Nero cannot escape his future, Will Munny cannot escape his past. While the future can be scary, the past is so much more powerful. Unforgiven all the way.
Alfredo G - 6 years ago
What I love most about Clint Eastwood's work is his simplicity which is on full display in Unforgiven. I can match the simplicity of the film only to one other western, High Noon. While I believe that Unforgiven is a film to always be remembered I believe that it is nothing more than an elevated western. The reason for this is that it was made far too late in the game and marked the end, or so my father has told me, of the classical western. I don't believe that it is Eastwood's best film in the genre which speaks volumes to the quality of work he has produced. The Matrix is an entirely different story. The Matrix may not be the greatest science fiction film of all time but the genre owes much to its existence. Despite what people may say about the trilogy as a whole, the first film was a blockbuster that redefined what films could be. I have to go with the Matrix not because it is the better film but because it is a film that my father loved. To this day, it is the only science fiction film that my father has watched more than once which is all I have to know.
Dustin - 6 years ago
Two words. Gene Hackman
Hank W. (Columbus, Oh) - 6 years ago
The Matrix is a science fiction film that fails to aptly ask any real questions about society, while simultaneously pretending to have an interesting story that is really just We by Zamyatin with more fighting, no meaning, and computers. Sure it can be fun, and the action sequences are cool, I'll even say the SFX was pretty groundbreaking (even though Dark City had already done very similar things). All that doesn't matter much when your story is cookie cutter dystopian regurgitation.
Unforgiven on the other hand is one of the defining films of the most American film genre. It is unique in its expert rejection of genre conventions, while still addressing the same questions many westerns do. Questions of masculinity, violence, and justice unfold underneath the surface of a film that is remarkable in every observable aspect. It does all of this while still being incredibly fun to watch.
Even as a lover of science fiction this is absolutely no contest. Unforgiven all the way.
One of the greatest film stories of all time - so good we use the entire concept as an immediately recognizable descriptor of all things uncanny, threateningly futuristic, or depressively mundane - "Oh man it's like we live in the matrix." It's also an ORIGINAL - meaningful for an action-packed franchise launcher, especially in today's reboot//sequel er, um...matrix.
Michael Green - 6 years ago
Another difficult choice as others have mentioned above. For me the first Matrix film is strong and important to its genre. At the same time I hold the other two sequels, which are mediocre and poor, against the original (I realize this is unfair) if only to allow me the chance to advance Unforgiven. I look at this as which would i rather see more often and Eastwood's gritty western fits the more watchable list for me.
This is a difficult one. The last true western masterpiece versus the last true innovation to the action genre. Which is more important? Which was more needed? Which is better?
While I don't think I can answer those questions, I can tell you I voted for Unforgiven. A nail-in-the-coffin of a film, it may be the most important in terms of being a 90's film - firmly closing the door on the past, and reflecting back on what that past truly means. The Matrix looks towards the future, and is respectable in those efforts, but Unforgiven is the one that truly knows what it wants to say.
Nathan Willard from Oregon - 6 years ago
The Matrix really isn't that special. It certainly had a few cool new technical tricks, but do those really matter. Yuen Woo-Ping deserves the credit for the majority that is good in it, but he was just rehashing what he'd already done (this time with less talented performers). It may have introduced many people to a new style of action film, but hardly invented it. Then there's the story; it's passable, but hardly great. Full credit for concept, not so much the execution of the details.
Unforgiven on the other hand is a masterpiece, and a thoroughly postmodern one at that (if that's what someone thinks is important for a movie to be representative of the '90's).
Erin Teachman (Washington, DC) - 6 years ago
In thinking about my personal criteria what what constitutes the best film of the 1990s, I continuously run up against a question that I'm not quite able to answer, but which this matchup puts in stark terms. Is the purpose of this tournament to find the best film that happened to be made during the 1990s or is it to find the best, most 1990s film?
If we are looking for an all time excellent film, a genuine masterpiece from a filmmaker whose entire career feels like a warm up to that film, then Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven has to be the choice here. Eastwood spent 20 years starring in and directing Westerns and Unforgiven feels like an apotheosis, a culmination, a fulfillment of those experiences, the distilled essence of a Western that avoids all of the cliches and well worn tropes to feel impactful and fresh and just loaded with history and with stakes. That's straightforward. But . . . it could just as easily have been made in 1989 as 1992.
