BEST.MOVIE.YEAR.EVER.

Veteran culture journalist and Wired senior writer Brian Raftery offers a celebration and analysis of the movies of 1999 - a groundbreaking year in cinematic history.

1999 was the year of some of the most influential films to date: Fight Club. The Matrix. Office Space. Election. The Blair Witch Project. The Sixth Sense. Being John Malkovich. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. American Beauty. The Virgin Suicides. Boys Don't Cry. The Best Man. Three Kings. Magnolia. Those are just some of the landmark titles released in a movie year, one in which a group of daring filmmakers and performers pushed cinema to new limits - and took audiences along for the ride.

Freed from the restraints of budget, technology (or even taste), they produced a slew of classics that took on every topic imaginable, from sex to violence to the end of the world. The result was a highly unruly, deeply influential set of films that would not only change filmmaking, but also give us our first glimpse of the coming twenty-first century. It was a watershed moment that also produced The Sopranos; Apple's Airport; Wi-Fi; and Netflix's unlimited DVD rentals.

Best. Movie. Year. Ever. is the story of not just how these movies were made, but how they re-made our own vision of the world. It features more than 130 new and exclusive interviews with such directors and actors as Reese Witherspoon, Steven Soderbergh, Sofia Coppola, David Fincher, Nia Long, Matthew Broderick, Taye Diggs, M. Night Shyamalan, David O. Russell, James Van Der Beek, Kirsten Dunst, the Blair Witch kids, the Office Space dudes, the guy who played Jar-Jar Binks, and dozens more. It's the definitive account of a culture-conquering movie year none of us saw coming...and that we may never see again.

These daring filmmakers and performers pushed cinema to new limits and produced a slew of classics that took on every topic imaginable, from sex to violence to the end of the world. Featuring over 130 new and exclusive interviews, the book demonstrates that 1999 was the peak of modern cinema, as it was the first and last time that movies would so thoroughly dominate mainstream culture.

Brian Raftery is a senior writer for Wired magazine, where he covers film, television, and internet culture. His work has also appeared in GQ, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and New York magazine. He lives in Burbank, California, with his wife and daughters. Best Movie Year Ever is his first book.