Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: 1997 in films and TV-series

7/02/2022

1997 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Top 10 of the Year

1. Good Will Hunting - Gus Van Sant + Best American Movie of the Year + Best Drama of the Year + Best Massachusetts Movie of the Year

2. Happy Together/春光乍洩 (Chun gwong cha sit) - Wong Kar-Wai + Best Buenos Aires Movie of the Year + Best On-Screen Couple of the Year: Tony Leung & Leslie Cheung + Best Rainbow Movie of the Year + Best Romance of the Year

3. Bean/Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie/Bean: The Movie - Mel Smith + Breakthrough Actor of the Year: Rowan Atkinson + Best Comedy of the Year + Best Family Movie of the Year + Best Los Angeles Movie of the Year + Best Mega-Hit Movie of the Year

4. As Good As It Gets - James L. Brooks + Best Huge Hit of the Year + Best Romcom of the Year

5. Donnie Brasco - Mike Newell + Best Big Hit Movie of the Year + Best Gangster Movie of the Year + Best New York Movie of the Year + Best Period Movie of the Year

6. Boogie Nights - Paul Thomas Anderson + Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Mark Wahlberg

7. The Full Monty - Peter Cattaneo + Best Dance Movie of the Year + Best English Movie of the Year + Most Profitable Movie of the Year: 99.66 mil. $ range

8. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery - Jay Roach + Best New Franchise of the Year + Best Poster of the Year + Best Spoof Movie of the Year

9. Anastasia - Don Bluth, Gary Goldman + Best Musical of the Year

10. The Big One, documentary - Michael Moore + Best Political Movie of the Year

Other great movies (in alphabetical order):

The Boxer - Jim Sheridan + Best Boxing Movie of the Year + Best Irish Movie of the Year

Frasier - season 5 - David Angell, Peter Casey, David Lee + Best Returning TV-series of the Year + Best Sitcom of the Year

The Game - David Fincher + Best Big Flop Movie of the Year + Best Thriller of the Year + Costliest Flop of the Year: 26.24 mil. $ range

Other good, recommendable movies (in alphabetic order):

Chinese Box - Wayne Wang + Best Hong Kong Movie of the Year

Cop Land - James Mangold + Best Crime Drama of the Year

East Side Story, documentary - Dana Ranga

The Eel/うなぎ (Unagi) - Shôhei Imamura + Best Japanese Movie of the Year

Live Flesh/Carne Trémula - Pedro Almodóvar + Best Erotic Movie of the Year + Best Spanish Movie of the Year

The Bottom 10 of the Year

1. Contact - Robert Zemeckis + Most Deserved Flop of the Year + Most Overrated Movie of the Year

2. The Brave - Johnny Depp + Worst $ Return of the Year: 0.16 times the cost

3. Flubber - Les Mayfield

4. Alien: Resurrection - Jean-Pierre Jeunet

5. The Fifth Element/Le Cinquième Élément - Luc Besson + Most Undeserved Hit of the Year

6. Chasing Amy - Kevin Smith + Best $ Return of the Year: 60.4 times the cost

7. Con Air - Simon West

8. Absolute Power - Clint Eastwood + Worst Poser of the Year

9. Fireworks/Hana-bi/はなび - Takeshi Kitano

10. Amistad - Steven Spielberg

Other failed, mediocre and/or poor films (in alphabetic order):

Anaconda - Luis Llosa

Breakdown - Jonathan Mostow

The Devil's Advocate - Taylor Hackford

Face/Off - John Woo

G.I. Jane - Ridley Scott

Hercules - Ron Clements, John Musker

Home Alone 3 - Raja Gosnell + Best Chicago Movie of the Year

[35 titles in total]

Notes

1997 gets its first lists here, which cover one masterpiece of the year and one grade zero film.

The Top 10 list kicks off with the year's to date only reviewed masterpiece, Gus Van Sant's globally beloved young scholar drama Good Will Hunting. Taking silver and bronze are Wong Kar-Wai's remarkable expat romance Happy Together and Mel Smith's crowd-pleasing family comedy smash, Bean.

The top 10 goes on with James L. Brooks' delightful romcom As Good As It Gets; Mike Newell's solid gangster period drama Donnie Brasco; Paul Thomas Anderson's legendary porn business portrayal Boogie Nights; Peter Cattaneo's sensationally popular strip romp The Full Monty; Jay Roach's shag-a-delic spy spoof Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery; Don Bluth and Gary Goldman's splendid animated adventure Anastasia and finally Michael Moore's outraged - and hugely entertaining - documentary The Big One.

Among the other remarkable films of the year are another towering Daniel Day-Lewis performance in Jim Sheridan's The Boxer; Wayne Wang's melancholic Hong Kong lullaby Chinese Box; Shôhei Imamura's deliciously strange The Eel; and David Fincher's wild thriller ride The Game.