The Matrix is a movie that much more specific to the 1990s. It's entire concept is an extrapolation of contemporary technological trends and cinematic tools that weren't quite available in the 1980s, when cyberpunk started to dream about virtual realities rooted in what was then currently possible and plausible. The Wachowskis talk about Jean Baudrillard as an inspiration and not to get too deep into the philosophy weeds but we don't get The Matrix if Baudrillard doesn't talk about things like "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place" (sorry for the actual homework). Now, I don't think The Matrix is anywhere near as philosophically complex as many of its fans do and it features some spectacularly risible dialogue, so on the filmmaking merits, The Matrix just does not measure up. But I voted for it because it was and is so much more of its specific time, the 1990s, than Clint Eastwood's Western, well, timeless classic. I can't say if that's the right answer to my question, but as a snapshot of a moment in waffling about it, The Matrix is what I got.
Jessica in Somerville, MA - 6 years ago
As cliche as this sounds, the Matrix was the future of cinema when it was released. I actually didn’t see it until much later, but I was still wowed but it’s excellence and innovation. It is inventive and new in a way that Unforgiven isn’t. Revisionist though it is, Unforgiven is still a western and has a certain looking-backwards quality to it. I really love both films, but I can live in a world without Unforgiven.
I have fond memories of The Matrix. As a teen in the early 2000s I would babysit for a family once a week. The kids would already be in bed by the time I arrived, so all I had to do was watch The Matrix, which for some reason was the only DVD that family had. Watching it with the volume low, in a dark and quiet house, seemed to amplify the film's moody, techno-gothic tone.
And let's not forget how big of a cultural phenomenon it was. Released before widespread social media, its "bullet time" technique and style were nevertheless memed to death, and the Wachowskis' integration of philosophy, religion, and cultural commentary into a flat-out cool story made a huge impression on my teenage self.
All that said, I'm voting Unforgiven, because not even Neo could stop William Munny out of Missouri, killer of women and children.
If you want to remember how great The Matrix is, look at Matrix 2 for a little while, maybe the first 30 minutes, where huge plot points don't seem to matter to the movie itself, then go back to even the first 15 of Matrix (1). Every time I see that, it feels like the first time, because what should matter does matter in each moment. But it mildly falls apart near the end, and *the* end is pretty silly, as are its important pseudo-philosophical ramblings.
Unforgiven treats me like a visitor to a world I don't want to be in, but I'm too fascinated to be distanced, and its philosophy, worn well below the surface, is rock solid, even being the source of suspense. It moves me like a thinking person in ways so many films which are lauded for doing the same actually don't.
"Why shoot 20 bullets when one will do."
- Mal Waldron, badly paraphrased
Mike H. - 6 years ago
This is a pretty easy one for me. Unforgiven was a game-changer for Clint Eastwood as a filmmaker, but the Matrix was a game-changer in the cultural zeitgeist as a whole. I think we've forgotten just how invigorating and jarring an experience it was when most of us first saw The Matrix in the theater. I still remember being in my late teens and kind of walking out in a daze. Some movies are more than movies. They elicit physiological responses in the body. They become part of the social fabric......a shared transcendent experience, in the William James sense, like a big tent revival or a really great rave.
If The Matrix loses here, it will probably be because we've come to just take its pervasive impact for granted.
Gary from Tuggeranong Australia - 6 years ago
The beauty of the Matrix is not just it's stunning special effects (ground-breaking for its time and one of the few times I've heard a whole audience gasp in awe), but rather it's ideas and concepts. Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation, Plato's allegory of the cave, Socrates' visit to the Oracle of Delphi, and the work of Descartes. Skip philosophy class and go straight to the Matrix my friend, there is no spoon!
Matthew M - 6 years ago
One of these films changed the game of action films, the other is one the first films to make me appreciates a western.
While the Matrix has since been surpassed there are still few westerns that I even want to give a second glance to. Unforgiven all the way
Shelley Rueger - 6 years ago
I've got to be like the one person in the universe who just doesn't like Unforgiven. I can see it's fantastic film making but I can't connect to it.
Let's just pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that both of these movies were made in the same decade. Honestly, it's hard to believe they both come from the same universe. The Matrix is a hugely influential piece of sci-fi brilliance, but Unforgiven is timeless, a masterwork that only becomes more relevant as time goes on.
And another thing: As good as The Matrix is, I can't help feeling like its take on violence hasn't aged well. The Matrix has a much higher body count than Unforgiven, but none of it is even remotely realistic, while every shot fired in Unforgiven feels like a punch to the gut. I'm not trying to say that violent movies are to blame for school shootings, not even close, but I do wonder if the truth of Unforgiven is one we need more than bullet time effects. The Matrix may have shown us the "real world," but Unforgiven shows us what it means to live in it.
