The Movies of ’95, Vol. 1

These movies are all turning 30 this year. This list is chronological by release date, except for my personal top ten, which will appear at the end of volume two of this post.

• Higher Learning

STARRING: Omar Epps, Kristy Swanson, Michael Rapaport, Ice Cube, Laurence Fishburne

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: John Singleton

FUN FACT: Laurence Fishburne won an NAACP Image Award for “Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture” for his role in Higher Learning; Ice Cube was also nominated.

• Murder in the First

STARRING: Christian Slater, Kevin Bacon, Gary Oldman

WRITTEN BY: Dan Gordon

DIRECTED BY: Marc Rocco

FUN FACT: Kevin Bacon, who shines in a mediocre movie, won the Critics’ Choice Award and was nominated for a SAG Award for his performance.

• Boys on the Side

STARRING: Whoopi Goldberg, Mary Louise Parker, Drew Barrymore, Matthew McConaughey

WRITTEN BY: Don Roos

DIRECTED BY: Herbert Ross

FUN FACT: The “no boys allowed” soundtrack includes artists like Melissa Etheridge, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Indigo Girls, and Stevie Nicks.

• In the Mouth of Madness

STARRING: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, David Warner

WRITTEN BY: Michael De Luca

DIRECTED BY: John Carpenter

FUN FACT: In the Mouth of Madness, the third installment of Carpenter’s unofficial “Apocalypse Trilogy”, is an homage to the work of H.P. Lovecraft and takes its name from the title of a Lovecraft novella called At the Mountains of Madness.

• Billy Madison

STARRING: Adam Sandler, Bradley Whitford, Josh Mostel, Bridgette Wilson

WRITTEN BY: Adam Sandler & Tim Herlihy

DIRECTED BY: Tamra Davis

FUN FACT: Philip Seymour Hoffman was offered the role of Eric, but turned it down. Bradley Whitford ended up with the part, and he’s great – but I can’t help but wonder what Hoffman, with his particular brand of special sauce, would have done with it.

• The Quick and the Dead

STARRING: Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio

WRITTEN BY: Simon Moore

DIRECTED BY: Sam Raimi

FUN FACT: Sharon Stone had director and cast approval. She was given a list of directors pre-approved by the studio; she returned hers with a single name – Sam Raimi. Stone apparently chose him because she’s a fan of Army of Darkness (and who could blame her?). She also fought the studio on both Russell Crowe, who was then untested in the U.S., and Leonardo DiCaprio, whom Stone was so certain about that she paid his salary out of her own pocket.

• The Brady Bunch Movie

STARRING: Shelley Long, Gary Cole, Michael McKean, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Christine Taylor

WRITTEN BY: Laurice Elehwany, Rick Copp, Bonnie Turner, Terry Turner

DIRECTED BY: Betty Thomas

FUN FACT: The film features cameos by original Brady Bunch cast members Florence Henderson, Ann B. Davis, Barry Williams, and Christopher Knight, as well as Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, and Peter Tork from The Monkees.

• Heavyweights

STARRING: Jeffrey Tambor, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Ben Stiller

WRITTEN BY: Steven Brill and Judd Apatow

DIRECTED BY: Steven Brill

FUN FACT: Heavyweights was parodied by South Park in a season four episode titled “Fat Camp”.

• Outbreak

STARRING: Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Donald Sutherland

WRITTEN BY: Laurence Dworet and Robert Roy Pool

DIRECTED BY: Wolfgang Petersen

FUN FACT #1: Dustin Hoffman’s character was written with Harrison Ford in mind, but Ford passed (he worked with director Wolfgang Petersen just two years later in Air Force One).

FUN FACT #2: Capuchin monkey Betsy also played Marcel on Friends.

• Dolores Claiborne

STARRING: Kathy Bates, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Christopher Plummer, David Straitharn

WRITTEN BY: Tony Gilroy, based on the novel by Stephen King

DIRECTED BY: Taylor Hackford

FUN FACT: Kathy Bates won an Oscar five years earlier for her performance in another Stephen King adaptation, Misery. King met Bates on the set of that film and wrote Dolores Claiborne with her in mind. Bates would later say that Claiborne was her favorite role.

