60 Best '90s Movies, Ranked (original) (raw)
Updated Nov 7, 2024, 6:36 PM EST
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While not every movie released in the 1990s was a winner, it's safe to say that it was an overall strong decade for cinema. There were a host of great films released between 1990 and 1999, and of those great ones, the selection is surprisingly diverse. It was a decade that saw the release of plenty of iconic blockbusters, compelling small/independent movies, and plenty of classic international films not in the English language, too.
The best 90s movies also happen to be some of the best movies of all time, given it was overall such a strong decade for cinema. Those who are after some of the best movies from the 90s should find the following titles to represent an overall fantastic starting point, and inclusive of many of the decade's greatest. What follows is a ranking of some of the best of the best, when it came to movies that were released in the 1990s. That 10-year period may be way back in the past now, but the best movies of the 90s live on, and will likely continue to do so indefinitely. The following ranking aims to highlight genuinely great movies and/or movies that summarized the decade and its overall feel in some way. These movies have all endured and aged well to this day, and each one is essential viewing to movie fans both casual and fanatical.
60 'Close-Up' (1990)
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
Image via Celluloid Dreams
Even among other '90s arthouse films, Close-Up feels odd and hard to describe, but certainly not in a bad way. It blends fact and fiction in a way that’s not always clear, featuring people playing themselves in a story about a man who was arrested for impersonating a filmmaker. It feels a little like a documentary, except instead of actors reenacting certain scenes, the subjects themselves do.
Close-Up takes this approach for good reason, inevitably being able to explore various interesting subjects surrounding the art of filmmaking and the notion of identity. It can get pretty mind-bending at times for a film that’s ostensibly quite grounded, but that’s also what makes it so memorable, with it deservedly standing as one of the best-known films Abbas Kiarostami ever directed.
Close-Up
Release Date
October 30, 1991
Runtime
98 Minutes
Director
Abbas Kiarostami
Cast
Hossain Sabzian, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Abolfazl Ahankhah, Mehrdad Ahankhah, Nayer Mohseni Zonoozi, Ahmad Reza Moayed Mohseni, Hossain Farazmand, Mahrokh Ahankhah
59 'Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion' (1997)
Directed by Kazuya Tsurumaki and Hideaki Anno
Asuka (Yûko Miyamura) and Shinji (Megumi Ogata) in Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion on Netflix
Image via Toei Company
There’s already a strong sense of existential despair (and sometimes horror) to be found in the original Neon Genesis Evangelion series, but Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion takes it to a whole other level. It works as something of a finale for that series, with appropriately raised stakes and more detailed animation ensuring it reaches new heights beyond what the series did.
Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion is both horrifying and oddly beautiful, having an apocalyptic feel throughout and various sights that probably couldn’t be captured – at least not as effectively – with anything other than this kind of animation. It’s an excellent companion to the 1990s anime series, though the last film in the Rebuild of Evangelion series might well work as a better/more conventional ending for Evangelion, depending on what you want from a conclusion to a story such as this.
The End of Evangelion
Release Date
July 19, 1997
Cast
Megumi Ogata, Megumi Hayashibara, Kotono Mitsuishi, Yûko Miyamura, Fumihiko Tachiki, Miki Nagasawa, Takehito Koyasu, Hiro Yuuki, Yuriko Yamaguchi, Motomu Kiyokawa, Akira Ishida, Mugihito, Koichi Yamadera
Runtime
87 Minutes
Director
Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki
58 'The Green Mile' (1999)
Directed by Frank Darabont
Tom Hanks and Michael Clarke Duncan as Paul and John looking up in The Green Mile (1999).
Image via Warner Bros.
The Green Mile was one of many movies that helped end the 1990s with a bang, seeing as 1999 was an unusually great year for cinema. Like Frank Darabont’s previous 1990s film, The Green Mile was based on a Stephen King story, with the setting here being death row, and the characters being both guards and various prisoners awaiting death.
One individual from the latter seemingly has supernatural abilities that allow him to heal people in various ways, which then makes the film’s narrative about trying to get said prisoner released from death row. The Green Mile blends tearjerking drama and low fantasy exceptionally well, all the while being exceptionally long at over three hours, but generally earning said length and proving quite hard-hitting emotionally, in the end.
