he (approximately) 46th, and most recent, film noir on this list, Tarantino's multipart murder comedy is (unquestionably) the most influential American movie of the 90s. It established the former video-store geek as the auteur of the decade, proved that the Weinsteins at Miramax could produce films as well as import them, sparked the third or fourth coming of John Travolta's career (while, sort of, killing him off in the middle of the movie) and gave directors not a tenth as gifted as Q.T. the license to daub their pictures with gaudy mayhem. Yeah yeah, but Pulp Fiction is still fresh—in fact, astonishingly impudent—and fully up to matching its cocksure ambition with its care for framing a scene and its love for the actors within them. The joy of filmmaking is evident and infectious. The film still has the impact of an adrenalin shot to the heart. —R.C.