Everybody has that movie that they love or greatly admire, but no one ever seems to talk about. It’s no wonder. After all, hundreds of movies are released every year; some good, many bad, and a few great, so it’s easy for quality films to slip under the radar and fall into obscurity over the years. Even when 90s nostalgia hits an all-time high it tends to be only around certain agreed upon movie titles that best represent the decade. But as any cinephile or VHS warrior knows, there’s greatness to be found in the cracks.
Thanks to VOD and streaming services it’s easier than ever to access these forgotten gems, and you really should. It’s a blast, and a great reminder that movies mean more than box office and franchising. In putting together this list it became obvious that one way in which the 90s differed from the 80s was a reverberation of the effects of unchecked capitalism and gender roles that Generation X said “no thanks” to and punched the Baby Boomer generation right in the kisser. As such, satire saw a major storytelling comeback, from dirtying up fairytales to tackling the previous generation’s various political scandals.
This list was started by Haleigh Foutch and the like-minded Brian Formo took the template and added a few decades—using an under 10,000 votes criteria from IMDb to unearth some truly underseen flicks for 1970s and 80s themed lists. But with the 90s being the decade that birthed IMDb that criteria wasn’t used to update this list. Most everything here has under 20,000 votes on IMDb but more than half do fall under 10,000. The lone outlier and most still beloved title on this list is one of Haleigh’s all-time favorites and features on of Brian’s go to karaoke joints (by the Violent Femmes) so we’re letting that slide. So, let us go on; 25 of our favorite forgotten 90s movies are below.
Pump Up the Volume (1990)
“Do you ever get the feeling that everything in America is completely fucked up?”
Released in 1990,Pump up the Volumeis more in tune with 80s cinema than 90s, but it’s just too damn good and too neglected to leave off the list. From writer-directorAllan Moyle,Pump up the Volumeis the unsung sibling film to his revered cult classicEmpire Records. The film stars 90s ultra-babeChristian Slateras Mark Hunter, a socially awkward and extremely bright high school student who “can’t talk” to the people he wants to in his real life, so he takes to the air waves with a pirate radio program as Happy Harry Hard-On, a filthy but eloquent voice sounding out the injustices and difficulties of teenage-dom. Shy A-student by day and rabble-rouser by night, Mark fills the airwaves with his rants against injustice, earnest attempts to counsel his listeners, and occasional simulated masturbation (he is a teenage boy after all). What starts out as a way for Mark to vent his frustrations and communicate with the world ends up sparking rebellion in his fellow students and inspiring them to change their lives.
In between tackling heavy subject matter like homosexuality, suicide and educational rights, the film occasionally veers into teenage melodrama, but never drowns in its own angst thanks to Moyle’s heartfelt script and ace performances from its young cast. Slater carries the film, balancing the wavering tones of comedy, heavy material, and Mark/Harry’s conflicting personas with ease.Samantha Mathis(who should have been a bigger star) is radiant as Nora, a clever and talented young woman who seeks out Harry’s true identity and finds her match in Mark. Though the romantic subplot is one of the film’s weaker elements, and there’s a really bizarre amount of lip-licking before every kiss, the two share a lovely chemistry.
For a 27-year-old teen movie,Pump up the Volumeholds up incredibly well. Themes of teenage alienation and disaffection are bound to stay relevant, but the ideas the film puts forth about shared community are oddly even more pertinent in our Internet age. Here we are, able to instantly connect with nearly anyone the world over, and yet we feel as isolated as ever. The themes remain so applicable thatPump up the Volumeis practically begging for a remake with a Hard Harry spouting his anthems from a podcast or YouTube Live, or any of the new ways we clamor to connect. Not that I want to see that happen; it’s just probably going to. You’ve been put on notice. Talk hard.— Haleigh Foutch
To Sleep with Anger (1990)
“You got to work at evil.”
You’ve probably heard the advice “don’t go to sleep with anger.” The characters inCharles Burnett’sTo Sleep with Angerhave to sleep with anger because a long lost family friend has shown up and refuses to let sleeping dogs lie; he digs up old ills and turns a family household in on itself—merely by testing their politeness. That friend is Harry and he’s played with charm byDanny Gloverbecause Danny Glover is a charming actor. At the height ofLethal Weaponfame this is Glover at his most likable. Who wouldn’t let him in if he came knocking at your door?
