Top 100 Movies Of The 1990's: #41 Misery
Box Office: $61.3 Million
Oscar Nominations: Best Actress (Kathy Bates)
Oscar Wins: Best Actress (Kathy Bates)
MovieRankings.Net: 91/100
Available To Stream: Max (What a dumb name)
There wasn't been a villain quite like Annie Wilkes before Misery. I don't think there's really been one since. When we meet her, she's so unassuming. Strange? Sure. But not someone you'd expect to be a murderer. So much of that depends on the performance of Kathy Bates. She deservedly won the Oscar for this role but I do think it helped that people weren't very familiar with Bates when this was released.
She had spent most of the 1980's as a stage actress on Broadway so most national moviegoers didn't know her. It's her greatest performance but she's had a pretty wonderful career. Four Oscar nominations (Misery is her only win) and known as one of the best character actresses of the last 40 years.
Before independent films took over in 1994, Stephen Spielberg, Oliver Stone and Rob Reiner were the best directors of the era. This is an odd time for movies that was after the directors decade of the 1970's and before that writer-led independent era. Just from 1984-92, Reiner directed This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery and A Few Good Men. That's a fucking great run.
It all fell apart right after that. He stopped working with great writers (the one exception is An American President in 1995 with Aaron Sorkin) and moviegoers tastes also changed. He should have stuck with adapting great Stephen King stories like this one and Stand By Me to the screen. You have to admire the Spielbergs and Scorseses of the world who can tell such great stories for such a long time.
James Caan passed away about a year and a half ago. It's interesting what his legacy will be. He'll always be remembered as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather. That movie will obviously lose some cultural importance as we get further away from it but it will never go away. He's also great in Elf and Christmas movies do seem to live forever, especially great ones like Elf. I think his role as Paul in Misery will be his 3rd most remembered role. Film snobs will point to Thief as his best performance (and they are probably right). Caan was one of the biggest actors in the world in the 1970's.
It's the isolation of Misery that makes it so evergreen and so terrifying. It holds up so well because Annie and her hellish home never progress. Perhaps that's what Hell is. A place of loneliness where nothing changes. The weather is lousy and you're stuck indoors while you long to be anywhere else. You can look out the window at the world passing you by but you are frozen in time with only your lost hopes to keep you entertained.
And some crazy lady comes by as soon as you're feeling better to bash your ankles with a sledgehammer.
41. Misery
42. Tombstone
43. Ransom
44. Wayne's World
45. The Insider
46. Back To The Future Part III
47. A Bronx Tale
48. The People Vs. Larry Flynt
49. Eyes Wide Shut
50. The Sandlot
51. Happy Gilmore
52. Contact
53. The Green Mile
54. Man On The Moon
55. Boyz N The Hood
56. Grosse Pointe Blank
57. Independence Day
58. The Rainmaker
59. Go
60. The Firm
61. Magnolia
62. The Talented Mr. Ripley
63. Tommy Boy
64. The Usual Suspects
65. In The Line Of Fire
66. My Cousin Vinny
67. Awakenings
68. JFK
69. Toy Story
70. Home Alone
71. Jerry Maguire
72. Titanic
73. Billy Madison
74. Apollo 13
75. Braveheart
76. Edward Scissorhands
77. Cape Fear
78. The River Wild
79. What's Eating Gilbert Grape?
80. 12 Monkeys
81. Stir Of Echoes
82. Mission: Impossible
83. Total Recall
84. Quiz Show
85. For Love Of The Game
86. Being John Malkovich
87. Men In Black
88. Scream
89. Alive
90. Three Kings
91. Glengarry Glen Ross
92. Die Hard With A Vengeance
93. The Blair Witch Project
94. Twister
95. Dirty Work
96. Election
97. Tremors
98. Any Given Sunday
99. The Wedding Singer
100. Clerks