Personally I’d go with Independence Day if I had to pick a movie that felt the most 90s.

    • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Clerks is a lot closer to real people’s experience of the '90s, as opposed to quintessential '90s fictions, like Pulp Fiction or Hackers.

      • plz1@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I came in here to post Mallrats, so you’re not wrong on that either.

      • Damionsipher@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Clerks is definitely more iconic, but it feels like the transition from the 80s into the 90s. I put my vote with Mallrats, which is 90s through and thorough - hell, there’s even a 90210 reference delivered directly to Shannen Doherty.

  • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Terminator 2 is in a weird spot since it’s a sequel to an 80s movie but is itself a 90s movie. But I’d nominate it for this award.

      • neidu2@feddit.nl
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        2 months ago

        And Terminator 3 follows that trend: A quintessential 00’s movie - as forgettable as many other sequels from the same period, despite previous titles in the series being great

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Back when it came out, 1996 seemed about the same as 2027 feels now. Near future, who knows what could be different.

      It’s an interesting choice, because there was really no present-day sci fi tech in the movie save for a video game that articulated as the player flew a plane (which may have existed but I hadn’t seen before in 1992).

      So they chose to make the movie take place in the present day technology-wise, but still in the future. Just slightly in the future.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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    2 months ago

    The Net

    It’s a 90s movie about the internet, but it’s all technobabble magic and represented in a very made-for-TV way. Just the right balance of interesting plot and complete cringe which is pretty much how I remember the 90s.

    • PrimeMinisterKeyes@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, the 90s were a good time for movies that could not have been mainstream in any other decade. I’d place Judge Dredd, Demolition Man and Total Recall in the same “corny, but excellent” league as the 5th Element.
      Then you had unofficial double features of sorts: Smoke/ Blue In The Face, Casino/ Goodfellas.
      12 Monkeys needs to be mentioned as well, it’s probably the most palatable movie on my list.
      In the “disconcerting, but unforgettable” league, I’d place As Good As It Gets, The Crossing Guard and, of course, the grisly “8 mm.”

      • FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        When I saw it years later I misunderstood what Wayne meant when, talking of Stacey having bought him a gunrack and being mental, he says “get the net!”

        To late 90s me it sounded like he was talking about the internet, sarcastically telling Stacey to “get the internet” as in “be cool, get with the times, stop being a dork”

        When pointed out to the me he’s referring to the much older trope of catching crazy people with giant butterfly nets, I realised how solidly pre-internet Wayne’s World is. And can’t be quintessentially 90s for me for that reason.

    • _edge@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      Has an 80ies vibe to me. I had to check, it was made in 94, but towards the end of the decade, pulp fiction already felt old, a classic.

    • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      There’s a filter that I apply to these kinds of questions, and it’s that there are some works that are of a particular time, but they ascend beyond that time and just become a part of culture, broadly. Like, Wizard of Oz just IS, Bohemian Rhapsody just IS; they aren’t bounded by their decades of origin.

      I’d argue that at least Jurassic Park, and arguably also The Matrix, are above and beyond the '90s in ways that other movies can’t quite achieve.

      • WanderingVentra@lemm.ee
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        2 months ago

        At least Matrix has a lot of 90’s references and a very 90’s setting. Mostly the pay phone I suppose, but they’re a big part of the movie lol.

        • GraniteM@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          For sure, the technology and fashion is all VERY late-90s. But the way that The Matrix informed SO many action and scifi movies to follow, and spawned so many cultural touchstones made it break containment.

          And then you’ve got subjects that it brings up, like mixed technophobia and technophilia, gender identity, anti-authoritarianism, and so on that are still at the forefront of our cultural awareness. The Matrix has stayed relevant and meaningful in ways that very few works have managed to.

  • son_named_bort@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Home Alone. It’s a movie that really couldn’t take place today due to cell phones and the Internet making easier to communicate with someone if the landlines are down. Also, the family wouldn’t have been able to get through the airport like they did back then thanks to 9/11.

  • FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world
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    For not-the-best-90s-movie-but-most-strongly-dated-to-the-90s I’d have to go with You’ve Got Mail

    If someone had told me Independence Day was early 2000s (pre 9/11) I wouldn’t have doubted it. Same with the Matrix really.

    But You’ve Got Mail seems rooted to that mid to late 90s early internet feel. Two massive stars. Lots of 90s fashion etc

    Possibly also Mrs Doubtfire. Reasons there being very 90s exploration of divorce, prosthetics that weren’t available in the 80s and a theme (man sneaking into kids lives in disguise) that I don’t think would have gotten traction 2000s onwards for being too creepy. Makes it a very 90s film.

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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      The Matrix was basically 2000’s. It’s a 90’s movie only a technicality; it was released to theaters in early 1999 and the home release was in May of '99. However, going into the 1999 -> 2000 holiday season the presence of that movie in particular on disc sold a lot of DVD players and Playstation 2’s.

      Y2K or thereabouts is precisely when a lot of people experienced the first Matrix.

    • lemonSqueezy@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Wow, I forgot it came out in 1999, I guess, technically. It’s one of my favorite movies ever of all time, but it was too far ahead of its time for me to think of it as 90s movie.