The very best ’90s films on Prime Video

The ’90s are again, child, and we don’t simply imply biker shorts, center components, and platform sneakers! ’90s films are the right dose of nostalgia for a time while you have been too younger to note the rampant injustices of the world round you. Sorry! You grew up! 

Although some ’90s films have been robbed of their rose-colored sheen by fashionable revelations about their forged or creators, many nonetheless hit excellent. They have been made in a time when all films have been meant to be seen in a theater — when budgets have been large and the explosions have been even larger. In no specific order, listed here are the perfect ’90s films accessible through Prime Video to your subsequent film evening.

25. Fever Pitch

This British rom-com has a disappointingly low American profile, seemingly as a result of we went and remade it with Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore as Pink Sox followers. The unique Fever Pitch, itself based mostly on a Nick Hornby guide, stars Colin Firth (!!!) as a schoolteacher whose love for his soccer workforce, Arsenal, will get in the way in which of his budding romance with Ruth Gemmell. Guys and their sports activities, huh? If the tagline doesn’t thrill you (“Life will get difficult while you love one girl and 11 males”), then the kick of watching Mr. Darcy change into a likable slob positively will!*

watch: Fever Pitch is streaming on Prime Video.

24. Rounders

When Mike McDermott loses $30,000 at a excessive stakes poker sport, he guarantees his girlfriend he’ll cease the playing for good. However when his outdated childhood good friend, Worm, begins becoming a member of video games on Mike’s credit score and dropping, Mike will get drawn again into the excessive stakes world he’s been attempting to flee. 

1998’s Rounders is a enjoyable sports activities flick about poker; the fun of victory and the agony of defeat on full show. Matt Damon is younger and charming because the well-intentioned Mike, Edward Norton is appropriately shifty because the hustling Worm, and John Malkovich is indulgently, preposterously, delightfully campy as a temperamental Russian mobster. 

watch: Rounders is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

23. FernGully: The Final Rainforest

That’s proper, the film that traumatized ’80s and ’90s children remains to be round to traumatize the following era! Crysta and her pals are fairies that look after and defend their rainforest. When she discovers people are chopping down their timber, she by chance shrinks one among them (the most well liked one), Zak, to fairy dimension. As Zak learns extra in regards to the fairies, his appreciation for the forest grows, as does his dedication to cease human encroachment. If that plot sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of FernGully: The Final Rainforest is kind of the ’90s animated model of Avatar, however with kicky mullets, throwback slang (bodacious babe!), and Robin Williams as a rapping bat. 

watch: FernGully: The Final Rainforest is streaming on Prime Video.

22. Armageddon

Only a few films can encapsulate the rampant American exceptionalism of the ’90s like Armageddon. With a meteor barreling towards earth, the one folks with the talents to avoid wasting the human race are a gaggle of blue-collar, American off-shore oil drillers led by a rugged and curmudgeonly Bruce Willis. With minimal coaching and the eyes of the world upon them, they’re blasted into area to drill a nuclear bomb into the meteor’s core. In fact, not all the pieces goes to plan. 

Ben Affleck is at his dreamiest as a younger oil driller, hopelessly in love with Willis’ daughter, one among Liv Tyler’s most iconic roles. Filled with American flags, a star-studded forged, tons of explosions, and a bunch of wives sitting at dwelling whereas their husbands change into heroes, Armageddon is a traditional Hollywood blockbuster. It’s a nostalgic, enjoyable piece of action-packed fluff, and someway, it’s an Academy–Award nominee! Do not forget: Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Need a Miss a Factor” was within the operating for Greatest Authentic Music.

watch: Armageddon is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

21. Empire Data

Liv Tyler, Rory Cochrane, Ethan Embry, Robin Tunney, Renee Zellweger are younger staff of a failing unbiased document store that band collectively to attempt to save the shop. We’ve acquired teenage drama, nostalgic music, ’90s vogue, and Rex Manning Day — Empire Data has all of it! It’s a quintessential hangout comedy that embodies the spirit of early ’90s and launched the careers of a few of Hollywood’s largest names. Critics hated it; teenagers liked it — and if that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what’s!

watch: Empire Data is streaming on Prime Video.

20. GoldenEye

On this installment, Bond is distributed by M (Judi Dench) to St. Petersburg to analyze an electromagnetic weapon, however he quickly discovers a spider internet woven frighteningly near dwelling. Pierce Brosnan’s first flip as James Bond was his greatest and a vital breath of contemporary air for a franchise that had been stalling in its Timothy Dalton years. GoldenEye boasts all of the Bond hallmarks: plot twists, explosions, sadistic villains, stunning Bond ladies (Izabella Scorupco), cool devices, attractive vehicles, and Bond’s personal easy, unflappable aptitude, which Brosnan exudes in spades. 

watch: GoldenEye is streaming on Prime Video.

19. She’s All That

A romantic comedy hall-of-famer, 1999’s She’s All That offers us probably the most iconic and absurd examples of nerdy-girl-isn’t-hot-until-you-take-her-glasses-off film magic. Freddie Prinze Jr. is lovably smug as the highschool high dawg who bets his bros he can flip any woman into the promenade queen in six weeks, even social outcast Laney Boggs. That’s proper, it’s a Nineteen Nineties Pygmalion/My Truthful Girl — and also you already know the way it ends! 

This can be a teen comedy that retains a few of its edge; the kids have been nonetheless allowed to be imply to one another within the ’90s. Rachael Leigh Prepare dinner grew to become a family identify because the artsy highschool misfit who was clearly cute lengthy earlier than she acquired contacts. Matthew Lillard, Paul Walker, Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, Kieran Culkin, Anna Paquin, Gabrielle Union, and extra assist cement She’s All That within the hallowed halls of rom-com historical past, and its soundtrack is a full-fledged nostalgia bomb. It’s time for a rewatch.*

watch: She’s All That is obtainable to hire or purchase on Prime Video.

18. Merciless Intentions

Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a 1782 French novel the place two bored aristocrats, expert in social politics and manipulation, guess that if Vicomte de Valmont can seduce a virtuous newcomer, then the Marquise de Merteuil will sleep with him. Merciless Intentions takes this story and plops it in a world as gossipy, hierarchical, and attractive as an 18th-century French court docket — a NYC personal highschool. 

Ryan Phillippe is the charmer on the lookout for a problem, Sarah Michelle Gellar the queen bee who dangles her sexuality over him like a carrot, and Reese Witherspoon the prudish contemporary face caught of their little sport. However as Phillippe’s Sebastian dedicates himself increasingly more to his seduction, he begins to surprise if he’s nonetheless enjoying an element… or does he even have emotions for his mark? Gleefully darkish and comically corrupt, Merciless Intentions is a perfectly entertaining teen drama that holds up sufficient to have impressed a 2024 sequence, additionally on Prime.

watch: Merciless Intentions is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

17. Complete Recall

Based mostly on a Philip Ok. Dick brief story (like many of the greatest science fiction films!),Complete Recall is a mind-bending cyberpunk exploration of the connection between reminiscence and the self. In 2084, Earthman Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) begins having desires about Mars, presently below the management of an oppressive regime. Seeking to be taught extra about his visions, he visits Rekall, an organization that embeds pretend recollections on demand. Directed by Paul Verhoeven (who additionally directed RoboCop, Starship Troopers, and… Showgirls?), Complete Recall is a gritty, action-packed, dystopian blockbuster. It’s acquired its fair proportion of ’90s machismo, however many controversial parts at its time — like a three-breasted prostitute — have change into iconic with age. 

watch: Complete Recall is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

16. Forrest Gump

Directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Eric Roth, Forrest Gump is a family-friendly comedy-drama a couple of big-hearted however slow-witted man who finds himself straight concerned in among the main historic occasions of the final half of the twentieth century. Tom Hanks received an Oscar for his earnest portrayal of Forrest, and the movie received 5 extra Academy Awards, together with Greatest Tailored Screenplay, Greatest Director, and Greatest Image. (Plus it launched a well-liked informal seafood chain!) The forged right here is unmissable, with Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Mykelti Williamson, and Sally Area every shining of their respective roles. Charming, nostalgic, and candy, Forrest Gump overcomes its sentimentality with its plentiful good-heartedness. 

watch: Forrest Gump is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

15. The Pleasure Luck Membership

Based mostly on the best-selling novel of the identical identify, The Pleasure Luck Membership must be required viewing for anybody with a mom. In San Francisco, 4 ladies, all Chinese language immigrants, type a mahjong group. Over the course of the movie, every girl shares her story, from their lives in China to the fashionable struggles they’re every having with their American-born daughters. The Pleasure Luck Membership is a stunning, shifting movie in regards to the generational divide, self-respect, and most crucially, mother-daughter relationships. It’s stuffed with coronary heart, the sort of film that requires a field of tissues however leaves you feeling heat and renewed.

watch: The Pleasure Luck Membership is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

Mashable High Tales

14. True Romance

Elvis superfan Clarence (Christian Slater) and former name woman Alabama (Patricia Arquette) fall in love, get married…. after which homicide her former pimp, steal his cocaine stash, and head to California. Sadly for the lovebirds, there are a couple of folks with a monetary curiosity of their suitcase of medication, they usually’re not going to cease till they recoup their cash. 

Directed by Tony Scott and written by Hollywood newcomer Quentin Tarantino (!!!!), 1993’s True Romance is a dynamic, unpredictable experience. For a big portion of the movie, Alabama and Clarence appear to suppose they’re in a romance flick — whereas everybody else round them is in a pulpy, violent thriller. It’s a darkly comedian have a look at the damaging energy of two idiots falling in love. Being a Tarantino movie, True Romance doesn’t shy from utilizing the n-word, nevertheless it additionally has a sinister James Gandolfini, a stoned Brad Pitt, and a fully unhinged, and probably offensive, Gary Oldman. 

watch: True Romance is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

13. Titanic

Kate Winslet is Rose, a younger, upper-class Brit aboard the RMS Titanic, who quickly finds herself in a whirlwind romance with the good-looking, charming, and penniless Jack — Leonardo DiCaprio’s star-making function. Their class distinction isn’t the one impediment their love faces, as Rose’s rich fiancé Cal (Billy Zane) can be on the ship. And the ship is about to run into an infinite iceberg and change into the world’s most well-known maritime disaster. 

James Cameron’s Titanic is an epic in each sense of the phrase. The love story is melodramatic and all-encompassing, made much more pressing by the upcoming doom we all know is ready for the lovers. When the motion hits, it’s visceral, harrowing, and breathtaking: an incomprehensible catastrophe seen by means of the eyes of its human victims. There’s additionally an entire bit about Rose within the current as an outdated girl and the workforce looking for the ships’ wreckage. However nobody actually remembers that half. 

watch: Titanic is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

12. The Proficient Mr. Ripley

The Proficient Mr. Ripley walked so Saltburn might run. This iconic psychological thriller includes a younger Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, a poor New Yorker who finds himself within the entourage of the wealthy and impossibly charismatic Dickie as he lounges and carouses his method throughout Fifties Europe. However is it luck that introduced Tom into Dickie’s orbit, or one thing extra sinister? 

Jude Legislation is at his Jude-est Legislation-iest as Dickie, exuding the easy grace of a younger, good-looking aristocrat who can’t assist however appeal everybody meets. Gwyneth Paltrow glows as Dickie’s girlfriend, Marge, and Philip Seymour Hoffman is pitch-perfect as one other of Dickie’s wealthy pals, who mistrusts Tom from the get-go. Based mostly on the Patricia Highsmith novel and directed by Anthony Minghella, The Proficient Mr. Ripley is a suspenseful, charming traditional.* 

(In case you can’t get sufficient of this psychosexual story, don’t miss Netflix’s glorious 2024 sequence, Ripley, starring Andrew Scott.)

watch: The Proficient Mr. Ripley is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

11. The Lengthy Stroll Residence

Whoopi Goldberg is Odessa Cotter, a maid for Miriam Thompson (Sissy Spacek), in Montgomery, Alabama, through the 1955 Montgomery bus boycotts. Unwilling to take a bus, Odessa should endure lengthy walks to and from the Thompson dwelling. In opposition to the needs of her husband and her neighbors, Miriam presents Odessa a experience a couple of days per week to ease her burden. If made immediately, the movie will surely haven’t opted for a white narrator to inform the story of those two well-developed ladies from totally different communities, however nonetheless, The Lengthy Stroll Residence stays a fancy and highly effective exploration of injustice.

watch: The Lengthy Stroll Residence is streaming on Prime Video.

