1996 may be 30 years ago now, but it’s a time that still looms large in the minds of movie fans. That’s the year that gave us the first Space Jam and the first Mission: Impossible movie. It was the era of Disney’s animated The Hunchback of Notre Dame and their first live-action 101 Dalmatians. It’s the year of “Show me the money!” and “Hercules! Hercules! Hercules!” 1996 turned the Coen brothers into A-list directors, and made Nicolas Cage an action star. (Dr. Stanley Goodspeed, thank you for your service.)
But only a tiny fraction of 1996’s movies make up most of our cinematic memories of that year. Look past the top-grossers (Independence Day) and the Oscar Best Picture winner (The English Patient) and the movies that got legacyquels (Twister, Scream, Independence Day again) and you’ll find a lot of really good movies that simply have fallen through the cracks of the ’90s canon over the last three decades.
That’s why we made the following list. It digs through those cracks to reclaim ten of the forgotten gems of 1996. From sports rom-coms, to dark character studies, to pulp superhero adventures, to moody Manhattan crime dramas, to oddball straight-to-HBO biopic to underrated Spike Lee joints, it’s got a little bit of everything. And all of these films deserve a lot more attention.
Forgotten 1996 Movies That Deserve to Be Rediscovered
READ MORE: 20 Beloved ’80s Foods That No Longer Exist
12 Forgotten 1995 Movies That Deserve to Be Rediscovered
These films from 1995 deserve to find a new audience on home video.