Top 100 Movies Of The 1990's: #23 Fight Club
Box Office: $37.0 Million
Oscar Nominations: Best Sound Editing
Oscar Wins: None
MovieRankings.Net: 91/100
Available To Stream: Sling TV, Apple TV
Fight Club is an absolutely fantastic movie that is brilliantly directed and acted. It also seems to mean less and less to me with each passing year. The nihilism and cynicism just rings more true when you are in your 20's as opposed to your 40's. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this is like Mallrats which is a movie I loved in my teens but now is not something I ever need to see again. That's something you completely age out of. Fight Club is still a great movie. It's just not quite as great to me.
It's such a sign of the times that Edward Norton shares top billing with Brad Pitt. Don't get me wrong. Norton is fantastic in this and was absolutely supposed to be the next De Niro before DiCaprio took that crown. If you look at his career the past 20 years, I can't think of many other actors who have done so little with so much talent.
But he's the perfect counterbalance to Pitt in Fight Club. The anti-capitalism/marketing is very forced at times but it's the performances of Norton and shockingly Meat Loaf that really ground this movie and make you care at an emotional level. Helena Bonham Carter never feels like she quite belongs in this movie. She's a very good actress but it just didn't feel like she belonged in this world. It may sound crazy but Courtney Love might have been a better fit. She was really good in (#48)The People Vs. Larry Flynt and (#54) Man On The Moon.
I'm probably nitpicking this movie too much. This is a movie with a lot to say and it struck a nerve with Gen X guys. We were more sarcastic than our parents but also not as relevant culturally. The movie calls Generation X the "middle child of history" which is pretty fair. I think the movie still works today for young guys. That anger and feeling of being disillusioned is hardly a Gen X issue.
The main reason this movie works is the director David Fincher. To even have this movie make sense is a massive accomplishment. It's the 3rd Fincher movie to make this list (#34 The Game and #37 Seven are the others). It's my second favorite Fincher movie after The Social Network (which I still think is the most important movie of this century).
I have real doubts that Fight Club could be made today for a few reasons. The content is too controversial and the satire is too subtle. The same voices who didn't get the movie in 1998 are louder today. The other thing is where would this movie be released? Studios don't make mid-budget movies anymore. It's tent pole blockbuster or nothing. Maybe this appears on Netflix or some other streaming service?
The themes of the movie worked perfect as a sort of fun house mirror to how guys felt and looked at the world in 1998. You even felt that in the moment. It was always a movie of it's time. I just had no idea then that the movie itself couldn't be made today. It's too original, too dark and not profitable enough.
But isn't that what Tyler Durden was warning us all about?
23. Fight Club
24. Saving Private Ryan
25. True Romance
26. Dumb & Dumber
27. Kingpin
28. Donnie Brasco
29. Heat
30. Terminator 2: Judgement Day
31. Rounders
32. Unforgiven
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