Those lucky enough to live through the nineties will have many great memories. It was the last time that we lived in a world that wasn’t dominated by the World Wide Web, the Spice Girls seemed to always be on the radio, and the UK was obsessed with a pink bulbous creature known as “Mr Blobby”.
The only electronic devices you carried in your pocket were Tamagochis or pagers, Apple still only made computers, and TVs were giant square boxes.
The 1990s gave us many great things: Beanie Babies, Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, and the Sony PlayStation. The decade also gave us some incredible movies that became instant classics. Many have been recreated in more recent years, but the originals are still worth watching today.
Rounders
Rounders first hit cinema screens in 1998, telling the story of a law student named Mike who has a talent for playing poker. Despite training to be a lawyer, his dream is to one day take part in the World Series of Poker, the world’s biggest poker tournament.
However, he mostly takes part in underground games which see him getting mixed up with unsavoury characters. After losing a large sum of money in a rigged game, Mike vows to give up playing cards, focus on law school, and start a completely new life with his girlfriend.
Things go smoothly for a while until an old friend is released from prison and needs help to pay off a debt. Mike soon ends up playing poker again to help his friend with plenty of twists and turns along the way.
The movie is credited with kick-starting Matt Damon’s acting career. It’s also believed to be one of the reasons that online poker became so popular in the early 2000s during a period known as the “Poker Boom”. This saw many complete beginners start to play games like Texas Hold ‘em online. To cater to them, leading companies in the industry began providing guides and educational content that allowed them to get to grips with the rules and basic mechanics.
Toy Story
Toy Story is another 1990s film that kick-started a revolution, but this time it was the use of digital animation in feature-length movies. Released in 1995, Toy Story was the first of many films created by Pixar, an offshoot of Lucasfilm that received investment from Steve Jobs.
It told the story of a bunch of toys and what they got up to while there were no humans around to watch. It follows the internal struggle that Woody, the lead toy, goes through after a new and exotic space toy, Buzz Lightyear, is introduced to the group.
While there is a lot of tension between Woody and Buzz, they eventually make friends and work together to escape from a pyromaniac set on blowing up Buzz with a firework.
Toy Story’s success has led to three sequels, as well as several other hits for Pixar, including Finding Nemo, WALL-E, and A Bug’s Life.
Titanic
Jame’s Cameron’s Titanic became the highest-grossing film of all time when it was released in 1997, surpassing another 1990s hit, Jurassic Park. It retained that top spot for 12 years, until another of Cameron’s movies, Avatar, knocked it into second place. In 2019, it was relegated to third place after Avengers: Endgame narrowly took the title having grossed $2.797 billion.
Although it wasn’t his first lead role, Leonard DiCaprio’s career given a huge boost for his portrayal of Jack Dawson.
Titanic chronicles the fate of the doomed RMS Titanic, a passenger ship that struck an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean and sunk in 1912. It combines a historically-accurate retelling of the events of that night and a fictional plot between the two lead characters that shines a light on the class struggles of the time.
DiCaprio played Jack Dawson, a working-class man who wins a ticket on the ill-fated ship in a poker game that later falls in love with Rose, a woman who comes form wealth. Rose DeWitt Bukater, played by Kate Winslet, was from the upper echelons of society and the two become acquainted after a chance encounter.
The two falls in love, but their relationship ends up being only fleeting after being caught up in the events of the night.
Titanic remains a classic that can be watched over and over again, despite being 24 years old.