As decades must, the 1990s had a beginning, a middle and an end. But in the spirit of Quentin Tarantino we’re going to launch our big summer series 90s, Baby smack in the middle, with 1994’s Pulp Fiction, the most original, exciting and influential movie of its era. On 35mm.
A pop post-modernist and voracious cultural magpie, Tarantino came out of nowhere (well, Video Archives), who was hailed as a new god of filmmaking overnight. With Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction and his screenplays for True Romance (1993) and Natural Born Killers (94) he electrified 90s film culture, changing the way movies sounded, the way they flowed, and how they connected with audiences. His emergence coincided with the advent of the world wide web, and Tarantino constructed his genre hybrids from a wide array of international influences — French new wave, American noir and 70s exploitation pictures, Hong Kong action cinema — rewriting the rule book as he did so.
Pulp Fiction scrambles the chronology of three interlocking narratives, as if in homage to Godard’s observation that a story should have a beginning, a middle and an end “but not necessarily in that order”. Revitalizing the careers of several flagging A-list stars at a stroke (John Travolta, Bruce Willis and Harvey Keitel), Tarantino unleashed a torrent of black comic verbal riffs and repartee. If the tone is ironic, the characters are iconic, and the momentum never flags throughout its 154-minute running time. Backed by Miramax Films, the indie company that dominated movie talk in the 90s (even as it was bought up by Disney), Pulp Fiction won the Palme d’Or and broke the $100 million barrier at the North American box office, ushering in the era of the “mini-major”, through which the studios co-opted many of the best and brightest of the independent sector.
Content Considerations: Graphic violence
It is everything you have heard, and many things you haven’t. Audacious, outrageous, indulgent, extreme. Mischievously brutal. Giddily visceral. Wildly enthusiastic. More fun than a barrel of monkeys. Mad, bad and dangerous to know.
Rob Salem, Toronto Star
Media Partner
Quentin Tarantino
John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Bruce Willis
USA
1994
English
Palme d’Or, Cannes; Academy Award, Best Original Screenplay
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
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Credits
Screenwriter
Quentin Tarantino
Cinematography
Andrzej Sekula
Editor
Sally Menke
Production Design
David Wasco
Art Director
Charles Collum
90s, Baby!
Ten years. 11 weeks. 90 films from the 1990s. This summer, 90’s Baby! takes a deep dive into a defining decade of cinema.
The Big Lebowski
The Coens' whacky, warped slacker generation riff on Raymond Chandler, a shaggy dog story which delights in going sideways at every turn. Jeff Bridges is the Dude, and what he really wants is to get his rug back...
Out of Sight
Adapted from Elmore Leonard's novel about the mutual attraction between an escaped bank robber and the FBI agent on his tail, Out of Sight is sexy and romantic, cosmopolitan, and full of Soderbergh's sleight of hand, shuffling time like a card sharp.
Buffalo '66
Vincent Gallo's directorial debut is an eccentric, provocative comedy which laces a poignant love story with both a sombre, washed-out naturalism and surreal musical vignettes. This one is something different...
Run Lola Run
In the hyper intense world of pre-millennial Berlin, Lola has just 20 minutes to come up with a 100,000 Deutchmarks or her boyfriend cops it. He's asking the right woman: Lola won't stop til she's saved the day... It's Speed, in the multiverse...
Rushmore
Precocious Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) is befriended by depressed industrialist Harold Blume (Bill Murray) until they both fall in love with first grade teacher Miss Cross (Olivia Williams). Anderson's second feature is an old favourite.
Saving Private Ryan
Steven Spielberg's gripping war movie was hailed as an instant classic in 1998, and he won his second Academy Award in five years for Best Director. Matt Damon takes the title role, Tom Hanks is charged with bringing him home from the front.
The Blair Witch Project
The rushes of a student-made documentary investigating the legend of the Blair Witch in Burkittsville, Maryland, a quest that led the three filmmakers deep into the Appallachian woods. Easy to get lost in there...
The Thin Red Line
After a 20-year hiatus, Terrence Malick re-emerged with this earching adaptation of James Jones's autobiographical novel about the WWII battle of Guadalcanal. The Thin Red Line is a lyrical, meditative war movie, a philosophical discourse on war itself.
The Matrix
Can a computer hacker save the world? Maybe if you hack deep enough... One of the most influential movies of the past quarter-century. The Matrix didn't just change the way films looked and moved, it altered the way we perceived the world(s).
Lessons of Darkness
Werner Herzog's unforgettable documentary reveals the unfolding disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames in 1991 as a sweeping inferno of mesmerizing power.
Office Space
This razor sharp comedy from Mike Judge (King of the Hill) captures the indignities of life as a wage slave with rare acumen and caustic wit. Evidently the impending millennial bug weighed heavily on people's minds back in 1999.
The Sixth Sense
"I see dead people." Does 10-year-old Cole (Haley Joel Osment) have the sixth sense, as he claims — or is this sensitive, unusual child responding to stress, as his mother (Toni Collette) would like to believe? Psychologist Bruce Willis finds out.
Beau Travail
Inspired by Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Claire Denis' transfixing Beau Travail is set in East Africa. Sgt Galoup (Denis Lavant) reflects on his time in the French Foreign Legion, and the impact of the handsome Sentain (Gregoire Colin).
Three Kings
George Clooney headlines David O Russell's bold, brazen attempt to get to grips with the immediate aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, as 4 US soldiers try to liberate a missing shipment of gold amidst the chaos and carnage.
But I'm a Cheerleader
Megan (Natasha Lyonne) is the perfect All-American Girl, or so she thinks. That is until she’s shipped off to conversion therapy. This pitch black comedy is wrapped in a saccharine bow, featuring the icon herself, RuPaul, as a conversion counsellor.
Magnolia
This deeply personal 1999 California opus is ripe for rediscovery. Mapping the emotional traumas of half-a-dozen major characters as they crisscross the San Fernando Valley in search of either recognition or reconciliation, it's PTA's riskiest gamble.