The Best of 90s Cool - The Genre that Time Forgot 

That's Jay's opinion, not mine. I still dig the look.

Me too. ....if that has aged horribly then show me the NEW COOL that's replaced it. These people just talk complete crap to get attention. @LifeofSlicey1 - If you don't agree with that pathetic comment, why give it any shred of credibility by including it it in your video?

Two reasons: 1) I handled this video like I would write a college paper. Since I'm a nobody, it's good to have "quotes" from subject matter experts. I'm using Redlettermedia to introduce the "techno music and sword fights" concept and strengthen the argument. 2) By making a video lovingly discussing this style, in a way I'm indirectly saying I disagree with him on that point.

I agree. Having the guys from Red Letter Media saying that phrase as an opener maybe wanna click out of the video.

Nothing will ever be cooler than the nightclub scene in Blade or the hallway scene in the Matrix. Sorry. We reached peak cool in 1999.

Well said, so many movies like Ultraviolet that were kind of shit, but still lot of fun, the 90s movies definitely put fun first.

The definition of style over substance, another great example of it would be Equilibrium

​@@DenethorDurrandirultraviolet was cheezy but cool as hell

Let's be honest, as a kid who revelled in those movies back in the day, unfortunately these days they REALLY start to look dated. Or at least that's how it's been a couple of years ago... Come to think of it after watching this video, they are maybe starting to look better again...

I'll never tired to mention this in, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN Is Essential 90's Cool! It's got Gangsters, Vampires, Hostage Situation, Strip Bar, DIY Vampire Weapons, Ancient Pyramids with a Stacked cast of George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, Salma Hayek, Juliette Lewis and Harvey Keitel.

Yep same

Just wait till you see genzers say the same thing about 20's cool...

Yep

Me too..wow

Also soon 40, the next February. Where did the time go... 😭 Anywho, I agree 100%. '90s and early 2000's was when entertaiment hit its peak, be it videogames or movies. Outside of John Wick the modern movies rarely have any sense of style. I miss the '90s.

The 90's were awesome in so many ways. It was definitely the creative peak of movies and music. It was all downhill from there, unfortunately. It was pre 9/11 when you could drive all you wanted and not worry about the cost of gas. Women had brains to go with their bodies, and their worth was not mutually exclusive to either or. Men were still men, inspired by other classic examples of the stoic hero: aggressive, intelligent, moral. Cost of living was reasonable, and opportunities were aplenty. Education was better, producing better prepared youths. Creativity and critical thinking were far more encouraged and valued. People were more intuned with each other and built relationships in person, opposed to over a cellphone. The culture was not caught up in a digital fantasy world that it is today. The Matrix is more relevant today than it was in the 90's. The 90's wasn't perfect, but it was a damn site better than the world of today. Sometimes, I think of all the cool action movies and their characters from the 90's. I think of the threats they faced and I put them all together in my mind. It almost seems like all the 90's heroes failed to overpower the threats that seem to prevail today. We can't outmuscle things anymore. We're in a psychological battle. Perhaps even a battle for our souls. But the 90's hero archetype is still useful as an inspiration of how to deal with modern problems. Obviously, we can't whip out two pistols and blow the enemy away. But we can be introspective and use our strength of mind and common sense to guide us. We can still be fiercely determined and unyielding in our moral conduct. We can flip off that which is unjust and stands to rob us of the good life, not unlike Stone Cold Steve Austin flipping off Vince McMahon. We can choose to go our own way without fear of fitting in with the crowd. We can go down the rabbit hole while everybody has their steak dinners and sells their souls to the enemy. Most importantly, we can watch our favorite 90's movies and live those times all over again! Just one movie brings back the feeling of the baggy pants and big sweaters, the CKone drydown smell on my clothes, the smell of my first girlfriends cherry lip balm, Nine Inch Nails; Metallica; and Limpbizkit coming from my CD player, the Doc Martin's, trench coats, Blockbuster, and all the other good stuff. So long 90's. I will remember you fondly.

@@MaaZeus could extend that mindset into the 80s. A lot of classics from that era as well. Some of my favorite movies are from that period. Entertainment in general was...well... entertaining.

