Pulp Fiction
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
1994
Young filmmakers were allowed to sound different after this one: Tarantino let two hitmen argue about hamburgers for ten minutes, and an entire decade of American cinema followed.
★ 9.5
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1994
Showing 182 works across all media from 1994
Illmatic
1994
Ten tracks, under forty minutes, made by a twenty-year-old with the best producers in New York each giving him one beat.
★ 9.3
Ready to Die
1994
The opening traces his life from the delivery room to prison in about three minutes. Puffy made him rewrite half of it for radio.
★ 9.1
The Shawshank Redemption
Directed by Frank Darabont
1994
It lost money in cinemas and has sat at the top of IMDb's ranking since 2008: a prison friendship, told patiently, that pays off better than almost anything.
★ 8.9
C.R.E.A.M.
1994 · From Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
RZA looped a lonely piano figure from the Charmels, and Inspectah Deck's second verse became hip hop scripture.
★ 8.9
N.Y. State of Mind
1994 · From Illmatic
Premier built the beat on the spot; Nas nailed verse one in a take, muttering doubt into the intro.
★ 8.7
Juicy
1994 · From Ready to Die
Poke and Combs looped Mtume's Juicy Fruit, and Wallace told the rags to riches story that hip hop kept retelling.
★ 8.5
Hallelujah
1994 · From Grace
Buckley learned it from John Cale's version and cut over twenty takes at Bearsville; the edit sounds like one breath.
★ 8.2
Dummy
1994
They recorded their own samples, pressed them onto vinyl, and scratched the records up so the finished album would crackle like something older.
★ 8.1
Sabotage
1994 · From Ill Communication
Yauch's bass line started it, Ad-Rock turned a joke about their producer into a scream, and Jonze filmed the rest.
★ 8.0
The World Is Yours
1994 · From Illmatic
Ahmad Jamal's piano figure, a hook Pete Rock sang himself, and the most hopeful stretch of Illmatic.
★ 7.9
Black Hole Sun
1994 · From Superunknown
A Leslie speaker gives the guitars their swirl, and Cornell built the title from a misheard news broadcast.
★ 7.7
All I Want For Christmas Is You
1994
Carey and Afanasieff wrote it fast in 1994 from Spector chords, and it reached number one twenty-five years later.
★ 7.7
Basket Case
1994 · From Dookie
Armstrong rewrote it around his undiagnosed panic attacks, cut it at Fantasy Studios, and sold punk to the suburbs.
★ 7.7
Live Forever
1994 · From Definitely Maybe
Gallagher wrote it in 1991, before Oasis had a record deal, pitching plain optimism against everything grunge was selling.
★ 7.7
Big Poppa
1994 · From Ready to Die
Chucky Thompson built it on the Isley Brothers' Between the Sheets, and Biggie made charm sound entirely effortless.
★ 7.6
Loser
1994 · From Mellow Gold
Six and a half hours in Stephenson's house, a slide guitar loop, and a hook mocking Beck's own rapping.
★ 7.6
Grace
1994
Buckley's voice covers about four octaves and he uses most of them. He drowned in the Mississippi three years later, aged thirty.
★ 7.6
The Lion King
Directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff
1994
Still the highest grossing hand-drawn film ever made: Disney sent a young cub into exile with a Shakespeare plot, and the opening sunrise raises the hair every time.
★ 7.5
Life's a Bitch
1994 · From Illmatic
AZ's first appearance on record, the only rapper Nas let onto Illmatic, and his father Olu Dara closing on trumpet.
★ 7.5
Hoop Dreams
Directed by Steve James
1994
Its exclusion from the documentary Oscar shortlist caused enough outrage that the Academy changed its rules: five years with two Chicago teenagers, and it is barely about basketball.
★ 7.5
Superunknown
1994
Singer Chris Cornell wrote Black Hole Sun in about fifteen minutes. Much of the rest is in time signatures that make nodding along hard.
★ 7.4
Where Did You Sleep Last Night
1994 · From MTV Unplugged in New York
Closing the Unplugged set at Sony Studios, a Lead Belly song, and a last verse Neil Young called unearthly.
★ 7.4
I Used to Love H.E.R.
1994 · From Resurrection
No I.D. looped George Benson, Common told hip hop's story as one woman, and Ice Cube took it personally.
★ 7.4
The Downward Spiral
1994
Trent Reznor made almost all of it alone. Johnny Cash covered Hurt nine years later and Reznor said the song no longer felt like his.
