Though he didn’t really achieve international, household-name status until the subsequent decade, Brad Pitt had a run of performances for the ages in the 1990s. Some of these titles will be well-remembered and instantly recognizable, while others have gone rather overlooked in recent years.
Whether they made great money at the box office, received impressive review scores from critics, or have developed a cult following since release, these are the ten best films of the 1990s that feature Brad Pitt.
10 Interview With the Vampire
Based on Anne Rice’s novel, this title helped popularize the modern-day rendition of vampires. Twilight and The Vampire Diaries might never have materialized without the inspiration of Interview With a Vampire (1994). The film garnered two Oscar nominations — Best Art Direction and Best Original Score — and it accrued $233.7 million on a $60 million budget.
And the cast alone is impressive — Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Kirsten Dunst round out the leads. They all performed wonderfully, too, with Pitt’s performance gaining critical acclaim, and Dunst’s garnering a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. To top things off, Christian Slater and Antonio Banderas appeared in supporting roles. Pretty impressive casting.
9 Legends of the Fall
Despite middling reception — it’s currently sitting at a 58% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes — Legends of the Fall (1994) managed $160.6 million in theaters against a $30 million budget.
It was also nominated for three Oscars: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, and Best Sound. It even managed to walk away with the golden statuette for cinematography, which is, along with two other nominations, pretty impressive for a film with such a divisive response from critics.
8 Sleepers
In Sleepers (1995), Pitt plays one of four men who, as teens in a reform school, were sexually abused and physically beaten by several of the guards. This results in a gripping act one that teeters off in quality after the midpoint. Despite an overwhelming rate of narration and on-the-nose dialogue, and although the film never developed an original tone, all the actors did a decent job — specifically De Niro and Hoffman.
It also featured solid camerawork, intriguing editing, and it received generally positive responses from critics. Perhaps the biggest takeaway, in hindsight, is the work of John Williams, who was nominated for Best Original Score at the Oscars.
7 Kalifornia
Easily the most underrated film on the list, Kalifornia (1993) follows a journalistic couple who decide to travel the country researching serial killers. Classified as a road thriller, things go haywire when the couple decides to carpool with two strangers — played by Brad Pitt and Juliette Lewis.
Famed film critic Roger Ebert awarded the film four stars out of four, tied for the most he gave for any film on this list. And with a 58% on Rotten Tomatoes, it could go down as the most overlooked film of Pitt’s career.
6 A River Runs Through It
Based on the novel of the same name by Norman Maclean, this 1992 drama was directed by Robert Redford to a brilliant degree. A career-defining performance for Pitt in the eyes of many critics, A River Runs Through It has some great statistics in terms of praise.
With an 80% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, critics generally loved the film despite a mediocre performance at theaters. The film was nominated three times at the 65th Academy Awards: once for Best Adapted Screenplay, again for Best Cinematography, and finally for Best Original Score. And although it didn’t win, those numbers should make the team proud nonetheless.
5 Thelma and Louise
After minor roles in several late-eighties films, Pitt finally garnered recognition for playing J.D. in Thelma and Louise (1991). Thanks to an intriguing premise with an engaging ending sequence, this is one of the more popular films on the list.
It garnered six nominations at the Oscars: Best Director (Ridley Scott), Best Actress (Davis, Sarandon), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Screenplay — and Callie Khouri took home the gold for the last one.
4 True Romance
Written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott, True Romance (1993) chronicles the love story of a comic-book junkie named Clarence, who works at a video store, and a prostitute named Alabama. After falling for her, Clarence saves Alabama from the pimp for whom she works. Except, when he goes to retrieve her belongings so they can begin a new life together, he accidentally steals the wrong bag.
What follows is an enthralling action-crime film replete with zany characters, like Gary Oldman’s Drexl and James Gandolfini’s Virgil. Then, of course, there’s Brad Pitt as Floyd, who steals each scene in which he’s featured.
3 Fight Club
This may have been the first movie that popped into your head upon seeing the title of this article, and with good reason. Though it polarized critics upon release, currently sitting at a 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, Fight Club has since gathered a massive cult following and can be seen as one of the decade’s more iconic films.
With an intriguing premise and a perhaps more interesting style of storytelling, the main takeaway for Fight Club was, for a lot of critics and audiences, the performance of Brad Pitt. Ultimately, though, the film seemed a bit too unsure of its message for a spot higher than number three.
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2 Twelve Monkeys
This was Pitt’s first Academy Award nomination: one for Best Supporting Actor. And while he lost to Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects (1995), he picked up the Golden Globe in the same category.
Twelve Monkeys (1995) would have been a great sci-fi outing with different casting choices, I’m sure. But let’s be honest: Brad Pitt made this movie special. It’s arguably the best performance of his career, and ultimately, it’s the reason Twelve Monkeys is taking the number two spot.
1 Se7en
Famous for its gritty atmosphere and mind-bending plot twist, Se7en (1995) also features brilliant performances and engaging dialogue. With a main cast consisting of Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey, each thespian killed it (no pun intended) in their own fashion.
Though slightly polarizing upon release — which makes sense, given the gruesome content — Se7en has since been deemed one of the decade’s best movies, and really set the standard for plot twists as we see them today in Hollywood.
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