The Bottom 10 list is capped by Robert Zemeckis' almost unwatchable sci-fi epic Contact. Taking silver and bronze are Johnny Depp's catastrophic directorial debut, the native American/snuff film-themed indulgence The Brave and Les Mayfield's brain-attacking family-aimed monstrosity Flubber.

Rounding out the list of the year's most dubious duds are Jean-Pierre Jeunet's goo calamity Alien: Resurrection; Luc Besson's braindead space opera The Fifth Element; Kevin Smith's strenuous lesbian-themed romcom Chasing Amy; Simon West's sensory bombardment Con Air; Clint Eastwood's inauspicious homicidal president thriller Absolute Power; Takeshi Kitano's self-indulgent, self-pushing zen killer drama Fireworks; and finally Steven Spielberg's grand, ham-fisted rush job Amistad.

Besides Spielberg and Eastwood, the other master filmmakers who also disappointed in 1997 are Ridley Scott (G.I. Jane) and John Musker and Ron Clements (Hercules).

The year's biggest hits list is notable for the non-action (and non-Hollywood) titles that currently rank in the top: Comedies and two (part) British films are all the way in the front. Among the notable stars who had an especially great year are breakthroughs Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting) and Ben Affleck (Good Will Hunting and indie hit Chasing Amy). Cementing their star status were Jack Nicholson (As Good As It Gets), Al Pacino (Donnie Brasco and The Devil's Advocate), Bruce Willis (The Fifth Element) and Nicolas Cage (Con Air and Face/Off), - as well as funny-men Rowan Atkinson (Bean) and Mike Myers (Austin Powers).

Robin Williams (Good Will Hunting, Flubber) and Johnny Depp (Donnie Brasco, The Brave) headed both major hits and major flops. Among the other notables whose output were costly flops were Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey (Contact), Michael Douglas (The Game) and Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder (Alien: Resurrection).

The lists are missing most of the year's important output still, of course, and future updates will include much more.

Biggest flops of the year:

[The loss is based solely on the cost and box office earnings for the films. Marketing costs and additional revenue (home video, TV rights and other auxiliary profits) are not taken into account]

1. The Game - 26.24 mil. $ range

2. Contact - 21.56 mil. $ range

3. Alien: Resurrection - 10.48 mil. $ range

4. Flubber - 8.84 mil. $ range

5. The Brave - 5.6 mil. $ range

= Combined losses: 72.72 mil. $

Biggest hits of the year:

[The gain is based solely on the cost and box office earnings for the films. Marketing costs and additional revenue (home video, TV rights and other auxiliary profits) are not taken into account]

1. The Full Monty - 99.66 mil. $ range

2. Bean - 82.48 mil. $ range

3. Good Will Hunting - 77.36 mil. $ range

4. As Good As It Gets - 75.64 mil. $ range

5. Face/Off - 18.24 mil. $ range

6. Hercules - 16.08 mil. $ range

7. The Fifth Element - 15.6 mil. $ range

8. Donnie Brasco - 14.96 mil. $ range

9. Con Air - 14.6 mil. $ range

10. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery - 10.58 mil. $

= Combined profits: 425.2 mil. $

1997 titles currently on the watch-list:

Kiss Me, Guido, Taste of Cherry, Open Your Eyes, The Long Way Home, Ma Vie en Rose, TwentyFourSeven, La Vie de Jésus, Wild Animals, See the Sea, Saint

Previous annual lists:

2021 in films - according to Film Excess

2020 in films - according to Film Excess

2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

2019 in films - according to Film Excess
2018 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2018 in films - according to Film Excess
2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2017 in films - according to Film Excess
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2016 in films - according to Film Excess

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess
2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
2002 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
2001 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

2000 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

What do you think of the 1997 lists?
Which 1997 titles would make to your top and bottom lists?
Which worthwhile 1997 titles are missing on the watch-list?

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William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

William Hurt has passed away

Born in Washington D.C., Hurt's first film role was the lead in Altered States (1980). Later credits include Body Heat (1981), The Big Chill (1983), Gorky Park (1983), Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), for which he earned his only Oscar as Best Actor; Chilrdren of a Lesser God (1986), for which he was also Oscar-nominated; Broadcast News (1987), for which he was again Oscar-nominated; Smoke (1995), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), A History of Violence (2005), for which he was again Oscar-nominated; The Good Shepherd (2006), Into the Wild (2007), Robin Hood (2010) and many more. Hurt passed away at age 71. R.I.P.

Ivan Reitman has passed away

Born in Chechoslovakia, now Slovakia, Reitman's family fled the Soviet regime to Austria, then Toronto, when he was 4 years old. Reitman broke into movies as a director with Foxy Lady (1971). Later credits include Cannibal Girls (1973), Meatballs (1979), Stripes (1981), Ghostbusters (1984), Twins (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Kindergarten Cop (1990), Junior (1994), Father's Day (1997), Evolution (1998), No Strings Attached (2011), Draft Day (2014) and more. Reitman's son Jason Reitman is also a great filmmaker. Reitman passed away at age 75. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

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7/02/2022

1997 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

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