Was 1994 the best year for film ever?

Three decades ago, some masterpieces came to the cinema. In IMDb’s top ten, 1994 is the only production year that appears twice – with the prison film “The Condemned” and the gangster film “Pulp Fiction”.

A selection of the best and most iconic films of 1994:

The condemned: The film has occupied first place in the IMDb top 250 since 2008. The film by Frank Darabont is based on a Stephen King story called “Hope Springs Eternal: Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.” A poster of Hollywood star Hayworth plays a relevant role in the plot. The original title of the film is “The Shawshank Redemption”. The drama is about the deep friendship between two prison inmates (played by Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman) – and generally about hope.

pulp Fiction: The dance scene of the characters Vincent and Mia (John Travolta and Uma Thurman) with the movement of two fingers at eye level went down in film history. Quentin Tarantino’s grotesque gangster film was a critical darling. The work with its laconic dialogues won the Palme d’Or in Cannes. The black comedy features actors such as Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis and Harvey Keitel. The violent plot consists of three interwoven stories in Los Angeles. The plot is driven forward by a suitcase, the contents of which the audience never sees.

• also read: 10 films you should see

Forrest Gump: Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get. Wisdom like this fills director Robert Zemeckis’ tragicomedy (“Back to the Future”). In the film, the mentally impaired Forrest wanders naively through contemporary history in search of happiness. The scenes in which the main actor Tom Hanks was incorporated into original recordings of historical events using computer technology, for example shaking hands with John F. Kennedy, caused a stir. The film won six Oscars in 1995. Hanks received his second leading actor Oscar in a row – after winning the role of AIDS sufferer Andrew in “Philadelphia”.

Schindlers List: At the Oscars, Steven Spielberg’s Holocaust drama starring Liam Neeson won seven awards. The year before, Spielberg had put blockbuster cinema on a new basis with the dinosaur thriller “Jurassic Park” and its computer animations. With “Schindler’s List” he created a definitive work of historical enlightenment, which also sparked controversial debate as to whether the state-organized genocide of European Jews by Nazi Germany could even be depicted through film.

Lion King: The movie that made many children cry for the first time when Mufasa dies. In terms of box office revenue, it is the world’s most commercially successful classic animated film to date. The plot of the film revolves around the lion cub Simba and the arduous search for his place in the circle of life. Elton John won the Oscar for Best Film Music for his song Can You Feel the Love Tonight.

Léon – The professional: A gangster film by Luc Besson. It’s about the emotional friendship of New York mafia hitman Léon (Jean Reno) and the twelve-year-old orphaned neighbor girl Mathilda (Natalie Portman).

speed: Jan de Bont’s fast-paced action film starring Sandra Bullock, Keanu Reeves and Dennis Hopper set new standards in tension. A bus is equipped with a bomb that is activated when the bus travels faster than 50 miles per hour and explodes when the bus goes below the equivalent of about 80 miles per hour.

Four weddings and one death: In the British romantic comedy, a homosexual couple and a deaf man play quite important roles. At the end, Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant kiss in the pouring rain and MacDowell’s character Carrie asks Charlie: “Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed.” (Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed). For some this is one of the most romantic scenes in film history, for others it is the worst line of dialogue ever.

Other well-known films from 1994 were “Dumb and Dumber”, “Interview with a Vampire”, “True Lies”, “Natural Born Killers” and “Legends of Passion”.