Every year at this time, we compile our lists of the year’s best movies certain of only one thing: We will not have seen at least 20 possible candidates for the list. The number of movies that never make it to Nashville remains shockingly high. Some were controversial, like the Vietnamese drama Cyclo, about life among youth gangs in Ho Chi Minh City, or Art for Teachers of Children, which depicts an affair between a 14-year-old girl and her dorm counselor.

Here’s a partial list of what never showed here in 1996: the Jim Jarmusch western Dead Man, with Johnny Depp and Robert Mitchum; the charmingly offbeat indie comedy Bottle Rocket; the British drama Butterfly Kiss; Patrice Leconte’s costume drama Ridicule; Lili Taylor in Girls Town; Mira Sorvino in Sweet Nothing; Luke Perry and Ashley Judd in Normal Life; Reese Witherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland in Freeway; the major reissues of Hitchcock’s Vertigo and De Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.

The list doesn’t stop there. We just don’t have space for a roll-call of movies like Dadetown, Small Faces, Angela, Captives, Curtis’s Charm, and Beautiful Thing—all of which, at the very least, are worth a look. We missed out on all these. Even worse, so did you. Nashville may indeed shelter a competitive film industry someday, but without exposure to even the broad range of movies in current release, that seems a distant hope. How does Nashville compete with what it doesn’t experience, what it doesn’t know?

Regard the following, therefore, as the best of what made it to town in 1996—along with a couple of winners we managed to find outside local theaters. As for the rest, we’ll just have to depend on the kindness and foresight of local video stores—but that’s another story.

The Top 10

Jim:

1. Fargo. Graced by three one-of-a-kind lead performances by Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, and Steve Buscemi, Joel and Ethan Coen’s mordant black comedy captures with devastating deadpan skill the jarring, disorienting effect of violence on a deceptively inscrutable Midwestern community. The movie of the year.

2. The English Patient. Anthony Minghella’s thrilling epic romance, told in daringly elliptical style, reminded viewers that big-budget studio filmmaking doesn’t have to be coarse, obvious, or devoid of artistry or intelligence.

3. Big Night. In a last-ditch attempt to save their imperiled Italian restaurant, two brothers gamble their hopes, their honor, and their craft on a single sumptuous meal—a fitting metaphor for the making of this gem by actor-directors Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott.

4. The White Balloon. One of the finest and least sentimental movies about childhood since The 400 Blows, in which a 7-year-old Iranian girl’s attempt to retrieve her lost money and purchase a goldfish brings back all the mystery of the adult world.

5. Chungking Express. Director Wong Kar-Wai (a talent to watch) reimagines the Hong Kong cop movie as a lyrical, fanciful study of disconnected souls in a neon-blue, pop-culture-bedazzled nightworld. One of the few genuinely original movies of the year, filmed in glancing bursts of harsh light, pulsing colors, and staggered motion.

6. Lone Star. Four decades of life in a Texas border town are uncovered and explored by writer-director John Sayles in a grandly ambitious drama that uses a murder mystery in the present to expose themes of social, racial, romantic, and familial division in the past.

7. Welcome to the Dollhouse. Middle school as hell, as seen through the disbelieving eyes of an embattled 13-year-old girl (the remarkable Heather Matarazzo). Grim, unsparing, and rudely, painfully funny, Todd Solondz’s dark, dark comedy is best appreciated by those of us lucky enough to have escaped adolescence.

8. Walking and Talking. It’s a shame more people didn’t see Nicole Holofcener’s beautifully observed comedy about two close confidantes (Catherine Keener and Anne Heche, both wonderful) whose friendship is threatened by marriage and subtle changes in their lives. Watch for this small treasure on video—and marvel at seeing commonplace emotions, situations, and characters that movies have somehow never explored.

9. Flirting With Disaster. David O. Russell’s messy, anarchic farce about an adopted man’s ill-advised quest for his birth parents has energy and comic invention to spare, along with the year’s funniest and most uninhibited comic ensemble (including Ben Stiller, Patricia Arquette, Tea Leoni, and Mary Tyler Moore).

10. Microcosmos. An absolutely amazing, largely wordless French documentary that records insect life in one astounding, impossible-to-imagine microscopic shot after another. See it on a big screen, where the parade of bizarre, miraculous sights makes most science fiction seem downright provincial.

And a special award for: Homicide, the NBC detective series that, week after week, displays enough cinematic invention, narrative experimentation, dramatic depth, and sheer entertainment to put big-screen filmmaking to shame.

Honorable mention: Bottle Rocket, Fly Away Home, Get on the Bus, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Shine, Trees Lounge.

Noel:

1. Shine. An exciting, heart-rending, funny, and insightful true story about one artist’s thwarted attempts to express himself. It’s what movies are meant to be—effortlessly entertaining.

2. Fargo. The most striking physical and emotional landscape of the year—a frozen expanse that drives its inhabitants indoors, where they either make a home or gradually go insane.

3. Lone Star. American history and personal history dovetail in a Texas border town that’s obsessed with drawing lines. A visionary piece of work from ambitious American filmmaker John Sayles.

4. The English Patient. A sumptuous cinematic buffet—elliptical yet deeply passionate. The film’s anti-nationalist bent may be dangerously facile, but as a tale of love and betrayal, it’s miraculously on target.

5. Chungking Express. Three pretentious characters—two Hong Kong cops and a love-struck waitress—pose and pontificate and generally behave as though they’re acting in a movie in this stylish, refreshingly endearing police story.

6. Tin Cup. A sparkling and wise comedy about male stubbornness, brought to life by the best performance of Kevin Costner’s career. Also contains the most cruelly logical happy ending in sports film history.

7. Big Night. The delicate shading of fine character acting, surrounding the best screen party of the year. This film, Fargo, Lone Star, Tin Cup, and Jerry Maguire make up a marvelously instructive exploration of the American dream.

8. Flirting With Disaster. A frazzled road comedy, endlessly imaginative and often shockingly so. The funniest movie of the year, for delirious sensibilities only.

9. Secrets and Lies. Although it needlessly abandons the framing device of hilariously revealing family portraits, this remains a brave and penetrating slice of life. Family dynamics have rarely been so well-observed, for better or worse.

10. Jerry Maguire. Rambling, yet inspirational—a film about a man who makes the right decision about his life and his career, but then has trouble living up to his best estimation of himself. An often touching, often thrilling, remarkably personal film.

Honorable Mention: James and the Giant Peach, Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud, Swingers, Welcome to the Dollhouse, and The White Balloon.

Donna:

The top four films of this year, taken together, should prove that no important facet of human life is beyond the grasp of motion picture narrative.

1. Shine. This Australian fictionalized biopic unfolds with the unpredictability and serendipity of real life. I can’t wait to spend more time with David Helfgott and his happy flood of words and music.

2. The White Balloon. Much more than a real-time experiment, this Iranian import captures the essence of childhood and takes on an existence of its own that reaches beyond the screen’s edge.

3. Fargo. One of many ways to view this humane masterpiece is to see William Macy’s car salesman as emblematic of the American male, always on the verge of disaster but expected never to ask for help. But don’t forget to laugh.

4. The English Patient. We should not be too reverential toward this epic vision of war and colonialism—there are questions that should be asked about its characters and motivations. A debate can only deepen its impact.

5. Cry the Beloved Country. This beautiful adaptation of Alan Paton’s novel of apartheid features emotional performances by James Earl Jones and Richard Harris, as well as lush South African landscapes and cityscapes.

6. Big Night. Long segments without scripted dialogue, such as the central meal in this film and the final flying sequence in Fly Away Home, remind us that a picture is worth a thousand pages of garrulous screenwriting.

7. Bound. This lesbian caper is the classiest, most stylish, and most consistent gangster film in years.

8. The Arrival. For once, a movie knows what its entertainment value is and plays right to it. The only conspiracy film that worked this year.

