Credit: Netflix

Looks like you came here looking for some ’90s nostalgia. Ahh, the good ol’ days when Friday night meant wandering into the video shop and trying to pick something before whoever you came with lost patience. Today, you do the same, but it’s more scrolling and Netflix.

Most of us have spent countless hours scrolling on Netflix, jumping from genre to genre before we play something familiar.

Not complaining, Netflix has made life easier, fair enough, but that old ritual did make films feel like more of an occasion.

So this weekend, sod the endless scrolling. We are doing the video shop run again, only this time Netflix is supplying the ’90s shelf.

Five ’90s movies on Netflix to watch this weekend

Fargo (Joel Coen, 1996)

Starting with a classic, Fargo takes a crime plot that should, in theory, be simple and lets one hopeless man make an almighty mess of it. William H. Macy plays Jerry Lundegaard, a Minnesota car salesman who arranges to have his wife kidnapped so her wealthy father will pay the ransom, with Jerry planning to skim off the money for himself. Needless to say, Jerry has made a right hash of things before the film has much chance to get going.

That’s before Frances McDormand’s Marge Gunderson turns up, heavily pregnant, and this police chief is pleasant as you like, but don’t let that fool you because she clocks what the blokes around her keep missing. That contrast is where Fargo gets much of its wicked humour. Oh, and remember the “true story” claim at the beginning? Utter cobblers.

Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990)

Pretty Woman is pure early-’90s Hollywood excess, and honestly, that’s its biggest appeal. Julia Roberts plays Vivian Ward, a sex worker who crosses paths with wealthy businessman Edward Lewis, played by Richard Gere, after he gets lost in Hollywood and asks her for directions. One thing leads to another, and Edward hires her to stay with him for a week. The woman’s life changes overnight, and she’s now hanging out in Beverly Hills hotels and designer shops. This film has enough romantic fantasy to make reality look a bit drab, and that’s why it’s a classic.

What really keeps it ticking, though, is Roberts, because even though she played a hooker, she never made the part look cheap. Also, great writing for the character, as they kept Vivian very real. Initially, the film started life as a much darker drama called 3,000 before Disney turned it into the shiny rom-com everyone remembers. Very different film, thank heavens.

Jumanji (Joe Johnston, 1995)

Have you ever wondered that Jumanji had no business being this stressful for a children’s movie? Robin Williams plays Alan Parrish, who gets sucked into a board game as a boy and spends 26 years trapped inside it until Judy and Peter start playing. Sure, when you watch the film, it’s just a man getting stuck in the jungle, but if you think about it as an adult, you can’t help but wonder what he must’ve gone through in all those years. Anyway, as he returns, the game starts chucking its contents into the real world, and the poor house takes an absolute battering while everyone scrambles to finish the thing before it finishes them.

And those drums, Christ. The second they started, you knew the board was up to no good again. That sound alone can drag half the ’90s generation straight into childhood. Kirsten Dunst was 13 when the film came out, and Williams was in the middle of one hell of a run. Jumanji could frighten the life out of you and make you laugh five minutes later, and nobody seemed to think that was odd.

Mission: Impossible (Brian De Palma, 1996)

You know how Mr Cruise is famous for hanging off planes and flinging himself off cliffs for a laugh… Yes, but before all that, Mission: Impossible was a much more contained affair. Ethan Hunt is an IMF agent whose entire team gets wiped out during a mission, and then, because the poor bloke apparently hasn’t got enough on his plate, he gets accused of being the mole behind it all. So off he goes, trying to clear his name while chasing a stolen list of undercover agents that every dodgy operator in Europe seems desperate to get their hands on.

And this was the film that turned Mission: Impossible from an old TV property into one of the defining action franchises of the ’90s, with Cruise at the centre of a spy series that had gadgets and whatnot. It made a fortune and gave Ethan Hunt instant blockbuster status and, perhaps most impressively, laid the groundwork for a franchise that was in action for decades.

Apollo 13 (Ron Howard, 1995)

See, you already know Apollo 13 isn’t making it to the Moon, so Ron Howard has no great twist to hide from you here, but isn’t that also what makes the whole thing even more nerve-racking? Tom Hanks plays Jim Lovell, who heads into space with Fred Haise and Jack Swigert, only for an oxygen tank to blow and turn the mission into a problem: how on earth do we get back to Earth?

The best thing about Apollo 13 is that it never feels the need to dress the story up, because the mission itself already gives the film more than enough to work with. Hanks is right in the middle of that brilliant ’90s run where audiences would turn up just because his name was on the poster, and Apollo 13 has that same event feeling about it. Even “Houston, we have a problem” ended up breaking out of the film and becoming one of those lines people still chuck around years later.