The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

32. 1994 - Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction Ending
Miramax

Honourable Mentions: Chungking Express, The Lion King, The Shawshank Redemption

Forget all the stale discourse about "bro cinema" for a second or two, because Pulp Fiction is still every bit the masterpiece it was when it premiered in 1994.

The reputation of Quentin Tarantino's sophomore directorial effort has taken a bit of an online beating over the last decade, mostly due to its association with teenage bedroom decor and by proximity its place within the canon of conventionally male movie tastes (upon which sits The Shawshank Redemption at the peak).

But the discourse is the discourse, and it ultimately has no bearing on the technical and storytelling merits of Pulp Fiction as a piece of cinema - a film resplendent in its affection for genre filmmaking and packed to the gills with cutting dialogue, groovy tracks, and brilliant performances.

It is not, perhaps, Tarantino's greatest technical achievement, but it is sumptuous cinema and quite possibly the most iconic film of the early nineties indie renaissance.

 
Posted On: 
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.