Harry’s presence at an old friend’s house in Los Angeles is like a ghost from the past of the rural south. You can take a friend out of the south, but they’ll still attempt to retain that southern hospitality as long as possible. And drifters know how to ride hospitality to the end of the line. Harry is a drifter. He knocks on the door of Gideon’s home and he looms over the child who answers it. There’s something surreal to a child about a stranger at the door that’s invited in. We tell our children not to talk to strangers but we invite anyone to stay with us whom we’ve not seen for years, even though years of separation can make people strangers again.
Harry says he’ll stay for a few days, but he’s there drinking and playing cards much longer; he questions the masculinity of the men in the family and brings up old grudges that everyone but Harry has buried—but it’s always done with a smile. Eventually, Gideon (Paul Baker) and his family begin to suspect that Harry is the devil himself.To Sleep with Angeris the most Southern film that’s not set in the South and it’s the closest film to achieve magical realism without actually engaging with any magic. It’s a very interesting approach from Burnett to apply a type of voodoo to a film where those beliefs would be a stranger to the area. And Glover is simply magnificent. Though he wears out his welcome with Gideon and his family, he’s always a welcome watch for the audience. And so goes the magic of movies: we enjoy spending time with characters we’d love to kick out of our own homes.— Brian Formo
Trust (1990)
“I had a bad day at work. I had to subvert my principles and kow-tow to an idiot. Television makes these daily sacrifices possible. Deadens the inner core of my being.”
A few years beforeBottle Rocketput an indie crown onWes Anderson’s head,Hal Hartleywas the indie soap opera star of the working class. AndTrustwas hisRushmore.Hartley’s characters have delusional goals because they’ve watched so many hours of TV and TV is a distraction from their miserable lives—but they hold everyone else to a standard that no one else is interested in meeting because life sucks. Outside ofRichard Linklater’sSlacker,Trustis the most Gen-X movie imaginable. Hartley takes the consumer aspects of our society and treats them as serious asJane Austendid with feelings.
Did I mention that it’s bitingly funny? The plot toTrustis almost indescribable, not because amazing things happen, but because Hartley is amused by the incredibly mundane tasks that we have to do. Maria (Adrianne Shelly) is in high school and she’s pregnant. She tells her parents her plan to marry the football stud boyfriend and her father drops dead upon hearing the news. She tells her boyfriend her plan and he tells her he has football practice. After being kicked out of the house she meets Matthew (Martin Donovan) who might be a future serial killer or her soul mate. Matthew has a terrible manual labor job and his father makes him clean the bathroom for hours. These are the things that could lead him to mass murder. Or perhaps Maria and her baby will put him on the right path to being a bored stiff who has no urge to kill, but just to exist.
Scenes inTrustmove with great precision where language escalates quickly and absurdly but action doesn’t. It essentially operates as a preposterous soap opera without the action. Hartley’s films are different types of entertainment jammed into one narrative because we’re too lazy to change the channel. It’s a unique product of its time and if you loved anything alternative, you’ve got to give it a shot.— Brian Formo
Mo' Better Blues (1990)
“I may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night.”
Mo' Better BluesisSpike Lee’s masculine answer toShe’s Gotta Have It, wherein a two-timing man only needs to choose a woman once his job no longer provides him an identity. And inBlues, that man’s downfall comes by association and loyalty to another man whose job it is to promote his greatness.Denzel Washingtonis a trumpet player named Bleek who leads a quartet with his name on it; even though they have a regular gig that’s packed, his manager (Spike Lee) is probably the one holding the group back because he’s not big in the business (despite his name being Giant) as he was just hired due to his friendship with Bleek; but Giant’s side debts are receiving more attention than Bleek’s steady ensemble.
Mo' Better Bluesis full of charisma, and jazzy peaks and valleys. Working within a jazz club and a jazz musician’s bedroom is the perfect setting for Lee’s free jazz camera excess; the camera spins, it glides through aisles, it drops into the garbage heap. This movie holds perhaps my favorite Lee camera moment, as the camera follows each of Bleek’s two women as they enter in the club in the same red dress, pans back to Lee’s manager watching them sit down, and then follows him upstairs to declare that he predicted this would happen.
But back to the answer toShe’s Gotta Have It, although the film exists in its own hazy bubble of brass and ass, the reason Bleek is forced to settle down is the ultimate moment of wounded masculinity: losing work. Being revered for his work is what makes Bleek appealing to enough women that he doesn’t feel the need to commit to one; but after external events knock him down, tries to choose a woman when he needs to be lifted up.
Coming afterDo the RightThing, this was the first time Lee had been given the runtime canvas to get more excessive, and he continues the narrative beyond that wounded state to show that it’s acceptance of self-limitations that can create the fuller acceptance of others, and thus, a love supreme. Although the hangout portions ofBluesare great (here’s the place to plug thatWesley Snipesis in Bleek’s band), it’s the third act (and following epilogue) that makesMo’ Betterone of Lee’s best.~ Brian Formo
Chameleon Street (1990)
“Oh, I wish I could speak French like that.”
I’ve seenSteven Soderbergh’sOut of Sighta handful of times and in a knockout top-to-bottom cast, Jenifer Lopez’s boss Daniel always stood out in a cast of who’s who. His honey voiced/above it all reading of the line “whatever” with the eye roll and the hands up is just so goddamn perfect. Anyway, Daniel is played byWendell B. Harris, Jr. and Soderbergh hired him because the year aftersex, lies, and videotapechanged the Sundance Film Festival forever, Soderbergh served on the Jury the following year and awarded Harris the Grand Prize forChameleon Street, a film that Harris wrote, directed, starred in and produced, and also that Hollywood completely screwed him over with right after Soderbergh’s prize should’ve set the groundwork for a major career.
You see, this micro-budget film, has a Hollywood story right there: the true story of a black ex-con (Harris) who successfully passed himself off as a Detroit Tiger, a doctor, a French graduate student, and a lawyer, and even performed successful surgeries that he learned on the fly. Hollywood had a leading man remake in mind when it was purchased, it wasn’t purchased to show on its own. The film that they bought, and didn’t release, was shot like an industrial film and uses narration to fill in the gaps (but also hit you with some belly laughs).Chameleon Streetlacks standard pizazz, but has an angry undercurrent on how black men have to adopt personas to get respect and/or equal opportunity. (Did I mention it’s funny?)
Chameleon Streetis quite a feat to watch today, and we’re benefited by watching the 90s independent film movement unfold, as it shares some look and tone of other indie gods likeHal HartleyandGregg Araki. But Harris beat them to the punch and suffered for it. Warner Brothers had no intention of releasing his film, just remaking it, and so the film languished in obscurity, the prize-winning videotape that followedsex, lies, and videotapethat was gobbled up by lies and never saw actual distribution until Harris released it on home video in 2007. (A remake was never done either, thoughSix Degrees of Separationshares many character similarities and Smith was considered for the remake role.)
Streetbenefits greatly from Harris' voice, which stood out inOut of Sight, a syrupy tone that moves slowly; and as it moves, it unfurls. First, a hint of education in every word, and second a “fuck you” tucked away to rebut your entranced state. This is a distinctly 1990 Sundance Film in all of the absolute best ways. It’s intelligent, it’s personal, it’s all put together by someone who had no access to Hollywood. And it features a scene where Harris is dressed up like Jean Cocteau’s Beast and though he’s been found out by a fellow French student that he’s not actually French, he’s still in awe of the translated insult that comes his way. Instead of responding incredulously to being labeled a “skinflint transvestite” who should be drinking “lukewarm cat piss,” Harris' eyes roll into an orgasmic state behind the Beast mask and he says, “Oh, IwishI could speak Frenchlike that.” True indie movie heaven.~ Brian Formo
Blue Steel (1990)
“Police! Put the gun down!”
“Oh, get out of my face, lady!”
Blue Steelis the ultimate #MeToo movie; it comes 28 years prior to the long overdue movement, and from the first and only female director to win a Best Director Oscar,Kathryn Bigelow, who rose through the movie ranks by making “manly movies.” The entire movie is about a woman (Jamie Lee Curtis) doing a job that’s been fetishized to make men heroes and an affluent man (Ron Silver) who fetishizes the female cop he witnesses shoot a holdup man at the supermarket. As the man begins to stalk her, he’s afforded every creepy entrance into her personal space simply because he has a great lawyer and the police department doesn’t want the headache of the press if they put the dude in jail. This is the modern gender narrative that’s filmed like a 70s exploitation film; all leering closeups, slow motion blood blasts, and all the microphones dialed to 11 to catch every sloppy kiss, belly button lick, and bullets that blast through a megaphone.
