Overstreet’s Favorite Films: 1996

Here is the current (but occasionally updated) list of my favorite films from 1996.

In order to understand the purpose and meaning of this list, please read my introduction to the Looking Closer Favorite Films lists here.

Red = Treasures
Purple = Favorites
Blue = Achievements
Gray = Decent/Noteworthy
Green = Unseen or Undecided
*** = This film was discovered after the year in question and added in a list revision.**
•

1996

Secrets and Lies
Fargo
La Promesse*
Ponette*
Waiting for Guffman
Flirting with Disaster
Trainspotting
Lone Star
Dead Man
Bottle Rocket
Big Night
Basquiat
Mars Attacks!
Breaking the Waves
The Pillow Book
James and the Giant Peach
Mission: Impossible
Hamlet (dir. Kenneth Branagh)
When We Were Kings*
The Whole Wide World
Sling Blade
Paradise Lost: The Child murders at Robin Hood Hills
Shall We Dance?
Shine
Everyone Says I Love You
The Crucible

The Cable Guy
Jerry McGuire
Stealing Beauty
The King of Masks
The English Patient
Romeo + Juliet
The Portrait of a Lady
Looking for Richard
Emma
Fly Away Home
Jude

As-yet Unseen or Unratable Films of 1996

A Chef in Love A Couch in New York (Chantal Akerman) A Moment of Innocence (Mohsen Makhmalbaf) A Question of Trust A Self-Made Hero (Jacques Audiard) A Summer’s Tale (Eric Rohmer) Beautiful Thing (Hettie Macdonald) Beavis and Butt-head Do America (Mike Judge) Berenice (Michael Gitlin) Beyond Silence Blood & Wine Bound (Lana and Andy Wachowski) Brigands – Chapter VII (Otar Iosseliani) Capitaine Conan (Bertrand Tavernier) Carla’s Song Chronicle of a Disappearance (Elia Suleiman) Comrades, Almost a Love Story (Peter Chan) Crash (David Cronenberg) Dead Sure aka The Insurance Agent (Tikoy Aguiluz)* Deep Crimson (Arturo Ripstein) Elective Affinities (Paolo and Vittorio Taviani) Encore (Pascal Bonitzer) Fly Away Home Freeway (Matthew Bright) Gabbeh (Moshen Makhmalbaf) Get on the Bus (Spike Lee) Goodbye South, Goodbye (Hou Hsiao-hsien) Hamsun (Jan Troell) Hard Core Logo (Bruce McDonald) Hard Eight (Paul Thomas Anderson) Hommes, femmes, mode d’emploi Improvisation Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas) Kansas City (Robert Altman) Kids Return (Takeshi Kitano) Kolya L’Appartement Les voleurs (Andre Techine) Love Serenade (Shirley Barrett) Mahjong Manny & Lo (Lisa Krueger) Marvin’s Room Mary Reilly Matilda (Danny DeVito) Michael Collins (Neil Jordan) Microcosmos Mon Homme (Bertrand Blier) Mother My Sex Life or: How I Got Into an Argument (Arnaud Desplechin) Nénette et Boni (Claire Denis) Nightjohn (Charles Burnett) Normal Life (John McNaughton) Oriental Elegy (Aleksandr Sokurov) Parfait amour! (Catherine Breillat) Party (Manoel de Oliveira) Pretty Village Pretty Flame Prisoner of the Mountain (Sergei Bodov) Remembrances of Kansas City Swing Ridicule (Patrice Leconte) Robert Altman’s Jazz ’34: Small Faces Study of a River Swingers Temptress Moon (Chen Kaige) The Day the Pig Fell Into the Well (Hong Sang-soo) The Delta (Ira Sachs) The Funeral (Abel Ferrara) The Leopard Son The Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story The Other Side of Sunday The People vs. Larry Flynt The Quiet Room (Rolf de Heer) The Suicide The Sunchaser (Michael Cimino) The Wind in the Willows The Winner (Alex Cox) Three Lives and Only One Death (Raul Ruiz) Through the Olive Trees (Abbas Kiarostami) To Have and to Hold (John Hillcoat) Trees Lounge Un air de famille (Cedric Klapisch) Walking and Talking (Nicole Holofcener) Welcome to the Dollhouse (Todd Solondz) When It Rains (Charles Burnett) Will It Snow for Christmas?

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