The Best '90s Movies to Binge-Watch Right Now

The movie that made Julia Roberts a star (and earned her a best actress Oscar nom). Vivian (Roberts) is a Hollywood prostitute hired as an escort by a wealthy businessman (Richard Gere), and over their week of social events and parties together, the two develop an unlikely love. The film’s script originally detailed the dark landscape of sex work in Los Angeles, but turned into a romantic comedy with a huge budget from Disney.

If you ever want to explain to someone from Gen Z why Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have worked together approximately a zillion times, all you have to do is show them Edward Scissorhands, which was the perfect marriage of the frequent collaborators' individual brands of creepy quirkiness.

Chris Columbus directs the outrageous movie of Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), a young boy mistakenly left at home—eating whatever he wants, contending with burglars—as his family flies to Paris for vacation. It was the highest-grossing live action comedy film in the United States of all time from its release in 1990 until 2011 (when The Hangover Part II overtook it).

Rarely is a sequel more beloved than the original, but T2 is a classic of the action and science fiction genres. Not only were the special effects mind-blowing in 1991 (and still pretty good today, considering), but Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor will go down in history as one of the most badass women in all of film.

Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) is an imprisoned psychiatrist, cannibal, and serial killer, whose insight and advice FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) seeks for a new case. The psychological thriller is creepy AF, to say the least, but the movie is GOOD. The Silence of the Lambs is, at this point, the first and only horror film to win Best Picture.

The romantic drama Poetic Justice stars Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur, with an appearance by Maya Angelou. The film tells the story of Justice (Jackson), a hairdresser who writes and recites her own poems (actually written by Maya Angelou) throughout the film. The poems are Justice’s method of coping with the sudden murder of her boyfriend.

If you're ever looking for a hilarious comedy that doubles as a 101-minute thought experiment in philosophy, well, there's honestly only one movie to turn to, and that's Groundhog Day, in which a curmudgeon-y weatherman is inexplicably caught in a time loop that forces him to live the same day over and over (and over) again for years on end.

Jurassic Park, directed by Steven Spielberg, is set on an island turned into a park of cloned dinosaurs and... (Do you really not know what Jurassic Park is about? Or where we're going with this?) Anyway, the dinosaurs in the film were depicted with groundbreaking computer-generated imagery and the film was the highest-grossing film of all time until Titanic. It also spawned many, many sequels, which eventually led to this gif of Chris Pratt.

Robin Williams' character is recently divorced and missing his children, so he dresses up as a female housekeeper, whom he calls Mrs. Doubtfire, in an effort to be closer to them. The film—hilariously funny, witty, and iconic—was one of Williams’ greatest successes.

This black comedy made up of several interwoven stories of characters involved in a world of crime and violence cemented Quentin Tarantino's popularity. Pulp Fiction is self-referential, out of chronological order, and entirely iconic. It stars John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, and Bruce Willis, and was nominated for seven Oscars.

This now-classic Best Picture winner takes audiences through the life of its titular character, the lovable—though slow—Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks). He runs across the country several times, meets Richard Nixon, serves in Vietnam, and teaches Elvis Presley to dance. Life is like a box of chocolates...

The Lion King represents the peak of the Disney Renaissance and set box office records worldwide on its release. A clever retelling of Hamlet, the movie has as much drama and heart as any live-action film.

Two rather—er—unintelligent friends (Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels; which is dumb and which is dumber is hard to tell) mistake a suitcase of ransom money as mistakenly lost, and set out on a cross-country trip to return it to its owner. Hijinks ensue. Numerous quotable movies came out of the '90s, but this one's up there: "That's a lovely accent you have. New Jersey?"

This so-bad-it's-good cult-classic follows Elizabeth Berkley (yup, Jessie from Saved By The Bell) as Nomi as she arrives in Las Vegas with a dream of becoming a dancer. She works her way through a seedy world of stripping and prostitution (there's A LOT of nudity), and begins to question whether the life of a showgirl—and what it takes to become one—is truly desirable.

