Best 90s Movie Bracket!!!

It’s time for March Madness!  No, no, sports aren’t back, but my special brand of brackets is.  So for those of you looking to get your bracket fix, welcome to the Best 90s Movie bracket!  That’s right, this year, I’m trying to determine the best movie of the 90s by pitting 64 movies from the greatest decade against each other to try and determine the ultimate winner.

I know you’re all probably wondering how I managed to narrow down a decade’s worth of films to a 64 team bracket.  Well, let me tell you it was not that easy.  It has actually taken me two years to put this bracket together, because, as you might expect, a lot of movies came out in the 90s.  I tried to make the selections as objective as possible by looking at as many data points as possible.  My initial plan was to rank movies based on the following criteria and then average the ranks into a composite list.

Box office gross (domestic)

IMDB rating

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score

Metacritic Score

Awards Nominated and Won

Facebook Likes

Google Results

Times referenced in other movies/TV

Placement on ‘Best of the Decade Lists’

After looking at all those data points I had a top 64.  But something was missing from that list.  It didn’t allow for movies that gained in esteem over the years, like Office Space and Fight Club.  There were a lot of movies that were highly regarded at the time, but have largely been forgotten, like Howard’s End and Remains of the Day.  I needed a way to quantify cultural relevancy.  I tried to assign a cultural relevancy score, but it still didn’t capture the essence of 90s movies.  So I ended up having to make adjustments myself.  There are certain movies that just belong in a bracket of greatest 90s movies whether the data says so or not, and I tried to fit some of those movies in, while still attempting to maintain the integrity of the bracket.  While you may think this invalidates the bracket, I say, this is just for fun anyway so go with it.  And you may be upset that some of your favorite movies didn’t make the list, so let me know which movies you think were snubbed.  Because, you know what, there are some of my favorites that, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t find a way to get in either.  And others, that against my better judgement, I left in the bracket.  For example, I made sure all ten Best Picture Oscar winners remained in the bracket.  And I also tried to create a balance of various genres even though drama was by far the most popular based on the data.  But at the end of the day, I made some judgement calls based on competitive balance and decided to go with what I had for the sake of getting a bracket to the people.  So here it is in all its glory, the Best 90s Movie bracket! 

Voting for Round 1 starts today and will last one week.  Each successive round of voting will open after a week until a winner is crowned.  You can determine your own criteria for picking the winners, whether you want to vote for your favorites or the movies you feel best represent the decade.  But make your choices and be sure to come back each week to see the winners and vote in the next round.