Jeremy’s Tophunder №35: Space Jam

6 min readApr 21, 2020

I know everyone is thinking it, so I’ll just come out and ask the question — Is Space Jam the best movie of the 1990s?

In 1996, when I was seven years old, Space Jam was the coolest movie (and quite possibly the best movie) I had ever seen. You’re telling me it’s got Looney Tunes AND Michael Jordan AND a gripping, compelling, emotional story? Shut the front door. Great googily-moogily, this movie has everything.

Almost 25 years later, it’s still spectacular, although perhaps not quite the same. Sure, Bill Murray’s grand entrance to save the day at the end of the game is so moving and emotional that I often find myself welling up, but not nearly as much as I did in years past.

One thing that I really respect about Space Jam is the run time. If you don’t count the cold open (when a young Michael shoots hoops in his driveway with his dad) and the inexplicably long opening credits/montage, the movie is like, an hour and 20 minutes long. I’ve taken showers longer than Space Jam. It’s efficient. You get in, you watch Michael Jordan play basketball with Looney Tunes, and you get out. It’s really no-nonsense. You have to respect that.

Jordan really gives the strongest performance of his career. I’ve never seen him better in any other movie. He delivers his lines with all the drama and conviction you’d expect out of him during a mid-90s commercial shoot, but he’s able to maintain that level of intensity for well over an hour. It’s truly just a tour de force of dramatic acting. If you’re looking for competition within the 90s, I’d say the only nominees are Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs and Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, and I’d even say that putting all three of them in the same conversation is insulting to Jordan, if anything. The only reason that Space Jam (and Jordan himself) didn’t sweep the Oscars in 1996 was because Jordan was already so established as a star athlete with an extensive collection of hardware — The John Wooden Award (for outstanding college basketball player), NBA Rookie of the Year, two Defensive Player of the Year awards, three NBA MVP awards, and three NBA Championships (as well as three Finals MVP awards). It just wouldn’t have been fair to everyone else.

My favorite part of Space Jam (other than the aforementioned entrance by Bill Murray, which more often than not elicits a standing ovation from me, even when I’m watching by myself at home) is when Jordan takes exception to Mr. Swackhammer’s trash talking, offering to raise the stakes of the game — if the Tunes win, the NBA stars get their talent back, but if the MonStars win, Jordan becomes a prisoner of Moron Mountain. This wager seems at first glance like just a convenient way to introduce a new plot point (a way for the NBA stars to get their talent back) and generally increase the tension of the third act, but I see it as more than that. To me, it’s clearly a reference to the popular rumor that Jordan turned to baseball after receiving an unofficial suspension from the league for his excessive gambling. Jordan is well known for being supremely competitive, and the rumor goes that his competitiveness was seeping into his gambling during the early 90s. Did he ever bet on basketball, which would almost certainly require a firm and potentially draconian response from the league? There’s no evidence of that. But here he is in Space Jam, betting on the outcome of a basketball game. It was truly a bold choice by the filmmakers (and Jordan himself) to include this in the film. It really makes you wonder if there was ever any validity to the rumor. To me, it’s the most thought-provoking moment in a film that is chalk-full of thought-provoking moments.

I’m also very impressed by the filmmakers’ choice to introduce the character of Lola Bunny. Clearly, they had the foresight to know that the conversation surrounding women’s athletics would be a hot-button issue for the next 25 years. Interestingly, Space Jam 2 is set to feature several cameos from WNBA stars. The WNBA is by far the most successful women’s professional sports league, and WNBA players receive a great amount of respect from their NBA counterparts. I would argue that much of that is a direct result of Space Jam choosing to portray Lola Bunny as the team’s second-best player. Space Jam began production sometime in 1995. The WNBA was founded in April 1996. Space Jam was released to theaters that November, and the WNBA began play in 1997. Is any of this a coincidence? That’s up for you to decide.

It’s also clear to me (and should be clear to everyone else) that Space Jam was a highly influential film based on it’s ability to portray live action actors next to animated characters. The blending of live actors with computer-generated imagery has been the defining trend of 21st century filmmaking, culminating in movies like Avatar, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises, and many others. It’s entirely possible that none of those films would have ever existed unless Space Jam helped to pave the way. I certainly never knew that live action and animation could appear on the same screen at the same time until I saw Space Jam.

It’s the legacy of Space Jam that ultimately means the most to me. Beyond the fact that it’s a beautiful movie with wonderful acting performances and a thrilling storyline, it’s a film that still resonates almost 25 years later due its timeless themes and social commentary.

So, at this point, I’m sure you’re wondering why it only ranks №35 on my list. And that’s a fair question. On different drafts, it was as high as №3, but in the end I was able to look at the movie objectively and acknowledge that while it’s very close to a perfect movie, it’s not flawless. For one, Daffy Duck just doesn’t bring enough to the table to justify the amount of screen time he got. It should have been clear to anyone that he just wasn’t talented enough to be a starting member of the Tune Squad — his minutes should have gone to Elmer Fudd, who showed sublime form in a drive to the hoop at one point. The Tasmanian Devil was also clearly under-utilized. His level of speed and defensive tenacity was unmatched by anyone on the court. As for the MonStars, they clearly made a few errors in the players that they targeted. Muggsy Bogues and Shawn Bradley were obviously fine players, but nothing compared to, say, John Stockton and 1995 NBA MVP David Robinson. It’s pretty clear that they just attended two games (Suns-Knicks at MSG and Hornets-Sixers in Charlotte) and stole the ability of the five best players they saw. Sure, they came close to winning the game, but they did themselves a disservice by not doing their homework and identifying the players they really should have been going after.

So, to answer the question I posed up at the top — is Space Jam the best movie of the 1990s? I think it falls a bit short. It really has everything that you’re looking for in a movie, including a tremendous soundtrack that I didn’t even have time to fully explore, but I think there are other movies in the decade that just put everything together in cleaner ways. Still, it’s clearly one of the best movies of its era, and the best NBA/Cartoon crossover film of all time. For me, it’ll just have to settle for being my 35th-favorite movie ever.

(For a refresher on the project, I introduced it in a Facebook Post on Day 1)

Here’s our progress on the list so far:

4. Dazed and Confused

6. The Fugitive

7. The Dark Knight

9. Saving Private Ryan

11. The Big Short

13. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

17. Ocean’s 11

18. Air Force One

21. The Other Guys

22. Remember The Titans