30 essential ‘90s movies that turn 30 in 2025

The jury is out on Val Kilmer’s Batman, but what made Batman Forever a standout were the villains. Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, and Jim Carrey as The Riddler helped earn this movie more than $335 million at the box office.

Clueless started out as one of the most notable teen movies of the ‘90s and all-time, but in recent years, it really has just cemented itself as one of the best comedies of its time as it not only set the bar for teen movies but also influenced fashion and the way people spoke. As if! Whatever!

One does not mention the ‘90s and movies without adding Friday to the conversation.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was an instant hit in 1993, so it wasn’t shocking that a movie hit theaters only a couple of years later. Today, the fandom for this movie and the Rangers remains for many diehards.

Braveheart was woven into the zeitgeist with one line, and that’s, “...but they'll never take our freedom!”

There cannot be an essential ‘90s movie list without the Olsen twins. Mary-Kate and Ashley are as much a part of what makes the ‘90s special as Michael Jordan and Mariah Carey.  So, while they had a lot to choose from, in 1995, it was all about their take on The Parent Trap, It Takes Two.

Adam Sandler really shined brightest in the ‘90s, didn’t he?

Girlhood to the max, Now and Then had a powerhouse cast both in name and talent. There’s a reason this remains a cult classic 30 years later.

Every few years, the world feels whole when they clamor around a drama set in space, and in 1995, Apollo 13 was that movie.

The only bad thing about A Goofy Movie is that Disney never dropped a full-length Powerline album.

Ace Ventura was amazing. The sequel, though? Really outdid its predecessor the second Jim Carrey and the Rhino came together.

The ‘90s had a plethora of child actors who were so talented that they carried movies on their backs with ease, and Christina Ricci was atop the list when it came to that. So young moviegoers saw just about anything she was in, including the sweet reimagining of Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoon.

They don’t make thrillers quite like Oscar-winning The Usual Suspects anymore.

Ann M. Martin debuted The Baby-Sitters Club in print in the late ‘80s, and by the ‘90s, it was Scholastic Book Fair royalty. That led it to become a short-lived TV series in 1990, and later, a big screen movie in ‘95 with the likes of Rachael Leigh Cook as one of the leads.

Tales from the Hood took on the predominantly white world of horror and flipped it on its head.

Martin Scorsese is to crime dramas like Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are to one another: A match made in heaven. 

The late, great Chris Farley presented comedic excellence alongside David Spade in Tommy Boy.

The special effects in Jumanji should not still work, but somehow they do.

Before RuPaul’s Drag Race took over the world, Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo were just trying to help a small town with the power of drag in the heartfelt comedy, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.

Toy Story blew minds in 1995 as the first computer-animated film from Pixar, and since then, it has become a staple of the Disney brand with specials, sequels, and a whirlwind of merchandise.

Cue Coolio’s “Gangsta's Paradise.”

While Macaulay Culkin held it down for the first half of the ‘90s, the power transitioned to Jonathan Taylor Thomas fully by 1995. He’d been a favorite on TV via Home Improvement, and in 1995, was starring in his own movies (he did The Lion King the year prior, but fans couldn’t see his face), like Man of the House  alongside Farrah Fawcett.

Whitney Houston, Angela Bassett, Loretta Devine, and Lela Rochon as best friends going through the motions of relationship highs and lows. Need we say more? Plus, the soundtrack is *chef’s kiss*.

There are plenty of ‘90s kids who, for the first time in their lives, felt seen thanks to Heavyweights.

Empire Records walked so movies like Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and (500) Days of Summer could run.

In the 2000s, there were a lot of movies that pulled from old sitcoms, but that trend started back in 1995 when The Brady Bunch Movie paid homage to the beloved sitcom by bringing that blended family to the ‘90s.

Kids was as real and raw as filmmaking got in 1995, and because of that, it sparked a lot of conversation and some controversy.

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence were two of the biggest names in comedy when it came to television in 1995, but Bad Boys marked the first time they both hit the big screen in a big way as action stars — and together. Their chemistry obviously worked as Bad Boys: Ride or Die, the fourth installment, brought in over $400 million in 2024.

There needs to be a study done about how many people became vegetarians in 1995 after watching Babe.

Mortal Kombat was everything parents didn’t like about video games, which made kids obviously want to play it more. As the game got bigger, so did the possibility of a film. In 1995, that movie came out, and while the quality is questionable, it’s still a fun time.