After the turn of the new year, there were several popular memes that began to circulate that stated “2050 is as far away as 1990” from 2020. The popularity came from the hard-to-believe truth that the middle of the 21st century is only 30 years away. But just as shocking is that the year 1990 is now 30 years in our rearview.
For film buffs, 1990 was a pretty interesting year in movies. Film culture hadn’t yet made the shift to the indy film craze, which was still about four years off. However, although star-driven, studio blockbusters still dominated the cineplexes just as they had in the 80s, unique and diverse voices were beginning to permeate filmdom. Movies like Miller’s Crossing, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, King of New York, Jacob’s Ladder, and Darkman from filmmakers like the Coen brothers and Sam Raimi showed that there was more to be said than what mainstream cinema had to offer. For the purposes of this list, though, we are focusing on the most memorable films from 1990. So here are the 10 Most Iconic Films From 1990, Ranked.
10 Joe Versus The Volcano
One of Tom Hanks more underrated comedies, this may in fact be Hanks at his comedic best. Co-starring Meg Ryan, who he would go on to star with three years later in 2003’s blockbuster hit Sleepless in Seattle, Joe Versus the Volcano features Hanks as an average Joe named, um, Joe, who is stuck in a dead-end, soul-sucking job.
When Joe learns that he is dying from a mysterious illness called a “brain cloud,” he decides to take an offer to travel to a tropical island to sacrifice himself in a volcano for the island’s inhabitants. Filled with hilarious one-liners and wonderful visuals, Joe is a true gem of a film.
9 Dances With Wolves
Kevin Costner’s film about a Union Army lieutenant who befriends the Lakota tribe in the American frontier after being reassigned to and isolated at remote outpost Fort Sedgwick was one of the most successful films to come out of 1990. Directed by and starring Costner and adapted from Michael Blake’s book by Blake himself, Dances with Wolves captured seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
In addition, the film was also a huge financial success, earning $424 million worldwide and becoming the fourth highest-grossing film of 1990.
8 Misery
Based on Stephen King’s 1987 novel of the same name, Misery tells the tale of author Paul Sheldon, who is involved in a car crash on a snowy Colorado highway and rescued by one of his biggest fans, a nurse named Annie Wilkes. When the mentally unstable Wilkes learns Sheldon is ending her favorite book series, she decides to keep him captive and violently force him to write another novel in the series.
Directed by Rob Reiner (his second King adaptation following 1986’s Stand by Me) and starring James Caan as Paul and Kathy Bates as Annie, Bates would take home that year's Best Actress Oscar for her incredible work.
7 Pretty Woman
This is the story that launched Julia Roberts into mega-star territory. Directed by iconic television writer-producer Garry Marshall, the film co-stars Richard Gere as Edward Lewis, a wealthy corporate raider who hires Roberts’ Vivian Ward to escort him to a variety of events while he is in L.A.
Of course, over the course of the next few days, Edward and Vivian develop a romance and fall in love. The film was a huge success, grossing over $463 million worldwide and earning Julia Roberts an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress.
6 Ghost
Maybe best known as the film that re-popularized pottery and the Righteous Brothers “Unchained Melody,” Ghost stars Patrick Swayze as banker Sam Wheat and Demi Moore as his girlfriend Molly Jensen. After discovering some banking anomalies, Sam and Molly are mugged at gunpoint, with Sam being shot and killed.
Sam becomes a ghost and, with the aid of Oda Mae Brown, played by Whoopi Goldberg in an Oscar-winning Best Supporting Actress performance, avenges his death and reconnects with Molly. Directed by Jerry Zucker, best known for directing the comedies Airplane! and The Naked Gun with his brother David, Ghost became the top-grossing film of 1990, pulling in over $500 million worldwide.
5 Total Recall
Fresh off the success of sci-fi actioners The Terminator, The Running Man, and Predator, Arnold Schwarzenegger teamed with RoboCop director Paul Verhoeven to star in this ultra-violent, R-rated mind-bender. Loosely based on acclaimed science fiction writer Philip K. Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” Total Recall tells the story of Douglas Quaid, a construction worker obsessed with a colonized Mars who goes to a dream implant center called Rekall for an escapist vacation/adventure.
When the implant procedure goes awry, Quaid awakens with memories of another life, propelling him on a wild journey to Mars to discover his true identity. The film grossed an impressive $260 million off a $50-65 million budget and is generally viewed as one of Schwarzenegger’s best.
4 Edward Scissorhands
Tim Burton’s dark fantasy feature followed his earlier successes Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, and Batman. The gothic fairy tale stars Johnny Depp as the titular character, a humanoid creation of an old inventor with scissors for hands. After the inventor’s death, Edward goes to live with a suburban family and falls in love with their daughter, Kim (Winona Ryder), all while learning how to fit into “normal” society.
The film was a big financial success and is regarded by many, including Burton himself, as the director’s best work.
3 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Based on the Eastman and Laird black-and-white comics, TMNT became the highest-grossing independent film at the time, racking up over $200 million off a relatively minuscule $13 million budget. Although it borrowed some elements from the 80s animated television show, the film was based largely on the very first issue of the comic book series.
With creature effects created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, a humorous, exciting screenplay, and a dark, gritty look faithful to the comics, the film was very well-received by fans at the time and to this day is held as the gold standard among the Turtles franchise.
2 Goodfellas
Martin Scorsese returned to the gangster drama last year with his much-anticipated epic The Irishman, but it is this 1990 film that he is most well-known for. Based on the 1985 book Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi, the film about mobster Henry Hill and his time spent growing up inside the mafia is regarded as an American cinematic masterpiece and one of the best mafia-related films of all-time.
Starring frequent Scorsese collaborator Robert DeNiro, Ray Liotta, and Joe Pesci, the film famously lost out on multiple Academy Awards to Kevin Costner’s Dancing with Wolves, with the sole win coming in the Best Supporting Actor category for Pesci’s portrayal of mafia hothead Tommy DeVito.
1 Home Alone
This Christmas classic, directed by Chris Columbus off a screenplay by legendary writer-director John Hughes, was an instant success upon its release. It opened to sold-out theaters nationwide and would maintain the top box-office spot for twelve straight weeks, ultimately finishing its run as the highest-grossing domestic film of 1990.
The film, about a young boy named Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin) who is accidentally left home by his family as they go on vacation to France and is then forced to defend his home from a pair of bungling burglars (played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern), has become a Christmas staple and is held in high regards by most.
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