Top 100 Movies Of The 1990's: #33 Trainspotting
Box Office: $16.5 Million
Oscar Nominations: None
Oscar Wins: None
MovieRankings.Net: 92/100
Available To Stream: MGM+, Paramount+
This might be the worst trailer I've seen. I guess the omission kinda makes sense but this is a movie that is about heroin. This trailer makes you think Trainspotting is a heist movie. It's about friendship, maturity, responsibilities, consequences and lots and lots of heroin. It has so much more depth than a traditional heist movie.
When this came out, some people said it glamorizes drug use. If you think Trainspotting shows drug use in a good light, you're a fucking idiot. The brilliance in Trainspotting is that shows you WHY these people use heroin but also how awful it is. Just because they play upbeat songs when they are high doesn't mean heroin is good. A baby dies because they are so focused on using heroin and instead of mourning, they just turn to using more heroin. There's a reason the director Danny Boyle shows you the dead baby. He wants you to see the ramifications of what they are doing.
Ewen MacGregor is fantastic in Trainspotting. I love how he shows how hard it is to escape a negative lifestyle. Even when he thinks he does, his friends come back to haunt him. This is a different movie than Fight Club which openly hates modern society. Trainspotting and especially Ewen MacGregor's Renton are bored by at first but come to embrace normalcy. You don't have to use heroin to understand how comfortable conformity can feel at times.
I think this is Danny Boyle's best movie. I know Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture but Trainspotting is a much more interesting movie. It's also one that sticks with you. I don't even have Slumdog in his top three movies. I have 127 Hours and 28 Days Later ahead of it as well. But it's Trainspotting that makes me think the most.
Watching this, I couldn't help thinking Jonny Lee Miller and Kelly MacDonald should have had better careers. MacDonad was obviously brilliant in No Country For Old Men but that just makes my point even clearer. They both jump off the screen in every scene they are in. It probably doesn't hurt being in a movie that is electric from start to finish.
Great movies bring you into a world you wouldn't normally go. The best movies help you understand people you wouldn't normally even interact with. Danny Boyle made a fantastic movie that not only does that but is also thrilling, exciting and horribly tragic.
I will say the gap between 34 and 35 is pretty wide and everything from 34 on are movies that I consider great. When this list ends in 2028, hopefully you'll agree.
33. Trainspotting
34. The Game
35. Out Of Sight
36. Carlito's Way
37. Seven
38. L.A. Confidential
39. Speed
40. Gattaca
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