My Top Ten of 1991

Presenting, in alphabetical order, my Top Ten Films of 1991, with apologies to: At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Beauty and the Beast, Boyz n the Hood, My Girl, Soapdish (#11), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (#12), Until the End of the World (#13), and Vegas in Space.

The Man Who Made It: Director, 1991

These are the nominees for the Best Director of 1991:

Jonathan Demme, The Silence of the Lambs

Barry Levinson, Bugsy

Ridley Scott, Thelma & Louise

John Singleton, Boyz n the Hood

Oliver Stone, JFK

There are two big stories here, one about a nominee, one about a non-nominee. Let's take the second one first.

When Barbra Streisand screened her directorial debut Yentl in 1983, no less than Steven Spielberg proclaimed it "the greatest directorial debut since Citizen Kane." She even won the Golden Globe, one of only three women (also: Nomadland's Chloe Zhao, The Power of the Dog's Jane Campion) to do so. It took almost a decade for her follow-up, The Prince of Tides, a box office smash that appeared to finally earn Streisand a seat at the table. She was nominated again for the Golden Globe, and, most importantly to her, at the Directors Guild of America Awards, voted on by her fellow auteurs. Indeed, she was the only one of the DGA Awards nominees who didn't make the Oscar cut.

But it's hard to argue with who did.

At only 24 years old, John Singleton became not just the youngest Best Director nominee in history (still!), he became the first Black filmmaker so honored by the Academy. He had been honored with New Director honors by various critics' groups, but the Academy has no such category, and instead of ignoring him gave him the proper plaudits, making history. Since then, six more Black men have been nominated, all in the 21st Century: Lee Daniels (Precious), Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave), Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), Jordan Peele (Get Out), Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman), and Ryan Coogler (Sinners). None have won.

For Singleton, as it would have been for Streisand, the nomination was the award. No one was beating Jonathan Demme that year:

My rankings, from fifth to first:

The Last Double Act: Best Actress, 1991

The nominees for the Academy Award for Best Actress of 1991 are:

Geena Davis, Thelma & Louise

Laura Dern, Rambling Rose

Jodie Foster, The Silence of the Lambs

Bette Midler, For the Boys

Susan Sarandon, Thelma & Louise

The ceremony was held in March 1993, but everyone knew who'd win this category back in February 1991: Jodie Foster and her film were much of a phenomenon to ignore:

But the other nominees had their own interesting stories. Dern, daughter of actors Bruce Dern and (fellow nominee) Diane Ladd, received the script for Rambling Rose from director Martha Coolidge, who had trouble finding financing; Dern went to then-connected director Renny Harlin (whom she was living with) and he got the movie made. Midler produced For the Boys, campaigned hard despite it being a financial flop, put in the work to get her passion project the notice it needed. 

And then we have Davis and Sarandon of the much-discussed Thelma & Louise, both playing titular characters, neither of them pretending to be a supporting role to cheat the system. This was the last time two nominees from the same movie would show up in the Lead Acting categories, seven years after the Amadeus boys. It is said that, because neither of them won, studios began to push movies with two leads of the same gender as, surprise, a Lead/Supporting two-hander. Dishonest, sure, but it does remove the stress from one problem: in a film with two equally great leads, who do you rank above the other?

My rankings, from fifth to first, below:

Guns Blazin': 1991, Part Two

The Silence of the Lambs continued its dominance for five weeks until Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze debuted. Eventually, the #1 spot was taken by City Slickers, which ended the year as the #5 hit of 1991, and which we get into below. But one movie that never topped the box office still became not just an Oscar winner, not just one of the year's top earners, but a cultural moment, debated by critics, audiences, and scholars: Thelma & Louise.

The brainchild of writer Callie Khouri, Thelma & Louise was born of her frustration with women's parts in cinema, and was originally set to be an indie film with Khouri directing. When the script got into Ridley Scott's hands, however, things changed: he came on as producer, and, after several others passed, eventually took on the directing reins, enticing actresses like Jodie Foster, Meryl Streep, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Goldie Hawn before the final duo of Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon were cast. And when it finally did come out, oh my goodness, what a furor. Was it feminist? Was it anti-male? Khouri and critic Janet Maslin said people who were offended were mis-aligning their sympathies (a nice way of saying, "a hit dog will holler"). It's a conversation that's still being had as subsequent generations discover the film; that, and what happens after the fade to white in the final frame, a sequence parodied over and over again in films (Wayne's World 2), television (Family Guy), commercials, and beyond. It's also the movie that changed the fortunes of the ab-solutely hunky drifter Louise takes up with, one Brad Pitt. And, did you know, just 19 days ago, a musical version of the film premiered in London, written by Callie Khouri with original songs by Neko Case? The legacy continues...

And it all happened here, in 1991, just one among these twelve releases: