80%  Winner:   Forrest Gump  142 min,  PG-13,  [Drama, Romance]  [Robert Zemeckis]  [06 Jul 1994]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 88%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 72%,   Metacritic: 82%,   External Reviews
Awards:  Won 6 Oscars. Another 40 wins & 67 nominations.
Actors:  Gary Sinise, Michael Conner Humphreys, Rebecca Williams, Robin Wright, Sally Field, Tom Hanks
Writer:  Winston Groom (novel), Eric Roth (screenplay)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb  Website     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  Forrest Gump is a simple man with a low I.Q. but good intentions. He is running through childhood with his best and only friend Jenny. His 'mama' teaches him the ways of life and leaves him to choose his destiny. Forrest joins the army for service in Vietnam, finding new friends called Dan and Bubba, he wins medals, creates a famous shrimp fishing fleet, inspires people to jog, starts a ping-pong craze, creates the smiley, writes bumper stickers and songs, donates to people and meets the president several times. However, this is all irrelevant to Forrest who can only think of his childhood sweetheart Jenny Curran, who has messed up her life. Although in the end all he wants to prove is that anyone can love anyone.
Rotten Tomatoes:   "Stupid is as stupid does," says Forrest Gump (played by Tom Hanks in an Oscar-winning performance) as he discusses his relative level of intelligence with a stranger while waiting for a bus. Despite his sub-normal IQ, Gump leads a truly charmed life, with a ringside seat for many of the most memorable events of the second half of the 20th century. Entirely without trying, Forrest teaches Elvis Presley to dance, becomes a football star, meets John F. Kennedy, serves with honor in Vietnam, meets Lyndon Johnson, speaks at an anti-war rally at the Washington Monument, hangs out with the Yippies, defeats the Chinese national team in table tennis, meets Richard Nixon, discovers the break-in at the Watergate, opens a profitable shrimping business, becomes an original investor in Apple Computers, and decides to run back and forth across the country for several years. Meanwhile, as the remarkable parade of his life goes by, Forrest never forgets Jenny (Robin Wright Penn), the girl he loved as a boy, who makes her own journey through the turbulence of the 1960s and 1970s that is far more troubled than the path Forrest happens upon. Featured alongside Tom Hanks are Sally Field as Forrest's mother; Gary Sinise as his commanding officer in Vietnam; Mykelti Williamson as his ill-fated Army buddy who is familiar with every recipe that involves shrimp; and the special effects artists whose digital magic place Forrest amidst a remarkable array of historical events and people. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

82%  Nominee:   Four Weddings and a Funeral  117 min,  R,  [Comedy, Drama, Romance]  [Mike Newell]  [15 Apr 1994]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 71%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 96%,   Metacritic: 81%,   External Reviews
Awards:  Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 24 wins & 23 nominations.
Actors:  Andie MacDowell, Hugh Grant, James Fleet, John Hannah, Simon Callow
Writer:  Richard Curtis
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English, British Sign Language    Country:  UK
Plot:  The film follows the fortunes of Charles and his friends as they wonder if they will ever find true love and marry. Charles thinks he's found "Miss Right" in Carrie, an American. This British subtle comedy revolves around Charlie, his friends and the four weddings and one funeral which they attend.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Charles and Carrie would make the perfect couple...if he weren't afraid to commit and she weren't already engaged! Fun-filled, clever and charming, this delightful comedy is simply irresistible.

92%  Nominee:   Pulp Fiction  154 min,  R,  [Crime, Drama]  [Quentin Tarantino]  [14 Oct 1994]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 89%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 94%,   Metacritic: 94%,   External Reviews
Awards:  Won 1 Oscar. Another 62 wins & 69 nominations.
Actors:  Amanda Plummer, John Travolta, Laura Lovelace, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, Uma Thurman
Writer:  Quentin Tarantino (stories), Roger Avary (stories), Quentin Tarantino
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English, Spanish, French    Country:  USA
Plot:  Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent Vega (John Travolta) are two hit men who are out to retrieve a suitcase stolen from their employer, mob boss Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). Wallace has also asked Vincent to take his wife Mia (Uma Thurman) out a few days later when Wallace himself will be out of town. Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) is an aging boxer who is paid by Wallace to lose his fight. The lives of these seemingly unrelated people are woven together comprising of a series of funny, bizarre and uncalled-for incidents.
Rotten Tomatoes:   Outrageously violent, time-twisting, and in love with language, Pulp Fiction was widely considered the most influential American movie of the 1990s. Director and co-screenwriter Quentin Tarantino synthesized such seemingly disparate traditions as the syncopated language of David Mamet; the serious violence of American gangster movies, crime movies, and films noirs mixed up with the wacky violence of cartoons, video games, and Japanese animation; and the fragmented story-telling structures of such experimental classics as Citizen Kane, Rashomon, and La jetée. The Oscar-winning script by Tarantino and Roger Avary intertwines three stories, featuring Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta, in the role that single-handedly reignited his career, as hit men who have philosophical interchanges on such topics as the French names for American fast food products; Bruce Willis as a boxer out of a 1940s B-movie; and such other stalwarts as Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Christopher Walken, Eric Stoltz, Ving Rhames, and Uma Thurman, whose dance sequence with Travolta proved an instant classic. ~ Leo Charney, Rovi

