Best Movies of 1989
Ranked by our critic's grades, best first.
Dead Poets SocietyA magnificent Robin Williams performance inside a film whose ideas about poetry are a slogan.Read the review
Indiana Jones and the Last CrusadeThe third Indiana Jones film recycles Raiders almost beat for beat and gets away with it by giving Ford a father, and Sean Connery to play him.
Henry VBranagh drags the play into the mud and wins the argument, though he is a better tactician than an orator.
My Left FootSheridan keeps the sentiment out of a life that invites it, and three actors in one Dublin kitchen do the rest.
Batman (1989)Anton Furst's Gotham and Jack Nicholson's Joker are so good you barely notice Batman is a guest star.
The AbyssA brutal shoot that produced one of cinema's great rescue scenes and a wobbly final act.
When Harry Met Sally...Nora Ephron's dialogue is so good it papers over a story that is mostly people waiting.
Eversmile, New JerseyA good premise and a great landscape, stranded by a script that never decides what its travelling dentist actually wants.