★ 7.4
It Ain't Hard To Tell
1994 · From Illmatic
Large Professor looped Human Nature into a hush, and Nas closed Illmatic with his most dazzling stretch of technique.
★ 7.3
Regulate
1994 · From Regulate...G Funk Era
Warren G looped four bars of Michael McDonald in a Long Beach bedroom, and Nate Dogg sang his half.
★ 7.3
Buddy Holly
1994 · From Weezer (The Blue Album)
Cuomo thought it too cheesy to release; Ocasek insisted, then Spike Jonze spliced the band into Happy Days footage.
★ 7.2
Electric Relaxation
1994 · From Midnight Marauders
Q-Tip built the beat in his grandmother's basement from a Ronnie Foster loop, and Phife traded lines with him.
★ 7.2
Forrest Gump
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
1994
People still argue about whether it is sentimental or sly, and both readings hold: a simple man walks through forty years of American history without ever noticing.
★ 7.2
Zombie
1994
O'Riordan answering the 1993 Warrington bombing by trading jangle for distortion, then six weeks atop America's alternative chart.
★ 7.2
Long Walk to Freedom · 1994
The Lion King · 1994
Fade Into You
1994
Roback's guitar and Sandoval's half-whisper, the band's only Hot 100 entry, and television's favorite shortcut to longing.
★ 7.0
Say It Ain't So
1994 · From Weezer (The Blue Album)
Cuomo's working title was "The Classic Rock Song"; Ocasek produced, and the clean offbeat chords carry a family's addiction.
★ 7.0
Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing ta Fuck Wit
1994 · From Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)
RZA cut it at Firehouse Studio on almost no budget, Method Man co-produced, and the chorus became the Clan's motto.
★ 6.8
Cut Your Hair
1994 · From Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Malkmus turned a fake band advert into a hook, and Pavement's snipe at image became their biggest hit.
★ 6.8
The Man Who Sold the World
1994 · From MTV Unplugged in New York
Fourteen songs, one take, November 1993; Cobain plays Bowie through an amp and makes the song permanently his.
★ 6.8
The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
1994 · 607 pages
Toru Okada looks for his wife's cat, then his wife disappears. He sits in a dry well while the novel opens onto Japan's war in Manchuria and atrocities the country never faced.
★ 6.8
About a Girl
1994 · From Bleach
Cobain wrote it in 1988, reportedly after playing Meet the Beatles all day; the Unplugged take topped Modern Rock.
★ 6.7
Creep (TLC)
1994 · From CrazySexyCool
A trumpet loop, T-Boz half-whispering, and Left Eye objecting so strongly she threatened to tape her mouth shut.
★ 6.7
Weezer (The Blue Album)
1994
Ric Ocasek of the Cars produced it, and Spike Jonze cut the Buddy Holly video into an old episode of Happy Days.
★ 6.7
When I Come Around
1994 · From Dookie
Four palm-muted chords, Dirnt's bass doing the melodic work, and a lyric Armstrong wrote after fighting with Adrienne.
★ 6.6
Mass Appeal
1994 · From Hard to Earn
A joke about radio playlists, built on Vic Juris's "Horizon Drive," and it became Gang Starr's most recognizable record.
★ 6.6
The Age of Extremes
1914-1991
1994 · 672 pages
The twentieth century runs from 1914 to 1991 in Hobsbawm's account, moving through catastrophe, a golden age of postwar boom, then landslide. No later history of the century has displaced it.
★ 6.5
Memory Lane (Sittin' in da Park)
1994 · From Illmatic
Nas was twenty and already writing memoir here, over DJ Premier's loop of a Reuben Wilson organ.
★ 6.5
Bring the Pain
1994
RZA's murk, Method Man's first single away from the Wu-Tang, and a title Chris Rock borrowed for his 1996 special.
★ 6.4
Diplomacy
1994 · 912 pages
The fullest modern defense of power politics, written by a secretary of state who practiced it. Kissinger runs from Richelieu to the Cold War, insisting that order rests on balance, not moral aspiration.
★ 6.4
Leon: The Professional
Directed by Luc Besson
1994
Natalie Portman was twelve and had never acted: Besson pairs her with a hitman who waters his houseplant like a dependent, and the film has been argued about ever since.
★ 6.3
Interstate Love Song
1994
Robert DeLeo worked it out as a bossa nova on nylon strings; Weiland nailed the Atlanta vocal in one take.
★ 6.3
Undone (The Sweater Song)
1994 · From Weezer (The Blue Album)
Ocasek produced it, Cuomo aimed for the Velvet Underground, and the party-chatter intro made a sad song sound hilarious.
★ 6.1