Top 100 Movies Of The 1990's: #4 Good Will Hunting
Box Office: $138.4 Million Dollars
Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Gus Van Sant), Best Actor (Matt Damon), Best Supporting Actor (Robin Williams), Best Supporting Actress (Minnie Driver), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Score, Best Song
Oscar Wins: Best Supporting Actor (Robin Williams), Best Original Screenplay
MovieRankings.Net: 97/100
Available To Stream: Pluto TV (On Showtime at 6:30 PM on Saturday)
No movie portrays male friendship better than Good Will Hunting. Good friends are there for you. But the best of friends care more about you than they care about the friendship. Best friends want you to live your greatest life possible. Having another human being care about you that much is rare. Having that person not even be related to you is priceless. If you can count people in your life like that on even one hand, consider yourself very lucky.
Will (Matt Damon) has that with Chuckie (Ben Affleck). Them actually being friends makes this feel so authentic. On the job site when Chuckie tells Will that he needs to have a better life isn't just one of my favorite scenes of the 1990's. It's one of my favorite scenes ever. Chuckie's disgust that Will would keep working construction and watching Pats games while Chuckie himself knows that's exactly what his own future holds is incredible.
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The other side of this is the relationship between Sean (Robin Williams) and Gerald (Stellan Skarsgard). Gerald is a shitty friend who is obsessed with jealousy and image. The incredible screenplay by Damon and Affleck doesn't take a shortcut to make Gerald a traditional movie villain. He has the right intentions for Will. But, he also treats Sean badly and never attempts to understand why his old friend does what he does. It's a fantastic juxtaposition to seeing how much Chuckie cares for Will. For all of Gerald's brilliance, he'll never understand that.
It's this theme of friendship that make Good Will Hunting timeless. It feels almost as fresh now as it did when I sat in a Portsmouth, New Hampshire movie theater seeing it for the first time. The theater has long been torn down but the movie still is in our zeitgeist. It doesn't hurt that both Damon and Affleck have had great careers. But even saying that, they haven't reached quite this peak again in their careers. Affleck won Best Picture for Argo (but wasn't even nominated for Best Director) and Damon has been nominated for two other acting Oscars...but it's almost impossible to reach the heights of winning that screenplay Oscar together for this. It wasn't just winning the Oscar. It was what felt like an unlimited future for these guys.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY. Getty Images.Minnie Driver is perfect as Skylar. She's a great counterbalance to Will Hunting, who truly doesn't think he deserves her. He chases after her in the end and I bet they do date when he gets out there. But, I don't see that being an eternal love story. That's not what this movie is. It's about Will breaking free of invisible chains he put on himself because he couldn't get past the pain of how he grew up.
I'm not the biggest Robin Williams fan of his comedy. His stand-up was too frantic and zany for me. But, he was one Hell of an actor. This is his greatest performance but watch him in Good Morning, Vietnam or Awakenings or Insomnia or Dead Poets Society. Even in Mrs. Doubtfire, you care about that family so much simply because he cares. Not many actors get nominated for four acting Oscars. One of the greatest actors of the 1990's is first thought of as a comedian by many. That's pretty impressive.
You feel like you know these characters. They feel like people you could meet in real life. None of them are perfect but none are truly bad either. They are people in very different circumstances doing the best that they can. It takes one Hell of a screenplay to make you care this much. Affleck and Damon may never reach quite these heights again, but who could?
4. Good Will Hunting
5. Casino
6. Groundhog Day
7. The Silence Of The Lambs
8. Office Space
9. The Sixth Sense
10. Boogie Nights
11. Jurassic Park
12. Jackie Brown
13. A Few Good Men
14. The Fugitive
15. The Truman Show
16. Fargo
17. Swingers
18. Reservoir Dogs
19. There's Something About Mary
20. Sleepers
21. Schindler's List
22. Rushmore
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