1989 Top Ten List

Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee)

Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen)

sex, lies, and videotape (Steven Soderbergh)

Drugstore Cowboy (Gus Van Sant, Jr.)

Dekalog, Four (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Henry V (Kenneth Branagh)

The War of the Roses (Danny DeVito)

Dekalog, Three (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Say Anything... (Cameron Crowe)

The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover (Peter Greenaway)

Additional 1989 Films By Rating

Speaking Parts (Atom Egoyan)

Sea of Love (Harold Becker)

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (Jim Sheridan)

Mystery Train (Jim Jarmusch)

Heathers (Michael Lehmann)

The Killer (John Woo)

Black Rain (Shohei Imamura)

Monsieur Hire (Patrice Leconte)

Dekalog, One (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

For All Mankind (Al Reinert)

When Harry Met Sally... (Rob Reiner)

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg)

Kiki's Delivery Service (Hayao Miyazaki)

Tetsuo (Shinya Tsukamoto)

Dekalog, Eight (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Dekalog, Ten (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation (Eric Zala)

Winter's Child (Olivier Assayas)

Wodaabe: Herdsmen of the Sun (Werner Herzog)

How to Get Ahead in Advertising (Bruce Robinson)

Batman (Tim Burton)

Dekalog, Two (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Chameleon Street (Wendell B. Harris, Jr.)

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Pedro Almodóvar)

Dekalog, Nine (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Eat a Bowl of Tea (Wayne Wang)

Johanna D'Arc of Mongolia (Ulrike Ottinger)

Dekalog, Seven (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

A City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien)

Major League (David S. Ward)

Life and Nothing But (Bertrand Tavernier)

Sweetie (Jane Campion)

Ghostbusters II (Ivan Reitman)

The Rainbow (Ken Russell)

White Wedding (Jean-Claude Brisseau)

Santa sangre (Alejandro Jodorowsky)

The Seventh Continent (Michael Haneke)

My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days (Andrzej Zulawski)

Last Exit to Brooklyn (Uli Edel)

She-Devil (Susan Seidelman)

Out Cold (Malcolm Mowbray)

Roger & Me (Michael Moore)

Lean on Me (John G. Avildsen)

For archival purposes, I file everything by the year it had its world premiere. Many of these films will have been commercially released in the U.S. a year or two later, so my lists won’t always match up with other folks’ lists.

Ratings are on a needlessly precise 100-point scale.

Films I haven’t yet rated on that scale are marked with if I currently think they belong in my top ten. These films are subject to being shifted around or yanked altogether at any moment, after I revisit them and they get a numeral. (Lists from prior to about 1988 are especially suspect, as I compiled them long ago from memories that were in many cases already pretty dusty.)

A note regarding the Dekalog films: You'll find episodes Five and Six filed in 1988, because they're variants of A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love, respectively, and both of those premiered in 1988.

Seen but currently unrated (and not presumptively among my top 10): The Abyss (Cameron); Always (Spielberg); The Asthenic Syndrome (Muratova); Back to the Future Part II (Zemeckis); Bert Rigby, You're a Fool (Reiner); Best of the Best (Radler); The Big Bang (Toback); The Big Picture (Guest); Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (Herek); Black Rain (Scott); Blaze (Shelton); Blind Fury (Noyce); Blue Steel (Bigelow); Born on the Fourth of July (Stone); Breaking In (Forsyth); The 'Burbs (Dante); Casualties of War (De Palma); Chances Are (Ardolino); Chattahoochee (Jackson); Cold Feet (Dornhelm); Communion (Mora); Cookie (Seidelman); Cousins (Schumacher); Dad (Goldberg); Dead Calm (Noyce); Dead Poets Society (Weir); Dead-Bang (Frankenheimer); Disorganized Crime (Kouf); Dream a Little Dream (Rocco); The Dream Team (Zieff); Driving Miss Daisy (Beresford); A Dry White Season (Palcy); 84 Charlie Mopic (Duncan); Enemies, A Love Story (Mazursky); Erik the Viking (Jones); The Fabulous Baker Boys (Kloves); Family Business (Lumet); Farewell to the King (Milius); Fat Man and Little Boy (Joffe); Field of Dreams (Robinson); Fletch Lives (Ritchie); The Fly II (Walas); Getting It Right (Kleiser); Glory (Zwick); Great Balls of Fire! (McBride); Gross Anatomy (Eberhardt); Happy Together (Damski); Harlem Nights (Murphy); Heart of Dixie (Davidson); Her Alibi (Beresford); Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (Johnston); How I Got Into College (Holland); The Icicle Thief (Nichetti); Immediate Family (Kaplan); In Country (Jewison); An Innocent Man (Yates); Jacknife (Jones); The January Man (O'Connor); Jesus of Montreal (Arcand); Johnny Handsome (Hill); Kill Me Again (Dahl); K-9 (Daniel); The Lemon Sisters (Chopra); Let It Ride (Pytka); Lethal Weapon 2 (Donner); Leviathan (Cosmatos); Licence to Kill (Glen); Listen to Me (Stewart); The Little Mermaid (Musker & Clements); Little Monsters (Greenberg); Lock Up (Flynn); Look Who's Talking (Heckerling); Lost Angels (Hudson); Loverboy (Silver); Mama, There's a Man in Your Bed (Serreau); Marriage of the Blessed (Makhmalbaf); The Mighty Quinn (Schenkel); Miss Firecracker (Schlamme); Mortal Passions (Lane); Music Box (Costa-Gavras); My Twentieth Century (Enyedi); New York Stories (Scorsese/Coppola/Allen); Next of Kin (Irvin); Night Visitor (Hitzig); Old Gringo (Puenzo); The Package (Davis); Parenthood (Howard); Parents (Balaban); Penn & Teller Get Killed (Penn); Pet Sematary (Lambert); Physical Evidence (Crichton); Pink Cadillac (Van Horn); Queen of Hearts (Amiel); The Rachel Papers (Harris); Red Scorpion (Zito); Relentless (Lustig); Renegades (Sholder); Road House (Herrington); Romero (Duigan); Rosalie Goes Shopping (Adlon); Rude Awakening (Russo & Greenwalt); Scandal (Caton-Jones); Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (Bartel); Second Sight (Zwick); See No Evil, Hear No Evil (Hiller); See You in the Morning (Pakula); Shag (Barron); She's out of Control (Dragoti); Shirley Valentine (Gilbert); Sidewalk Stories (Lane); Sadhana (Piché); Signs of Life (Coles); Skin Deep (Edwards); Star Trek V—The Final Frontier (Shatner); Staying Together (Grant); Steel Magnolias (Ross); The Story of Boys and Girls (Avati); Strapless (Hare); The Tall Guy (Smith); Tango & Cash (Konchalovsky); Tap (Castle); Three Fugitives (Veber); Too Beautiful for You (Blier); Triumph of the Spirit (Young); Troop Beverly Hills (Kanew); True Believer (Ruben); Turner & Hooch (Spottiswoode); UHF (Levey); The Unbelievable Truth (Hartley); Uncle Buck (Hughes); Violent Cop (Kitano); Warlock (Miner); Weekend at Bernie's (Kotcheff); Welcome Home (Schaffner); We're No Angels (Jordan); Who's Harry Crumb? (Flaherty); Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (Bae); Wild Orchid (King); Winter People (Kotcheff); The Wizard (Holland); Worth Winning (Mackenzie); Yaaba (Ouédraogo)

As yet unseen: Cat Chaser (Ferrara); Time of the Gypsies (Kusturica)

I occasionally write reviews of older movies, but it happens too infrequently to file them by year.