THE RANKING

1989 movies? That’s far too many.

Chris: 1989, then. The year that saw the launch of a movie magazine called Empire. What were we doing in 1989?

Terri: I was ten. Everything I wanted to see was a 12. At that age, you’re just obsessed with how do I get into a 12? The answer in my case was an MC Hammer pantsuit from Tammy Girl and a perm with loads of hairspray. So 1989, I started going to the pictures.

Chris: The pictures. This is 1989, not 1959.

Terri: I’m from the North. I’m working class.

Ian: In 1989, I was in my second year of doing a degree in film at the Polytechnic of Central London, whose most famous alumnus is Asif Kapadia. I was making really terrible short films and writing good essays. Grade A essays. I was watching a lot.

Chris: Did you continue your writing on film? Is there anywhere we can read your work?

Ian: It didn’t work out for me.

Helen: I was also at school and getting into film a bit more so. I remember going to see Batman with my dad when we were on holiday in Newcastle, County Down. I was very excited to see it. Last time I was excited for a Batman film. Kidding! You know I love them really.

Chris: Some of them. With caveats.

Helen: It was a good year. Going back over this list, a lot of the films from that year are among my favourites.

Chris: Batman changed the game. There are better films than Batman, but when I think of 1989 I think of that Batman logo.

Helen: It was massive.

Ian: The Batman logo with 11 August on it, that’s what I remember. That’s iconic.

Helen: The Prince music was everywhere. It seemed to dominate the summer. It might just have been me.

Terri: It did $100 million in ten days, which at the time was a record. These days it doesn’t sound massive, but it was absolutely huge and was the start of that sense of a real blockbuster, of something gaining traction that quickly.

Ian: It feels like the first franchise movie.

Chris: I think its place in cinema history is assured.

Ian: I can’t get away from the fact that it looks absolutely like it was shot in Britain. It just looks like Britain. It never

looks like Gotham City.

Chris: What films do you associate most with 1989?

Helen: When Harry Met Sally. I was way too young to enjoy that in 1989, but it’s an astonishing film.

Helen: We don’t talk enough about Rob Reiner’s 1980s.

Chris: It’s an amazing run. Helen: The man made The Princess Bride, Stand By Me, This Is Spinal Tap and When Harry Met Sally. That’s an incredible career right there. When Harry Met Sally is a practically perfect film in every way. It’s a romcom that manages not to patronise either party, which most romcoms do in one way or another.

Chris: Patronising means talking down to someone, by the way.

Helen: Thanks, Chris. Terri: It’s a perfect romcom. It’s one of those rare ones which gets the comedy as right as the romance. It’s a series of beautiful vignettes. It is a fullhearted celebration of love. It covers the awkwardness and the cynicism but it’s committed to being about love, which I think makes it desperately optimistic and desperately beautiful. Ooh, let’s watch it now!

Chris: When you realise that you want to spend the afternoon with When Harry Met Sally, you want that afternoon to start right away. And it hasn’t been overpowered by its most iconic scene, the orgasm-faking scene.

Terri: I used to live four blocks from Katz’s Deli and I’d go in for coffee every morning and there would be people queuing up to ask to sit at the table that Meg Ryan sat at. There is something enduring about this film.

Chris: One film that is contentious is Die Hard. It came out in this country on 3 February 1989, but came out in the States in 1988. When Terri told me that, it automatically became for me the best film of 1989, even though I don’t associate it with 1989. It’s a masterpiece, isn’t it?

Ian: Yeah. It’s perfect.

Chris: I think the screenplay should be taught in film school. It’s an amazing script that fleshes out its hero and villain but also has an incredible supporting cast.

Ian: Johnson and Johnson — that’s a nothing-y thing in any other thriller.

Helen: The fact that they’re still riffing on Die Hard in deleted scenes from Avengers: Endgame is a plaudit.

Terri: It is a perfect action movie. It felt like a hero and a villain you’d never seen before. Mcclane is not a huge, buff, super soldier guy. He’s an average guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, or the right place at the right time.

Helen: It’s Alan Rickman’s first feature film.

Terri: How mad is that?

Helen: What a way to start. If he’d never done anything else, he’d still go down as one of the greats. And he went on to do so much more.

Chris: Nothing as good, though.

Helen: How dare you.

Chris: Name a film that Alan Rickman did that was better than Die Hard.

Helen: Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.

Chris: You lie, and you sign yourself to lies. Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade is a glorious piece of filmmaking.

Helen: It is so good. Its wonderful prologue sparked the whole trend for prequels. I can’t hold that against it because it’s River Phoenix as Young Indy, and I adore it with my whole heart. It was so clever and funny that it’s singlehandedly responsible for all the shit we’ve had to sit through since where there’s no suspense, because we know what’s going to happen.

Ian: That’s my 1989 film. The film I saw the most. The film I was looking forward to the most. I still don’t think it’s the best one of the four.

Chris: Only a brave and foolhardy soul would make that claim.

Ian: It’s the funniest of the four. The middle section, the wit between Connery and Ford, is terrific. It’s so much fun. It really is.

Chris: Terri, you’ve been very quiet on this one.

Terri: I haven’t confessed this before, but Indiana Jones…? I mean…?

Helen: Burn the witch!

Terri: I don’t get it. My brother used to love them when we were little. I thought this one was a bit silly.

Ian: She chose poorly.

Terri: There’s going to be a group with pitchforks coming after me.

Ian: I’m at the fucking front of it.

Chris: Right, enough squabbling. Let’s vote!