Photo: Everett Collection Save Story Save this story Save Story Save this story Listen—they just made better movies in the ’90s. While today’s cinema listings are crammed with sequels and remakes, with the watching experience couched in discourse and then discourse about the discourse, the best ’90s films were for the most part true originals. To add to that, a good film resulted in a long relationship with it. Rather than watching something once, plugging in a pithy Letterboxd review, and forgetting about it within a week, ’90s films existed on love-worn VHS tapes to be watched on repeat until the outfits and most quotable one-liners remained stamped onto the brain forever.
While I’m not going to list every single ’90s movie worth watching—that would take an age; British Vogue has a separate list for ’90s films for fashion lovers —there are definitely a few stand-out classics worth returning to. Below, the best ’90s movies to watch (or rewatch) for some much-needed escapism and entertainment.
What happens when you bring two weirdos together and have them star in a David Lynch film? Watch Wild at Heart to find out. The film follows lovers Lula Fortune (Laura Dern) and Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage), who are separated after Sailor is jailed for killing a man who attacked him with a knife. Two years later, Lula picks him up, hands him his snakeskin jacket, and takes him to see the thrash metal band Powermad. As this is a Lynch film, explaining the rest of the plot would be a pointless exercise, but expect plentiful violence, stylish surrealism, and a road movie that’ll shock and delight in equal measure.
Long before the era of Ozempic, facelifts at 35, and billionaires fixated on becoming centenarians, 1992’s Death Becomes Her offered a darkly hilarious and sublimely camp vision of two dueling rivals, Madeline and Helen—played by Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn—who drink a magic potion that promises eternal youth. Cue some of the most absurd fight scenes of all time. “That was totally uncalled for,” purrs Helen after Madeline blasts an enormous hole in her stomach. “Some advice,” Madeline purrs back. “I would stay out of a bathing suit for a while.”
The ’90s were a great time for off-beat thrillers involving couples in which one (or both) were stylish criminals (see also: Natural Born Killers , Buffalo ’66, Wild at Heart ). Enter: True Romance , starring Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette as young lovers who find themselves on the run after the former kills the latter’s pimp and accidentally makes off with $5 million worth of stolen cocaine. Like all of the best ’90s movies, Tony Scott and Quentin Tarantino’s crime caper was initially a box-office flop but has since become an enduring classic—not least because of its landmark style (all leopard faux-fur coats, Hawaiian shirts, and slouchy jeans).
Meet Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory (Juliette Lewis), two unhinged, stunningly dressed, and actually very evil outlaws who storm across the country on a maniacal crime spree. How much you love Natural Born Killers will depend on your personal threshold for both gore and silliness (it’s one of my all-time favorites). Either way, you’ll surely find yourself wanting to get your hands on a dusty red 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T convertible and go on a road trip—ideally minus all the murder.
The only feasible reason to have never before seen Quentin Tarantino’s stylish crime flick Pulp Fiction is that you’re sick of everyone saying it’s the be…