Netflix Looks Back at 1994, A Banner Year for Movies

1994 is well regarded as a banner year for movies. Beginning today, Netflix will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of many classics, curating a streaming list of 17 films. There’s a lot of key titled missing here, and it’s quite clear the streamer couldn’t get the rights to many classics. The ones that actually deserve to be part of this retrospective:

“Clerks,” “Fresh,” “The Hudsucker Proxy,” “Dumb and Dumber,” “Leon: The Professional,” “Natural Born Killers,” “The Paper,” “Reality Bites,” and “The River Wild.”

These would have been my curated 17 titles:

“Forrest Gump”, “The Shawshank Redemption,” “Pulp Fiction,” “The Lion King,” “Speed,” “Ed Wood,” “Once Were Warriors,” “The Last Seduction,” “Red,” “The Crow,” “Quiz Show,” “Heavenly Creatures,” “Bullets Over Broadway,” “Red Rock West,” “Shallow Grave,” “Exotica,” and “Hoop Dreams.”

Netflix is right though; 1994 was a great one for cinema, and 2024 will definitely not have as many great films.

Hard to grasp, but it’s already been 30 years since Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” a shapeshifting event for movie culture, changing the way movies could be told. The release of Tarantino’s film ended up unleashing numerous rip-offs, for decades to come. None were better than his iconic gangster film.

Clint Eastwood was jury President at Cannes and “Pulp Fiction” ended up winning the Palme d’Or— some jeered at the decision, expecting Kyrysztof Kieslowski’s “Red” to be awarded the prize. Zhang Yimou’s “To Live” and Nikita Mikhalkov’s “Burnt by the Sun” shared the Grand Jury Prize.

“Pulp Fiction” did not win Best Picture at the Oscars. Instead, Robert Zemeckis’ “Forrest Gump” won the big prize, and Best Director. Has the film aged well? Gump has lasted, but so have its haters. Tom Hanks also won the acting Oscar for ‘Gump’. Jessica Lange won Best Actress for “Blue Sky” — does anyone even remember that film? Tarantino won Best Original Screenplay.

This was also the year of “The Shawshank Redemption,” which was a box-office failure at the time. It would end up getting major audience on home video. Decades after its release, its cultural influence still looms large. ‘Shawshank’ is still the top-rated movie of all-time on IMDb (9.3/10) with close to 3 million votes.

Tim Burton also delivered what is still the best film of his career, “Ed Wood.” It was his most personal statement— a love letter to failed artists everywhere.