@@gregorydacosta2102 you really went into depth, didn't you? But well spoken. I can agree with everything you said. and who knew that music could get so terrible coming off the heels of bands like Metallica and NIN? You'd think it could only be an upward trajectory at that point, but music fell off quick, especially in the metal scene. There's still good new music (and movies) that come out but it's so few and far between that a lot of the time I don't even bother. But when it does come out it reminds me of a better time indeed.

@ModeSOLOgaming Yeah, I am good at rambling. Forgive me. I have Covid and commenting on videos is about all I can do right now.🤣

Agreed! 90s/00s were awesome. Modern day movies/pop culture is gay and shitty.

'90s were more focused without a dozen separate streaming services and thousands of other shows available 24/7 online, which probably explains bigger budgets for new stuff instead of endless sequels and reboots. I was impressed with G.I. Joe's explosion count, though.

@@obvioushieidude7668 This is the most 90s comment possible - right on.

I am really glad that I still rememeber time when my farther bought the first DVD player for his whole salary and he also bought "some Matrix" to play something on that. I think it was still pretty good to like 2007, but then, everything changed, movies are not cool anymore. Or they are trying to be cool (like Marvel for example), but it will get you bored after some time and it's not cool anymore, all these modern movies are the same, while between like 1980-2005, every movie was unique and you can easily recognize what movies is that by few shots in TV or by soundtrack.

Yes, it did.

05 is not the 90s I couldn’t agreee with this list of movies he only mentioned seven which were actually made in the 90s

Hell yeah

Yeah, 90's cool will never go out of style.

Trench coats haven’t aged well… the only people who wear them nowadays is the weird fedora kid in high school lol

@@NorthWestPvPlolrektnoobTrench coats are fine but they’re definitely not children’s fashion. They look perfectly normal and reasonable on the average adult

uhhh yeah its quite literally the exact opposite. swords and techno are massively popular today

I often use "Techno" as a catch-all word for electronic music (I guess I am giving away my age by saying this)! 🤣🤣🤣

‘We need jungle’

No one called it "Dance Music" either... it was simply "Techno "; the same way people say "EDM" now. If you were a Techno enthusiastic, THEN you would classify it into House, Jungle, Breakbeat, Drum N Bass, Trance, Progressive, etc.

​@@seandimarcoif you are American then yes, everyone called it techno as a catch all

Check my channel I made an edit that makes that movie look a lot more 90s

I can tell the guy that wrote it watched the crow +20 times.

Thats not an insult. The crow was awesome.

and Seven @@bsaintnyc

As I wanted to hate it.. I agree and watch it all the time

YES! One of my favorite movies of all time

Seven definitely belongs there. It alone influences modern cinema still.

​@tdvh2181 what's in the box? Goop apparently lol sorry I had to make the joke

Now I cannot stop myself from imagining Brad Pitt’s David Mills and Morgan Freeman’s William Somerset wearing cool shades and black dusters while fighting Kevin Spacey’s John Doe with katanas while techno music is playing.

It's too bad I only watched it for the fisrt time a couple of years ago. It didn't hit nearly as powerful stylistically and in terms of "horror" as it would if I were a teenager in the mid 2000-s

I love dark city just picked it up at goodwill I should put it on. Seen it a billion times. Yay for richard O'Brian. I'm in a rocky horror cast now finally

Very informative comment! I like that name, Dark Deco. Would be perfect for a band or youtube channel.

@@LifeofSlicey1 It was first coined for Batman: The Animated Series, which definitely was an example of 90s cool with its dark and brooding protagonist and the oppressive retro-futuristic atmosphere of Gotham. And y'know, the Burton Batman movies that it spun off from (in spirit, if not in the story), was definitely a big influence on 90s cool as a whole.

I wouldn’t say that’s why you get it in Dark City, it’s a very deliberate choice in Dark City to go along with its whole retro noir thing. With The Matrix though it’s probably just a factor of reusing some Dark City set.

@@DIOBrando-ij2bp There were a few very specific parts of the city used that have that art deco architecture in some scenes in Dark City. Sydney has a lot of this, the old warehouses near Harbour Bridge is one location that springs to mind. but they both could have been probably shot anywhere.

