These dazzling ’90s movies set in the ’70s bring together two great movie decades, with glorious results.
The 1970s were perhaps the greatest decade for movies — but ’90s movies gave them a run for their money. Take a ’90s movie set in the ’70s, and you have a peanut butter/chocolate level of movie euphoria that’s hard to match.
Both ’90s movies and ’70s movies were sometimes noted for their downbeat approaches and cynicism. But both decades look pretty good in retrospect — at least on a screen.
Goodfellas (1990)
Arguably Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece, Goodfellas skip across the decades from the 1950s to the early ’80s — the arrest of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) on serious drug charges marks the end of his prime years.
Until then, Goodfellas is deliriously entertaining, as Hill and his compatriots pull of the Lufthansa heist and some of the other biggest mafia crimes of the 1970s. Robert De Niro is restrained as James Conway, and Joe Pesci is mesmerizingly unhinghed as Tommy DeVito.
One of the coolest things about Goodfellas is how it combines the aesthetics of the 1970s with the frantic trash-TV energy of the early ’90s, especially in the 1980 sequence when Henry finally gets caught.
Dazed and Confused (1993)
Richard Linklater’s classic is the ’90s movie that most captures the ’70s — or at least the dream of the ’70s — because it’s all about hanging out, driving around, and going to impromptu parties. It’s based on Linklater’s own memories of the decade, and will make you nostalgic for that era even if you didn’t live through it.
But it’s a ’90s movie through and through, which helped introduce audiences to such future Gen X stars as Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, and many more.
Quentin Tarantino, a huge fan, has observed that it’s one of the few movies to be watched by three different generations of college kids.
Carlito’s Way (1993)
Al Pacino, in the first of his two films on this list, chews up scenery in his reunion with Scarface director Brian De Palma, playing fresh-out-of-prison criminal Carlito Brigante.
But Pacino’s performance is positively restrained compared to Sean Penn’s compulsively watchable performance as his scheming, brilliant attorney, Dave Kleinfeld.
Carlito’s Way delights in the seediness of 1970s New York, exploiting the richness of the setting to full and fascinating effect.
Casino (1995)
Scorsese’s Casino is very much tied to Goodfellas, sharing much of the cast and creative team. But it has a dark energy all its own.
The action starts in 1973, when sports handicapper Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro, very sympathetic this time around) is sent by the Chicago mob to manage the Tangiers Casino.
He thrives, and everything would be just perfect — except for his old friend Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci again, exuding pure chaos) and his wife Ginger (Sharon Stone, in maybe her best role), who can’t shake her addictions.
Casino is an incredible rush, akin to gambling. Once you get into the game, it’s very hard to leave the table.
Apollo 13 (1995)
One of the more wholesome movies on this list, Apollo 13 follows the true story of the astronauts who maneuvered their way through the United States’ fifth manned mission to the moon in 1970. It’s captivating.
The mission failed, but Apollo 13 shows the incredible courage and ingenuity of the astronauts — played by Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Gary Sinise and Bill Paxton.
The film also brought us one of the most memorable of all movie quotes: “Houston… we have a problem.”
Boogie Nights (1997)
Paul Thomas Anderson’s second film plays almost like pro-’70s, anti-’80s propaganda. Following the rise of Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), a busboy who becomes a star of the adult world, it portrays the ’70s as a happy, freewheeling, disco-dancing found-family nirvana. The presence of ’70s icon Burt Reynolds only adds to that feeling.
Then the ’80s arrive, and Dirk almost immediately falls on dark times, in one of the most haunting tone shifts of any movie.
This is a movie that feels closely attuned to the ’70s and ’80s, but its preternaturally wisened perspective — Anderson made it at the age of just 27 — makes it one of the best ’90s movies. And best movies, period.
Donnie Brasco (1997)
Donnie Brasco benefits greatly from following in the footsteps of past mob movies and subverting the expectations they’ve established.
