Best of the year
The Best Movies of 1996, 30 Years Later
The movies of 1996, ranked by audience score and the weight of the vote behind it.
NetflixMovies.com
The films of 1996 lean toward crime, and toward people caught in decisions they cannot take back. Debts get arranged, cases get taken, habits get tested. Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet keeps to the castle and the ghost on the ramparts, while Star Trek: First Contact sends the Borg on a course for Earth. Between those poles sit quiet family stories and courtroom dramas, and the mood shifts from film to film more than the subject matter does.
The order rests on audience score, weighted so that thousands of votes count for more than a handful of enthusiasts. A film had to be feature length, released in 1996, and carry several hundred votes behind it.
The place to begin is Fargo, where Joel Coen turns a salesman's debt into a scheme and hands the investigation to a pregnant police chief. Frances McDormand plays Marge Gunderson, with William H. Macy and Steve Buscemi in support. Danny Boyle's Trainspotting belongs to Mark Renton, an unemployed heroin addict in Leith who decides the habit has to go, and Ewan McGregor plays him alongside Ewen Bremner and Jonny Lee Miller. In Sling Blade, Billy Bob Thornton directs and takes the part of a man who leaves the state hospital where he grew up for the Arkansas town he came from. A boy named Frank befriends him, and Frank's mother offers him the garage. Mike Leigh's Secrets & Lies gives the search to Hortense, an optometrist in London who was adopted at birth and goes looking for her mother. Brenda Blethyn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste lead the cast.
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1. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996)
2h 30m
- IMDb 8.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 100%
- Our score 4.6/5
In 1993, three eight-year-old boys are found dead in a ditch in West Memphis, Arkansas. Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. are charged as the town blames Satanism.
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2. Fargo (1996)
1h 38m • Crime, Drama, Thriller
- IMDb 8.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 94%
- Our score 4.4/5
Jerry Lundegaard, a Minneapolis car salesman in debt, arranges for his wife to be taken so that her wealthy father will pay. Police chief Marge Gunderson, seven months pregnant, investigates.
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3. Trainspotting (1996)
1h 34m • Drama
- IMDb 8.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 90%
- Our score 4.3/5
Mark Renton, an unemployed heroin addict in Leith, uses drugs with Sick Boy and Spud, while Begbie and Tommy steer clear of heroin. Tired of the habit, he tries to quit.
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4. Sling Blade (1996)
2h 15m • Drama
- IMDb 8.0/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 96%
- Our score 4.4/5
Karl Childers leaves the state hospital where he grew up and returns to his Arkansas hometown, where a boy, Frank, befriends him. Frank's mother Linda offers Karl a place in her garage.
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5. Secrets & Lies (1996)
2h 22m • Comedy, Drama
- IMDb 8.0/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 96%
- Our score 4.4/5
Adopted at birth and raised by another family, Hortense Cumberbatch works as an optometrist in London. After her adoptive mother dies, she traces her birth mother, Cynthia Purley.
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6. Primal Fear (1996)
2h 9m • Crime, Drama, Mystery
- IMDb 7.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 77%
- Our score 3.9/5
Chicago defense attorney Martin Vail takes the case of Aaron Stampler, an altar boy charged with murdering Archbishop Rushman. Prosecutor Janet Venable, once his lover, seeks a death sentence.
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7. Hamlet (1996)
4h 2m • Drama
- IMDb 7.7/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 95%
- Our score 4.3/5
Prince Hamlet comes home to Denmark after his father's death and finds his uncle Claudius on the throne beside his mother. A ghost walks the castle ramparts with news for him.
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8. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
1h 51m • Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
- IMDb 7.6/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 93%
- Our score 4.2/5
The Borg set a course for Earth, and Starfleet orders Captain Jean-Luc Picard to keep the Enterprise-E out of the fight. He defies that order and follows the Borg into the past.
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9. Shine (1996)
1h 45m • Drama
- IMDb 7.6/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 91%
- Our score 4.2/5
David Helfgott's father Peter teaches him piano in suburban Adelaide and demands that he win. A teacher, Mr. Rosen, takes over David's lessons. Isaac Stern invites David to study in America.
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10. Beautiful Thing (1996)
1h 30m • Comedy, Drama, Romance
- IMDb 7.6/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 92%
- Our score 4.2/5
Jamie, bullied at school, lives with his mother Sandra on a Thamesmead estate. He is drawn to Ste, the boy next door, beaten at home. Sandra lets Ste stay the night.