Strange Days was really ahead of its time.

And From Dusk Till Dawn, that was the best 90's vampire / gangster movie!

Strange days is massively underrated.

I love that movie. In a way it foreshadowed the future with those pov videos

I came into the comments to point out about Strange Days, eXistenZ and Thirteenth floor Thank you, good sir

Very good argument for Men in Black. This concept is pretty new and open to interpretation. I'm really glad to see people like you in the comments opening up the conversation about what 90s cool can be.

@@LifeofSlicey1 Thank you! I look forward to your future vid on the less successful movies. You're doing good stuff!

Although I enjoyed the small Golden Age of film that occurred in the '90s (rise of independents films, World Cinema from Asia and Europe, Merchant Ivory prestige films) its unmistakable how things began to look very bland and same. Say what you want about the "gawdy" 1980s- the style of the 80s was unique deeply personal. By the late '90s everybody was coming out of the Black trench-coat, Doc Marten's, & wraparound Sunglasses factory. BORING!

Can't under estimate how popular that dance was as well

Men In Black was basically a comedy, not an action movie.

I watched it when I was 17 with a bunch of guys on an army base. Pretty much exactly the movie we wanted.

Were you a good judge of cool as a teenage boy in the 90s? Wasn't Tyler Durden a little more cool if you had to pin down what everyone else thought?

@@LifeofSlicey1 lol we met the brothers and director of those movies in Africa on my second deployment. They were there on a USO gig, and they stayed around for days, almost to where they were part of the damn base personnel. Everyone loved them. Sean Patrick Flannery was doing MMA stuff and he sparred with our on-base combatives club.

@@GrahamBartle Extremely subjective stuff

I know a guy who actually got the aequitas, veritas tattoos on his index fingers.

I'm behind that choice 👍

Don’t forget Fight Club!

@@LifeofSlicey1 My top cool 90's style movie is "Versus" 2000, a Japanese film so crazy it's totally insane. Have you seen it?

@@amberturdcoloringbook1733 Have you seen "Wild Zero"?

@@amberturdcoloringbook1733 Versus is a fun watch, but corny and over the top. I am mad at the director for those scenes he made in that Metal Gear Solid remake.

Ancient wisdom: to stay young, start old.

Johnny Mnemonic 💯 . It was just on the outside looking in of my honorable mentions.

You might wanna look at the Sin City timestamp

@@thenouthe says "90's cool" is the esthetic, doesn't have to actually be from the 90's. Sin city definitely belongs on the list.

There was a lot of shit too, but of course it doesn't get mentioned now.

@@ThreadBomb That's not surprising. These days, it's all just shit. There have been very nice movies in the last two decades, but there's nothing like Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Heat, Saving Private Ryan, Pulp Fiction.

​@@greatBLT there is, you just need to find it

@@ThreadBomb You people repeat that sentence like a broken record. Yes there were bad movies then but even those bad movies had more style and flair to them.

Yes! Strange Days. Remember i thought this must be the coolest movie ever.

I don't think any film I've seen has captured so well what it's like to not be over a toxic ex

I LOVE how '90s fiction depicts the internet, computers, virtual reality, and related concepts. Ignoring Dark City in your OP (though that is a great film!) those are 3 great installments in what I call "90s cyber." I would say other films in that category include The Matrix (duh!), Virtuosity, Johnny Nmenomic, The Thirteenth Floor, eXistenZ, The Net, Tom Clancy's Net Force (the TV movie and books... which he didn't write), and various softcore and hardcore adult films from that time that have VR in their "plot." I'd love to help put together a list of these films and also include video games, comics, toys/action figures, music, etc. from that era!

LOVE the original MK - i could watch it any day and it's still fresh and awesome

@@weston407 Same. Street Fighter is some good fun too. Raul Julia helps that one big time.

Those movies came out in the 80s, not 90s.

@@robtoHard Boiled 1992 (but it does feel more end of the 80s rather than 1990s) Time for a rewatch, so thanks for reminding me.

@@brendonross5774 Oh, really? Hard Boiled really does feel like an 80s movie. I'm just new to the all Hong Kong action flicks world, by the way.

Tony Scott one of the most influental ever🙏 But you don’t see people giving him credit

it's very obvious once you're aware of it.

Thank you for saying this!!! I’m definitely of the same mindset!

I actually think the 90s was a particularly special period. There are kids today that look back at the 90s as a sort of mythical time of awesomeness. And teens today are trying to re-create the grunge style with flannels and converse.

@@HeadCannonPrime interesting!

I miss the music mostly. Even radio music was good, even if it wasn't spectacular. Oasis came on and you'd turn it up. Til R&B took over :( then that never stopped. Now we have people like Arianna Grande :/

The 90s were great because entertainment wise everything was good balance, movies plots were on the surface serious but at the same time there was a degree of tongue and cheek humor underlying it all. The situations were serious, but every now and then a joke would be cracked or something silly would happen lighten the mood, making things not too serious to be overbearing as well make on-screen ridiculous or over the top things that were happening more digestible by acknowledging how silly things were getting, all the while not undermining the stakes of it all. Movies like Independence day or Terminator 2 were good examples of this. Movies weren't afraid to self depreciate themselves.

i agree, no superhero movie can top how grimly this movie starts.

Invoking the holocaust in a superhero movie and not having it come across as cringe or inappropriate is an achievement in itself.

Never heard of it! I'll add it to the master list. Thanks!

I second The Prophecy. It’s a cool movie. If you liked Constantine, I think you’ll dig it.

Interestingly, this video about The Prophecy dropped earlier today - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bUcVZYQ-AsY.htmlsi=lM8WyAGDSviOCGD_

​@@LifeofSlicey1It was made by Greogy Widen, who created highlander

No doubt.

Really appreciate this comment. Thank you. A generation was raised on these kind of movies.

@@LifeofSlicey1 definitely was. Hopefully the channel takes off for you. It's quality work on this video at least.

I feel like it has never fully disappeared. It just went underground. There is still a bit of 90s cool in media. Be it one background character or some of the traits of 90s cool that are still there. We still have long coats, over the top gunfights, sunglasses, and the occasional wire fight.

I've never left it :)

Not sure where you live but in Los Angeles the 1990s are back. Kids are wearing big baggy pants. I walked by two teenage girls in Santa Monica a few months ago and had to do a double take. One of them looked exactly like my girlfriend in 1996. The hair, cloths, shoes, makeup, everything was straight out of the '90s.

Just as Art Deco will always look more modern than anything new, so will Selene.

Yes. Mixed the title up with the movie "the replacements"

Great call on all those movies. All of them, especially the Burton Batman films, were a huge influence. Never heard of Virtuosity before! I'll have to add that to the master list and check it out. I'm trying to compile as many of these movies as I can, but there's a staggering amount. It's hard to get them all, so thank you for sharing!

But none of those were cool.

@@LifeofSlicey1 fair warning Virtuosity panned when it came out. But it is well acted IMO

If you've got Denzel Washington and Russel Crowe, it better be well acted if nothing else. I'll check it out for sure.

@@LifeofSlicey1 Before the Matrix, and after Jhonny Nuemonic, Virtuosity was peak cyberpunk, highly reccomend

People like you just use that as an excuse to be offensive

Just say you like using slurs

Lol, you triggered some soy wanderers with that comment mate.

@@pilot8220 no, it's called jokes. People understood nuance and context back then.

​@@pilot8220I think you just proved his point

Cheers to you too man. Great story you told there. I enjoyed reading through your experiences at that time. I was a little younger so I didn't experience it as a teenager/young adult. Wish I did.

I agree but I don't miss pulling over to gas stations for directions if you got lost. Also squeeze mayonnaise. Other than that, 90's was peak.

I love them both, but if I had to choose... probably the Crow too. Can't go wrong with Brandon Lee or Heath Ledger.

the crow still to this day is one of my most favorite gothic style movies i ever seen....

That soundtrack man. "The Cure: Burn" is one of the greatest movie themes of all time.