9. A Perfect Candidate. A political documentary might sound dreadful after a year of election hype, but make an exception for this cutting examination of the men behind the 1994 Virginia Senate race and the media’s coverage of it.

10. The Trigger Effect. The apocalypse may well creep up on us not with a bang, but with a whimper, as it does in this shivery, tense thriller that arrived, we might almost be thankful, without any ads to ruin the surprises.

Honorable Mentions: Angels and Insects, Fly Away Home, The Funeral, Lone Star, and The Phantom.

Great Performances—Male

Jim: Ralph Fiennes as the haunted Count Almasy reconciles the romantic and intellectual conceits of The English Patient, looking all the while like a born movie star. With eyes that smolder like coals, Al Freeman Jr. gets across a lifetime of savage inequalities in Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored. Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub are never more expressive than when they’re working silently in Big Night, while Harry Belafonte’s terrifying gusto as the gang boss Seldom Seen jolts life into Robert Altman’s Kansas City. Finally, while Eddie Murphy’s show-stopping comeback in The Nutty Professor was the year’s biggest triumph, Steve Buscemi earned a place as the American cinema’s MVP of 1996 with indelible roles in Fargo and Trees Lounge.

Noel: Geoffrey Rush’s performance in Shine practically qualifies as a special effect—it dazzles the eye and the ear and juices up the audience. William H. Macy’s tragic outsider/used-car salesman gives Fargo necessary gravity—when he squeals, “I’m the executive sales manager!” it darn near breaks your heart. Ewan MacGregor has the charm to create a sympathetic junkie in Trainspotting and a giggly gossip in Emma, and Michel Serrault’s sad-eyed, repentant judge makes fascinating company in Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud.

Donna: Jackie Chan, the ultimate human entertainment dynamo, gives everything for his fans in Rumble in the Bronx and Supercop. Tom Cruise made us forget his slippery, bleached performance in Mission: Impossible by dancing on the edge of disaster in Jerry Maguire. Timothy Spall tries to hold the British family together in his photographs with a murmured “lovely,” in Secrets and Lies. Ian McKellan rants as the humpbacked king in Richard III and revels in the sinfulness of humanity as the dour parson in Cold Comfort Farm.

Great Performances—Female

Jim: As Marge Gundersen, the unflappable heroine who restores order to Fargo, Frances McDormand allows us to understand the inner workings of a woman who distrusts emotion and doesn’t waste words. In The English Patient and Angels & Insects, Kristin Scott Thomas played perfectly that rarest of screen commodities, a woman whose power, intelligence, and wit make her irresistible. As the junkie wraith Althea Flynt, Courtney Love showed a lot more daring and go-for-broke intensity than the folks behind the cameras in The People vs. Larry Flynt. Chloe Sevigny suggested sadness and disappointment beyond her teenage lifetime in Trees Lounge, while Catherine Keener and Anne Heche made a delightful comic team in Walking and Talking.

Noel: Frances McDormand is a true original as a sunny cop in Fargo and a cracked football fan in Lone Star. Juliette Binoche’s star-crossed lover in The English Patient guides us into the heart of the film’s complicated story. Tea Leoni is as sexy as she is neurotic in the dizzy Flirting With Disaster, while Heather Matarazzo shows the pain, awkwardness, and unattractiveness of a junior high-schooler in Welcome to the Dollhouse. And Claire Danes creates a Juliet you can believe in Romeo and Juliet.

Donna: Kristin Scott Thomas is intelligent and mesmerizing whether she’s playing a tightly buttoned governess in Angels & Insects (brunette) or a hot-blooded adventuress in The English Patient (blond). With the help of great dialogue and style, Jennifer Tilly transcends her bimbo persona in Bound. Parker Posey has the hip stuff for indie comedies like The Daytrippers and Kicking and Screaming. And if Kate Beckinsale can cheer up the dank, gothic denizens of Cold Comfort Farm, she deserves a place on any best performer’s list.

