8 Movies That Should Be Required Viewing For All 90s Kids

It seems like every other movie preview that shows up during a commercial break in our regularly scheduled programming turns out to be a massive flop.

I loved the movies that I grew up with in the 90s. There were some that I was unable to watch because I wasn't old enough, and my parents wouldn't let. Going back through the movies of the 90s now, here are 8 highly underrated movies from the decade.

1. That Thing You Do (1996)

The story of a band who loses their drummer and must find a replacement. The new drummer brings a certain attitude and tempo that makes the band wildly successful, but as with all things that start out too good to be true, trouble often follows. Tom Hanks made his directorial debut with this film, and it featured stars Liv Tyler and Steve Zahn. It even had a cameo from a younger Bryan Cranston.

2. Small Soldiers (1998)

This was an epic kids movie. It had everything you wanted: good versus evil, the struggle for survival, and quite a bit of cartoon violence. When I say violence, I quite literally mean that the bad guys (in this case the human soldier action figures) were killing machines, hell bent on taking out their perceived enemy, the peace-loving Gorgonites. Unfortunately, it didn't do well on release, thanks to being marketed to a younger age group than it should have been.

3. Gattaca (1997)

Personally, I think that Ethan Hawke is one greasy dude, but that's just my opinion. But for the sake of this movie, he did a pretty good job playing his role. This futuristic dystopian look at how the world could potentially end up had a lot of audiences yawning when it first came out. It just wasn't what they were looking for at the time. Hawke stars alongside Jude Law, as Law's character helps him into tricking the system into thinking he was a "valid" human being. This movie is worth watching now, and it will leave you thinking about the future.

4. Darkman (1990)

Sam Raimi created his own superhero for this particular movie, and it was amazing. Darkman, played by Liam Neeson, is a disfigured scientist who ends up gaining superhuman strength when his lab is destroyed, at the cost of his appearance. He moves in the shadows (literally and hypothetically) because of the way he looks, but he uses his synthetic skin to become several different people.  

5. Stir of Echos (1999)

This supernatural thriller was originally skewered by audiences as nothing more than a rip off of the The Sixth Sense. Sure, a child can see and communicate with the dead, but this is a dark and creepy murder mystery nothing like the Shyamalan movie. This is one of Kevin Bacon's many 90s film credits, and it will have you on the edge of your seat.

6. Tremors (1990)

This is my favorite movie on this list. It was (and still is) the epitome of a cheesy monster movie, but it was still freaking awesome. Oh ya, it was another Kevin Bacon film. These subterranean beasts are extremely attuned to sounds and vibrations in the ground, and they wreak havoc on a small Nevada town. It is up to a band of townsfolk to survive and take out as many of these monsters as they can.  

7. One Eight Seven (1997)

187 is the cop code for a homicide, so that should give you a good idea of the direction that this movie goes in. This was Samuel L. Jackson's first movie lead, and he plays a New York school teacher who moves to Los Angeles after he is stabbed by one of his students and almost dies. When he gets to LA, he begins a vigilante crusade against the gangs that are terrorizing the school that he now works in. This is one intense movie.

8. 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

A very young Heath Ledger stars in this coming-of-age movie, alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Julia Stiles, as a "bad boy" with a good heart. It is an adaptation of Shakespeare's, The Taming of the Shrew. This was a coming of age teen movie that actually did well with a more adult audience.

These movies are a great choice for a throwback movie marathon over a cold weekend this winter.