86%  Nominee:   Quiz Show  133 min,  PG-13,  [Biography, Drama, History]  [Robert Redford]  [07 Oct 1994]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 75%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 96%,   Metacritic: 88%,   External Reviews
Awards:  Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 6 wins & 28 nominations.
Actors:  John Turturro, Paul Scofield, Ralph Fiennes, Rob Morrow
Writer:  Paul Attanasio (screenplay), Richard N. Goodwin (book)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  An idealistic young lawyer working for a Congressional subcommittee in the late 1950s discovers that TV quiz shows are being fixed. His investigation focuses on two contestants on the show "Twenty-One": Herbert Stempel, a brash working-class Jew from Queens, and Charles Van Doren, the patrician scion of one of America's leading literary families. Based on a true story.
Rotten Tomatoes:   These days Television game shows are strictly regulated to ensure that no cheating or discrimination goes on behind the scenes. But it has not always been so. "Quiz Show" tells the story of the discrimination, pay-offs, and resulting cover-up behind the scenes of "Twenty One," the most popular intellectual game show in 1958. The trouble begins when the show's producer Dan Enright pays winning contestant Herbie Stempel, a Jewish graduate student from Queens, to lose in favor of Columbia literature instructor Charles Van Doren, a handsome, intellectual WASP who came from one of the U.S.'s most distinguished families. Enright then persuades Van Doren to allow his staff to provide Van Doren with the answers before each show. Van Doren becomes a national hero and a champion for intellectualism. Enter Dick Godwin, a Harvard graduate working for the House-sub committee on Legislative Oversight. He suspects a fraud and goes looking for proof. He finds it in Stempel who finally admits that he was paid to lose. Thus the scandal erupts.

88%  Nominee:   The Shawshank Redemption  142 min,  R,  [Drama]  [Frank Darabont]  [14 Oct 1994]
Ratings & Reviews:  IMDb Reviews: 93%,   Rotten Tomatoes: 91%,   Metacritic: 80%,   External Reviews
Awards:  Nominated for 7 Oscars. Another 19 wins & 32 nominations.
Actors:  Bob Gunton, Morgan Freeman, Tim Robbins, William Sadler
Writer:  Stephen King (short story "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption"), Frank Darabont (screenplay)
External Links:  Wikipedia  Rotten Tomatoes  IMDb     Language:  English    Country:  USA
Plot:  Chronicles the experiences of a formerly successful banker as a prisoner in the gloomy jailhouse of Shawshank after being found guilty of a crime he did not commit. The film portrays the man's unique way of dealing with his new, torturous life; along the way he befriends a number of fellow prisoners, most notably a wise long-term inmate named Red.
Rotten Tomatoes:   In 1946, a banker named Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is convicted of a double murder, even though he stubbornly proclaims his innocence. He's sentenced to a life term at the Shawshank State Prison in Maine, where another lifer, Ellis "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), picks him as the new recruit most likely to crack under the pressure. The ugly realities of prison life are quickly introduced to Andy: a corrupt warden (Bob Gunton), sadistic guards led by Capt. Byron Hadley (Clancy Brown), and inmates who are little better than animals, willing to use rape or beatings to insure their dominance. But Andy does not crack: he has the hope of the truly innocent, which (together with his smarts) allow him to prevail behind bars. He uses his banking skills to win favor with the warden and the guards, doing the books for Norton's illegal business schemes and keeping an eye on the investments of most of the prison staff. In exchange, he is able to improve the prison library and bring some dignity and respect back to many of the inmates, including Red. Based on a story by Stephen King, The Shawshank Redemption was the directorial debut of screenwriter Frank Darabont. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi