Movies that define the 90s.

[Courtney]

<broken record> Fear. </broken record>

It's TRUE though. Mini-skirts with midriff tops, a rave and lots of Toad the Wet Sprocket and Bush on the soundtrack.

I would also submit Scream (I'll use my COMPUTER to call 911. My boyfriend tried to kill me, and I know it because of his CELLULAR TELEPHONE.) and Empire Records. And I third Clerks.

[jewishcarpenter]

So I Married An Axe Murderer

[Thrifty]

Reality Bites seems very 90s to me even though I must admit I never saw it.

[mrbasehart]

Okay, so here's a brief list I came up with before I started the topic:

Hackers
Cool as Ice
Point Break
Basic Instinct
Wild Things
Before Sunrise
Empire Records
Street Fighter
The Craft
Scream
Species
California Man

[Plastic Self-Cleaning Duck]

Pretty Woman

Not just because of the popularity.  But for the acceptance of "anything for a buck" and the underlying stuff of corporate raiding and the attitudes of those doing it (which Marshall "prettied up").

[Doctor Who?]

Jurassic Park.

It started the the CGI powered blockbust crazes as well as the the PG13 rated movie with a toy marketing blitz that started a whole year before the movie came out trend too.

[stansimpson]

I'll second Reality Bites and fourthify Clerks.

[Pak-Man]

I'd say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze. It had everything part 1 had, but added environmentalist overtones and Vanilla Ice.

[RoninFox]

I'd say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze. It had everything part 1 had, but added environmentalist overtones and Vanilla Ice.

well it had everything but the light swearing the less silly fighting and Casey Jones, but other than that yeah.

Wish they hadn't scrapped the whole twist about the TCRI guy being an Utrom. (aliens from the comic that lived in robot bodies) yeah as a kid I would have confused it with Krang, but it would have set up a much better third movie.

[Misty]

I know they're all bordering the end of the 90s but I'd like to nominate:

Office Space
Fight Club
The Matrix

[Compound]

Most of these were already mentioned, but I'll chime in again with them.

Singles
Reality Bites
Clueless
Scream
Empire Records
Pulp Fiction
The Various Lambda films
Wag the Dog
Chasing Amy
Boyz 'n' the Hood
Kids
The Saint (Seriously. You've got a broken up USSR, a military plot to destroy democracy, a non-violent hero, the superhot female scientist and an obsession with clean, environmentally safe cold fusion. That's about half the movie cliche checklist for the second half of the decade, all in one film.)

There are a couple of films from 99 that are marginal - Matrix, She's All That, 10 Things I Hate About You,  Cruel Intentions, Fight Club, maybe Three Kings. They're still in the 90s, but I dunno. They don't really feel like 90s films. And Fargo, Big Lebowski and Heat, definitely don't.

[Tripe]

The Saint (Seriously. You've got a broken up USSR, a military plot to destroy democracy, a non-violent hero, the superhot female scientist and an obsession with clean, environmentally safe cold fusion. That's about half the movie cliche checklist for the second half of the decade, all in one film.)

Plus it has this on the soundtrack

And that just shrieks Mid '90s

[SJP]

Has anybody seconded Hackers?  If not, then I do, because I just watched that not too long ago (as some of you may know...*cough cough* buy the iRiff! *cough cough*) because I wholeheartedly agree on its 'time capsule' status.  Not only for its naivete of how it thought computers would be in the future, but because it has the Stereo MCs on the soundtrack.

For that matter, I instantly nominate any movie containing The Stereo MCs, Jesus Jones, and EMF.  Because if it wasn't from a movie IN the '90s, it's a movie ABOUT the '90s.

The other movies I put forward:
Seconding So I Married an Axe Murderer.  The soundtrack, obsession with large coffee, and Mike Myers being funny all put this into the '90s.

Austin Powers 1.  Though technically a lot of the comedy still works, Mike Myers being funny dates it, as well as the obsession throughout the movie of trying to make him realize the '60 are nothing like the '90s...kind of a bad idea when your movie is made in 1997.  The others don't really seem to care as much about that aspect as much.

Umpteenthing Clerks.  Again, it's funny without being grouped into the '90s, but the craphole video store and being able to enjoy Star Wars without either being a massive nerd or bashing the new movies sticks it neatly into a time that no longer exists.

Any Adam Sandler movie made during the decade (technically including Little Nicky, even though it was 2000).  Not only did he practically define "juvenile" in comedy for years afterward, he also spent that decade unable to escape his basic "googily-GOO!" persona.  It wasn't until "Punch-Drunk Love" was he in anything even considered by critics as something worth watching.  He's also probably responsible for starting the trend of making fun of the '80s ("Billy Madison" and "The Wedding Singer") as well as tying Kevin Smith for most movie quotes used by people I knew growing up (again, "Billy Madison," the "Caddyshack" of the '90s, as far as I can tell).

I'd also throw most Brendan Fraser movies in there, too, with extra credit for being in something containing all sorts of crap from the early '90s ("Encino Man"), poking fun at crap in the mid-'90s ("Airheads," with Adam Sandler, no less), poking fun of crap from the LATE '90s ("Blast from the Past"), as well as what I consider one of the WORST movies of the '90s ("Dudley Do-Right").

Wait a minute...hell, Brendan Fraser is practically a six degrees OF the '90s, both good and bad.

I'd also mention anything with Pauly Shore, too, but that's a dark, dark part of the '90s we should never visit again.   

[spaceforarent]

How about Chris Farley?

[mattwnelson]

I'll second the Pokemon movie. 90s animation was a cluster of Japanese imports, and the studios seemed to be dubbing just about any "collect and trade" style anime they could get their hands on; a practice that hasn't ceased through today. The Pokemon film was sort of the crest of that wave.