Kevin Kiley - 6 years ago
Deserving has everything to do with it.. Unforgiven is the great modern western.
Nero cannot escape his future, Will Munny cannot escape his past. While the future can be scary, the past is so much more powerful. Unforgiven all the way.
What I love most about Clint Eastwood's work is his simplicity which is on full display in Unforgiven. I can match the simplicity of the film only to one other western, High Noon. While I believe that Unforgiven is a film to always be remembered I believe that it is nothing more than an elevated western. The reason for this is that it was made far too late in the game and marked the end, or so my father has told me, of the classical western. I don't believe that it is Eastwood's best film in the genre which speaks volumes to the quality of work he has produced. The Matrix is an entirely different story. The Matrix may not be the greatest science fiction film of all time but the genre owes much to its existence. Despite what people may say about the trilogy as a whole, the first film was a blockbuster that redefined what films could be. I have to go with the Matrix not because it is the better film but because it is a film that my father loved. To this day, it is the only science fiction film that my father has watched more than once which is all I have to know.
Two words. Gene Hackman
The Matrix is a science fiction film that fails to aptly ask any real questions about society, while simultaneously pretending to have an interesting story that is really just We by Zamyatin with more fighting, no meaning, and computers. Sure it can be fun, and the action sequences are cool, I'll even say the SFX was pretty groundbreaking (even though Dark City had already done very similar things). All that doesn't matter much when your story is cookie cutter dystopian regurgitation.
Unforgiven on the other hand is one of the defining films of the most American film genre. It is unique in its expert rejection of genre conventions, while still addressing the same questions many westerns do. Questions of masculinity, violence, and justice unfold underneath the surface of a film that is remarkable in every observable aspect. It does all of this while still being incredibly fun to watch.
Even as a lover of science fiction this is absolutely no contest. Unforgiven all the way.
One of the greatest film stories of all time - so good we use the entire concept as an immediately recognizable descriptor of all things uncanny, threateningly futuristic, or depressively mundane - "Oh man it's like we live in the matrix." It's also an ORIGINAL - meaningful for an action-packed franchise launcher, especially in today's reboot//sequel er, um...matrix.
Another difficult choice as others have mentioned above. For me the first Matrix film is strong and important to its genre. At the same time I hold the other two sequels, which are mediocre and poor, against the original (I realize this is unfair) if only to allow me the chance to advance Unforgiven. I look at this as which would i rather see more often and Eastwood's gritty western fits the more watchable list for me.
This is a difficult one. The last true western masterpiece versus the last true innovation to the action genre. Which is more important? Which was more needed? Which is better?
While I don't think I can answer those questions, I can tell you I voted for Unforgiven. A nail-in-the-coffin of a film, it may be the most important in terms of being a 90's film - firmly closing the door on the past, and reflecting back on what that past truly means. The Matrix looks towards the future, and is respectable in those efforts, but Unforgiven is the one that truly knows what it wants to say.
The Matrix really isn't that special. It certainly had a few cool new technical tricks, but do those really matter. Yuen Woo-Ping deserves the credit for the majority that is good in it, but he was just rehashing what he'd already done (this time with less talented performers). It may have introduced many people to a new style of action film, but hardly invented it. Then there's the story; it's passable, but hardly great. Full credit for concept, not so much the execution of the details.
Unforgiven on the other hand is a masterpiece, and a thoroughly postmodern one at that (if that's what someone thinks is important for a movie to be representative of the '90's).
In thinking about my personal criteria what what constitutes the best film of the 1990s, I continuously run up against a question that I'm not quite able to answer, but which this matchup puts in stark terms. Is the purpose of this tournament to find the best film that happened to be made during the 1990s or is it to find the best, most 1990s film?
If we are looking for an all time excellent film, a genuine masterpiece from a filmmaker whose entire career feels like a warm up to that film, then Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven has to be the choice here. Eastwood spent 20 years starring in and directing Westerns and Unforgiven feels like an apotheosis, a culmination, a fulfillment of those experiences, the distilled essence of a Western that avoids all of the cliches and well worn tropes to feel impactful and fresh and just loaded with history and with stakes. That's straightforward. But . . . it could just as easily have been made in 1989 as 1992.
