Why do people love the ‘90s so much?

So while I was born in the 2000s, I never lived during the ‘90s so I will never be able to get what others experienced.

I have always felt frustrated that whenever people name what their favorite movies are, it is always a 90s movie, even if it is somebody who grew up in the 60s or 70s. Why do people love the 90s so much when I always found it to be the least interesting of the second half of the 20th century. Probably because they seem more dry and more serious when movies in prior decades just had more of that charm that I like.

We still had great movies from that decade though like LA Confidential, Toy Story, Leon the Professional, Pulp Fiction, and Goodfellas and many others.

My favorite decades have always been the 60s and 70s, even if I do find The Godfather to be a tad overrated. Throughout my posts, you might see me name many many 60s and 70s movies. I just think that the French New Wave was interesting along with other film movements and I think that movies from those decades are just more fun and interesting to watch.

Assuming you're referring to people from your age group, I think it's just because most people born in the 2000's don't regularly watch films from the 70's, 60's, the French New Wave, etc. I'm sure most of my irl friends have heard of the 90's films you mentioned, but far less of them have heard of, say, Godard and his most acclaimed films. Not necessarily because they don't like him or prefer 90's films over him. It's just typically not in their wheelhouse of what they watch in their spare time. It sucks, but their loss lmao.

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It's probably a demographic thing: most forum users are around <whatever> age, so they were <whatever> age in a particular decade (in this case, the 90s).

I was born in the 1960s but I don't particularly love movies from the 90s. I prefer movie from the 50s, though all decades have great movies.

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Best decade for film AND music are the '70s (1a) and '90s (1b).

Was born in the late '50s.

It's a sensible "attractor" of attention.



It's a bridge decade between old cats who are still in the 80s (e.g., yours truly) and younger (but still older than most) who grew up with these films and those who watched these films as kids in the 2000s In terms of eye ball traffic, it makes sense that a lot of people have seen these films.



Memberberries are a flavor enhancer. We don't recognize classics as easily when they are recent. The aughts and the teen years of the new century are closer in time to us.



This was before the fragmentation of eyeballs into proliferating streaming content, so again eye-ball traffic. I didn't watch Pulp Fiction as an exclusive on a "+" service. I went to the movies to see it and the movies weren't competing with Scorsese making content for Netflix.



And new movies suck, so there's that.

In general, if there is a particular affinity for the 90's by those who lived through it, I'd guess it's because it was the last decade before the world changed.

After the 9/11 attacks in 2001 everything was different. For many, certain aspects of life changed and the concept of our country's standing & perception in the world was altered - in some ways for the good & in some ways for the bad. And we are still experiencing resulting effects from those alterations today.

The 90's came after the 80's which was called the "Me" decade - one of self-centeredness, personal accumulation & greed. The 90's (although with its own turbulence) may have represented, for some, a move back toward center - a move away from the selfishness & materialism of the 80's. But with the coming of the 21st century, the relative stability of the 90's was shattered by international terrorism.

I have to remind myself that younger folk didn't really grow up in the same America. They grew up in the post-America of the Patriot Act, unending wars, media fragmentation, social media, lock downs, culture wars which have made Thanksgiving more of a chore than a celebration, the birth of a new religion, and doomer climate malaise.

As people we struggle to find culture touchstones in pursuit of some sensus communis. Movies from the 90s are one such dwindling resource. It's that seemingly innocent decade that came before.

Obviously the only way to find out is to ask this panel of C-list comedians in front of colorful backgrounds.

Exactly. Having grown used to the current times, we forget what life was like in the late 20th century. The change of 2001 (the year, not the movie...) effected everything at some level: movie-making, movie-going, and movie-viewing included.

As I've mentioned many times on this site...my favorite decade for movies was the 1970's.

I think most of my favorite movies are from the 2000s but I do like a lot of 90s movies. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I was in my teens in the 90s and my 20s in the 2000s and back then I would go to the movie theater almost weekly so my consumption of new movies was much higher then than it is now.

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I was born in the 80s. Don't like the 90s. I love the 1930-70s (same with music, and pretty much everything else).

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What?

I think that was VH1 joke 🥳

I Love the 90s

I haven't noticed this phenomenon, per se.

I have noticed that about nostalgia, in general. That moviegoers and people in-general see things with tinted glasses when looking backwards instead of at what is in-front of them or in their near proximity.

I was born in 1996, which means I mostly grew up in the 2000s, and personally, I always felt like the 1990s were seen sort-of lowly, and that everyone had, and still has, an unwavering affection for the 1980s (some the 70s, but most often when someone is trying to capitalize off nostalgia, it feels ripped right outta the 80s).

You've got a point there. When I was a kid in the 60's and 70's, nostalgia for the 50's was huge. Not the movies so much as the clothing and the music. Especially, for a rawer kind of rock and roll than the stadium rock that was huge in the 70's.