The 1990s were a groundbreaking development for crime cinema. Modern classics like Goodfellas, Trainspotting, Se7en, and The Usual Suspects among others helped to redefine what the crime genre was, and even The Godfather franchise returned with the somewhat underwhelming third installment in the trilogy in 1990.
It was a unique decade; due to the lack of prestige television shows like The Sopranos or The Wire, audiences were forced to go to the theater to see great crime stories. Here are ten of the most underrated 1990s crime movies, ranked.
10 ‘State of Grace’ (1990)
State of Grace tends to get overshadowed because it came out the same year as Scorsese’s Goodfellas and Coppola’s The Godfather: Part III, but that doesn’t make it any less of an entertaining undercover cop movie.
The film focuses on the Boston cop Terry Noonan (Sean Penn), who is forced to go undercover in the New York mafia in order to inform upon the men that he grew up with; it’s a task that forces Terry to reflect upon his real loyalties. Ennio Morricone’s outstanding score makes State of Grace’s conflicted morality even more emotional.
9 ‘Shallow Grave’ (1994)
Two years before they worked together on Trainspotting and changed the course of Scottish cinema forever, Danny Boyle and Ewan McGregor collaborated on this intimate mystery thriller. Shallow Grave focuses on the flatmates David (Christopher Eccleston), Juliet (Kerry Fox) and journalist Alex (McGregor), who discover the body of their new roommate Hugo (Keith Gordon).
The discovery forces these uneasy friends to make a decision about Hugo’s money, which drives them apart in an increasingly tense situation. Boyle shows his great ability to create anxiety in an isolated environment, a skill inherited from Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
8 ‘Strange Days’ (1995)
The Matrix wasn’t the only 1990s science fiction film that analyzed the dangers of artificial intelligence; Kathryn Bigelow’s 1995 crime film Strange Days explored a not-so-distant future in which the former cop Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) begins trading secret video files, and discovers evidence of a police conspiracy.
Nero is forced to reflect upon his experience and expose the corrupt cops that he once worked alongside. Bigelow’s biting commentary on the infatuation with violence on the Internet and the escalation of police brutality in response to nonviolent protests feel particularly relevant today.
7 ‘Sleepers’ (1996)
Barry Levinson’s vastly underrated 1996 film Sleepers explored the lasting effect of trauma upon innocent young men throughout the rest of their lives. The film follows the childhood friends Lorenzo Carcaterra (Jason Patric), Tommy Marcano (Billy Crudup), Michael Sullivan (Brad Pitt), and John Reilly (Ron Eldard) as they grow up in Hell’s Kitchen, searching for a way to get revenge on their abuse at the hands of prison guards at a juvenile delinquent center.
Levinson intertwines flashbacks within the revenge storylines to make the tragedy of their upbringing even more poignant.
6 ‘Absolute Power’ (1997)
Clint Eastwood had a thing or two to say about the Clinton administration, and it was evident in his 1997 conspiracy action thriller Absolute Power. Eastwood stars as an aging career criminal that bears witness to a murder committed by the President of the United States (Gene Hackman).
Even separated from Eastwood’s obvious political slant, Absolute Power has a thoroughly entertaining conspiracy story that allows Hackman to chew the scenery in a malevolent performance. Laura Linney adds an element of heart to the story with her performance as Eastwood’s daughter.
5 ‘A Life Less Ordinary’ (1997)
It’s not as tight and suspenseful as Shallow Grave or as stylistically unique as Trainspotting, but A Life Less Ordinary is still a dynamite collaboration between Boyle and McGregor. The film has an absurd sense of humor.
McGregor stars as an incompetent thief, who upon being fired, decides to kidnap a spoiled rich girl (Cameron Diaz). The film swaps suspense for romantic comedy when the two fall in love, and proceeds to get even stranger when it introduces a religious subplot. A Life Less Ordinary is so completely bonkers that it’s an essential watch for any fan of Boyle’s.
4 ‘The Devil’s Own’ (1997)
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Harrison Ford is a grizzled cop and Brad Pitt is a radical Irish terrorist in Alan J. Pakula’s The Devil’s Own; everything else is fairly self-explanatory. While not quite as tight and suspenseful as his early films All The President’s Men and The Parallax View, Pakula’s work on The Devil’s Own reflects his ability to create anxiety and explore criminal conspiracies.
It marked the transition of Ford into an older, slightly less comedic action star who felt realistic as a family man. Pitt’s Irish accent is about as unbelievable as film accents can get, but it’s hard to complain when the rest of the film is this much fun.
3 ‘Wild Things’ (1998)
Wild Things took the 1990s sexual thriller genre and turned it on its head, lampooning the absurdism of so many erotic dramas. Matt Dillon gives one of the best performances of his career as a seemingly good-natured high school guidance counselor who is accused of sexually harassing two of his students (Denise Richards and Neve Campbell), only to discover that he’s just a pawn in a larger money-laundering scheme.
The excellent supporting cast includes Bill Murray in the particularly amusing role as a corrupt lawyer who defends obviously guilty clients.
2 ‘Apt Pupil’ (1998)
Apt Pupil is one of the most underrated Stephen King adaptations, and features one of the greatest performances of Sir Ian McKellen’s career. McKellen stars as a former Nazi who has fled persecution, only to be discovered by a clever high school student (Brad Renfro) in search of a school mentor.
The mental mind games between the two leads to an increasingly tense series of twists and turns as the characters attempt to trap each other. It’s fascinating to see an actor as inherently likable as McKellen turn into such an enigmatic monster.
1 ‘Go’ (1999)
Of all the 1990s crime films that attempted to utilize the Pulp Fiction approach of nonlinear storytelling, Doug Liman’s Go is one of the most successful. Go explores an attempted ecstasy deal gone wrong from three different perspectives; the overworked retail employee Ronna’s (Sarah Polley) luck goes south when the strangers Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr) ask her for a new supply of drugs.
Liman marries absurdism with grittiness to creatively approach a fairly straightforward narrative, and captures the appeal of “rave culture” that was present in so many 1990s coming-of-age films.