The Green Mile
Release Date
December 10, 1999
Cast
Tom Hanks, David Morse, Bonnie Hunt, Michael Clarke Duncan, James Cromwell, Michael Jeter, Graham Greene, Doug Hutchison, Sam Rockwell, Barry Pepper, Jeffrey DeMunn, Patricia Clarkson, Harry Dean Stanton, Dabbs Greer, Eve Brent, William Sadler, Mack Miles, Rai Tasco, Edrie Warner, Paula Malcomson, Christopher Joel Ives, Evanne Drucker, Bailey Drucker, Brian Libby, Brent Briscoe
Runtime
189 minutes
Director
Frank Darabont
57 'Toy Story 2' (1999)
Directed by John Lasseter
Jessie's owner, Emily, holding Jessie (voiced by Joan Cusack) and running through a sunny field in Toy Story 2
Image via Walt Disney Studios
Another 1999 film that works as a tearjerker, Toy Story 2 admittedly isn't as heavy as The Green Mile, but it’s pretty powerful stuff considering it’s also a family-friendly movie. It is, to date, easily arguable as the best sequel Pixar has ever made, taking the characters from the first movie in interesting new directions while exploring some surprisingly weighty moral/thematic stuff.
All the while, Toy Story 2 is also a ton of fun and improved upon the animation found the first time around. It remains a definitively great Pixar movie and could well also be one of the greatest sequels of all time, animated or otherwise. Toy Story 3 came close to hitting the heights of the first two movies, but can be forgiven for perhaps not equaling two movies that are arguably close to perfect.
Toy Story 2
Release Date
November 24, 1999
Cast
Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, Wayne Knight, John Morris, Laurie Metcalf, Estelle Harris, R. Lee Ermey, Jodi Benson, Jonathan Harris, Joe Ranft, Andrew Stanton, Jeff Pidgeon, Jack Angel, Bob Bergen, Mary Kay Bergman, Sheryl Bernstein, Rodger Bumpass, Corey Burton
Runtime
92 minutes
Director
John Lasseter
56 'Malcolm X' (1992)
Directed by Spike Lee
Denzel Washington in 'Malcolm X', looking deeply at the camera with two men behind him
Image via Warner Bros.
Malcolm X ranks up there as one of the longest American movies of all time, but it thankfully uses that runtime well, taking close to 3.5 hours to explore the life and legacy of its titular figure. It spans decades in order to capture the life of Malcolm X, with particular emphasis on what he did as a human rights activist during the civil rights movement in America during the 1950s and 1960s.
Spike Lee was the right kind of filmmaker to tackle something this big and ambitious, with Denzel Washington also being great in the lead role. Malcolm X stands as a long but overall well-paced biographical film about someone who had a tragically short but ultimately eventful life, to the point where the title is justifiable, considering this is – and probably will always be – the definitive Malcolm X movie.
55 'The Blair Witch Project' (1999)
Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez
Heather, illuminated by a flashlight, cries into the camera in The Blair Witch Project.
Image via Artisan Entertainment
If one watches The Blair Witch Project for the first time today, there may be questions asked regarding what all the fuss was about. It was a seminal found-footage horror movie that showed, perhaps more than any other film before it, that a budget wasn’t needed to creep people out, so long as filmmakers know what they're doing while being aware of both what to show and what to keep hidden.
The Blair Witch Project is also a perfect example of folk horror, taking place largely outdoors and finding terror in open yet mysterious spaces. It feels loose and in the moment, credibly feeling like genuine found footage at points, and ending up successfully suspenseful and eerie. Time may have diluted its power to shock a little, but it’s still a remarkable film that’s easy to appreciate for its time.
The Blair Witch Project
Release Date
July 30, 1999
Cast
Joshua Leonard, Michael C. Williams, Heather Donahue
Runtime
81 minutes
Director
Eduardo Sánchez, Daniel Myrick
54 'A League of Their Own' (1992)
Directed by Penny Marshall
Geena Davis in a baseball uniform, Tom Hanks beside her with his finger on his nose looking angry in A League of Their Own.
Image via Parkway Productions
Sports movies don’t get much more charming or inspiring than A League of Their Own, and it feels like one of those films that seems to get better with time. It’s not a complicated movie, telling the story of the people involved in an all-female baseball league during World War II, given the conflict stalled the men’s league with many players being made to serve in the war.
