Top 100 Movies Of The 1990s: #45 The Insider

Box Office: $29.1 Million

Oscar Nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Mann), Best Actor (Russell Crowe), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound

Oscar Wins: None

MovieRankings.net: 91/100

Available To Stream: Apple TV ($4)

It's pretty incredible how many acclaimed movies came out just in the last two months of 1999. The Sixth Sense, Fight Club, American Beauty, Three Kings and Being John Malkovitch were already in theaters. Then you add this, Toy Story 2, The Green Mile, Man On The Moon, The Cider House Rules, Any Given Sunday and Magnolia. It might be the deepest stretch in movie history. Because of that, I think The Insider got kind of lost. To be fair, it did get Oscar nominations (including Best Picture) but it never really had a chance of winning. Had it come out even a year later, this movie might have done some real award damage. 

It's a pretty remarkable film. It has major stars like Russell Crowe and Al Pacino talking about a show in 60 Minutes which was the biggest news program at the time. It also somehow pulls it off without anyone being a cartoon character. You believe all of these people involved. Watching it now, it does feel like it happened a long time ago...and it did. But I can't emphasize enough that when this came out in 1999, the Philip Morris/60 Minutes/Jeff Wigand drama was only three years old. This had all just happened.

Frank Connor. Shutterstock Images.

I think Russell Crowe is a fantastic actor. That's obviously not a very hot take but I really wish he'd make better movie choices. What's the last movie that people could mostly agree was a good movie? The Nice Guys? That came out over 7 years ago. I get he's almost 60 years old but he would be an excellent character actor as he gets older. I could easily see him winning another Oscar if he took smaller parts in better movies.

The Insider was the first of three straight Best Actor nominations for him. He won the next year for Gladiator and then was nominated the following year for A Beautiful Mind. He hasn't been nominated since but was still in some good movies the first decade of the 21st Century like Cinderella Man and 3:10 To Yuma. It's in the last decade that the wheels came off.

Warner Bros.. Getty Images.

Al Pacino hasn't been better since this movie. He's perfect as a producer fighting like Hell for a story that no one wants to tell. He spends the movie trying to sell Wigand to be a whistleblower at a national level while also pitching CBS to tell this story. We know Pacino can be a salesman from Glengarry Glen Ross (#91). But he's the pulse of the movie. Crowe is brilliant showing the paranoia and legitimate fear he was facing. Pacino is the one that always has to be logical. When you consider he became this screaming lunatic in so many of his roles in the 1990's, it's the quieter ones where he is at his best this decade (this and Donnie Brasco)

Finally, Michael Mann is so underrated. He really is one of the best directors of his generation. This was the only movie he got an Oscar nomination for Best Director but he's directed some pretty great movies: Heat, Collateral, Thief. I'm very excited for his next movie Ferrari which is due to come out in December.

Advertisement

It takes some brilliant people to make a movie about a Phillip Morris whistleblower be something that is great and thrilling. Michael Mann, Al Pacino and Russell Crowe manage to pull it off. Even more amazingly, it still holds up. If you haven't seen this yet but enjoyed Michael Clayton, please give The Insider a watch. You don't see dramas that often that tackle how evil large corporations truly are. Michael Clayton and The Insider are two of the best.

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