Quintessential Films of the 90s: Part 2

The 90s were an interesting time in American History. We had things like corporate upheavals, JNCO jeans, Saved By The Bell, and Dolly the cloned sheep. There were the Clintons, Rodney King, and the First Gulf War. Hell, there were commercials with talking frogs! We sat down and came up with the movies that best typified the 90s for us. (Click here for part 1 of this series.)

10) Sleepless in Seattle/You’ve Got Mail: Fine, these are two different movies. However, the two were not completely different movies. The stories are as old as the hills- boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love. However, these two movies starred Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. In the 90s, Hanks and Ryan were America’s sweethearts. Everybody loved the duo enough to forget they were both in Joe Versus the Volcano. -Jon

9) Jerry Maguire: From time to time you can still hear someone say, “Show me the money.” A movie or television show will still spoof the “ You had me at…” line. It just shows the staying power of the movie that more than a decade after Jerry Maguire was released it’s still being referenced. Imagine what it was like when the movie was initially released. -Jon

8) Mallrats: Mallrats. A Kevin Smith movie when his movies were still entertaining (Did you see Tusk?). While the main story is absurd, Smith is spot on mocking the 90s. The grunge look, the slacker attitude and those frustrating “3D” images that hung in mall windows.-Mike

7) Pulp Fiction: I’m not the biggest Quentin Tarantino fan. Up until his last couple of movies,  he’s rehashed the same formula more than once. When Pulp Fiction was released in 1994 it was the second time Tarantino had done the chopped up scene thing. However, everyone was enamored with his movie. You couldn’t talk about Pulp Fiction without hearing how the beginning of the movie was actually near the end, the middle was actually the beginning, and so on and so on. The point is though, everyone was talking about it and talking about it. The movie also restarted Bruce Willis, John Travolta, and  Samuel L. Jackson’s dying careers. -Jon

6) The Matrix: The Matrix redefined what a CGI action films could be. After its release, the movie spawned so many theories of what not only the movie was really about, but it also started both theological and philosophical discussions (Read Take the Red Pill)  like no other movie has ever done. More importantly, it gave us bullet-time special effects. All the superhero movies you are watching today owe a special debt to the technology developed for The Matrix. -Jon

Check out the Top 5 of our countdown.