The Definitive
90s Nostalgia Rankings
Scientifically Accurate, Emotionally Devastating
I was born in 1990. I am the exact target demographic for this page. If you were also born between 1988 and 1995, this is going to hit different. TV, movies, music, snacks, toys, and games — ranked by a guy who wore out two VHS copies of Space Jam.
TV Shows
The shows that raised us while our parents were at work.
Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Will Smith walking into his aunt's mansion and flipping everyone's life upside down was the most relatable thing on television. That theme song? You just sang it in your head. Don't lie. Everyone who grew up in the 90s knows every word. "Now this is a story all about how..." — you're doing it right now.
Rugrats
A show about babies having philosophical adventures in their backyard. Tommy Pickles was braver at 1 year old than most adults I know. And Angelica was the greatest villain in television history. She terrorized those babies for YEARS and nobody stopped her. The adults were useless. That's... actually pretty realistic.
Boy Meets World
Cory and Topanga were the relationship every 90s kid measured their own love life against, and we've all been disappointed ever since. Mr. Feeny was the teacher we all wished we had — wise, patient, and always next door for some reason. FEENY! FEE-HEE-HEE-NEY!
Power Rangers
Five teenagers in spandex doing synchronized martial arts against rubber-suit monsters. The special effects were terrible. The acting was worse. And it was the greatest show on television. I wore out a VHS tape of the Green Ranger saga. Every kid on the playground wanted to be the Red Ranger. Nobody wanted to be the Yellow Ranger. We didn't talk about why.
Doug
A kid with an overactive imagination, a best friend named Skeeter, and a dog named Porkchop. Doug Funnie wrote in his journal every episode like a tiny Hemingway. The Quailman fantasies were peak 90s energy. Also, Patty Mayonnaise. That name. Someone named a character Patty Mayonnaise and nobody blinked.
Movies
Space Jam is #1 and I will not be taking questions.
Space Jam (1996)
Number one. Non-negotiable. Michael Jordan plays basketball with Bugs Bunny against aliens. The soundtrack went 6x platinum. The website is STILL LIVE from 1996. I wrote an entire separate page about this. I will not be taking questions.
The Lion King
Mufasa's death is the single most traumatic movie moment for anyone born in the late 80s or early 90s. Disney said "let's emotionally devastate an entire generation of children" and just... did it. Hakuna Matata was a lie. Nothing was fine after that stampede scene.
Home Alone
An 8-year-old engineers a home defense system that would violate the Geneva Convention. Joe Pesci got his head set on fire. A paint can to the face. Nails through the feet. Kevin McCallister was basically the Punisher but with a wholesome Christmas setting. Iconic.
Jurassic Park
Spielberg said "what if we made dinosaurs look REAL" and then actually did it. The T-Rex scene with the water cup still holds up 30 years later. Jeff Goldblum unbuttoning his shirt for no reason. "Life, uh, finds a way." It found a way to make $1 billion, that's for sure.
Toy Story
Pixar's first movie. They told everyone "we're going to make a feature film entirely on computers" and everyone thought they were insane. Then they made you CRY about a COWBOY DOLL. "To infinity and beyond" became the most quoted line by every kid under 10 for three straight years. Changed animation forever.
Music
The soundtrack of our childhood.
Backstreet Boys
"I Want It That Way" is the perfect pop song and I will fight you on this. Five guys in matching outfits doing choreographed dancing shouldn't work. But it worked so hard it sold 100 million albums. Every school dance from 1997 to 2002 had at least three BSB songs. TELL ME WHY.
TLC
"Waterfalls," "No Scrubs," "Creep." Three songs that defined what it meant to be cool in the 90s. Left Eye was a genius and we didn't appreciate her enough. CrazySexyCool went diamond — 12 million copies. The best-selling girl group in American history.
Spice Girls
Scary, Sporty, Posh, Baby, Ginger. Every girl in my school picked a Spice Girl and that was their identity for two years. "Wannabe" spent seven weeks at #1 in the US. They single-handedly sold more platform shoes than anyone since the 1970s. Girl power was a marketing campaign that actually meant something.