Scene-Stealing Performances

Jim: Too bad Vanessa Redgrave wasn’t the main villain of Mission: Impossible—every time her smashingly confident arms dealer appeared on screen, she made capitalist ruthlessness seem like sublime erotic sport. As Alan Isaacman, who defended a recalcitrant Larry Flynt before the Supreme Court, the superb young actor Edward Norton breathes life, fire, and immediacy into the First Amendment controversies of The People vs. Larry Flynt. As a Memphis car dealer, Wendell Pierce shows up just long enough in Get on the Bus to piss off the entire audience. And John Gielgud makes performing Rachmaninoff sound as dangerous as disarming explosives in the most exciting moments of Shine.

Noel: Vince Vaughn is “money”—he holds the eye whenever he’s onscreen in Swingers; Alice Krige is a compelling villainess in Star Trek: First Contact. Andre Braugher shows the same joy in acting in his small roles in Get on the Bus and Primal Fear that he does each week on Homicide. Vincent D’Onofrio’s unthinking thug in Feeling Minnesota almost redeems that misbegotten project. Benicio Del Toro is a man you instantly want to know more about in The Fan, The Funeral, and Basquiat. And Robert Patrick’s insensitive wheelchair thief gives Striptease a few moments of welcome zaniness.

Donna: Steve Zahn has all the best wisecracks as Lenny in That Thing You Do!. Irma P. Hall is A Family Thing’s wise and funny matriarch. Ving Rhames never fails to delight, even in sad failures like Striptease. David Bowie has a lot of fun with Basquiat’s detached Andy Warhol. Queen Latifah cuts through all the plot points of Set It Off with her vigorous, profane characterization. And Colin Firth cuts a fine British figure at the controls of the War Office’s plane in The English Patient.

Unforgettable Moments

Jim: ♦ Two vastly different dishes in Big Night: an enormous timpano, constructed to impress a roomful of revelers; and a simple omelet, meant as one brother’s wordless, profound gift to another.

♦ The year’s most unlikely suspense scene: The young David Helfgott’s thoughts go chillingly blank during the performance of the “Rach 3” in Shine.

♦ Rents takes a swim in “the worst toilet in Scotland”—what a junkie will do for an opium suppository in Trainspotting.

♦ The haunting conclusion of The People vs. Larry Flynt, in which a videotaped Althea Flynt, hedonistic excess personified, vows from the hereafter never to become “old and fat and ugly.”

Noel: ♦ A new kind of action scene in Chungking Express—a rapid succession of blurry still photographs from multiple angles, creating an impressionist rush.

♦ An African-American boy beams at his grandfather, proud that he has learned the difference between the letters “W” and “C” and now knows which water fountain he’s allowed to drink from—a painful moment of truth in Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored.

♦ Jerry Maguire, searching for a song on the car radio that he can sing along with, settles on Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’ ”—he laughs once because he knows the song and laughs again because he knows he’s singing the story of his life.

♦ A soldier talks to a little girl crying on a curb, but is he comforting her, conning her, or just killing time until his ride arrives? Another harrowing, uncertain slice of life in The White Balloon.

♦ Realizing that he’s hiding his money in an endless, nondescript field of snowy white, Steve Buscemi fruitlessly marks his spot with an ice scraper—a defining shot of Fargo.

Donna: ♦ William Macy painstakingly obscures car serial numbers on a loan application, one more step in one more desperate scam in Fargo.

♦ Ben Stiller learns to drive the “big rig” in Flirting With Disaster.

♦ Anne Frank Remembered introduces us to the woman who brought the hidden Frank family food every day for years.

♦ The opening shot of The Arrival starts with a single flower in an Arctic ice field, then pulls back to reveal the entire globe in a dizzying special effect.

♦ Treat Williams to the pirates in The Phantom: “You represent the old guard of grizzled scalawags and Pegleg Petes, while I am modern and up-to-date!”

♦ Dawn reads her theme aloud to the class in Welcome to the Dollhouse: “Dignity is an important quality everyone should have.”