He takes on a supporting role here, but it’s Tom Everett Scott who ultimately leads an impressive ensemble cast that also features Steve Zahn and Liv Tyler. There’s an early role of Charlize Theron here too. An extended cut was made available a few years back, which deepens the characters and the relationships between them, but the theatrical cut itself is a treat in its own right. It’s not the most radical music movie you’ll see, but it’s still an impressive one. It’s from a director who really cares about the material too. And you’re lying if you say you can watch this and not have “That Thing You Do!” stuck in your head for days afterward.

2. Bound

As far as most of the movie theater-going world was concerned, The Matrix was the first movie from the Wachowskis, but it was actually the well-received by little-seen Bound that really put them on the map in Hollywood terms.

One of the best entries in the ’90s cycle of neo-noir thrillers (see also John Dahl’s fantastic Red Rock West), Bound is about the relationship between Violet (Jennifer Tilly), her lover Corky (Gina Gershon), and their plan to rob $2 million in cash from the mafia.

A movie that gamely plays with genre conventions and gender stereotypes, Bound is masterfully directed by the Wachowskis, who smoothly move between humor, steamy romance, and searing violence without missing a beat. Although it’s in danger of being remembered as being the movie that laid the way for its young filmmakers to write and direct The Matrix, it’s a superb thriller in its own right.

1. The People vs. Larry Flynt

Milos Forman is one of the great directors of dramas and biopics–see One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus for proof–and The People vs. Larry Flynt is his masterfully told story of the infamous publisher and editor of adult magazine, Hustler. Woody Harrelson plays the adult Flynt, whose gradual rise to prominence in the publishing industry out him in the sights of minister Jerry Falwell, who promptly took Flynt to court when Falwell became the subject of a mocking ad in a 1983 issue of Hustler.

Forman grasps this difficult story of a controversial figure brilliantly, and the central romance between Flynt and stripper Althea (Courtney Love) is beautifully acted and packs a tragic punch.

Perhaps due to its adult subject matter, The People vs. Larry Flynt wasn’t given the eventual high profile release ofOne Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus (at least outside of the U.S.), so it didn’t stand much of a chance in making back its $35 million budget. But thanks to its handling of a quite strange story, which finds both the human warmth and drama in real events, The People vs. Larry Flynt emerges as, for us at least, the most complete and satisfying movie of 1996 you might’ve missed.