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The 1990s were a great time for film, and the decade produced some certified bangers out of Hollywood and beyond. Quentin Tarantino was at the forefront of indie film prestige alongside his contemporaries like Steven Soderbergh, Richard Linklater and Paul Thomas Anderson. Meanwhile, blockbuster films like The Matrix and Titanic were redefining the mainstream. Thus, it’s hard to pick out just five of the best films from the ’90s, but Watch With Us has taken on this impossible task. Check out our favorite ’90s masterpieces, and where you can watch them right now. ‘Heat’ (1995) Expert criminal Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) has been able to evade justice for his entire career, and his life outside the rule of law sees retirement on the horizon— until a bank job gone awry in downtown LA puts the fuzz hot on his tail. While dealing with the rogue, duplicitous Waingro (Kevin Gage), McCauley is also forced to deal with Detective Vincent Hannah (Al Pacino). As Hannah deals with his chaotic personal life, he tries to capture McCauley, but the pair find themselves perfectly matched. Michael Mann’s epic crime thriller is a stylish and compelling work of engrossing character drama and philosophical commentary, as the director considers the relativity of good and evil amidst a deeply atmospheric and sleekly directed film. While dark and melancholy, Heat is anything but a slog, and the three-hour runtime is a cake walk when anchored by two career-best performances from De Niro and Pacino. If you like your crime films smart and psychological, Heat is one of the best ever made. Watch Heat on Paramount+ now. ‘Basic Instinct’ (1992) While the fourth-highest-grossing film of 1992 and so popular that it inspired a slew of imitators, Paul Verhoeven’s erotic thriller was highly controversial upon release. Once criticized for its overly sexualized content, violence and depiction of gay relationships, the film has received critical reevaluation in the decades since. It is now considered by many to be a transgressive triumph of neo-noir filmmaking, and its once contentious depictions of sexuality are now viewed as having been groundbreaking. Basic Instinct follows Sharon Stone‘s Catherine Tramell, a popular crime novelist who is suspected of murdering a retired rock star during sex. Beautiful and enigmatic, Catherine is investigated by homicide detective Nick Curran (Michael Douglas), who is taken in further and further under her spell the more he spends time around her. Nick becomes fully seduced by Catherine and they fall into an intense sexual relationship, as deaths continue to pile up, and he finds a curious link between Catherine and his psychologist and lover, Beth (Jeanne Tripplehorn). Watch Basic Instinct on Tubi now. ‘Casino’ (1995) It’s 1970s Las Vegas, gambling expert, handicapper and mobster Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro) has been picked to head the Tangiers Casino by his bosses in the Chicago Outfit. Initially, Sam leads the casino to great success, and it’s there that he falls in love with the beautiful showgirl and con artist, Ginger (Sharton Stone), who eventually becomes his wife and the mother of his child. But as the years progress, Sam’s leadership becomes increasingly strained as he finds himself surrounded by erratic and corrupt characters who put his life in danger. Casino is just one of Martin Scorsese‘s many mobster epics, but it’s probably the one that has the most balls-to-the-walls pacing. Casino throws you in and it doesn’t let go until it’s through with you, but the three-hour picture flies by in a narrative that is both exhausting and thrilling in the best ways. Led by fantastic performances from De Niro, Stone and Joe Pesci, Casino showcases the high-energy filmmaking and meticulous world-building that Scorsese is a master at. Watch Casino on Amazon Prime Video now. ‘Jurassic Park’ (1993) Paleontologists Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) are whisked from their dig site by billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), who boasts that he’s been able to bring dinosaurs back to life for a theme park. They arrive at Jurassic Park to find that it’s no joke, and dinosaurs really are roaming the earth again. But as noted by fellow tour guest, Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), “Life finds a way,” and soon all of Hammond’s guinea pigs must run for their lives because he tried to play God. Based on Michael Crichton’s science-fiction novel of the same name, Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster masterwork is a “theme park film” in all the best ways. If it seems like there haven’t been any good dinosaur films since Jurassic Park, it’s because there aren’t — they’re all just trying to be like Jurassic Park. With a sharp story, memorable characters and groundbreaking CGI that still dazzles, Jurassic Park makes you believe dinosaurs really exist again. Watch Jurassic Park on Netflix now. ‘Cure’ (1997) In Tokyo, Detective Kenichi Takabe (Kōji Yakusho) begins investigating a series of brutal murders that have the same set of bizarre circumstances: the perpetrators all confess to their crimes, but can’t figure out why they committed them. Eventually, Takabe connects the crimes to encounters with a strange drifter named Kunihiko Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara), who seems to be suffering from short-term memory loss. Takabe’s probing of Mamiya finds links to an unnerving fixation on mesmerism and murder, which itself chillingly lacks any motive. Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa‘s psychological horror masterpiece is a tense and disquieting slice of neo-noir that is disturbing both in its filmmaking style and in the ambiguity of its unsettling antagonist. Considered by many critics to be at the forefront of the “J-horror” movement beginning in the late ’90s, it also ranked on Parasite director Bong Joon-ho’s Sight & Sound list of the greatest films of all time. Like the character of Mamiya, Cure is deliriously mesmerizing; a clinical but absorbing synthesis of detective thriller and occult possession horror. Watch Cure on The Criterion Channel now.
