Special Report
Best Movies You'll Remember If You Grew Up in the '90s
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It’s no secret that ‘90s kids are wildly nostalgic for all things from that era. The decade that saw the rise of the internet also raised a generation of children that grew up to remember what life was like before the online world became ubiquitous. Access to media was limited, which made it all the more precious. It was the last decade of waiting days to hear a favorite song on the radio, or counting the weeks until a new movie was released on VHS.
24/7 Tempo has compiled a list of the best movies you’ll remember if you grew up in the ‘90s. Among these are several films from Miramax — among them Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction” — both among the 100 best movies of the last 100 years, according to critics.
Click here to see the best movies you’ll remember if you grew up in the ‘90s
To identify the best movies you’ll remember from the 1990’s, 24/7 Tempo reviewed the 922 movies from that decade that had at least 25,000 reviews on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. IMdb is an online movie database owned by Amazon. Rotten Tomatoes is an online movie and TV review aggregator. For the movies in this group, we developed an index of each movie’s IMDb rating, Rotten Tomatoes audience score, and Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score. All ratings were weighted equally. Supplemental data on domestic box office was obtained from The Numbers, an online movie database owned by consulting firm Nash Information Services. Data was collected in April 2021. Box office gross was ranked out of the 747 movies for which box office data was available. Information on each movie’s stars and director(s) also came from IMDb.
Founded by now-imprisoned sexual predator Harvey Weinstein and his brother in 1979, Miramax rose to prominence as one of the industry’s most important and influential independent film producers in the early ‘90s and was then purchased by Disney in 1993. Disney experienced its own renaissance in the 1990s, when several of its animated features became huge commercial successes, including “The Lion King,” which was the highest grossing film of 1994. (Here is the highest grossing movie every year since 1930.)
Some of the best movies from the ‘90s also came from DreamWorks, which was the first new Hollywood studio to form in decades. Founded by director Steven Spielberg, along with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, the company released such iconic films of the decade as “Saving Private Ryan” and “American Beauty.”
From animated musicals to gritty crime dramas to offbeat comedies and more, these are the good movies that made the 1990s so memorable.
32. American Beauty (1999)
> Director: Sam Mendes
> Starring: Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Wes Bentley
> Domestic box office gross: $130.1 million — #68 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
This black comedy is a caricature of the discontent middle class. It follows a father in midlife crisis, his materialistic wife who’s having an affair, and their closeted homophobic neighbor. The film received overwhelming critical acclaim and won five Oscars.
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31. Groundhog Day (1993)
> Director: Harold Ramis
> Starring: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott, Stephen Tobolowsky
> Domestic box office gross: $71.1 million — #194 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
In this comedy, Phil Connors is an arrogant weatherman who is doomed to repeat the same day every time he wakes — that is, unless he can figure out how to break the cycle and escape the time loop.
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30. True Romance (1993)
> Director: Tony Scott
> Starring: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer
> Domestic box office gross: $12.3 million — #626 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
This romantic if violent crime film follows an Elvis-obsessed fanboy who falls in love with a call girl and decides to kill her pimp, plunging them both deep into a world of danger that they may not escape from.
29. Fight Club (1999)
> Director: David Fincher
> Starring: Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Meat Loaf, Zach Grenier
> Domestic box office gross: $37.0 million — #407 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
A psychological thriller based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, “Fight Club” follows a disaffected insurance assessor and his enigmatic new friend as they start an underground fighting ring that risks going out of control.
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28. The Truman Show (1998)
> Director: Peter Weir
> Starring: Jim Carrey, Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Noah Emmerich
> Domestic box office gross: $125.6 million — #75 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
In this psychological drama, friendly insurance salesman Truman Burbank navigates his tranquil life and marriage in small-town America, unaware that he is actually the unwitting star of a TV reality show.
27. American History X (1998)
> Director: Tony Kaye
> Starring: Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Beverly D’Angelo, Jennifer Lien
> Domestic box office gross: $6.7 million — #679 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
This crime drama traces the path of a white supremacist in Venice Beach who is imprisoned for manslaughter and rehabilitated, as he attempts to prevent his younger brother from ending up like him.
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26. Toy Story 2 (1999)
> Director: John Lasseter, Ash Brannon, Lee Unkrich
> Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer
> Domestic box office gross: $245.9 million — #10 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
Pixar revisits toy compatriots Woody and Buzz Lightyear in a new adventure, in this animated comedy, as Woody is stolen by a toy collector and Buzz gathers the troops to save his friend from an eternity of sitting on a museum shelf.
