TAPE DATE: 12/99 AIR DATE: 2/26/00

ROGER EBERT (ON CAMERA): Coming up next, filmmaker Martin Scorsese joins me to pick the best films of the 1990s.

ROGER EBERT: "Fargo," "The Thin Red Line," "Pulp Fiction." At the end of the first century of film, one of America's greatest filmmakers joins me to select the top ten films of the 1990s. I'm Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times. And on this special edition, I'll be joined by the director whose films "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull" were voted by many groups as the best films of the 1970s and the 1980s.

MARTIN SCORSESE: I'm Martin Scorsese. Hello. And thank you Roger for bringing me back to Chicago and the snow.

ROGER: You know, in the film business we kind of came in together because at my first Chicago film festival, in 1967, I reviewed your first film. And I predicted in that article that you would be a great director, and boy, was I right! And on today's show, we're going to review the top four films on our separate lists, and then list our top ten films of the decade. So let's start with my Number 4 film, which is "Fargo," from 1996, by Joel and Ethan Coen. And here are two of everyone's favorite performances from the decade- Frances McDormand as a very pregnant police chief, questioning William H. Macy, as a very nervous car salesman who is up to his neck in a false kidnapping.

CLIP

ROGER: The most remarkable thing about "Fargo" is the way it combines a genuinely exciting and ingenious crime plot with such a good-hearted portrait of a plucky policewoman. And the photography makes the weather into a character, too--that cold white snowy wasteland where cars won't start and even the cops wear Elmer Fudd hats. "Fargo" -- one of the best films of the decade.

MARTIN: I loved the picture, especially the scene you just showed, the wonderful interrogation scene and the wonderful performances by everybody in the picture, Macy and McDormand. And particularly Macy's kind of passive-aggressive character. I liked the whole picture, because it's sort of a, it's a comedy of manners. It's a movie that once it's on, if it's on television I'll keep watching the whole thing. I get caught up in it. And there's also that wonderful scene with this Asian-American guy. Everyone else seems to be holding back their emotions and this guy completely disintegrates