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11. Sleepers (1996)
2h 27m • Crime, Drama, Thriller
- IMDb 7.5/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 73%
- Our score 3.7/5
Four boys in Hell's Kitchen run errands for the gangster King Benny. A stolen hot dog cart injures a man, and the boys are sent to the Wilkinson Home for Boys.
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12. A Time to Kill (1996)
2h 29m • Crime, Drama, Thriller
- IMDb 7.5/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 66%
- Our score 3.5/5
In Mississippi, Carl Lee Hailey is charged with killing the two white men who raped his ten-year-old daughter, Tonya. His friend Jake Brigance, a young lawyer, defends him as the Klan returns.
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13. Victor/Victoria (1996)
2h 26m • Comedy, Music, Romance
- IMDb 7.8/10
- Our score 3.9/5
A penniless singer, Victoria Grant, meets the impresario Toddy, who helps her become Victor, a man who performs as a woman in Paris nightclubs. The Chicago gangster King Marchand sees the act.
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14. Sharpe's Regiment (1996)
1h 42m • Action, Adventure, History, War
- IMDb 7.8/10
- Our score 4.0/5
The South Essex is short of men and faces disbandment. Major Richard Sharpe and Sergeant Major Patrick Harper go to England, where a battalion paid for hundreds of men musters eleven.
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15. Scream (1996)
1h 51m • Horror, Mystery
- IMDb 7.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 78%
- Our score 3.8/5
In Woodsboro, California, high school student Sidney Prescott is nearing the first anniversary of her mother's murder. A masked killer calls her home, and she and her friends become targets.
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16. The Rock (1996)
2h 17m • Action, Adventure, Thriller
- IMDb 7.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 67%
- Our score 3.5/5
General Francis X. Hummel seizes Alcatraz and threatens San Francisco with stolen VX rockets. FBI chemist Stanley Goodspeed and jailed ex-SAS captain John Mason are recruited to disarm them.
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17. The English Patient (1996)
2h 42m • Drama, Romance, War
- IMDb 7.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 86%
- Our score 4.0/5
In 1944 Italy, Hana, a French-Canadian nurse, stays behind in a bombed monastery to tend a gravely burned man who cannot recall his name. His past in the Sahara returns.
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18. Lone Star (1996)
2h 15m • Drama, Mystery
- IMDb 7.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 91%
- Our score 4.1/5
Two off-duty sergeants find a skeleton on an Army rifle range with a Masonic ring and a Rio County sheriff's badge. Sheriff Sam Deeds opens an investigation in his Texas border town.
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19. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
1h 24m • Comedy
- IMDb 7.4/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 91%
- Our score 4.1/5
In Blaine, Missouri, Corky St. Clair stages Red, White and Blaine, a musical about the town's past, with local amateurs. He tells his cast a Broadway producer may attend the opening.
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20. Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (1996)
2h • Biography, Drama, Sport
- IMDb 7.6/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 94%
- Our score 4.3/5
Earl "The Goat" Manigault, a legendary Harlem street basketball player, comes home from prison as a reformed addict. He aims to spend his life helping the neighborhood's young players.
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21. Jerry Maguire (1996)
2h 19m • Comedy, Drama, Romance
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 84%
- Our score 3.9/5
Sports agent Jerry Maguire writes a mission statement against his trade's dishonesty and is fired. Only Rod Tidwell, a disgruntled receiver, and Dorothy Boyd, a single mother, stay with him.
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22. The Birdcage (1996)
1h 57m • Comedy
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 81%
- Our score 3.9/5
Armand Goldman runs a drag club in South Beach and lives above it with his partner Albert, the club's star. Armand's son Val is engaged to the daughter of a conservative senator.
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23. The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)
2h 9m • Biography, Drama
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 88%
- Our score 4.0/5
In 1972 Cincinnati, Larry Flynt and his brother Jimmy run a struggling strip club. Larry turns its newsletter into Hustler, a nude-photo magazine, and falls for dancer Althea Leasure.
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24. Bound (1996)
1h 48m • Crime, Drama, Romance
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 87%
- Our score 4.0/5
Corky, a lesbian ex-convict, takes a plumbing job in a Chicago building and meets Violet, whose boyfriend Caesar launders money for the Mafia. Violet wants out and asks her for help.
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25. Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996)
1h 28m • Comedy, Drama
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 90%
- Our score 4.1/5
Dawn Wiener, a seventh-grader in suburban New Jersey, wants to be liked. Her classmates bully her, her parents favor her younger sister, and Brandon McCarthy threatens her.