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25. The Iron Giant (1999)
> Director: Brad Bird
> Starring: Eli Marienthal, Harry Connick Jr., Jennifer Aniston, Vin Diesel
> Domestic box office gross: $23.2 million — #536 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
Based on the novel “The Iron Man” by Ted Hughes, this film tells the story of a young boy during the Cold War era who befriends a giant robot and tries to prevent the government from finding and destroying it.
24. The Straight Story (1999)
> Director: David Lynch
> Starring: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Jane Galloway Heitz, Joseph A. Carpenter
> Domestic box office gross: $6.2 million — #684 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
A biographical drama, this is the story of Alvin Straight, an elderly Iowa man who rode his lawn mower on a 240-mile trek to visit his estranged brother in Wisconsin and make amends after his brother’s stroke.
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23. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
> Director: Henry Selick
> Starring: Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara, William Hickey
> Domestic box office gross: $75.1 million — #184 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
This stop-motion animated musical is set in a fantasy realm where each holiday is rooted in a town that lives to celebrate it all year round. When the King of Halloween Town stumbles upon Christmas Town, he attempts to bring some cheery new traditions to his ghoulish community.
22. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
> Director: Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise
> Starring: Paige O’Hara, Robby Benson, Jesse Corti, Rex Everhart
> Domestic box office gross: $206.3 million — #18 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
The tale of an arrogant prince who is transformed into a hideous monster and a kindhearted woman from a nearby town, whom the prince kidnaps and attempts to woo, is told in this animated classic.
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21. Boyz n the Hood (1991)
> Director: John Singleton
> Starring: Cuba Gooding Jr., Laurence Fishburne, Hudhail Al-Amir, Lloyd Avery II
> Domestic box office gross: $56.2 million — #269 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
This coming-of-age drama follows the path of Tre Styles, a smart kid with a bad attitude, who, together with two friends, must confront race, opportunity, and violence in South-Central LA.
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20. Aladdin (1992)
> Director: Ron Clements, John Musker
> Starring: Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin, Jonathan Freeman
> Domestic box office gross: $217.4 million — #15 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
An animated fantasy based on an Arabic folktale, “Aladdin” portrays a clever young street urchin who, after finding a magic lamp containing a genie, enlists the magical being to help him marry a princess and end his days of thievery and destitution.
19. A Bronx Tale (1993)
> Director: Robert De Niro
> Starring: Robert De Niro, Chazz Palminteri, Lillo Brancato, Francis Capra
> Domestic box office gross: $17.3 million — #588 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
A young Italian-American in the Bronx who struggles to navigate the obstacles of racism, his father’s working-class morals, and the temptations of joining the mob in this realistic crime drama.
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18. Sling Blade (1996)
> Director: Billy Bob Thornton
> Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Dwight Yoakam, J.T. Walsh, John Ritter
> Domestic box office gross: $24.5 million — #524 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
The story told here is of the release and new life of Karl Childers, a man with mental disabilities who has been institutionalized since the age of 12 after murdering his mother and her lover.
17. Fargo (1996)
> Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
> Starring: William H. Macy, Frances McDormand, Steve Buscemi, Peter Stormare
> Domestic box office gross: $24.6 million — #523 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
Everything goes wrong in this dark comedy about a car salesman desperately in debt who hires two thugs to kidnap his wife in a scheme to collect a large ransom from his wealthy father-in-law.
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16. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
> Director: Quentin Tarantino
> Starring: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn
> Domestic box office gross: $2.8 million — #715 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
In Quentin Tarantino’s first feature-length film, a diamond heist goes awry and the criminal posse who pulled it off starts squabbling as they each begin to suspect that one of their own is to blame.
15. The Usual Suspects (1995)
> Director: Bryan Singer
> Starring: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin
> Domestic box office gross: $23.3 million — #534 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
This neo-noir mystery thriller follows a con man who is being interrogated by U.S. Customs agents after a massive gunfight and fire erupt on a boat full of criminals in the Port of Los Angeles.
14. Unforgiven (1992)
> Director: Clint Eastwood
> Starring: Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris
> Domestic box office gross: $101.2 million — #120 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
Retired outlaw-turned-farmer William Munny, in this powerful Western, reluctantly decides to help a young gunfighter track down two outlaws and claim a hefty reward.