Nirvana
Kurt Cobain played three chords and accidentally killed hair metal. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came out in 1991 and the entire music industry pivoted overnight. One album — Nevermind — changed what rock music sounded like for the next decade. He was 24. Twenty-four.
Tupac
"Changes" is still relevant three decades later. That says everything you need to know. 2Pac released more music dead than most artists release alive. The hologram at Coachella in 2012 was either the coolest or most unsettling thing the music industry has ever done. Probably both.
Snacks
The things we ate at school that our parents definitely wouldn't approve of today.
Gushers
Fruit snacks that EXPLODED when you bit into them. The commercials showed kids' heads turning into fruit. That didn't happen in real life but the expectation was there every single time. If you had Gushers in your lunchbox, you were the most popular kid at the table for 20 minutes.
Dunkaroos
Cookies and frosting in a tiny compartment. The ratio was always wrong — too much cookie, not enough frosting. You'd run out of frosting with three cookies left and have to ration like you were planning a military campaign. They discontinued them and people literally petitioned to bring them back.
Lunchables
Cold pizza on a cracker with room-temperature cheese and a Capri Sun. Your mom said it wasn't a real meal. She was right. We didn't care. The pizza ones were elite. The nachos ones were acceptable. The ham and cheese ones were what you got when your parents didn't love you enough.
Capri Sun
Stabbing a tiny straw into a foil pouch and hoping you didn't puncture the back. This was a daily challenge. A rite of passage. If you could get the straw in on the first try, you were basically a surgeon. The pouch would crinkle when it was almost empty and that sound was the saddest noise in any 90s lunchroom.
Ring Pops
Candy that you wore as jewelry. Someone looked at a diamond ring and said "what if we made this out of sugar" and sold millions. You'd walk around with a sticky, half-dissolved Ring Pop on your finger like you were engaged to a lollipop. Peak 90s innovation.
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Toys
The plastic and metal that defined our personalities.
Tamagotchi
A digital pet on a keychain that would die if you forgot to feed it. We were nine years old, responsible for nothing, and suddenly we had the life of a tiny pixel creature in our hands. Kids got their Tamagotchis confiscated at school and came back to find them dead. The trauma was real.
Beanie Babies
My mom thought these would fund my college education. She was wrong. Everyone's mom thought that. An entire generation of parents invested their children's tuition money in stuffed animals with tags. Princess Diana bear was going to be worth $100,000. It was not.
Skip-It
A ball on a string that you swung around your ankle and jumped over. That's it. That's the whole toy. The counter on the ball tracked how many times you skipped. Getting to 100 was peak physical achievement at age 8. The jingle is still in my head: "Skip it, skip it." It's been 30 years.
Super Soaker
Lonnie Johnson invented the Super Soaker by accident while working on a heat pump. He made over $1 billion in sales. The Super Soaker 50 was the weapon of choice for every backyard water war. If someone showed up with the Super Soaker 200, the fight was over before it started. Arms race: suburban edition.
POGS
Cardboard discs. That's what they were. Cardboard discs with pictures on them. You stacked them up and slammed a metal "slammer" into them. If they flipped over, you kept them. This was considered entertainment. And it was AWESOME. Try explaining POGS to a kid today. You can't.
Video Games
The games that taught us hand-eye coordination and heartbreak.
Oregon Trail
You have died of dysentery. Those five words defined a generation's relationship with computers. Everyone named their party members after classmates and watched them die of snake bites and cholera. It was educational AND traumatizing. You learned about westward expansion AND the fragility of human life. In computer lab.
GoldenEye 007
Four players. One TV. Slappers only. No Oddjob. Those were the rules. If you picked Oddjob, you were excommunicated from the friend group. The paintball cheat code. The DK Mode. Proximity mines in the bathroom stall on Facility. GoldenEye didn't just define the N64 — it defined friendships. And ended some.
