Personally I’d go with Independence Day if I had to pick a movie that felt the most 90s.
Clerks
Clerks is a lot closer to real people’s experience of the '90s, as opposed to quintessential '90s fictions, like Pulp Fiction or Hackers.
💯. If you grew up in the 90s, this movie captures the experience pretty well.
Yall probably forgot about Hackers because it’s a documentary but it’s pretty 90s
HACK THE PLANET!
the fashion, music and hyperbolic/complete misunderstood depiction of cyber security cements Hackers as the quintessential 90s movie
Terminator 2 is in a weird spot since it’s a sequel to an 80s movie but is itself a 90s movie. But I’d nominate it for this award.
It’s a quintessential 90s movie sequel to a quintessential 80s movie
Back when it came out, 1996 seemed about the same as 2027 feels now. Near future, who knows what could be different.
It’s an interesting choice, because there was really no present-day sci fi tech in the movie save for a video game that articulated as the player flew a plane (which may have existed but I hadn’t seen before in 1992).
So they chose to make the movie take place in the present day technology-wise, but still in the future. Just slightly in the future.
Clueless, anyone?
90s, or timeless?
The fifth element
Yeah, the 90s were a good time for movies that could not have been mainstream in any other decade. I’d place Judge Dredd, Demolition Man and Total Recall in the same “corny, but excellent” league as the 5th Element.
Then you had unofficial double features of sorts: Smoke/ Blue In The Face, Casino/ Goodfellas.
12 Monkeys needs to be mentioned as well, it’s probably the most palatable movie on my list.
In the “disconcerting, but unforgettable” league, I’d place As Good As It Gets, The Crossing Guard and, of course, the grisly “8 mm.”
Home Alone. It’s a movie that really couldn’t take place today due to cell phones and the Internet making easier to communicate with someone if the landlines are down. Also, the family wouldn’t have been able to get through the airport like they did back then thanks to 9/11.
How will you have internet without landlines (DSL) or coax? Satellite?? IN THIS ECONOMY??!!
Space Jam, for sure.
Pulp Fiction.
The Matrix and Jurassic Park come to mind.
There’s a filter that I apply to these kinds of questions, and it’s that there are some works that are of a particular time, but they ascend beyond that time and just become a part of culture, broadly. Like, Wizard of Oz just IS, Bohemian Rhapsody just IS; they aren’t bounded by their decades of origin.
I’d argue that at least Jurassic Park, and arguably also The Matrix, are above and beyond the '90s in ways that other movies can’t quite achieve.
At least Matrix has a lot of 90’s references and a very 90’s setting. Mostly the pay phone I suppose, but they’re a big part of the movie lol.
For sure, the technology and fashion is all VERY late-90s. But the way that The Matrix informed SO many action and scifi movies to follow, and spawned so many cultural touchstones made it break containment.
And then you’ve got subjects that it brings up, like mixed technophobia and technophilia, gender identity, anti-authoritarianism, and so on that are still at the forefront of our cultural awareness. The Matrix has stayed relevant and meaningful in ways that very few works have managed to.
Jurassic Park was ahead of it’s time. I don’t really think of it as a 90s movie.
Got Jurassic Park in 4k on my Plex server.
Looks absolutely amazing still.
It would only be not ahead of its time only after we casually clone dinosaurs.
Definitely The Mummy starring Brenden Fraiser and Rachel Weisz
The Matrix
Wow, I forgot it came out in 1999, I guess, technically. It’s one of my favorite movies ever of all time, but it was too far ahead of its time for me to think of it as 90s movie.
Tempted to say The Matrix but it’s late in the decade.
Maybe Scream?
I think The Matrix can work! It feels very 90s to me as well!
Scream’s a good one. Postmodern horror flick.
For not-the-best-90s-movie-but-most-strongly-dated-to-the-90s I’d have to go with You’ve Got Mail
If someone had told me Independence Day was early 2000s (pre 9/11) I wouldn’t have doubted it. Same with the Matrix really.
