15 Movies You Won’t Believe Are 20 Years Old

Cast your mind back a decade or two. The year was 1997 and classic tunes like Aqua’s Barbie Girl and Hanson’s MMMBop were dominating the airwaves, J.K. Rowling’s first ever Harry Potter book was released and any dedicated follower of fashion worth their salt wouldn’t be caught dead in public without having first slathered themselves in body glitter and donning at least two items of denim.

It was a truly great time.

Alongside such wider cultural milestones, over in the world of cinema we were treated to some rather memorable (and not always in a good way) offerings too. It was the year of sinking ships and shaggable spies, of prosthetic penises and batsh*t crazy action flicks and sci-fi films – and those very movies somehow turned 20 this year.

So, in the spirit of nostalgia take a trip down movie memory lane with us as we remember 1997’s most noteworthy films, from the great to the so-bad-they’re-good to the downright terrible.

It's time to feel really, really old...

Luc Besson’s visually vibrant and utterly outlandish sci-fi has been called both the best and worst summer blockbuster of 1997. But love it or hate it, a future set sci-fi that isn’t all dystopian doom and gloom but fun, colourful and poppy is pretty hard to come by.

Not to mention that for a 90s sci-fi action flick it’s surprisingly progressive. Not only do we see its typically masculine hero Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) getting teary-eyed during an admittedly beautiful operatic aria performed by a blue tentacled alien and Chris Tucker as hyper-sexual, androgynous radio talk show host Ruby Rhod, every costume was designed by decadent French fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, which goes a long way to explain how the movie is so OTT.

One of its biggest detractors, film critic Todd McCarthy, called it “a largely misfired European attempt to make an American-style sci-fi spectacular”. Surely that’s exactly what makes it so good?