a starter pack celebrating the rebels of cinema’s most unruly decade • Journal • A Magazine • , Life in canada

When we think of cinema of the 1990s, we often think of broken ceilings and smashed records; the soaring financial heights of box-office juggernauts like James Cameron’s Titanic; the watershed technical accomplishments of Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Toy Story; and the audacity of indie features including Clerks and The Blair Witch Project, which foraged new paths for the economy and marketing of films made on shoestring budgets. But there was another world of pictures happening in the ’90s: films that also broke the mold narratively, aesthetically and, perhaps, morally. It was a time of rebellion, a willingness to defy taxonomy or good taste, and much of it was perpetuated by major movie studios looking to cash in on the ballooning multiplex and video markets.

I came of age in the ’90s, growing up in video stores and the confines of local theater chains. Between the wealth of multiplex studio programmers and direct-to-video offerings hitting store shelves in the same week, there was never a shortage of something truly strange on offer from one platform or another. Studios leaned into oddball IPs, setting the stage for comic book and video game movies to come; DTV companies capitalized on the action-heavy hits of the decade and churned out more modest riffs on tough-guy fodder; horror boomed in a big way even if it was rarely celebrated critically; erotic thrillers reigned supreme at video stores and, in some capacity, on theater screens nationally.

There was something for, and to offend, everyone. It was the last lawless decade for movies and, maybe, the most lawless as well. What follows is a list of twenty (one) films that exemplify this trend, culled from a list of more than 600. To spread them out fairly, I have limited it to two features from each year, with only one entry per filmmaker (which was admittedly difficult for both Davids: Cronenberg and Lynch).