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26. Big Night (1996)
1h 49m • Drama
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 96%
- Our score 4.2/5
Primo and Secondo, brothers from Calabria, run a struggling Italian restaurant on the Jersey Shore. Their neighbor Pascal promises to bring singer Louis Prima to dine there.
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27. Mission: Impossible (1996)
1h 50m • Action, Adventure, Thriller
- IMDb 7.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 65%
- Our score 3.4/5
Ethan Hunt, pointman on Jim Phelps's IMF team, is the only survivor of a Prague operation gone wrong. Suspected as the mole, he must find the real traitor.
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28. From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
1h 48m • Crime, Fantasy, Horror
- IMDb 7.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 63%
- Our score 3.4/5
Bank robber Seth Gecko and his brother Richie take a pastor and his children hostage and force them into Mexico. They plan to wait in a desert bar for their contact Carlos.
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29. Swingers (1996)
1h 36m • Comedy, Drama
- IMDb 7.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 87%
- Our score 4.0/5
Mike Peters left New York to make it as a comedian in Los Angeles. Six months after his girlfriend Michelle left him, his friend Trent steers him back toward nightlife and women.
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30. Bastard Out of Carolina (1996)
1h 38m • Drama
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 100%
- Our score 4.3/5
Bone grows up poor in Greenville, South Carolina, with her mother Anney and a large extended family. Anney marries Glen Waddell, the man she hopes is her last chance.
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31. Brassed Off (1996)
1h 43m • Comedy, Drama, Romance
- IMDb 7.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 79%
- Our score 3.8/5
Grimley's pit may close, and the miners' brass band with it. Gloria arrives in the village with her flugelhorn and joins the players; among them is Andy, determined to fight the closures.
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32. Gotti (1996)
1h 56m • Biography, Crime, Drama
- IMDb 7.2/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 60%
- Our score 3.3/5
John Gotti brings in money for a small New York crew and breaks the family's rules. He rises to lead the Gambino crime family, and his public profile grows.
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33. Lilies (1996)
1h 35m • Crime, Drama, Fantasy
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 89%
- Our score 4.1/5
1952: Bishop Bilodeau comes to a Quebec prison to hear inmate Simon Doucet's confession. Simon has the other prisoners stage a play about the two men's youth in 1912.
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34. The Frighteners (1996)
1h 50m • Comedy, Fantasy, Horror
- IMDb 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 66%
- Our score 3.4/5
Frank Bannister can see the dead, and three ghosts help him stage hauntings he is paid to clear. Then a Grim Reaper-like figure starts killing people in his town.
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35. Hard Eight (1996)
1h 41m • Crime, Drama
- IMDb 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 81%
- Our score 3.8/5
Sydney, a veteran gambler, finds John broke outside a desert diner, buys him coffee and teaches him to work the casinos. In Reno, John falls for Clementine, a cocktail waitress.
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36. Beautiful Girls (1996)
1h 52m • Comedy, Drama, Romance
- IMDb 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 79%
- Our score 3.8/5
Jazz pianist Willie Conway comes home to Knight's Ridge, Massachusetts for a ten-year high school reunion. His friends are caught up in old romances, and Willie is unsure about his girlfriend.
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37. Michael Collins (1996)
2h 13m • Biography, Drama, Thriller
- IMDb 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 77%
- Our score 3.7/5
After the Easter Rising ends in defeat, Michael Collins turns to guerrilla tactics to win Irish independence, ordering assassinations of informers and of British intelligence agents.
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38. Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996)
1h 13m • Comedy, Sci-Fi
- IMDb 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 80%
- Our score 3.8/5
Dr. Clayton Forrester, a mad scientist, forces Mike Nelson, Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo to watch This Island Earth. Mike and the robots are aboard the Satellite of Love.
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39. Trees Lounge (1996)
1h 35m • Comedy, Drama
- IMDb 7.1/10
- Rotten Tomatoes 81%
- Our score 3.8/5
Tommy Basilio lost his job and his girlfriend, and drinks his days away at the Trees Lounge. He takes over his uncle Al's ice cream route, and Theresa's niece Debbie rides along.
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40. Andersonville (1996)
2h 47m • Drama, History, War
- IMDb 7.3/10
- Our score 3.7/5
Josiah Day is captured at Cold Harbor and sent to Camp Sumter in Georgia. He and Sgt. McSpadden try to keep their company together against the Raiders, prisoners who rob new arrivals.
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