A League of Their Own thrives on having great characters who all have interesting dynamics with one another, and it’s just well-polished and immensely watchable overall, blending comedy and drama to expert effect. As a fictionalized account of a real-life story, it’s also successful, never aspiring to be a one-to-one retelling, but recognizing cinematic elements within that history and honing in on them throughout the film.
A League of Their Own
Release Date
July 1, 1992
Cast
Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Lori Petty, Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell, Megan Cavanagh, Tracy Reiner, Bitty Schram, Ann Cusack, Anne Ramsay, Freddie Simpson, Renée Coleman, Robin Knight, Patti Pelton, Kelli Simpkins, Neezer Tarleton, Connie Pounds-Taylor, Kathleen Marshall, Sharon Szmidt, Pauline Brailsford, David Strathairn, Garry Marshall, Jon Lovitz, Bill Pullman, Justin Scheller
Runtime
128 minutes
Director
Penny Marshall
53 'South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut' (1999)
Directed by Trey Parker
The South Park boys having a good time at the movies in South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut.
Image via Paramount Pictures
Not long after South Park as a TV series debuted, there was a feature film made, and it still feels like South Park at its very best, and quite possibly its funniest. That film, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, was released right at the end of the 1990s, and lives up to its title by being far more extreme and profane than the series had been up until that point. Also, it was a musical.
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut unpacks movie censorship and explores other topics surrounding the medium of cinema in a typically satirical and scathing way, all the while being extremely entertaining. The musical numbers are also surprisingly good, with memorable lyrics and genuinely catchy melodies. For as good as the animated musicals of Disney’s Renaissance period were, it is fun to experience something else that’s an animated musical, albeit a completely different take on the genre content-wise.
Cast
Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Mary Kay Bergman, Isaac Hayes, Jesse Brant Howell, Anthony Cross-Thomas, Franchesca Clifford, Bruce Howell, Deb Adair, Jennifer Howell, George Clooney, Brent Spiner, Minnie Driver, Dave Foley, Eric Idle, Nick Rhodes, Toddy Walters, Stewart Copeland, Stanley G. Sawicki, Mike Judge, Howard McGillin
Runtime
81 minutes
Director
52 'Total Recall' (1990)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) pointing a gun at someone in Total Recall.
Image via TriStar Pictures
Thanks to various blockbusters and some collaborations with James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger became one of the biggest stars of the 1990s, and his 1980s output wasn’t too shabby either. In the midst of Arnold mania came Total Recall, which saw the iconic actor working with the equally distinctive Paul Verhoeven to create a wild, goofy, violent, and thoroughly engaging action/sci-fi film.
Total Recall gets surprisingly trippy, following the journey a man goes on after an experience with virtual reality that blurs the line between fact/memory and implanted visions, and the viewer is often just as in the dark about all the implications of this as Schwarzenegger’s character is. It’s a movie that’s best felt rather than analyzed too deeply, because the details can prove to be a bit head-spinning… but that feels by design, and what a fun ride the entire journey ends up being, in any event.
Total Recall
Release Date
June 1, 1990
Cast
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside, Marshall Bell, Mel Johnson Jr., Michael Champion, Roy Brocksmith, Ray Baker, Rosemary Dunsmore, David Knell, Alexia Robinson, Dean Norris, Mark Carlton, Debbie Lee Carrington, Lycia Naff, Robert Costanzo, Michael LaGuardia, Priscilla Allen, Ken Strausbaugh, Marc Alaimo, Michael Gregory, Ken Gildin, Mickey Jones
Runtime
113 minutes
Director
Paul Verhoeven
51 'American Movie' (1999)
Directed by Chris Smith
American Movie is a comedic documentary in parts, but also an extremely heartfelt and perhaps even inspiring one. It feels distinctly 1990s in presentation and style, being a laid-back and very personal look at one aspiring low-budget filmmaker by the name of Mark Borchardt, and the arduous process of fulfilling his dream of directing and completing a film called Coven.
It’s the sort of documentary that’s a must-watch for anyone who’s ever felt a creative drive about something, be it filmmaking or something else related to the arts. American Movie doesn’t shy away from showing hardships, and it is honest about the entire process, both the ups and downs. Yet at the end of it all, it is an endearing film, and a perfect time capsule of the 1990s, fittingly coming out at the decade’s end as a way of almost bidding farewell to it, not to mention celebrating the sorts of low-budget films that became surprisingly fashionable during the decade (like the aforementioned The Blair Witch Project, as well as some of Kevin Smith’s early works).