Right from the get go, Bigelow stages an opening gut punch. Bigelow amplifies a domestic argument that sounds very, very close to boiling over into physical abuse or worse. We hear it dialed up while Curtis walks down an apartment hallway, gun drawn. She enters the apartment and the man has a gun to a woman’s head. She is able to shoot him first but she never looks at the woman who goes to collect her lover’s gun and bang Curtiswould bedead. Would be, because it’s a simulation, the woman’s gun never goes off; everyone laughs at her for not considering the woman as a threat.
The reason this opening works so well is because the sound of the argument is so intense, just peering into the doorway, gun drawn shows why movies have fetishized and built cops as heroes incarnate. It’s brave to enter that situation and it’s extra horrific because the anger of a man, well, you never know what you’ll see behind that door. But then the extra beat that this female cop would overlook the victim and then be killed by the victim is very telling. She’s out to get bad guys. But only once she’s a simulated victim does she start to see victimized women everywhere. And she starts sticking up for them because the men in her department don’t believe her story of the supermarket shootout because the gun wasn’t found. That’s just the floor of the power pyramid which takes her literally up into the NYC helicopter zone of untouchable men.
Blue Steeldefinitely has a few messy sexual moments but Bigelow ultimately gives a visceral tap on the shoulder of, this is consent, and this isn’t. Bigelow stages many different invasions of Curtis’ personal space in which she is told simply nothing can be done. The system allows for worse things to happen to her. And when she is assaulted, Bigelow doesn’t focus on that act but instead the system that silences women; particularly because this is a cocktail of silence being carried out by powerful men with badgesandpowerful men with money.
There’s also a very funny exchange when Curtis' cop has a conversation with a man at a BBQ who is threatened by her profession, since it’s usually men who have that authority. His attraction goes from red hot to downward. He asks her why she would do it and she says, “because I like to bang heads against the wall.” The man then says he has to leave and she tells him to not be so serious and lighten up a little. I couldn’t help but think that that BBQ conversation could’ve happened with Bigelow as such, “What do you do?” “I’m a film director.” “Oh, so you make rom-coms?” Bigelow: “I bang men’s heads against the walls.” Man walks away and Bigelow says, “Relax, that’s what you like to see isn’t it?"~ Brian Formo
Flirting (1991)
“It’s all right, you don’t have to tell me… But I think, if I liked someone enough, I’d want to…”
Watching now,Flirtinghas a built-inholy smokes!factor because it features very early work from future Hollywood starsThandie Newton, Nicole KidmanandNaomi Wattsand the future Aussie character actor,Noah Taylor. ButJohn Duigan’s underseen coming-of-age gem is so much more than a “before they were stars” clip show. Do you loveHarold and Maude? Consider this theversion of what if what separated Harold and Maude was not age but race, continents, and genocide.
Physically, what actually separates Thandiwe (Newton) and Danny (Taylor) is actually a lake that’s between the boy’s academy and the girl’s academy of a private Australian boarding school. Danny, here’s the Harold part, is an eccentric misfit who envisions the headmaster as part of the Third Reich and doesn’t attempt to make any pals at school. Thandiwe is the daughter of a Ugandan diplomat who’s teaching at an Australian university because his opposition to the new Ugandan government has made him unwelcome. It’s 1965 and the rock-and-roll radio invasion has found its way to this distant school across a much larger pond, where caning is still a regular part of discipline and dance attendance requires a haircut. Thandiwe is drawn to Danny because he has a rebellious spirit. He rows across the lake after midnight to flirt with her, she hides in the boys bathroom when she stays past curfew. It’s a very sweet courtship, but what makes it different here than any other similar film is that a conflict in Africa determines how long they’ll actually have to spend together. It’s a continent that young rebels had never really given much thought to at the time and everything that Danny learns is new. Not just kissing, foreplay or sex, but entirely new ideas of democracy, globalization, and revolution.