10. October Sky

Based mostly on a real story, October Sky is a touching drama a couple of West Virginian coal miners’ son (Jake Gyllenhaal), who’s creating an curiosity in aerospace engineering. Alongside his pals and towards the needs of his father (Chris Cooper), he exams selfmade rockets and teaches himself the required science to ultimately change into a NASA engineer. October Sky is a masterclass in inspirational, feel-good movie-making. It’s each honest and emotionally advanced, refusing to simplify its characters into archetypes. You’ll be left with a heat, fuzzy feeling, considering each your relationship together with your father and go about constructing your personal yard rocket. Don’t miss Laura Dern as a really great highschool science trainer!

watch: October Sky is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

9. The Sixth Sense

Doesn’t matter in case you’re sufficiently old to have witnessed The Sixth Sense twist first-hand, you could have positively made an “I see useless folks” joke. The endurance of this film’s cultural relevance — regardless of how you’re feeling about M. Night time Shyamalan immediately — is a testomony to simply how groundbreaking it was when it debuted in 1999. 

Bruce Willis is a toddler psychologist whose latest affected person (Haley Joel Osment) claims to talk to the useless. The Sixth Sense is a breathlessly tense psychological thriller — a few of us have had nightmares about Mischa Barton puking in a tent for the final 20 years — that’s as emotionally affecting as it’s shocking. If someway you haven’t seen this sensible, subtle, and simply plain glorious movie, it’s time to proper that fallacious. 

watch: The Sixth Sense is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

8. Reservoir Canines

Quentin Tarantino’s feature-length directorial debut, Reservoir Canines, is violent, coarse, nonlinear, and irreverent. He’s recognized his model since day one. Paying homage to a number of Hollywood classics like Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, 1992’s Reservoir Canines is chaotic and energetic, celebrated as an unbiased hit because of an clever script and an idiosyncratic forged (Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, and extra). Many years later, although Tarantino’s profile and manufacturing budgets have gotten considerably larger, this primary entry, stuffed with pluck and fervour, remains to be one among his greatest. 

When a diamond heist goes fallacious, eight males attempt to decide who offered them out, utilizing any means essential to extract the reality. 

watch: Reservoir Canines is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

7. Galaxy Quest 

Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, and Daryl Mitchell are the fictional crew of a cult TV sci-fi sequence, Galaxy Quest. Years after the present’s been off the air, they float from conference to conference, signing autographs and wishing their careers had gone in a distinct route. Till in the future, they’re kidnapped by aliens who noticed their TV broadcast from throughout the galaxy and thought it was actual! Uh oh! Now the aliens hope Tim Allen and crew can defend their planet towards an invading pressure, whereas the hapless band of actors simply hopes they will sustain the ruse lengthy sufficient to discover a method dwelling. Galaxy Quest is a deeply foolish film that packs a sneaky emotional punch. An absolute winner, by means of and thru.* 

watch: Galaxy Quest is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

6. Run Lola Run

Run Lola Run has a easy premise that interprets into an impossibly gripping and entertaining motion flick. Proper out the gate, the film begins at a ten: Lola has 20 minutes to seek out 100,000 bucks or her boyfriend will probably be killed. Fueled by an infectious, relentless digital rating, Lola runs by means of the streets of Germany to attempt to make her deadline — and we’re along with her each breathless step alongside the way in which. 

Written and directed by Tom Tykwer, Run Lola Run is an electrifying watch, with shocking moments of humanity and surrealism. Don’t let the subtitles cease you — that is a kind of gems that reminds you why you like films so dang a lot.

