The '90s were a pretty amazing decade for film. The rom-com was at its pinnacle (Pretty Woman, You've Got Mail), comedies were truly funny (Home Alone, Dumb & Dumber), critical faves were also crowd-pleasers (Titanic, Forrest Gump), and teen comedies (10 Things I Hate About You, Clueless) were having a heyday, making the years 1990 to 1999 a particularly good time to go to the movies if you were a teenager. Maybe it's because going to the movies was still a thing in the '90s? Anyway, luckily for you, most of these flicks can be watched now, in 2020, from the comfort of your couch via Netflix and other streaming services. We've scoured the archives and rounded up the best films, with the most iconic characters—from Mrs. Doubtfire to Hannibal Lecter to Cher Horowitz—and we've listed them here for you. The next lazy Saturday you have, why not take a stroll down memory lane?
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'Thelma and Louise'
When Ridley Scott's thrilling adventure of two best friends on the run hit theaters in the summer of 1991, we were forever changed. It was one of the first movies I saw that showed me all things women could (and had been doing) without the over-looming guidance of males. The bond Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon share is nothing short than perfection. Also, speaking of perfection, we get a shirtless 26-year-old Brad Pitt, so no complaints here.
Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Reené Zelleweger showed us the money in this instant classic from legendary journalist Cameron Crowe. The script about a uber-successful sports agent who has an epiphany and decides to start all over took Crowe five years to write. The time was well spent since it earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay at the 1997 Academy Awards.
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'Four Weddings and a Funeral'
Oh, 1995, what a time to be alive! We were first really introduced to unbelievably charming Hugh Grant, and we were never the same. The story of a man who realizes he might have found his soulmate (Andie MacDowell) after running into each other at five different social events is set to make any heart a little bit bigger. We may have came for the love story, but we really stayed for Hugh Grant's hair.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson put himself on the map with the 1997 film about the pornography industry in the late 70s and early 80s. We relished in Burt Reynolds' mustache, gasped at Mark Wahlberg's prosthetic penis, and just couldn't take our eyes away from the screen until the credits rolled. The craziest thing of all about the film isn't even in the picture: Leonardo DiCaprio was going to play Dirk Diggler but had to turn it down because he was filming the Titanic. He then suggested Wahlberg for the role.
The story of a husband who hires two criminals to kidnap his wife so he can receive the large ransom from his wealthy father-in-law was unforgettable in 1996. The crime movie that mixed in comedy put the Coen Brothers on the map and won Joel Coen the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival the same year. I mean it got Frances McDormand her Oscar! It also inspired a spin-off series of the same name that premiered on FX in 2014 that was equally great.
The '90s to Chris Farley are like peanut butter and jelly. They just go together. When Tommy Boy came out, Farley was finishing up his fifth and final year at Saturday Night Live, and would we miss him. The comedy about a loser son who has to try and take back the family business after his father's death with the help of an accountant (David Spade) is unforgettable. Yes, the movie may not be "critically acclaimed," but it represents the comedies of the decade so well.
John Singleton's debut 1991 film about three men growing up in the Crenshaw ghetto of Los Angeles put a narrative on America's screens that wasn't always seen. The breakout performance of Ice Cube alongside Cuba Gooding Jr. and Morris Chestnut as they come of age was a message worth taking note. Re-watching it now is a reminder of how Singleton's film was a risk worth taking.
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'There's Something About Mary'
We have Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller, and Matt Dillon with questionable facial hair in this romantic comedy about first loves. After viewing, I may have questioned the trustworthiness of men everywhere but I would tell myself 'It's just a movie!' Come for the 1998 tale of a guy trying to win back the first girl he ever loved by hiring a private investigator, stay for the unbelievable incidents that follow.
Some people may shame us for putting this 1991 classic on this list, but we welcome you to embrace it. When you watch it and see not only Keanu Reeves but Patrick Swayze as shirtless surfers in Southern California, you will thank us. Watching Reeves as an FBI Agent undercover trying to find out who has been behind the recent burglaries in the area keeps me on the edge of my seat time after time.
It's the mob movies of all mob movies based on Nicolas Pileggi's best-selling novel Wiseguy about Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and his rise and fall as a mobster in New York in the '60s and '70s without glorifying the violent behavior the occupation is known for. The six-time Oscar-nominated movie from Martin Scorsese may have debuted in 1990, but it would be talked about for the rest of the decade.
The Best Picture Oscar winner for the year 1998, Shakespeare in Love stars Joseph Fiennes as the Bard himself, fallen on hard times and looking to score a hit with his new play, Romeo and Juliet. Meanwhile, Gwyneth Paltrow stars as a noblewoman with dreams of becoming an actress (at the time, women weren’t allowed to act and female parts were given to younger men in drag). Re-watching it now, this film is surprisingly progressive! It’s also still hot.
To this day, the 1999 horror thriller by M. Night Shyamalan remains the be-all-end-all of twist endings. Though the director would never again have the monocultural filmmaking clout that he had in the wake of this film (I mean, how do you top an ending like this?!), this movie was everywhere for an entire year, and is still referenced today.
The Coen Brothers could have had no idea the impact their strange film The Big Lebowski would have had when it came out in 1998. I mean, how do you even sum up this plot? A slacker-y gentleman gets mixed up in a case of mistaken identity with a rich guy and his petulant young bride, and then have to go to war with some nihilists alongside his bowling buddies in down-and-out L.A.? Actually, yeah that’s pretty much what happens. Other stuff too, but if you’ve never seen it, you really ought to watch and figure out what everyone’s been quoting for the last 20 years. The Dude abides.
The first Wes Anderson movie to really nail the director’s signature style. Sure, 1996’s Bottle Rocket is fantastic, but today feels like an outlier from Anderson’s later oeuvre—sorry for everything about that sentence, but it’s true! Jason Schwartzman stars as precocious, ambitious oddball Max, who is friends with the much older Bill Murray. The two of them eventually go head-to-head, however, when a pretty new teacher catches their eyes. The best scene, of course, is near the end when we see the fruits of Max’s playwriting labor in action.
Richard Linklater struck solid gold with Dazed and Confused: An ensemble comedy that was simultaneously goofy, nostalgic, and weirdly heartwarming at the same time. It’s about the last day of school for a 1970s Austin high school—and all the weird politics and sexual escapades that go into it. It’s a classic, and is filled with some of your favorite actors (hey Matthew McConaghey and Parker Posey!) doing some weird stuff. Oh, and the soundtrack is killer.
An animated film from Studio Ghibli, this is the story of a world in which gods and humans live in harmony...until they don’t. When Ashitaka is bitten by a demon, she goes in search of a deer-god who can help her and ends up having an adventure. It was directed by the legendary anime director Hiyao Miyazaki, and remains one of the top-grossing anime films of all time.
The movie that made Julia Roberts a star (and earned her a best actress Oscar nom in 1991). 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 in 1990.
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 (1991) is, at this point, the first and only horror film to win Best Picture.
The 1993 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 (1993), 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 in 1993, 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 1994 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 1995 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 its 2019 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 1995 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!”
Kayleigh RobertsContributorKayleigh Roberts is the weekend editor at Marie Claire, covering celebrity and entertainment news, from actual royals like Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle to Hollywood royalty, like Katie Holmes and Chrissy Teigen.
Bianca RodriguezBianca Rodriguez is the digital fellow at Marie Claire, where she covers all your favorite podcasts, Netflix shows, and celebrities ranging from Rihanna to Harry Styles.
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