My vote would've gone to Pulp Fiction, but I agree both that & Shawshank were better choices than Gump. 1994 was quite a good year in general.

@howardburns Have you ever seen the behind the scenes film where they show how they melted the head in your avatar? It's pretty funny and ingenious for it's time.

I always take the Oscars with a pinch of salt..i found Forest Gump annoying and a lil overrated .Shawshank and Pulp Fiction are classics

Totally agree with JumpinJack, 94 was a good year, Leon was also out that year, 95 was good too, with Heat, Braveheart, Usual Suspects, 12 Monkeys, Toy Story, Seven and Casino.

@lantzn said:

@howardburns Have you ever seen the behind the scenes film where they show how they melted the head in your avatar? It's pretty funny and ingenious for it's time.

I don't think so but I have the Indy blu-ray set, if there's a featurette I'll get around to it eventually. It looks like they used an old-school animation technique though, whatever it was it worked! (Sorry for derailing the topic a bit, didn't want to ignore ya, lol)

@howardburns said:

@lantzn said:

@howardburns Have you ever seen the behind the scenes film where they show how they melted the head in your avatar? It's pretty funny and ingenious for it's time.

I don't think so but I have the Indy blu-ray set, if there's a featurette I'll get around to it eventually. It looks like they used an old-school animation technique though, whatever it was it worked! (Sorry for derailing the topic a bit, didn't want to ignore ya, lol)

No animation, it's all done with wax and heat. lol yes it should be in the featurettes.

That's why the Academy has so many voters.. I think Pulp Fiction is one of the worst movies I've ever had the torturous displeasure to sit through (actually, Fire Walk With Me was by far the worst).

I love both Forrest Gump and Shawshank, but while at this point I'll watch Shawshank over Gump if they're both on TV at the same time, Shawshank's plot is a bit derivative, as the confines of a prison pretty much limit plot devices. Forrest Gump's story is fabulous on so many levels. If I were an Academy voter, Gump would have been my easy pick.

@RCH2288 said:

the 5 nominees that year were all great. Forest Gump, Pulp Fiction, Quiz Show, Shawshank, and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Well maybe not all great but pretty good movies. Shawshank and Pulp Fiction were the most deserving of all the nominations. Forest Gump was the popular vote. Wasn't necessarily the best picture that year in my opinion. Shawshank Redemption should have won

They're both good movies, but I think they got it right. I give the slight edge to Gump. Like one above poster said, Pulp Fiction was the best made, but another gangster movie with a little too dark material. Shaws hank leaned dark at times too, but had a brilliant ending. So I think Gump stood out. Also, I agree with the above poster- 95 was a great year for films. 90-01 is my personal favorite period of films by far.

@NotoriousRio said:

Totally agree with JumpinJack, 94 was a good year, Leon was also out that year, 95 was good too, with Heat, Braveheart, Usual Suspects, 12 Monkeys, Toy Story, Seven and Casino.

they got it right, i prefer Gump over shawshank, pulp fiction is instant classic but very long and not too good to rewatch. in the end Shawshank is romantic fairy tale which pretends to be realistic while with Gump nobody really pretends it's real and it's more honest and more enjoyable touching many themes of racism, Vietnam war, prostitution, disability, etc while Shawshank in the end it's just nice fairy tale not related to our society

now the next year i would no be able to choose between Heat and Se7en, I guess i would go for Heat for realism (in my country one chain of banks was using it as training material for robbery scenarios), score is also much better and it has more interesting characters, though Spacey and Pitt were both great and Spacey's monologue in car ride changed my view on innocence same as Fight club formed together with American beauty my views about our consumer society

The Shawshank Redemption/Pulp Fiction

Forrest Gump - great but not on the level of the other two

'94 best year in movies! Besides the big three (Gump, Shawshank, Pulp), it also had my favorite animated movie ever Lion King, and one of my favorite comedies, Dumb and Dumber (and Ace Ventura...I was a kid!). It also had my favorite STNG-crew Star Trek movie, Generations. Man, what an awesome year!

As far as Shawshank over Gump? I disagree. Both were awesome, and I'm glad Gump won. We'd be saying the same thing about Gump had it been snubbed. Really, all three of the movies could have won in another year, and so we just need to appreciate 1994 that much more for it being so outstanding.

As much as I enjoyed Forrest Gump, I certainly agree.

@MrRadical said:

The Shawshank Redemption/Pulp Fiction

Forrest Gump - great but not on the level of the other two

Tough call. Gump and Shawshank are 2 of my top 10 all time.

1994 really was one of the best-ever years for movies. Gump gets a lot of flak for its sentimentality, and I do consider both PF and Shawshank superior--but only by relative degree. They're all excellent films. Quiz Show is also a favorite of mine, as was another film that wasn't even nominated: Ed Wood.

(Siskel and Ebert claimed the best film that year was none of those, but rather the documentary Hoop Dreams, which I haven't seen.)

I'd say PF deserves the top prize for being the most groundbreaking and influential film of the bunch. It's also got the best writing, and it's the one I find the most entertaining on a basic level. I've rewatched it more than any of the others.

Shawshank holds a special place for me as one of the most emotionally satisfying and inspiring movies I've ever seen.

Gump was simply a nice piece of filmmaking, dominated by Tom Hanks' offbeat performance (probably the best of his career). It took satiric conceits that have been explored in earlier films (Being There, Zelig) and invested them with added emotional weight. I must be one of the few people on the planet to have read the Winston Groom novel it was adapted from before watching the film, but it's one of those rare cases where the movie is better than the book (and reportedly Groom agrees).

Still, overall PF and Shawshank were greater achievements, and that's not a knock on Gump, but a recognition of the greatness of the other two.

While I don't really care what the "Academy" does with their "awards" (mostly payola for playing along), Gump was the right choice IMO. If I had to watch a movie tonight, I'd watch Shawshank because it's like the mac n cheese of movies. But Forest Gump is one of the most clever screen plays I've ever seen. So many innocent cause and effects as this very ordinary man leads an extraordinary life and improves life for anyone who he comes in contact with.

The acting was just brilliant. Hanks, Sinise, Williamson, Fields, and Wright were fabulous, with Tom Hanks and Gary Sinise just killing it.

As for Pulp Fiction, that's one of those movies that I would be forced to watch in hell forever. I'm glad people have another film to enjoy but that film is pure torture for me.