• Tank Girl

STARRING: Lori Petty, Naomi Watts, Ice-T, Malcolm McDowell

WRITTEN BY: Tedi Sarafian, based on the comic series by Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett

DIRECTED BY: Rachel Talala

FUN FACT: The excellent soundtrack, assembled by Courtney Love, includes artists like Love’s Hole, Björk, Devo, Portishead, Belly, and Veruca Salt.

• Tommy Boy

STARRING: Chris Farley, David Spade, Bo Derek, Julie Warner

WRITTEN BY: Bonnie and Terry Turner (their second appearance on this list)

DIRECTED BY: Peter Segal

FUN FACT: Bo Derek was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress; she lost to Madonna.

• Bad Boys

STARRING: Martin Lawrence, Will Smith, Téa Leoni, Joe Pantoliano

WRITTEN BY: Michael Barrie, Jim Mulholland, Doug Richardson

DIRECTED BY: Michael Bay

FUN FACT: Michael Bay, in his directorial debut, thought the screenplay sucked (he wasn’t wrong) and encouraged stars Martin Lawrence and Will Smith to improvise their dialogue on set.

• The Basketball Diaries

STARRING: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, Bruno Kirby, Lorraine Bracco, Ernie Hudson

WRITTEN BY: Bryan Goluboff, based on Jim Carroll’s memoir of the same name

DIRECTED BY: Scott Kalvert

FUN FACT: Besides his career as a writer, Carroll is a musician best known for the 1980 song “People Who Died”.

• Friday

STARRING: Ice Cube, Chris Tucker, Nia Long

WRITTEN BY: Ice Cube and DJ Pooh

DIRECTED BY: F. Gary Gray

FUN FACT: The character of Felisha, played by Angela Means, is the source of the “Bye, Felicia” meme popularized during the early days of social media and by RuPaul’s Drag Race.

• Village of the Damned

STARRING: Christopher Reeve, Kirstie Alley, Linda Kozlowski, Michael Paré

WRITTEN BY: David Himmelstein, based on the 1960 film of the same name, itself based on the 1957 sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

DIRECTED BY: John Carpenter

FUN FACT: Critics took issue with the terrible wigs worn by the children, but it turns out they weren’t wigs at all. Each child’s hair was bleached and dyed for uniformity. One of the actors later claimed they suffered hair loss as a result of the process.

• Crimson Tide

STARRING: Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, George Dzundza, Viggo Mortensen

WRITTEN BY: Michael Schiffer

DIRECTED BY: Tony Scott

FUN FACT: Crimson Tide, the first of five collaborations between Denzel Washington and director Tony Scott, earned three Oscar nominations – Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Sound Effects Editing.

• Die Hard with a Vengeance

STARRING: Bruce Willis, Jeremy Irons, Samuel L. Jackson

WRITTEN BY: Jonathan Hensleigh and Roderick Thorp

DIRECTED BY: John McTiernan

FUN FACT: The FBI questioned screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh because he seemed to know too much about the Federal Gold Reserve in downtown Manhattan. Hensleigh insisted he took all the information from a New York Times article.

• A Little Princess

STARRING: Eleanor Bron, Liam Cunningham, Liesel Matthews

WRITTEN BY: Richard LaGravenese, based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett

DIRECTED BY: Alfonso Cuarón

FUN FACT: At the 21st Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, A Little Princess was the runner-up to Leaving Las Vegas for Best Picture (more on the latter in volume two of this post). It also won the awards for Best Production Design and Best Music. Alfonso Cuarón became one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of the 21st century, with two Best Director wins – for Gravity and Roma – to his name.

