15 Most Underrated Movies Of The 90s

Somehow, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jim Carrey deserve MORE love for their 1990s films.

by James Hunt
Event Horizon
Paramount Pictures

The 1990s were a strange time for cinema. After the transitional period of the 60s, which went from historical epics and into the New Hollywood that would help define the 70s, and then the sheer fun of the 80s, the 90s was a mish-mash of the rise of indie cinema and huge breakthroughs in CGI that led to films both homaging the past and blazing a new trail for the future.

It gave us Groundhog Day. It bore witness to the birth of Quentin Tarantino as a superstar director, and A-listers who'd come to define the next 20-years of movies. Animated films were taken to new heights, Steven Spielberg delivered two of the greatest blockbusters of all time, Star Wars came back, and there were at least three of the most shocking twists in cinema history. It gave us Groundhog Day...

But for every Pulp Fiction, Jurassic Park, or Toy Story, all held up and lauded as high-points of the decade and cultural touchstones for a generation, there are movies that don't get the praise they deserve. Movies that were overlooked by audiences, or wrongly dismissed by critics. Great, good, or just plain interesting, they all deserve to be rated a lot higher than they are.

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NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.

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WhatCulture's former COO, veteran writer and editor.

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WhatCulture's Head of Gaming.

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WhatCulture's Managing Editor and Chief Reporter | Previously seen in Vice, Esquire, FourFourTwo, Sabotage Times, Loaded, The Set Pieces, and Mundial Magazine

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Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.

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Horror film junkie, burrito connoisseur, and serial cat stroker. WhatCulture's least favourite ginger.