The 8 best movies of the 1990s
A serial killer, a comedic time loop and a sci-fi action classic highlight the best films of the decade
The 1990s were a period of transition for the film industry, seeing the rise of both smaller, independent studios and the spectacular growth of home movie-watching. Despite this tumult, the decade produced countless films of enduring artistic and commercial significance, including these eight memorable classics.
‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991)
Both Anthony Hopkins as the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter and Jodie Foster as FBI trainee Clarice Starling turn in iconic performances in Jonathan Demme’s downbeat procedural. She is tasked with interviewing Lecter, imprisoned in an asylum for the criminally insane and one of the few characters in the film who doesn’t treat her with knee-jerk misogyny, who may have insights that could help catch “Buffalo Bill,” an active serial killer.
The film’s bleak aesthetic shaped a generation of noir-ish procedurals on the big and small screens. It endures as a classic because it is a “multifaceted interwork of classical storytelling, horror conventions and procedural standards, together reshaped into both a feminist landmark and a powerful study of transformation and identity,” said Brian Eggert at Deep Focus Review. (MGM+)
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‘Boyz n the Hood’ (1991)
The late director John Singleton’s drama follows three childhood friends, Tre (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), Doughboy (Ice Cube) and Ricky (Morris Chestnut), first briefly as children and then as teenagers struggling to navigate the endemic violence and poverty of South Central Los Angeles. As one of the first mainstream films to depict the plight of urban neighborhoods with sympathy, humanity and nuance, it stands as a true cinematic landmark. A film that “showed how white supremacy set the conditions that ended in neighborhoods devastated by crime and, ultimately, violence,” it depicts an almost “post-apocalyptic world,” in which “what was destroying their landscape wasn’t an alien invasion or a virus” but racism, said Lawrence Ware at The New York Times. (Starz)
‘Groundhog Day’ (1993)
While time loops are a now-familiar part of the sci-fi landscape, director Harold Ramis’ “Groundhog Day” is the first English-language feature film to feature the concept. Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, an irritable, cynical weatherman sent to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to report a story about the town’s quaint groundhog ceremony.
Trapped there by a massive snow storm, he realizes he is living the same day over and over again. After fruitlessly trying to kill himself in increasingly clever fashion, he gradually falls for his producer, Rita (Andie MacDowell). By avoiding “sentimentality and smalltown stereotypes in favor of one genuinely hysterical set-piece after another,” it is “not only one of the finest comedies of the 90s, but actually remains fresh, funny and original after repeated viewings,” said Caroline Westbrook at Empire. (Prime Video)
‘Pulp Fiction’ (1994)
Director Quentin Tarantino’s era-defining, endlessly quotable and propulsive thriller popularized the use of nonlinear narratives in mainstream filmmaking. The impossible-to-summarize plot follows multiple sets of characters over the course of three (very, very eventful) days.
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Tarantino uses a “chapter” structure to tell the loosely intersecting tales, including one about philosophizing hit men Vincent (John Travolta) and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson), sent on a job for their boss, Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), that goes hilariously awry. Uma Thurman’s career-making turn as Marsellus’ wife, Mia, is just one of many heart-stopping performances in a movie that is simultaneously ultraviolent and side-splittingly funny. An “absolute classic,” it is a movie that “set the bar for cinema cool and redefined independent filmmaking,” and in the process “forever changed Hollywood,” said Jordan Crucchiola at Wired. (Paramount+)
‘Big Night’ (1996)
Tony Shalhoub and Stanley Tucci are brothers Primo and Secundo, immigrants operating a failing Jersey Shore restaurant during the 1950s. Primo is the stubbornly perfectionist gourmet chef, a character who prefigures the 2000s-era celebrity chef boom, and Secondo is the slick businessman who regards the popular Olive Garden-esque restaurant up the road, run by Pascal (Ian Holm), with envy while carrying on a secret affair with Pascal’s wife, Gabriella (Isabella Rossellini).
Pascal, who covets Primo’s culinary genius, tells Secundo he can get jazz great Louis Prima to make an appearance at their restaurant, and the brothers plot one last big, extravagant dinner to save the business. A film of “great wisdom and delight,” it is “about food not as a subject but as a language — the language by which one can speak to gods, can create, can seduce, can aspire to perfection,” said Roger Ebert at the time. (Paramount+)
‘Breaking the Waves’ (1996)
A film that was a kind of spiritual precursor to the aesthetically austere and hugely influential Dogme 95 film movement, Danish director Lars von Trier’s haunting masterpiece also shaped a generation of independent filmmakers. When oil-rig worker Jan (Stellan Skarsgard) is paralyzed in a work injury, he encourages his new wife, Bess (Emily Watson), to sleep with other men and tell him about it.
Believing this to be a kind of divine mission, she presses on with her struggle despite hostility from church elders and her sister-in-law, Dodo (Katrin Cartlidge), until a truly unforgettable ending leaves viewers stunned. A “raw, crazy tour-de-force,” it dares to “fuse true love with lurid exploitation and pure religious faith,” said Janet Maslin at The New York Times. (Mubi)
‘The Big Lebowski’ (1998)
Joel and Ethan Coen made several 1990s classics, including “Fargo.” But it is “The Big Lebowski” that remains the enduring cultural touchstone. Jeff Bridges is Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski, a middle-aged burnout whose apartment is ransacked by nihilist enforcers who are actually after a different person with the same name.
When The Dude tries to get reimbursed for the damage from the intended Jeffrey Lebowski (David Huddleston), he gets caught up in a lurid slacker-noir kidnapping caper, encountering a series of memorable goofballs including Lebowski’s daughter, Maude (Julianne Moore). A film that “warns us from the start not to expect any of its narrative threads to lead anywhere,” it takes the audience on a “labyrinthine route followed solely for the diversions encountered along the way,” said Jonathan Romney at Sight and Sound. (Netflix)
‘The Matrix’ (1999)
The brilliance of directors Lilly and Lana Wachowski’s “The Matrix” has been diluted over time by its inferior sequels and many imitators, but its inventively choreographed action sequences and dystopian narrative endure. Keanu Reeves plays Neo, a computer hacker who discovers that his reality is an illusion maintained by rogue AI overlords who keep humans in a state of permanent suspended animation while harvesting them for resources.
Neo joins a rebellion led by Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) and Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) while evading Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving). The movie is also the source of the concept of “red-pilling” that plays such a prominent role in contemporary cultural discourse. “The Matrix” is a film of “immense scale and complexity” that “understood where things were headed far better than any film did at the time,” said Scott Tobias at The Guardian. (Peacock)
David Faris is a professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of "It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics." He's a frequent contributor to Newsweek and Slate, and his work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New Republic and The Nation, among others.