The Best ’90s Movies

For those who lived through them, it can be very hard to believe the 1990s were more than 25 years ago. (Okay fine. It is very hard for me to believe it.) Disney’s Aladdin, the top-grossing movie of 1992, is now as old as Disney’s original One Hundred and One Dalmatians was when Aladdin first came out. Time stops for no man, dog, or blue genie.

We’ve previously made a list of the worst ’90s movies, but we’ve never created the opposite list, celebrating the best movies of the decade — even though the former required agonizing hours spent consuming garbage like Double Dragon and Hulk Hogan’s Mr. Nanny, while the latter involves watching actually enjoyable films. (Let it be known that the staff of ScreenCrush are all masochists.)

So let’s change that, shall we? Below, here are our (highly subjective) picks for the best movies of the 1990s. At least one or two of your favorites surely missed the cut; a lot of great movies came out in the ’90s. (Just to name a few honorable mentions, in no particular order: The Shawshank Redemption, Fight Club, Fargo, The Iron Giant, The Silence of the Lambs, Malcolm X, The Piano, Saving Private Ryan, The Blair Witch Project, and Dazed and Confused.) Our list only includes 25 titles, but it’s a great starting point for discussion, and to find movies to watch on streaming. Starting with #25 and working up to #1, here are the best movies of the 1990s…