While Hollywood has been making movies for kids for many years now, it’s a concept that hasn’t been fully discovered in Bollywood yet. No wonder then, almost every major cinematic memory for any 90s child is somehow related to English films.
Back then, while we were watching the Bollywood fare thanks to our parents, the real joy was in experiencing the world of Jurassic Park or Jumanji.
These films were either animated or featured kids our age in titular characters. Simple yet imaginative, these films were solely meant for entertaining children. That people of all ages loved these is another story altogether! .
We may now be watching global cinema and appreciating the intricate nuances of Inception but deep down, we’d still jump at the very thought of having a marathon of those amazing 90s movies for kids.
Here’s a throwback to every film that opened the doors of imagination for the kids of my generation:
1. Home Alone 1 & 2
While kids might fret at the very thought of being left alone at home for a week, Kevin dealt with it like a boss.
Home Alone is special because it was the first ever children’s film that I saw. From making the lives of two thugs living hell to the mind blowing pranks that a kid that young executed, Home Alone made me more than comfortable with the idea of staying alone at home.
2. The Lion King
For most of us, The Lion King was probably the first ever animation film we saw.
The film sew emotions in the light-heartedness of animation so beautifully, even as kids we found ourselves crying at Mufasa’s death.
3. Jumanji
While we all grew up on a heavy dose of Ludo and Snakes & Ladders, Jumanji made us believe that board games can make your lives go bat-shit crazy.
From time travel to parallel universes and everything crazy under the sun, Jumanji will still get you on the edge of your seats!
4. Free Willy
Long before PETA’s work came into the forefront with the help of social media, we learnt about the plight of animals through Free Willy.
Based around a marine amusement park, that captures a whale, Willy, the movie taught us how capturing animals is the worst thing that humans can do.
5. Richie Rich
Before we knew about the Tatas and Birlas of the world, we knew about Richie Rich.
There is no way that you can sit through this film without having at least one eye-popping moment. He would talk to his mother through a mobile phone, while they sat on the same ginormous dining table. He had his own baseball court and his own Mc Donalds inside his effin’ house. God, was I jealous or what!
6. Baby’s Day Out
If Home Alone 2 was a kid version of a child lost in a city, Baby’s Day Out was, as the name suggests, a baby version of the same gig.
Baby Bink gets kidnapped and that’s when all the fun begins. The munchkin of a baby will have you going ‘aww’ with his little antics, while you wish if you could be even half as cool as this kid!
7. Casper
Although our parents kept telling us that there’s no such thing as ghosts, we believed in their existence, hoping they’d be like Casper.
The friendliest kid-ghost to have ever existed, Casper demystified and normalized the concept of the supernatural in the mind of every 90s kid.
8. Honey I Shrunk The Kids
Although this movie hit the screens in 1989, we spent our childhood obsessing over every bit of bizarre that it offered us.
How could anyone imagine making a film on shrinking a bunch of kids, in the first place? It was crazy and we loved it to pieces.
9. Dennis The Menace
I was always one of those lazy kids who’s prefer watching a movie over reading a book.
Even though Dennis the Menace was originally a comic, for many it came to life once the film was made. The kid was a menace in the truest sense and the mischievous streak in each one of us sought validation from all his pranks.
10. The Parent Trap
We may fallen in love with Lindsay Lohan after Mean Girls but our first encounter with her happened in The Parent Trap.
She played a double role as identical twins who are hellbent on getting their biological parents back with each other. Like the name suggests, the girls trap their parents by making them fall in love with each other, all over again.
11. George Of The Jungle
‘George, George, George of the jungle, watch out for that tree!’
If you couldn’t read this line without singing, then you’re a true-blue product of the 90s.
I remember having debates about Tarzan vs George in my head as a child and later, I realized that I wasn’t alone. George was the adorably dumb version of Tarzan and he made the idea of living in the wilderness look like the best idea ever!
12. Jingle All The Way
Hollywood makes a bunch of movies every year around Christmas.
As children we saw everything from Santa’s workshop to the Christmas madness that surrounds the world outside of India, in several movies. But when I had to select one out of the lot, nothing beats the frenzy that was Jingle All The Way. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s race against time to get his son the perfect Christmas gift turns into a series of crazy events and chaos.
To be honest, this film still remains my go-to holiday film every year!
13. Jurassic Park
Who said that someone couldn’t make a movie about creatures that died out a million years ago?
When I say that these films broadened our imagination, nothing justifies it more than Jurassic Park. In 2 hours and 7 minutes, this movie managed to create a world with dinosaurs and made us believe in their existence.
Such was the impact that we all expected to see a Stegosaurus right outside our house!
14. Stuart Little
We have all heard of people having mice as pets.
But what if one day your parents bring to you a talking mouse, who by the way is your little brother from then on? Sometimes I wonder as to what trip must the filmmakers have been on, while coming up with a concept like this.
Anyhow, we totally believed in it and wished of having a little mouse brother of our own!
15. Flubber
Robin Williams was a part of many kid films but Flubber remains to be the best.
A slime-like substance, that a science professor accidentally creates, becomes the most fascinating thing people have ever seen. It looks like rubber but is super-bouncy and everybody wants to have some of it.