• Braveheart

STARRING: Mel Gibson, Sophie Marceau, Patrick McGoohan, Catherine McCormack

WRITTEN BY: Randall Wallace

DIRECTED BY: Mel Gibson

FUN FACT: Nevermind the fact that Apollo 13* should have won the Best Picture Oscar; Mel Gibson has admitted to borrowing heavily from the work of his previous directors, George Miller (the Mad Max franchise) and Peter Weir (Gallipoli and The Year of Living Dangerously), for Braveheart‘s more violent sequences and its atmospheric shots, respectively.

*or Babe, or Sense and Sensibility, or Il Postino (or Casino, or Toy Story, or Se7en, or 12 Monkeys, or To Die For, or The Usual Suspects**, none of which were even nominated but all of which are better films than Braveheart). Also, Mel Gibson is a racist piece of shit and an abuser – ALLEGEDLY – so fuck him.

**fuck Kevin Spacey, too.

• Casper

STARRING: Bill Pullman, Christina Ricci, Cathy Moriarty, Eric Idle, Devon Sawa

WRITTEN BY: Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver

DIRECTED BY: Brad Silberling

FUN FACT: The house that stands in for Whipstaff Manor was later used in the Backstreet Boys video “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” (specifically, the ballroom).

• The Bridges of Madison County

STARRING: Meryl Streep, Clint Eastwood

WRITTEN BY: Richard LaGravenese, based on the novel of Robert James Waller

DIRECTED BY: Clint Eastwood

FUN FACT: At one point, Sydney Pollack was attached to direct with Robert Redford playing Robert Kincaid, which would have reunited the two with their Out of Africa leading lady, Meryl Streep.

• Safe

STARRING: Julianne Moore, Peter Friedman, Xander Berkeley, Chauncey Leopardi

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Todd Haynes

FUN FACT: Two years before she received her first Academy Award nomination for Boogie Nights, Julianne Moore gave an Oscar-worthy performance as Carol White, a suburban housewife whose unexplained illness could have environmental causes.

• Clueless

STARRING: Alicia Silverstone, Paul Rudd, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy

WRITTEN BY: Amy Heckerling, loosely based on the novel Emma by Jane Austen

DIRECTED BY: Amy Heckerling

FUN FACT: Alicia Silverstone really didn’t know how to pronounce Haitians. Director Amy Heckerling told the crew not to correct her so they could keep the adorable mispronunciation in the film.

• Kids

STARRING: Leo Fitzpatrick, Justin Pierce, Chloë Sevigny, Rosario Dawson

WRITTEN BY: Harmony Korine

DIRECTED BY: Larry Clark

FUN FACT #1: The film, with its raw depictions of teen sex and drug use, earned an NC-17 rating from the MPAA, forcing Miramax to buy the film back from Disney, whose policy forbids the release of NC-17 films.

FUN FACT #2: Although the song doesn’t appear in the movie, Folk Implosion had a minor hit with “Natural One” after it was included on the Kids soundtrack. Folk Implosion, led by Lou Barlow of Dinosaur Jr. and Sebodah fame, also composed the film’s score.

• Babe

STARRING: James Cromwell, Magda Szubanski, Christine Cavanaugh as the voice of Babe

WRITTEN BY: George Miller and Chris Noonan, based on the novel The Sheep-Pig (known as Babe, the Gallant Pig in the U.S.) by Dick King-Smith

DIRECTED BY: Chris Noonan

FUN FACT #1: George Miller, architect of the Mad Max franchise, may not seem like the obvious choice to guide a wholesome, G-rated movie about a talking pig, but Babe was a surprise critical and commercial success. At the 68th Academy Awards, it received seven nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor for James Cromwell. Babe also won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

FUN FACT #2: Speaking of Cromwell, Babe made a star out of the consummate character actor. In the years following Babe, Cromwell appeared in iconic films like L.A. Confidential and The Green Mile. He also earned acclaim – and several Emmy nods – for his television roles in ER, Six Feet Under (a personal favorite), American Horror Story, and Succession. Babe also turned the long-time vegetarian into a vegan.