30 years after...where does 1994 rank in cinema history?

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I may be off but I would categorize True Lies as an action comedy. And a pretty great one at that. Which came as a surprise to me.

You probably won't like what I think about Speed so I'll keep it to myself

I will make no mention of his drunken banquets nightly, and his watchings with Bawds, Dicers, Whoremasters; I will not name his losses, luxuriance, and disdaining of his honesty.

Oh yeah, of course it's an action comedy.

And I don't mind different thoughts; that's the beauty of things. But regardless of what any of us think about Speed, we can't argue that it was a groundbreaking and popular action film.

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I actually laughed out loud. Thanks for that

I've always loved this line from Cicero. He was a bit a smartass.

It was popular I'll give it that

Agreed. I have a few outliers (including action) among my highest rated movies that probably would have many a head shaking in utter disbelief and pity but we can't help what we like.

1994 is an interesting year because there are a handful of films that are just masterpieces and A+ or just a hair from A+ but could still be considered masterpieces or near masterpieces. Chief among them from the top of my head: Leon, Ed Wood, Bullets Over Broadway, and Chungking Express.

Then there are a handful of what I would call very, very good films that are maybe just shy of greatness and certainly I wouldn't call them masterpieces, but are still spectacular for what they are:

Forrest Gump
Pulp Fiction
The Crow
The Shawshank Redemption
Natural Born Killers

Those are films that would be in that A- to A range. Then 1994 has a TON of films that are in the B range which are very good and interesting, but far from great or perfect or timeless:

Interview with the Vampire
Love and a .45
Wyatt Earp
Immortal Beloved
Wolf
Clerks

A handful of others I'm forgetting about I'm sure. But I wouldn't put 1994 anywhere near a list of the greatest years in cinema history. It's not even the best year of the 1990s with of course 1999 being a far better year and the best films of 1994 don't really quite match the best films of 1999 or even 1997. So 1994 is an interesting year and a very "mid" year with a lot of variety in films, but some are very much of their time. While Ed Wood, Leon, and Natural Born Killers are personal favorites as well as of course Forrest Gump, those are really the only films from 1994 that I find myself revisiting very often. Maybe Interview with the Vampire too as that's a very flawed but wonderful film and something of a guilty pleasure, but I just love Neil Jordan's style and looks of his films more than anything.

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I saw Speed in the movie theater when I was a kid. I liked it well enough, but it didn't really do a lot for me, as I thought the premise was a bit gimmicky and a macguffin for a "chamber play" and there's been far better "chamber plays" out there too. I never really understood the attention Speed got at the time of its release or why it's considered among the best action films. It's OK and I think I've caught it about two more times over the years on TV or something, so it's not been a film I've ever really thought about or felt the need to see again. And as much as I love Dennis Hopper, it's a role where it almost seems like he's playing a parody of himself or just pandering to expectations of Dennis Hopper being crazy rather than a fully fleshed out role and character and story.

So even when I was 12 watching it in the theater, I thought it was a fun, but ultimately silly and forgettable "throw away" flick.

1993 was also good

true romance
schindler's list
tombstone
the remains of the day
dazed and confused
falling down
in the line of fire
carlito's way

My favorite on the year was Three Colors: Red - after that (in no particular order)

Exotica
The Shawshank Redemption
Leon: The Professional
Quiz Show
Three Colors: White
Chungking Express
Pulp Fiction
Crumb
Before the Rain
Vanya on 42nd Street
Hoop Dreams
The Emigrant

Others I admired, with 4-star grades (on a 5-star scale) -
Satantango, Eat Drink Man Woman, Queen Margot, The Last Seduction, To Live, Wild Reeds, Barcelona, Felidae, In the Heat of the Sun, The Year of the Dog, Lamerica, Double Happiness, Wrony (Crows)

There are also those releases that I haven't seen in a long time and didn't grade and not sure where they'd rank (The Madness of King George, Ed Wood, to name 2)

So that's a pretty fine film year, yeah.

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My favorite movies released in 1994...

1. Death & the Maiden (Roman Polanksi)
2. Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle)
3. Léon: The Professional (Luc Besson)
4. The Hudsucker Proxy (Coen Brothers)
5. Ed Wood (Tim Burton)
6. Fresh (Boaz Yakin)
7. Hoop Dreams (Steve James)
8. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino)
9. The Last Seduction (John Dahl)
10. Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson)
11. Barcelona (Whit Stillman)
12. Three Colours: Red (Kieslowski)
13. Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliott)
14. Bullets Over Broadway (Woody Allen)
15. Clean, Shaven (Lodge Kerrigan)
16. Once Were Warriors (Lee Tamahori)
17. Nobody's Fool (Robert Benton)
18. The Secret of Roan Inish (John Sayles)
19. Spanking the Monkey (David O. Russell)
20. The Underneath (Steven Soderbergh)
21. Exotica (Atom Egoyan)
22. Three Colours: White (Kieslowski)
23. Nattevagen (Ole Bornedal)
24. Amateur (Hal Hartley)
25. Four Weddings & A Funeral (Mike Newell)
26. Romeo is Bleeding (Peter Medak)
27. Imaginary Crimes (Anthony Drazan)
28. True Lies (James Cameron)
29. The Browning Version (Mike Figgis)
30. Quiz Show (Robert Redford)
31. Muriel's Wedding (P.J. Hogan)
32. Body Snatchers (Abel Ferrara)
33. Clear & Present Danger (Phillip Noyce)
34. Corrina, Corrina (Jessie Nelson)
35. Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (Alan Rudolph)
36. The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont)
37. Eat Drink Man Woman (Jong Lin)
38. Serial Mom (John Waters)
39. The Mask (Chuck Russell)
40. Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis)

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Listen I don't know much about anything. But I like to watch movie reactions on youtube from time to time. Movies are extremely subjective, However the big 3 of 94 stands the test of time. I've watched every different race, ethnicity, gender and a bunch of people from different countries watch Pulp, Shawshank and Forrest. The 3 of those flicks cut through all of that every time. Those 3 are simply evergreen. To me it felt like the apex of the film median when the pure art of it and the business were perfectly balanced.

Happy to see all the conversation in here though

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Any conversation that inspires me to check out previously unseen films is a successful thread, imo.

Holden Pike mentioned:
Death & the Maiden (Roman Polanksi)