Al Pacino, a long way from playing the powerful Michael Corleone, is an aging mobster hustling for rather pathetic jobs when Donnie (Johnny Depp), secretly an undercover FBI agent, infiltrates his gang.
Soon Donnie begins to sympathize with his target, and question whether he really wants to take him down. It’s a captivating movie that makes you wonder throughout: What would I do?
54 (1998)
This very ’90s account of life at Studio 54 is worth watching for the casting alone.
Mike Myers is in serious mode, playing Studio 54 co-owner Steve Rubell, while Ryan Phillippe, our audience surrogate, plays New Jersey gas station attendant-turned-nightlife star Shane O’Shea.
Neve Campbell plays Julie Black, a Jersey girl soap opera starlet, and Salma Hayek plays coat-check girl and aspiring singer Anita.
Is the movie good? The atmosphere is so intoxicating it doesn’t even matter. The film initially had a poor reception after director Mark Christopher clashed with studio boss Harvey Weinstein over their differing visions for it. But Christopher eventually was able to realize his own version, which received a much warmer response.
The Virgin Suicides (1998)
The directorial debut of the great Sofia Coppola also started her creative collaboration with one of our favorite actresses, Kirsten Dunst.
Based on the 1993 debut novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, the film follows five sisters growing up in a suburban enclave of Detroit in the mid-70s and features a stellar cast that includes James Woods, Kathleen Turner, A.J. Cook, Josh Hartnett, Scott Glenn, Michael Paré, Jonathan Tucker, and Danny DeVito.
But the real star is the dreamy atmosphere — arguably the real star of all Sofia Coppola’s films —accentuated by the music of French pop duo Air.
Summer of Sam (1999)
Maybe Spike Lee’s most underrated movie, Summer of Sam follows four young people (played by John Leguizamo, Mira Sorvino, Adrian Brody and Jennifer Esposito, all excellent) in the terrible New York summer of 1977 when serial killer David Berkowitz, then known as “the .44 Caliber Killer,” stalked couples in cars.
But it’s not a serial killer thriller by any stretch: It’s really a story about the fear of the unknown, and how it makes people turn on those closest to them.
Summer of Sam pulsates with dangerous energy, and feels alive in a way few movies do, because of Lee’s willingness to explore the messiness of his characters and his city.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Johnny Depp, in his second film on this list, pays tribute to his friend and hero Hunter S. Thompson in this adaptation of the latter’s book that translates its deranged text to the screen like a psychedelic nightmare.
Director Terry Gilliam, of Monty Python fame, embraces the challenge of making the film feel like a live-action Ralph Steadman cartoon, and makes you feel like an innocent hitchhiker picked up somewhere in the desert and taken on a madcap Vegas trip through Vegas with the most unreliable possible host.
The film didn’t do well upon release, but audiences since have learned to enjoy the ride. And Depp returned to Thompson adaptations with 2011’s The Rum Diary — the film on which he met a young actress named Amber Heard.
D— (1999)
We aren’t publishing the title of this one because some of the sites that aggregate us consider it an unacceptable word. Of course it’s also the nickname of one of America’s most memorable presidents, Richard M. Nixon, and the film has a lot of fun with this fact.
A giddy alternate history of the Watergate scandal, the film imagines that the key players in the scandal were two teenagers played by Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst. It rewards audiences who know their Nixon history, offering up comedic explanations for mysteries like the 18 1/2-minute gap on the White House tapes.
It’s a fun, smart movie that’s dizzying at times, because sometimes the ridiculous explanations it offers make more sense than the real ones. And comedy fans will delight in the presence of Saturday Night Live and Kids in the Hall stars.
If you liked this list, you may also like this list of 12 Heather Graham Stories, as told by Heather Graham — in which she details her experiences in Boogie Nights and several other great ’90s movies, as well as working with Johnny Depp.
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Main image: Dazed and Confused. Gramercy Pictures.