsese for an Oscar. The film is problematic by today’s standards — it’s the quintessential “white savior” movie — and at 181 minutes it’s hilariously too long. But it also captivates, and its John Barry score is an all-timer.

Where to stream Dances with Wolves

If You Have The Time

Forrest Gump
Year: 1994
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise
Why it’s essential: There is a brand of baby-boomer Americana that’s put on display movie that has never been better defined anywhere else. It’s a survivor’s tale from the other end of the tumult of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s that takes the opinion that we’ll be damned if we know how this country survived Vietnam and Watergate and the Kennedy assassination and the Civil Rights era and AIDS and cocaine, but hey look, we have. And maybe the answer is just to be really simple and to blow in the wind. It’s a VERY toxic message, if you think about it even a little, but it explains a lot.

Where to stream Forrest Gump

Skippable

Braveheart
Year: 1995
Directed by: Mel Gibson
Starring: Mel Gibson, Sophie Marceau
Why it’s skippable: If Forrest Gump is a toxic way to view American history, then Braveheart is a toxic way to view … world history? Human history? Scotland? Bare-arsed, bloody combat? By now, after The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto and Hacksaw Ridge, we’ve gotten well used to Mel Gibson’s affinity for insane violence in the service of some kind of higher ideal. (Pacifism? Christianity? Hey, sure!) It’s just incredibly awkward to look back to 1995 and see Hollywood fall in love with his brand of brutality.
Movies that it beat that you could also watch: Babe is a genuinely great movie, in addition to being cute as a bug, and Sense and Sensibility is the apex of Jane Austen on screen.