In addition to this fractured globe love affair that’s played out across a lake, what makesFlirtingextra special is that Duigan understands how complex teenagers actually are. In a lesser film, the mean girls who at first tease Thandiwe will get meaner and the boy who bullies Danny for his stutter will turn him in for leaving late at night to lay down with Thandiwe. Instead, the at-first icy Nicola (Kidman) and the bully reveal themselves to have layers and compassion for their fellow students' plight. That compassion doesn’t come from ana-haspeech, but just small and natural moments where they choose to not stop the lovebirds. It’s an awareness that the world is bigger than them and for this couple it’s a world that’s actually keeping them apart, but has somehow thrust them together for a brief moment.Flirtingis a lovely film that any fan of the above actors or the coming-of-age drama needs to seek out; though it’s been repackaged to look like an early Kidman vehicle, this is the rare “before they were stars” film that will actually lift your spirits to the stars.— Brian Formo
The Man in the Moon (1991)
“I wanna know you more… I wanna know you all I can.”
A 14-year-oldReese Witherspoonfalls in love with a neighbor boy (Jason London) in this note-perfect coming-of-age drama. She’s taking her first steps toward womanhood and becoming a woman also means dealing with jealousy. When her sister (Emily Warfield) falls for the same boy (which is a more age appropriate circumstance — but try telling that to a 14-year old) it tests her resolve.The Man in the Moonwas the last film directed byRobert Mulligan(To Kill a Mockingbird) who, though northeastern bred, seems most at home in the deep south.
The Man in the Moonisn’t a film full of sweeping romantic moments, but instead awakens the strange feelings of first attractions and how everything feels amazing and awful all at once. When Dani (Witherspoon) asks her sister how to kiss a boy, her sister shows her how to practice on her hand. The romance here is in the teenaged practice to receive it. And practice makes perfect.— Brian Formo
Jamón, Jamón (1992)
“You won’t be famous. Unless your balls make you famous.”
There are three businesses in the sweaty Spanish pueblo depicted inJamón Jamón: there’s the underwear factory, the ham factory, and the whorehouse. Sound like a set-up to a joke? It is. But there’s more. The town has a billboard of a bull whose testicles are so large they can be seen from miles away. The sun rises and sets, casting shadows from two big balls.
Conchita (Stefania Sandrelli) has some pretty big balls, too. She’s not too happy that her son, José Luís (Jordi Molla), has impregnated Silvia (Penelope Cruz). For no underwear magnate son of hers will marry the daughter of a prostitute. Conchita hires a hunk at the ham factory, Raúl (Javier Bardem) to seduce Silvia away from her son. But then that’s complicated when Conchita decides that she wants Raúl, too. Those are the basic ingredients for a hammy (guilty pleasure) melodrama. The characters are hungry for sex and power—and all of the town’s industries partake in animal flesh.
A delicious taste is damn near impossible to capture on screen. But an orgasm isn’t. DirectorBigas Lunacombines those two often: taste and sex.
The double ham is Silvia, who is renowned for her omelets: both the breakfast she makes and her breasts, which her lovers say taste like a ham omelet. When the men visit the brothel they explain that they’re hungry. There metaphors everywhere inJamón Jamón; you know those billboard testes will eventually get castrated; two men (let’s call them pigs) fight to the death with big shanks of ham.Jamón Jamónis most delicious when it provides a dash of foreplay. Such as when Raúl inserts a garlic clove into a pig’s anus prior to one of his many sexual conquests. Afterward he’s gonna slaughter that pig, put it in an omelet and it’s going to taste just as good as his lovers body.— Brian Formo
Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. (1992)
The other day, I was on the number 2 train with my friends, just buggin’ out, having a good time, and people started starring at us like we were some sort of street girls with no future. Yo, when I’m with my friends, I act like it don’t matter, cuz it don’t! But between you and me, that shit pisses me off. When they think they can just judge you by the way you dress, uh-uh! I always get As and Bs in all my classes. I’m the best student in my calc class! People be trippin’ when they find out how smart I really am.
Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.isLeslie Harris’only film and it’s a damn shame, but at least with one film she gave us an instantly memorable character for anyone who sees it. Chantel (Ariyan A. Johnson) is a hip, outspoken, and immensely intelligent Brooklyn teenager. She’s also black and her friends are black and though she can fire back at the preconceived notions of people on the train who don’t even know her, she also knows she faces extra external challenges to meet her goals without accepting compromises. Chantel wants to go to medical school, she wants to raise a family, and she wants to escape the Brooklyn life that her friends have accepted as their only option.
Chantel speaks the truth in every class and Harris’ film is alive with immense energy and awareness of expectations; individuality doesn’t need to be shoved down to defeat expectations, but rather to flourish in their natural pluralities. I wish this were the 90’s teen hit it deserves to be.~ Brian Formo