@@LifeofSlicey1 they had a lot of random people play joker from old to young 😭, Brandon Lee will never be replaceable but it’ll be nice to see another crow movie remake but some classic gems dont need to be remade again

I agree. I hope the remake goes in a very different direction. A black Crow would be cool I think. Definitively shouldn't just remake the original. That's Brandon Lee's movie.

i just watched it , and thought the casting was off. James Woods is good, but Kurt Russel and Bill Paxton were supposed to be the co leads ... now THAT would have been a movie.

@@fruit4health329 yeah I was never really convinced with Daniel Baldwin in this movie. Despite popular opinion, I consider him the weakest of the Baldwin brothers commercially. Sheryl Lee, Tim Guinee and Maximilian Schell were perfect in their roles imho.

the old people belly jeans make it 90s cringe lmao

totally agree. Kurt Russel swaggering around in the James Woods role and Bill Paxton bringing levity to the Daniel Baldwin character would have elevated this film to iconic status @@danielsalinas6683

90s counterculture was more "fight the power". Today's is "fight your neighbor". smh

@@LifeofSlicey1 Exactly! 90's counter-culture was more unified. A fight against the political/corporate machine which is why cyber punk was one of my favorite sub-genres (aside from dark modern fantasy). But now everyone is at each others throats over small differences and opinions with everything offending everyone. I strongly believe that after the attacks on 9/11, everything slowly started rolling down hill and everything started becoming political in the worst possible ways. Wish I could go back...

It absolutely was political. What are you talking about? The 90s was the rise of political punk bands like Rancid, NOFX, Bad Religion, Pennywise, Anti-Flag, etc. etc. etc. Then there’s Rage Against the Machine, the grand master of political bands in the 90s. Rappers like Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Dre, Tupac. My CD collection is full of albums from political bands released in the 90s. To say that counter-culture in the 90s was not political means that you were too young in the 90s or you weren’t paying attention. The 90s is when the L.A. and Seattle riots happened, which were very political.

@@gabes230No it wasn’t. Counterculture in the 90s was just as fractured as it is now. Do you think the people protesting police violence and corruption where fighting the same injustices as feminist groups? Do you think the people fighting against racial inequality for blacks were protesting encroachment of native land? They weren’t. You can see it reflected in the news and the media of the era. People fighting against gang violence and poverty in the hood were not side-by-side with the African Empowerment movement even though the end goal was the same. You can look at the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 and see how there were numerous groups protesting for completely different things. You know what movie depicts the exact same thing? “PCU” from 1994. That movie was making fun of the same PC culture of today that existed 30 years ago. Every decade is the same. The only thing that’s changed is now everyone is addicted to social media and you’re more likely to say something very publicly that’s gonna make someone angry than you would have in the 90s where it wasn’t posted in a public square for all to see.

@@killergrooves2438 You're late. LifeofSlicey1 already stated (correctly) that "90s counterculture was more 'fight the power'. Today's is "fight your neighbor". He summed it up without the need to write an entire novel (which I didn't bother finishing)

I'd love to go there someday. Greetings from Japan!

@DidierWierdsma6335, 2nd best, the 80s was the BEST.

@@zilvente I was born in the early 80s so i did not experience that decade to it's fullest unfortunately but i do have fond memory's of it. Truth be told i'm a 90s kid/teen myself but the 80s was also a great decade. Life back than was so much easier and fun in my honest opinion 2023 SUCKS not gonna lie. Other than that thank you for the response👍 I hope that you have a great day?😊

@@DidierWierdsma6335 yeah man, I feel the 90s was the last of the great decades indeed, and I thank you too.

@@DidierWierdsma6335 I think a lot of people think that the best decade is the one that they were teenagers during. Enough awareness of the world to have some level of understanding, enough autonomy to participate in it to a limited extent but no real responsibility to drag you down. You're discovering a lot of cultural products like movies and music, developing your tastes so all the stuff being put out at the time seems fresh. The 90's were kind of a unique time, though, in that they occupied this almost grace period in history for the West - the Cold War was over, democracy was on the rise in formerly authoritarian nations, racism and sexism were fading away, and the Information Superhighway was going to change the way everyone communicated, learned and did business for the better. Then 9/11 put a hard stop to the good times, a long war started and the US government granted itself broader powers to surveil its citizens and foreign civilians as a new paranoia took hold with a Nu Metal soundtrack killing off rock music as the most popular genre. I wonder if, in 20 years, a bunch of middle-aged Zoomers are going to look back at the 2010s or 2020s as 'the best decade'.

