Personally I’d go with Independence Day if I had to pick a movie that felt the most 90s.
It’s a 90s movie about the internet, but it’s all technobabble magic and represented in a very made-for-TV way. Just the right balance of interesting plot and complete cringe which is pretty much how I remember the 90s.
“Hack the planet!”
And you complete the 90s hacker trifecta with Sneakers
God that’s such a good movie. Probably gonna throw that on soon since haven’t watched it in years.
The cast alone makes the movie worth it
My wife rolls her eyes how every time I see a Honda Passport I say “My voice is my passport, verify me”.
Can I add Johnny Mnemonic to this list? Classic Keanu
“I NEED to get on-line. I NEED a computer!”
Gotta double the capacity of the 80 GB drive in my head
Information Overload! Rollins deserves to be an EGOT.
I’d add Speed. Sandra Bullock was the 90s it actress. And Keanu has already been mentioned in a couple of essential 90s titles.
“Mozart’s Ghost! The hottest new site on the internet!”
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.
Do the Right Thing - Spike Lee
Prep for the 90s.
Interesting that Point Break (1991) and The Matrix (1999) book ended the decade. Point Break focuses on white 20 something kids that dropped out and started surfing, the The Matrix focuses on a 30ish white guy going through an existential crisis. At the beginning of the 90s there was still some hope, that a person could find a small counter-culture and create if not a wealthy life, of something satisfying. By 1999 all hope was gone.
Point Break would be my pick too despite the fact the early 90s had many sensibilities that look more like the 1980s to us now.
Last Action Hero https://youtu.be/ShBw43KJoLk?si=m8U5c_65a8BXU5je
Its so self aware of its genre and all the tropes up to that point.
Space Jam?
I had a “back to the 90s” chill day with my brother this spring. Johnny Mnemonic got us in the feels the hardest :).
Just rewatched that as well. Some of my favorite parts:
- It’s set in 2021
- His brain implanted hard drive holds a whopping 80GB. He uses a “doubler” to increase his capacity to 160GB. The whole plot of the movie is that he loads 320GB in, which leaks into his brain, and he has to get it back out before it kills him.
- The encryption key to the data is photos of a tube television screen that have to be faxed to the recipient.
- One futuristic aspect to his hotel room is that the TV wakes him up with a personal message on screen and then he uses it for a video call.
- The local rebels are a group called the Low-Teks - led by Ice-T. They end up having the highest end tech.
- The best doctor around is Henry Rollins.
Johnnys head would probably explode if he even heard of the data storage clusters I was (and still am) working with on a daily basis in 2021.
I read the story once. Didn’t know there was a movie!
The super Mario bros. Movie
The Sandlot
F O R E V E R
Pulp Fiction.
Has an 80ies vibe to me. I had to check, it was made in 94, but towards the end of the decade, pulp fiction already felt old, a classic.
Friday 1995
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.
Clueless, anyone?
90s, or timeless?
Ugh, as if.
The first Mission Impossible movie is a fun time capsule in many ways. It has some fun stuff with early 90s depictions of computers, hacking, the internet and email, back before anyone knew what any of that actually looked like.
But it’s also a great example of the 90s naivete that the US had about conflict and global politics. There’s an entire monologue about how intelligence agencies are obsolete because the cold war is over. There was this vague notion in the 90s that world peace had broken out and things were just going to get better and better. And Hollywood sometimes struggled to come up with villains now that they no longer had soviets for that, so you don’t see it reflected as much in films, especially since optimism doesn’t make for good popcorn flicks, but Mission Impossible captures the thinking if not the warm and fuzzy feeling.
My other suggestion would be Contact. My theory has always been that 2001 A Space Odyssey, Contact, and Interstellar are really the same movie made in different times. As the 90s incarnation, Contact has no international conflict, only internal politics. It’s got that I’m spiritual but not religious" vibe that was everywhere in the 90s. It has a vague message about hope, and belief and trying to understand the universe and what’s out there in order to understand ourselves… it’s hard to put it all in words, it’s just the whole tone and vibe of the thing, it’s all just so sincere and idealistic.
(For a great big dose of 90s optimism and hope for the future, I highly recommend watching the Adventures of Brisco Country JR. I’d have nominated that, but it isn’t a movie)
I still think Mission Impossible is the best one in the series. Although the third was pretty good and the scene where Philip Seymour’s character is going to shoot Ethan’s girlfriend is the best acting Tom Cruise ever did, in my opinion. That was a powerful scene.
Jesus. Can I subscribe to your blog?
The Big Lebowski
Great movie, but what makes it about the 90ies.
Main characters are mid-life Vietnam veterans, the movie made White Russians cool (probably more from the cult following it got in the 00s), also bowling alleys( and LA ;) had their heyday in the 90s