The Matrix is a movie that much more specific to the 1990s. It's entire concept is an extrapolation of contemporary technological trends and cinematic tools that weren't quite available in the 1980s, when cyberpunk started to dream about virtual realities rooted in what was then currently possible and plausible. The Wachowskis talk about Jean Baudrillard as an inspiration and not to get too deep into the philosophy weeds but we don't get The Matrix if Baudrillard doesn't talk about things like "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place" (sorry for the actual homework). Now, I don't think The Matrix is anywhere near as philosophically complex as many of its fans do and it features some spectacularly risible dialogue, so on the filmmaking merits, The Matrix just does not measure up. But I voted for it because it was and is so much more of its specific time, the 1990s, than Clint Eastwood's Western, well, timeless classic. I can't say if that's the right answer to my question, but as a snapshot of a moment in waffling about it, The Matrix is what I got.
As cliche as this sounds, the Matrix was the future of cinema when it was released. I actually didn’t see it until much later, but I was still wowed but it’s excellence and innovation. It is inventive and new in a way that Unforgiven isn’t. Revisionist though it is, Unforgiven is still a western and has a certain looking-backwards quality to it. I really love both films, but I can live in a world without Unforgiven.
I have fond memories of The Matrix. As a teen in the early 2000s I would babysit for a family once a week. The kids would already be in bed by the time I arrived, so all I had to do was watch The Matrix, which for some reason was the only DVD that family had. Watching it with the volume low, in a dark and quiet house, seemed to amplify the film's moody, techno-gothic tone.
And let's not forget how big of a cultural phenomenon it was. Released before widespread social media, its "bullet time" technique and style were nevertheless memed to death, and the Wachowskis' integration of philosophy, religion, and cultural commentary into a flat-out cool story made a huge impression on my teenage self.
All that said, I'm voting Unforgiven, because not even Neo could stop William Munny out of Missouri, killer of women and children.
If you want to remember how great The Matrix is, look at Matrix 2 for a little while, maybe the first 30 minutes, where huge plot points don't seem to matter to the movie itself, then go back to even the first 15 of Matrix (1). Every time I see that, it feels like the first time, because what should matter does matter in each moment. But it mildly falls apart near the end, and *the* end is pretty silly, as are its important pseudo-philosophical ramblings.
Unforgiven treats me like a visitor to a world I don't want to be in, but I'm too fascinated to be distanced, and its philosophy, worn well below the surface, is rock solid, even being the source of suspense. It moves me like a thinking person in ways so many films which are lauded for doing the same actually don't.
"Why shoot 20 bullets when one will do."
- Mal Waldron, badly paraphrased
This is a pretty easy one for me. Unforgiven was a game-changer for Clint Eastwood as a filmmaker, but the Matrix was a game-changer in the cultural zeitgeist as a whole. I think we've forgotten just how invigorating and jarring an experience it was when most of us first saw The Matrix in the theater. I still remember being in my late teens and kind of walking out in a daze. Some movies are more than movies. They elicit physiological responses in the body. They become part of the social fabric......a shared transcendent experience, in the William James sense, like a big tent revival or a really great rave.
If The Matrix loses here, it will probably be because we've come to just take its pervasive impact for granted.
The beauty of the Matrix is not just it's stunning special effects (ground-breaking for its time and one of the few times I've heard a whole audience gasp in awe), but rather it's ideas and concepts. Jean Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation, Plato's allegory of the cave, Socrates' visit to the Oracle of Delphi, and the work of Descartes. Skip philosophy class and go straight to the Matrix my friend, there is no spoon!
One of these films changed the game of action films, the other is one the first films to make me appreciates a western.
While the Matrix has since been surpassed there are still few westerns that I even want to give a second glance to. Unforgiven all the way
I've got to be like the one person in the universe who just doesn't like Unforgiven. I can see it's fantastic film making but I can't connect to it.
Let's just pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that both of these movies were made in the same decade. Honestly, it's hard to believe they both come from the same universe. The Matrix is a hugely influential piece of sci-fi brilliance, but Unforgiven is timeless, a masterwork that only becomes more relevant as time goes on.
And another thing: As good as The Matrix is, I can't help feeling like its take on violence hasn't aged well. The Matrix has a much higher body count than Unforgiven, but none of it is even remotely realistic, while every shot fired in Unforgiven feels like a punch to the gut. I'm not trying to say that violent movies are to blame for school shootings, not even close, but I do wonder if the truth of Unforgiven is one we need more than bullet time effects. The Matrix may have shown us the "real world," but Unforgiven shows us what it means to live in it.
Deserving has everything to do with it.. Unforgiven is the great modern western.