Pokemon Red/Blue
"Gotta catch 'em all" was the most effective marketing slogan ever aimed at children. 151 Pokemon. A link cable to trade with your friends. The moment you caught Mewtwo was the greatest achievement of your young life. If you picked Charmander, we can be friends. If you picked Bulbasaur, I have questions.
Super Mario 64
The first time 3D gaming actually worked. When Mario jumped into that painting and you were suddenly in a 3D world — that was a religious experience. Every star felt like a genuine accomplishment. 120 stars and Yoshi was on the roof. That was the real endgame before "endgame" was a thing.
Crash Bandicoot
Sony's answer to Mario. A mutant bandicoot spinning through crates on a tropical island. The boulder chase levels gave every kid in America their first experience with anxiety. Crash Bandicoot doesn't get the respect it deserves in the gaming canon and I'm here to fix that.
Things We Don't Miss
The 90s weren't ALL great. Let's be honest.
Dial-up internet — that sound. BRRR KKKKK SHHHHH. And if someone picked up the phone, you got disconnected and lost your AIM conversation.
Using encyclopedias for homework — walking to the library, finding the right volume, hand-copying information from a book. Google didn't exist. This was just... how it was.
Rewinding VHS tapes — "Be Kind, Rewind." If you returned a tape without rewinding it, you were a monster. Blockbuster charged a fee. There was a MACHINE just for rewinding tapes.
Waiting for a song on the radio to record it on cassette — you'd sit by the boombox with your finger on the record button for HOURS waiting for your song to come on. Then the DJ would talk over the intro. Every. Single. Time.
MapQuest directions — you'd print 17 pages of turn-by-turn directions to drive somewhere. If you missed one turn, you were lost. Just... lost. With no recourse. You'd pull over and ask a stranger for help. That was the system.
Glen's Take
I was born in 1990 in Indiana. I grew up drinking Capri Suns, watching Fresh Prince, playing Oregon Trail in computer lab, and recording songs off the radio onto cassette tapes. My Tamagotchi died in second grade and I still think about it.
The 90s were the last decade where boredom existed. You couldn't pull out a phone and scroll. You had to FIND things to do. So you'd ride your bike to your friend's house unannounced, play POGS on the driveway, drink from the garden hose, and come home when the streetlights turned on. There was no GPS tracker on your shoe. Your parents just... trusted you to not die. Wild times.
Space Jam is #1 in movies and I won't be taking questions. If you disagree, you're wrong, and I say that with love. Go read my full Space Jam tribute and then come back and tell me I'm wrong. You won't. Because I'm not.
The 90s didn't have influencers. We had Gushers and Tamagotchis and that was enough.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Space Jam #1?
Because I was born in 1990, watched it until the VHS broke, and 'Everybody get up, it's time to slam now' is hardwired into my nervous system. Also because Michael Jordan played basketball with Bugs Bunny against aliens and it made $230 million. If you need more reasons than that, I can't help you.
Where's [thing I left off this list]?
Probably in my heart but not on this page. I had to make cuts. That's what rankings are — a series of increasingly painful choices. If I included everything from the 90s this page would be 10,000 words long. It's already too long. You're still reading it though, so clearly it's working.
Is this list scientifically accurate?
The title says 'scientifically accurate' and I stand by that. My methodology was: I sat down, thought about the 90s, got emotional, and wrote down what came to mind first. That's basically the scientific method if you squint hard enough.
Are you just a millennial having a midlife crisis?
I'm 35. This is not a midlife crisis. This is a carefully curated celebration of the greatest decade in human history. The 90s had the best music, the best snacks, the best toys, and dial-up internet that made you appreciate every webpage like it was a gift from God because it took 45 seconds to load. We were GRATEFUL for content. You kids don't know.
Backstreet Boys over NSYNC?
Yes. 'I Want It That Way' is a better song than anything NSYNC ever made. This is a hill I'm willing to die on. Justin Timberlake went solo and became a legend, but as a GROUP, BSB was superior. I said what I said. @ me.
Relive the 90s
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