This modern retelling of Jane Austen's Emma centers on Cher (Alicia Silverstone): a superficial, attractive, wealthy 16-year-old in Beverly Hills. She plays matchmaker for teachers and students alike, gets dressed with an interactive carousel of clothing options, and conducts a makeover on a “tragically unhip” new girl. The movie was hugely influential, even changing the lexicon of the American teenage girl—“As if!”

The first-ever full-length Pixar tale changed the game for animated movies. The film, which told the story of what toys do when we leave the room (spoiler: come to life and exist in their own complex society), was groundbreaking and spawned several sequels, the latest of which is due out in 2019.

Adam Sandler stars as the film’s namesake, an aspiring hockey player who discovers he has an bizarrely powerful golf swing. When his beloved grandmother loses her home, Happy joins the PGA tour in the hopes that he can win enough money to buy her house for her, but he has to beat his douchey rival, Shooter McGavin (Christopher McDonald).

Space Jam, starring Michael Jordan and several animated Looney Tunes characters, suggests an alternate history of Michael Jordan’s life between his retirement from basketball in 1993 and his 1995 comeback. The film features Jordan’s interactions with Bugs Bunny, several aliens, an amusement park, and a new love interest for Bugs.

Scream is a horror classic and, when it was released, it turned the genre on its head and went meta before going meta was such a common move.

This movie, which had most teenage girls sobbing their way through the late '90s, is a fictionalized account of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic (obviously). It stars Leonardo DiCaprio at his heartthrob-iest and Kate Winslet, two passengers of vastly different social stature who fall in love during the Titanic’s first and final voyage. The film was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won 11—including Best Picture and Best Director.

20-year-old Will Hunting (Matt Damon) punches a police officer, is allowed deferred prosecution, and seeks therapy and mathematics tutoring from a renowned professor (Robin Williams). Ben Affleck and Matt Damon wrote the film together, and won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. How do you like them apples?

The film, adapted from Hunter S. Thompson’s novel of the same name, failed both critically and financially at first, but has recently amassed a cult following. The story follows Raoul Duke (Johnny Depp) and Dr. Gonzo (Benicio del Toro) on a journalistic assignment that ends up being an exploration of Las Vegas under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs and copious other substances.

Following the success of 1993's Sleepless in Seattle, this delightful rom-com reunites Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, two actors who have undeniable chemistry. It's a now-quaint-seeming story of two professional rivals who, unbeknownst to them, meet and fall in love via an online chat room. Written by Nora Ephron, they just don't make movies like this anymore.

A modernized, teenage-drama version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, 10 Things I Hate About You is about Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who is in love with a girl (Larisa Oleynik) whose father won’t let her date until her older sister, intelligent, surly Kat (Julia Stiles), does. Cameron attempts to convince bad-boy Patrick (Heath Ledger) to take Kat out, and the two enter into an angsty, bittersweet romance.

Raja Gosnell’s film Never Been Kissed stars Drew Barrymore as Josie Geller, an insecure newspaper editor who goes undercover at a local high school. She's ordered to befriend the “popular” crowd in order to cover the underage drinking and promiscuity that occurs within it, and ends up falling in love with her teacher.

Written, directed, and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, The Blair Witch Project is famously terrifying for its unique—and cheap—method of filming on handheld cameras. The film uses “recovered footage” from three student filmmakers who sought to document the local legend, the “Blair Witch,” and disappear in the process. The film premiered at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival with extreme success.

Academy-Award-winning Boys Don’t Cry is a biographical film based on the true story of transgender man Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank), who was the victim of a violent hate crime—and murder—in Nebraska in 1993.

The movie that redefined the raunchy teen sex comedy for a generation—and changed the way the world thought about band camp and baked goods forever.

The first rule of Fight Club is don't talk about Fight Club. ...But we're going to anyway: The unnamed protagonist, played by Edward Norton, is dissatisfied with his white-collar job, so he does what anyone in his position would: He starts a “fight club” for men who want to beat each other up recreationally. And there's a MAJOR twist. Though it was initially very polarizing, now, it’s a cult film and regarded as one of the best of the ‘90s.

In this dystopian future world, we exist in a simulated reality called “the Matrix,” and a couple of the main characters (Laurence Fishburne, Keanu Reeves) can enter and exit it. The Matrix has been critically acclaimed for its innovative visual effects and cinematography.