Teen attraction to the movies is what brings in the millions at the box office these days. To create a truly great film, filmmakers try to find that "thing" that catch teenagers' attention and makes them want to see the movie, whether it be a certain movie star, or whether the topic of the movie is provocative enough to lure in the viewers. This certain "thing" changes with the times, and is hard to truly grasp. But our public opinion polls show that whatever that thing is, these movies, voted top movies of the 90's, seem to have what it takes. Do you agree or do you have other personal favorites?
American History X
Starring: Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Avery Brooks, Beverly D'Angelo, Elliott Gould
Synopsis: A profoundly stirring drama about the consequences of prejudice as a family is torn apart by hate. The film follows one man's struggle to reform himself and save his brother after living a life consumed by violence and bigotry.
Rated: R for graphic brutal violence including rape, pervasive language, strong sexuality and nudity
Armageddon
Starring: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thorton, Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Steve Buscemi
Synopsis: The second of the 1998 summer's delirious celestial-body-attacks-Earth movies stars Bruce Willis as a roughneck oil driller who takes his merry band of misfits into outer space to save the world.
Rated: PG-13 For sci-fi disaster action, sensuality and brief language
Braveheart
Starring: Mel Gibson, Sophie Marceau, Brendan Gleeson, Angus McFadyen
Synopsis: Hundreds of years ago, a commoner in Scotland, named William Wallace, led his
country against the very powerful England as a quest for freedom. England was the tyrannical country who tried to destroy Scotland, and Wallace would no longer accept the treatment that the Scottish were given. He would no longer accept the unjust treatment. As a quest for freedom, Wallace led his countrymen against the English.
Rated: R
Good Will Hunting
Starring: Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Stellan Skarsgard, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver
Synopsis: Will Hunting (Matt Damon) is only twenty years old, but already stands out in his rough, working-class neighborhood in South Boston. Like his friends, he does menial jobs between stints at the local bar - and run-ins with the law. He's never been to college, except to scrub floors as a janitor at MIT. Yet he can summon obscure historical references from a photographic memory, and almost instantly solve math problems that frustrate Nobel Prize winning professors.
The one thing this remarkably bright, impossibly angry young man can't do - after his latest bar fight - is talk his way out of a pending jail sentence. His only hope is Sean McGuire (Robin Williams), a college professor-turned-therapist with an admiration for his emotional struggles, and a keen understanding of what it's like to fight your way through life.
Rated: R
The Matrix
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Hugo Weaving
Synopsis: Neo is a hacker...one of the best. And he has spent most of his life looking for a mysterious man named Morpheus. He hopes that Morpheus can answer a question that has plagued many hackers for years...a question originated in an urban myth..."What IS the MATRIX?" But now the answer has caught up to Neo...and the repercussions of the knowledge it carries are many. He is pursued by menacing Men In Black-type agents as well as strange individuals who claim to know Morpheus and flaunt abilities most people can only dream of.
But as Neo goes deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole to meet the elusive Morpheus, that is exactly what he is asked to believe. That the Matrix is in actuality the physical world around us...that this world is really just a dream forced upon us by other, more malevolent beings for the purpose of rendering us passive slaves...and that Neo is the key to destroying the illusion and freeing humanity.
Rated: R
Saving Private Ryan
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward J. Burns, Matt Damon, Jeremy Davies
Synopsis: Steven Spielberg's grisly realistic account of a squad of D-Day survivors sent behind enemy lines on a PR mission to rescue the last son of a devastated Iowa family. Tom Hanks gives a staggering performance as the squad's tormented leader, but be warned, the carnage is as explicit as it is persistent.
Rated: R For intense prolonged realistically graphic sequences of war violence, and for language.
The Sixth Sense
Starring: Bruce Willis, Olivia Williams, Haley Joel Osment, Donnie Wahlberg, Toni Collette
Synopsis: In this chilling psychological thriller, eight-year-old Cole Sear is haunted by a dark secret: He is visited by ghosts. A helpless and reluctant channel, Cole is terrified by threatening visitations from those with unresolved problems who appear from the shadows. Confused by his paranormal powers, Cole is too young to understand his purpose and too terrified to tell anyone about his torment, except child psychologist Dr. Malcolm Crowe. As Dr. Crowe tries to uncover the ominous truth about Cole's supernatural abilities, the consequence for client and therapist is a jolt that awakens them both to something harrowing -- and unexplainable.
Rated: PG-13 for intense thematic material and violent images.
Star Wars - the Phantom Menace
Starring: Leam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Pernilla August, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L. Jackson, Frank Oz
Synopsis: In Episode I, Luke Skywalker's father is just a hopeful 9-year-old boy named Anakin, who knows nothing of his eventual fate as a Dark Lord in years to come. In this earlier time, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a determined young Jedi Knight. Qui-Gon Jinn is Obi-Wan's venerable Jedi master, trying to teach the Jedi way to his apprentice as their world begins to unravel in political turmoil. This first chapter in the Star Wars saga follows young Anakin Skywalker's journey as he pursues his dreams and confronts his fears in the midst of a galaxy in crisis.
Rated: PG-13
There's Something About Mary
Starring: W. Earl Brown, Ben Stiller, Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon, Chris Elliot
Synopsis: There sure is. A stalker love story, from the people who brought you "Dumb and Dumber" and "Kingpin." And, as you know, one person's endorsement is another's indictment.
Rated: R for strong comic sexual content and language.
Titanic
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Bill Paxton
Synopsis: The journey of "Titanic" begins in the present, at the site of the ship's watery grave, two-and-a-half miles under the ocean surface. An ambitious fortune hunter (Bill Paxton) is determined to plumb the treasures of this once-stately ship, only to bring to the surface a story left untold. The tragic ruins melt away to reveal the glittering palace that was Titanic as it prepares to launch on its maiden voyage from England. Amidst the thousands of well-wishers bidding a fond bon voyage, destiny has called two young souls, daring them to nurture a passion that would change their lives forever. Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) is a 17-year-old, upper-class American suffocating under the rigid confines and expectations of Edwardian society who falls for a free-spirited young steerage passenger named Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio). Once he opens her eyes to the world that lies outside her gilded cage, Rose and Jack's forbidden love begins a powerful mystery that ultimately echoes across the years into the present. Nothing on earth is going to come between them -- not even something as unimaginable as the sinking of Titanic.
Rated: PG-13 for disaster related peril and violence, nudity, sensuality and brief language
