The column I’ve been writing about what I watch in quarantine has largely been determined by reader suggestions. I picked the first movie; the audience picked most of the rest — and then a strange thing happened. Several columns did extremely well; far better than the rest. They all had one thing in common — they were about films released 30 years ago, in the summer of 1990. For whatever reason, people really want to read about le cinema du 1990 during quarantine.

Never let it be said that I refuse to give people what they want.

To that end, I decided to select and rank the best movies of 1990. That’s a time long before I became a critic (unless screaming “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is literally perfect, Dad!” counts as being a critic). So this task required revisiting some classics from the period, and watching others for the very first time. The result was this list of 20 favorites (including a few that might surprise you), plus a couple honorable mentions — starting with...

Honorable Mentions (In Alphabetical Order): Awakenings, Edward Scissorhands, Ghost, Joe Versus the Volcano, My Blue Heaven.

Gallery — Great Movies Made For Less Than $1 Million:

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