But You’ve Got Mail seems rooted to that mid to late 90s early internet feel. Two massive stars. Lots of 90s fashion etc
Possibly also Mrs Doubtfire. Reasons there being very 90s exploration of divorce, prosthetics that weren’t available in the 80s and a theme (man sneaking into kids lives in disguise) that I don’t think would have gotten traction 2000s onwards for being too creepy. Makes it a very 90s film.
You’ve Got Mail almost feels like a 1980s movie.
The Matrix was basically 2000’s. It’s a 90’s movie only a technicality; it was released to theaters in early 1999 and the home release was in May of '99. However, going into the 1999 -> 2000 holiday season the presence of that movie in particular on disc sold a lot of DVD players and Playstation 2’s.
Y2K or thereabouts is precisely when a lot of people experienced the first Matrix.
Falling Down (1993), Freeway (1996) are two that I saw fairly recently and the 90’s were jumping off the screen.
Pauly Shore had 90’s career. Encino Man (1992), Jury Duty (1995), Bio-Dome (1996). His only movie of the 2000’s was Pauly Shore is Dead (2003) which was about no one caring about him anymore.
Falling Down is a movie we should all watch again.
I did, recently. I loathed it. Every character in that movie is completely unlikeable. Every single one.
You’re not supposed to like anybody. It’s about the fall of civilization. There is no hero. Just flawed people. Nobody is standing up for the little guy. Nobody is doing the right thing every time.
That’s the point.
No matter how many re watches, the chodes are still going to think DFENSE is a hero.
I think they should watch it again and again, then, because that’s the behavioral object lesson of the film. Everybody is the hero in their own story. When he has his moment of clarity, and says to himself, “I’m the bad guy?” it ought to be a wake up call to all the chodes who were cheering him on.
You’re supposed to relate to DFENSE and see him as the protagonist. You’re supposed to feel the same revulsion he experiences when he meets an actual Nazi who thinks he’s an ally. You’re supposed to feel the rush of excitement and power he gets finding a duffel bag of automatic firearms. You’re supposed to feel the cathartic release of shooting up a fast food restaurant when the minimum wage worker smugly follows a pointlessly strict menu policy.
And then you’re supposed to feel it all come falling down when he realizes that he cannot get his life back. He cannot restore his relationship with his wife or daughter. He cannot escape the consequences of his choices and his own lack of control. He did everything they told him to, but they lied to him, and now his job, his family, they are gone, and the cruel world doesn’t give a shit. He is “not economically viable” anymore, so he has been cast off.
He thinks he has nothing left to lose. He’s wrong. He thinks he has fallen down, and is on the rise. That sensation that feels like flying, it’s because he’s jumped off a cliff. And we’re all supposed to feel the landing with him.
Along with Falling Down, watch Boyz n the Hood https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101507/ and Juice https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104573/
All really the same story of the grungy 1990s.
His only movie of the 2000’s was Pauly Shore is Dead (2003) which was about no one caring about him anymore.
Apt.
Falling Down captures the downturn in the economy of the 1990s and the grunge of it.
Other’n a couple others named? My Cousin Vinny.
(Some quotes to help my arguement: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104952/quotes/ )
“What is a yute?”
My absolute favorite comedy.
Yep, it’s really a lot of fun. A little hard on some parts of both southern culture and NY culture, but just enough to make it even funnier. Not just Pesci as a lawyer and all the lawyer jokes; making a judge out of Fred Gwynne so he could make all those facial expressions he’d perfected was a casting winner. So was Marisa Tomei. And the characters that played witnesses … to this day when I’m saying ‘I guess’ it always comes out with that drawl. Every scene in the film was comical first, and never let up. Masterpiece.
Couldn’t agree more. I’m a car, guy so the fact that the final argument hinged on that was aces. And I think my favorite part was just a little thing that happened at the beginning. Most people wouldn’t even notice, but when the prison guard brought Vinny to the jail cell, Vinny gave him a tip. Just cracked me up!
Fun fact, did you know Marisa Tomei won the Oscar for her performance? Totally deserved it.
Yeh, she was outstanding. That ‘poor little deer’ scene in that Brooklyn accent alone.
I really thought that movie came out in the 80’s. Mid 80’s I would have guessed.
Time is merging.
