The Beauty of the 90s
By KEVIN THANT ‘27 and ARJUN VELAN ‘28
In 2023, “The Matrix” had a sequel after almost two decades. The hype surrounding the movie was incredible, and expectations were set high. But even after the dwindling success of the second and third Matrix movies, the fourth one ended up being dubbed the worst in the trilogy. You could physically see the difference between the first three and the fourth one, but why did the movie that had two decades of pioneering CGI and special effects get beaten by its predecessor?
We hear it all the time: our parents telling us they don’t make movies like they used to, or old sports heads droning on and on about the greatness of Michael Jordan or Ken Griffey Jr. and how the game has gone soft. Even in pop culture, why is it that a majority of critically acclaimed movies come from the 90s? Three decades doesn’t seem like that big of a difference, though; has the world changed so much in the past thirty years that the world we live in now is completely unrecognizable from thirty years ago?
The 90s were an era of transition. While technology was on the rise and there was a growing epidemic of personal computers, technology was still rendered obsolete by today’s standards. Therein lies the greatest beauty of the 90s, where life could be appreciated with a slow and gentle grace that does not exist today.
The most obvious way we can see this is through movies. “The Shawshank Redemption,” “The Matrix,” “Schindler’s List,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Fight Club,” and so much more. The 90s spawned a genre of movies that adults remember today with so much nostalgia. You don’t see this nostalgia in the movies that exist today.
While big blockbusters with breathtaking CGI may exist, they don’t enrapture the audience the same way the classics did. The reason for that is that the characters and the relationships formed in the films from the 90s were so much more memorable than the films from today. There’s almost a gritty focus on action and a constant burden of having to entertain audiences in modern movies that the old ones don’t have. Comparing the two eras side by side, the difference in pacing they can have is wild. But because movies like “The Shawshank Redemption” can slow down without worrying they’ll lose their audience, the result is a much more complete film that reflects the appreciation of life.
It’s the gentility these movies have that makes their relationships, characters, and stories captivate audiences better than most modern movies ever will. If the purpose of movies is to escape, then modern movies do that but with a roughness around the edges. They drag the viewer in for a wild ride filled with twists and jagged turns. There’s so much happening at once that it’s sometimes impossible for us to take in and appreciate what’s going on.
It’s often said that art imitates life, and the fact that there is so much going on in movies we can’t fully appreciate them reflects the world we live in today. Social media is partially to blame. It’s impossible for me to accurately comment on what life looked like for a kid in the 90s. After numerous conversations with many adults, however, the one thing they attributed to the greatness of their era was the infancy of social media.
Because we have so many things happening around us constantly, all at once, it’s impossible for us to slow down and appreciate it because otherwise, we’ll be missing something. In the same way that movies in the 90s had a gentle simplicity, so did life. Even as a teenager in 2025, I miss the days of 2016 before I heard of Instagram and before my brain became desensitized to all the events that could happen. We’ve all heard the term ‘It’s the damn phone’ from our parents, and for once, maybe they’re right.
The gracefulness with which life was appreciated back in the day is lost by the trends of social media and the constant bombardment of information we see every day. It’s often said that ignorance is bliss. Having the internet at our fingertips is a privilege we often hold over the older generation for not having. But if the 90s have taught us anything, maybe it’s time for us to put the phones down and appreciate the beauty of the world we live in.