watch: Run Lola Run is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

5. Fargo

There aren’t many movies on the market well-liked sufficient to encourage a really popular-in-its-own-right TV present, however Fargo — with its snowy North Dakota setting and offbeat black comedy type — has managed it with aplomb. One of the crucial memorable roles in Hollywood historical past, closely pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) makes an attempt to untangle a messy homicide and its hyperlinks to some employed kidnappers, with issues shortly spiraling within the amusingly chaotic method solely Coen brothers’ films can. Complimentary characters embrace a spineless William H. Macy as desperate-for-money automobile supplier Jerry Lundegaard, a chillingly dead-eyed Peter Stormare as employed kidnapper Gaear Grimsrud, and Steve Buscemi as his slimy accomplice in crime.* — Sam Haysom, Deputy UK Editor

watch: Fargo is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

4. Clueless

Clueless, to start with, is iconic. Almost 30 years have handed, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a cultural touchstone for immediately’s teenagers. Maybe its endurance comes from its plot, straight lifted from the literal founding father of the romantic comedy, Jane Austen. Like Austen’s Emma Woodhouse, Clueless’s Cher (Alicia Silverstone) acts as a matchmaker to everybody round her however can’t appear to get her personal love life so as. The story alone doesn’t totally seize the film’s appeal. Clueless is each hilarious and candy, options unforgettable costumes, and most significantly, is stuffed to the brim with memorable, quotable strains. Cinema has by no means heard a extra chopping insult than “You’re a virgin who can’t drive.”* 

watch: Clueless is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

3. Good Will Looking

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have been such mainstay figures in Hollywood for many years now that it’s straightforward to overlook how legendary and meteoric their entry into filmmaking was. However these two younger, comparatively unknown bros confirmed up in Hollywood with the script for Good Will Looking and walked out with an Oscar and a lifetime on the A-list.

When an MIT professor (Stellan Skarsgård) places a near-impossible math drawback on his blackboard, he’s shocked to seek out that somebody within the college has solved it… And that somebody is the janitor, Will (Matt Damon). The professor helps Will, presently on parole, get permission from the court docket to review arithmetic — offered he additionally receives remedy for his behavioral points. 

Good Will Looking is a charming and heartfelt drama that has been parodied, copied, and referenced, however by no means repeated. Ben Affleck is ideal as Will’s tough greatest good friend, and Robin Williams received an Academy Award for his efficiency because the empathetic, unconventional, and no-bullshit counselor who simply is perhaps the one to assist Will get away of his sample of self-destruction and make one thing of his life.* 

watch: Good Will Looking is streaming on Prime Video.

2. Sense and Sensibility

Directed by Ang Lee, 1995’s Sense and Sensibility is definitely top-of-the-line cinematic Jane Austen variations thus far. Emma Thompson is heavenly as the sensible, considerate Elinor Dashwood, the “sense” to her changeable, emotional sister Marianne’s (Kate Winslet) “sensibility.” It’s a scenic, romantic, and easily beautiful watch that’s as poignant now because it was 20 years in the past (or two centuries in the past!).

When their father dies, Mrs. Dashwood and her three daughters transfer to a small cottage in Devonshire and should concern themselves with what all 18th and nineteenth century ladies with out an inheritance should concern themselves with: an advantageous marriage. Elinor is consumed by caring for others and counseling Marianne, who is totally besotted with John Willoughby, a complete rake!!!! Will Elinor efficiently handle the household’s misfortunes? And can she even have time to think about love for herself?

watch: Sense and Sensibility is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

1. L.A. Confidential

A fantastically stylized, neo-noir crime thriller, L.A. Confidential is an intricate internet of whodunnits and double-crosses set in a sultry, seedy Fifties Los Angeles. Everybody right here is working on the high of their capacity: the forged is great (Man Pearce, Russell Crowe, James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, David Strathairn, and extra); the script is hermetic, clever, and meticulously plotted; and the cinematography brings coloration to a moody, noir ambiance. Even the viewers is doing good work right here — you’ve acquired to concentrate to reap the rewards of this spectacular drama that will have swept the 1997 Academy Awards had it not been competing towards Titanic. 

Tailored from a James Ellroy novel, L.A. Confidential follows three totally different cops working to rehabilitate the LAPD’s picture after a sequence of scandals. However in rooting out corruption, they’ll uncover a fancy maze of lies, celeb, intercourse, and homicide that places them deeper in peril the nearer they get to the reality. 

watch: L.A. Confidential is obtainable for hire or buy on Prime Video.

UPDATE: Nov. 7, 2025, 3:48 p.m. EST This text was first printed on April 8, 2022. It has been up to date to incorporate present streaming choices.