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13. Princess Mononoke (1997)
> Director: Hayao Miyazaki
> Starring: Yōji Matsuda, Yuriko Ishida, Yūko Tanaka
> Domestic box office gross: $2.4 million — #722 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
Acclaimed Studio Ghibli produced this animated fantasy about a young prince as he travels to find the cure for a curse that he contracted while slaying a possessed god. The English language version features the voices of Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver, Billy Bob Thornton, and other stars.
12. The Lion King (1994)
> Director: Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff
> Starring: Matthew Broderick, Jeremy Irons, James Earl Jones, Whoopi Goldberg
> Domestic box office gross: $421.8 million — #3 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
This animated musical follows an estranged young lion prince and his return home after his greedy uncle Scar kills his father, King Mufasa, and ascends the throne.
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11. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
> Director: James Cameron
> Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick
> Domestic box office gross: $203.5 million — #20 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
A sci-fi action film, this sequel to “Terminator” follows wanted terrorist Sarah Connor and her son John as they are pursued by a shapeshifting, weaponized robot who has been sent to kill John before he grows into an important resistance leader.
10. Before Sunrise (1995)
> Director: Richard Linklater
> Starring: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Andrea Eckert, Hanno Pöschl
> Domestic box office gross: $5.3 million — #691 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
This romantic drama follows two young train travellers who connect on a trip from Budapest to Vienna and decide to spend a single night together before each goes his or her separate way in the morning.
9. L.A. Confidential (1997)
> Director: Curtis Hanson
> Starring: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger
> Domestic box office gross: $64.6 million — #224 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
A neo-noir crime film set in 1950s Los Angeles, this drama follows three cops, each with motives of his own, who team up to investigate a series of murders.
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8. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
> Director: Steven Spielberg
> Starring: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns
> Domestic box office gross: $216.3 million — #17 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
This war drama follows a special squad sent behind German lines during the invasion of Normandy to retrieve a soldier whose three brothers have all been killed in action. It is now considered one of the greatest films of all time.
7. Toy Story (1995)
> Director: John Lasseter
> Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney
> Domestic box office gross: $192.5 million — #22 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
Pixar’s original “Toy Story” was the first entirely computer animated feature film ever made. It tells the story of a pull-string cowboy toy who is threatened by the appearance of a flashy new astronaut action figure in his owner’s collection.
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6. Good Will Hunting (1997)
> Director: Gus Van Sant
> Starring: Robin Williams, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Stellan Skarsgård
> Domestic box office gross: $138.4 million — #56 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
This drama follows a young MIT janitor — who also happens to be a mathematical genius — as an astute psychology professor challenges him to deal with his demons and seek out a better future for himself.
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
> Director: Jonathan Demme
> Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Lawrence A. Bonney, Kasi Lemmons
> Domestic box office gross: $130.7 million — #64 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
Anthony Hopkins turns in a memorably chilling performance as an incarcerated serial cannibal and brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Hannibel Lecter, in this psychological horror film — in which an FBI cadet seeks help from him in finding a serial killer who has been abducting and flaying young women.
4. Pulp Fiction (1994)
> Director: Quentin Tarantino
> Starring: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis
> Domestic box office gross: $107.9 million — #100 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
This neo-noir comedy follows a series of Los Angeles criminals — including two hitmen, their boss and his wife, a double-crossing boxer, and a couple of small-time crooks — all of whom come face-to-face with death.
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3. Goodfellas (1990)
> Director: Martin Scorsese
> Starring: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco
> Domestic box office gross: $46.7 million — #335 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
Real-life New York mobster Henry Hill is the subject of this biographical crime film, telling the story of his rise through the ranks of the organized crime world with his two friends Tommy and Jimmy.
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
> Director: Frank Darabont
> Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, William Sadler
> Domestic box office gross: $28.2 million — #481 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
Based on a novella by Stephen King, this film portrays the incarceration of banker Andy Dufresne for two murders he didn’t commit, highlighting the friendships and choices that keep him afloat as he serves his sentence.
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1. Schindler’s List (1993)
> Director: Steven Spielberg
> Starring: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Caroline Goodall
> Domestic box office gross: $96.9 million — #134 out of 747 movies released in the 1990’s
This historical drama is based on the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman and would-be war profiteer who ended up saving 1,100 Polish Jews from Auschwitz during World War II by employing them in his factory.
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