MOVIES

Openings that became water-cooler events overnight.

1990 · #4
Home Alone
For a while, Kevin McCallister gets exactly what he wants. His family disappears, the house is his, and nobody can object to his dinner. Then two burglars become interested in the property. Home Alone opened on November 16, 1990, and turned staircases, doorknobs, and paint cans into parts of an elaborate defense plan. It led the domestic weekend box office from its opening through the end of the year and eventually held the top spot for 12 consecutive weekends. Its original domestic theatrical run earned about $286 million. The traps supplied the spectacle, but Kevin’s discovery that independence was lonelier and more complicated than expected gave the movie its heart.
1997 · #9
Austin Powers
Mike Myers turned a swinging-'60s spoof into a catchphrase factory. Yeah, baby — the hair, the glasses, and a comedy that made kitsch feel current again.
1997 · #5
Men in Black
Will Smith in black, Tommy Lee Jones unamused, and a summer that made sunglasses and a neuralyzer feel like required equipment. The soundtrack did the rest.
1997 · #1
Titanic
James Cameron's shipwreck romance opened in December and did not behave like a normal movie. People went back. And back. The iceberg, the door, the song — 1997 ended with America living on that deck.
1998 · #7
Saving Private Ryan
Spielberg's Omaha Beach opening did not play like a regular summer movie. It sent people out of theaters shaken, and it made 1998's other blockbusters feel like they were happening on a different planet.
1998 · #6
The Truman Show
Jim Carrey dropped the loud comedy and America got a parable about being watched. The Truman Show was the movie people explained to each other — then quietly wondered if they were living in one.
1998 · #2
Titanic's Oscar Year
The movie opened in December 1997. 1998 is when it became a civic religion — repeat ticket sales, the soundtrack, the Oscars, and that song following you through every drugstore.
1999 · #8
The Blair Witch Project
A tiny horror movie plus a website that pretended it was real. People showed up not knowing what they were watching — and left arguing about whether any of it happened.
1999 · #6
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
The first new Star Wars movie in 16 years. People took days off. Lines wrapped blocks. Whatever you think of Jar Jar, the opening was a civic event.
1999 · #5
The Matrix
Black coats, green code, and a question you could not shake on the ride home. The Matrix did not just sell tickets — it rewired how action movies looked.