And they to kiss and kiss to king diamond.. It goes way beyond the crow

And to Alex from a Clockwork Orange

Or he owes it to the joker character in the Batman comics, which has been around since 1939, could be that.

Everyone says that about their generation.

@@geeebuttersnap2433 True but....the 90s specifically advanced in technology in cinema, video games, cell phones, internet etc. No other generation can say that.

A crime this is not available on Blu-Ray (in North America) or to purchase Digital. Only available on Max could be a reason it hasn't had as much exposure as the movies in the video.

Thank you for posting about Megazone 23. Never heard of it!

It is crazy how similar they are. You could easily insert Blade into the world of the Matrix.

Blade came out first, so the matrix is similar to blade.😊

I grew up on 2000's culture (born in '95) but with a lot of 90's stuff (Belgian channels would still air 90's series and films), my whole personnality can be summed up as "Imagine you let a 6 year old play Blood Omen : Legacy of Kain, let him go to a carnival where murals look like a Metal Hurlant Soroyama exhibit, read Spider-Man at a time it was all about looking grim and radical, and then he grows as a teenager and adult with stuff like Underworld, The Crow and WWE's brutalist stage set from 2000-2004, what the Hell you thought he was going to be, Santa Claus?" Blessed be that decade.

@@Paugose >Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain We should be friends

@@AllardRT We are "like two rivers that have met and can never be distinct again". Vae Victis.

SIT ON MY FACE 🤖🤖🤖

That movie makes me feel funny things between my legs. The action so good it curls the toes I get hot and bothered just thinking about the intensity of the gun kata Martial Art exhibit in equilibrium

I'm surprised it made the list. Sure, it tried to fit in and copy what was cool at the time, but itself was not cool.

I'd say it's looking at both closely. The shot of Wolverine spinning around the corner of the 🗽 is very Matrix esq.

Cringe. You sound like a 90s boomer lol

He said he was only doing one movie per franchise. Quentin Tarantino is a franchise.

@@ideologybot4592 we can agree to disagree. Yes, QT movies often reference others, but RD and KB to me are VERY different movies stylistically. Dark City and The Crow are different movies, yet very similar sylistically, and they're on this list. Actually, I Robot is also an Alex Proyas movie, so that makes 3 AP movies on this list

@axileus9327 Totally agree, but RD and Swingers very much utilized "cool" in the ways it was shot, the language/jargon/dialogue, the music, the way they dressed, tons of smoking, the group dynamics, etc but different style of "cool" compared to the techno-leather of the aforementioned movies in the video. Mr Blonde alone OOZED cool, same with Trent and Sue in Swingers.

This comment made me laugh. Thank you for sticking with it!

Even though spawned and not do well it's a lot of fun even with the shoddy CDI at times.

Spawn's peak was the HBO series, that was awesome. Probably in the Mount Rushmore of comic adaptations. "And who am I?" "I don't know!" "That's right! You don't know! Let that little mystery keep you up at night!"

Johnny Mnemonic was just plain weird. I can’t believe Keanu decided to do that project. He probably felt unstoppable after his post-Speed success. But Strange Days was an awesome film.

@@danielsalinas6683 Having read Neuromancer and cracked Count Zero, I think the film adaptation was just a little too heavy on the cheese, that's all. William Gibson books are highly descriptive reads, he basically coined the Cyberpunk aesthetic.

Great picks. Another Ferrera movie that prefigures some of this 90's aesthetic is Fear City. Really sleazy vibes.

@@jusko2565 thats another good movie

Thank you Elijah! Much appreciated.

It's the only good multiverse movie.

Cool no longer exists. Everything is memespeak or at best ironic nostalgia. Coolness died around 2012.

Great ideas. I never would have thought of Spiderman, but that probably has a lot to do with it. Spiderman wasn't afraid to be big and colorful like the source material. Columbine is another obvious reason. I'm surprised the aesthetic managed to survive past Columbine as long as it did. I will try to tackle this subject someday.

Another great movie. I loved Jay Mohr and Scott Wolf