Listen, they just made movies better in the ’90s. While today’s landscape is crammed with sequels and remakes, with the watching experience couched in discourse, the best ’90s films were for the most part true originals. To add to that, a good film resulted in a long relationship with it. Rather than watching something once, uploading a pithy Letterboxd review and forgetting about it within three days, ’90s films existed on love-worn VHS tapes to be played again and again, until the outfits and most quotable one-liners remained stamped onto the brain.
While I’m not going to list every single ’90s movie worth watching – that would take an age; we have a separate list for ’90s films for fashion lovers – there are definitely a few stand-out cult classics worth returning to. Below, the best ’90s movies to watch – or rewatch – for some much-needed escapism.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
The only feasible reason anyone won’t have seen Quentin Tarantino’s stylish crime flick Pulp Fiction is because they’re sick of everyone saying it’s the best film ever and are therefore avoiding it in protest. Or maybe they just haven’t gotten around to it (like me and The Sopranos). If that’s you, I’m sorry to sound like your ex-boyfriend, but it really is one of the best. Impeccable script. Timeless costuming. Top-tier acting. And a bob that has inspired women the world over to take printed out pictures of Uma Thurman into hairdressers for the best part of three decades.
Cruel Intentions (1999)
A cult classic like no other, Cruel Intentions is about two villainous Upper East Side step-siblings – Sebastian (Ryan Phillippe) and Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar) – who make a bet with each other that the former must deflower their headmaster’s daughter (Reese Witherspoon) before the end of the year. None of that really matters, though. What matters is all the sleek ’90s Gucci, Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana and Prada – just your regular high school wardrobe! Fun fact: Phillippe modelled for Prada at the time, meaning he got some of his clothes for free.
Trainspotting (1996)
Trainspotting is the one film whose soundtrack I listen to regularly as if it’s an album (you know I’m amid a personal crisis when I turn up “Sing” by Blur). Plot-wise, Danny Boyle’s masterpiece is bleak as hell: the film follows a group of heroin addicts in an economically deprived area of Edinburgh as they navigate unemployment, relapses, illness and death. It’s much more than a social-realist portrait, though – with its trippy sequences, wry sense of humour and colourful characters you’ll end up rooting for, Trainspotting sucks you into its vortex before spitting you out.
National Born Killers (1994)
Meet Micky (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis), two unhinged, stunningly dressed and actually very evil outlaws who storm through the US on a maniacal crime spree. How much you love Natural Born Killers will depend on your personal threshold for both gore and silliness (it’s one of my all-time favourites). Either way, you’ll surely find yourself wanting to get your hands on a dusty red 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T convertible and going on a road trip – ideally minus all the murder – afterwards.
Scream (1996)
Scream – the first one; there are now seven – is a cult teen slasher that’ll win over even those who aren’t usually into that sort of thing. The ensemble cast is unmatched – Drew Barrymore, Rose McGowan, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Matthew Lillard, Skeet Ulrich – each of whom bring their own unique brand of charisma and acting chops to elevate this far beyond your standard horror fare. Oh, and the twist at the end will come as a shock if you’ve somehow managed to avoid spoilers for three decades. But beware: you won’t want to be alone at home ever again.
Fight Club (1999)
For a long time I avoided David Fincher’s Fight Club because I thought it was just a bro film guys were obsessed with (men punching each other in a basement you say?). But, errr, turns out it’s a cult favourite for a reason. Starring an incredibly cut Brad Pitt in an array of kitsch ’70s charity shop finds and Edward Norton as a discontented corporate office worker, Fight Club is a classic Gen X film in that it asks: what if there’s more to life than all this? Side note: you can buy the famous Fight Club soap online, though sadly it’s not made from human fat stolen from liposuction clinics like in the film.
The Virgin Suicides (1999)
And at the absolute other end of the spectrum we have Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, a pastel-tainted fever dream about girlhood, depression and the darkness lurking behind a sleepy suburban neighbourhood in the ’70s. It’s a film which became so much more than that, inspiring a visual language and tone that we still see echoes of in cinema, fashion and literature today. “I’d never written a script, but I thought I’d try the first chapter because it was so vivid, visually, in my head,” Coppola told Vogue on the film’s 20th anniversary. “It was just a private project I’d do at night for fun.”
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
No list of best ’90s movies is complete without a rom-com, and one of the most timeless of the bunch is 10 Things I Hate About You, a deliciously fun modern reimagining of Shakespeare’s Taming Of The Shrew starring a baby-faced Heath Ledger and an even more baby-faced Julia Stiles (she was 17 when they filmed it). The styling of the film is very of the time, in the best way: chunky flip-flops, colourful crocheting, knee-high suede lace-ups, Doc Marten Mary-Janes, butterfly baby tees and – gasp – Sketchers. But it’s the timeless plot that elevates this from enjoyable to cult classic.
Toy Story (1995)
An animated film? One of the best releases of the ’90s? Absolutely. Toy Story’s original movie – about a group of sentient toys – deftly addresses all manner of big themes: the jealousy and admiration woven through the complex fabric of friendship, the bittersweet loss of growing up, the existential horror of realising you are not who you thought you’d be. This Pixar classic led to millennials everywhere now having a Pavlovian response to the opening number, Randy Newman’s “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”; a song to cure all ills.
Fallen Angels (1995)
Chungking Express was the film that put Wong Kar-wai on the map, and fashion lovers will cite In the Mood for Love as his tour de force, but real heads know that Fallen Angels is where it’s at. Originally intended as the third story in Chungking Express, Kar-wai decided to make it an entirely separate film, and thank goodness he did. Shot primarily at night, Fallen Angels is all neon city scapes, midnight noodle cafes and delirious wide-angle lens shots, all tied together with a frantic trip-hop soundtrack. Placing mood and atmosphere above narrative structure, Fallen Angels is the type of film you’ll love without being able to explain exactly why, or what it’s all about.
Wild At Heart (1990)
What happens when you bring two weirdos together and have them star in a David Lynch film? Watch Wild At Heart to find out. The film follows two lovers Lula Fortune (Laura Dern) and Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage), who are separated after the former is jailed for killing a man who attacked him with a knife. Two years later, Lula picks him up, hands him his snakeskin jacket and takes him to see the thrash metal band Powermad. As this is a Lynch film, explaining the rest of the plot would be a pointless exercise, but expect: plentiful violence, stylish surrealism and a road movie that’ll shock and delight in equal measure.
Death Becomes Her (1992)
Long before the era of Ozempic, face lifts at 35 and billionaires fixated on becoming centenarians, 1992’s Death Becomes Her offered a darkly hilarious and sublimely camp vision of two duelling rivals, Madeline and Helen – played by Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn – who drink a magic potion that promises eternal youth. Cue some of the most absurd fight scenes of all time. “That was totally uncalled for,” purrs Helen after Madeline blasts an enormous hole in her stomach. “I have a hole in my stomach!” “Some advice,” Madeline purrs back. “I would stay out of a bathing suit for a while.”
