The top 10 box office hits of the 1990s

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The highest-grossing movies of the 1990s still live loudly today. The decade kicked off the “Star Wars” prequels, produced beloved kids movies like “Lion King” and “Home Alone,” and featured a little-known movie called “Titanic” that held onto the top box office record of all time for a spell.

You don’t have to be a '90s kid to feel a pang of nostalgia and adoration for the films of that era (but it does help). According to Screen Rant, using data from Box Office Mojo on original domestic gross (without counting releases or global sales), here are the biggest box office winners of the 1990s.

10 Toy Story 2: $245 million

The original “Toy Story” became an instant classic when it hit theaters in 1995, and it did pretty well for itself with a domestic gross of $191 million. That wasn’t enough to crack the top 10 of the decade, but the sequel in 1999 did gross enough to push it onto the list.

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9 Men in Black: $250 million

We’ll resist the urge to make a “here come the men in black” joke, and instead say that if you don’t remember MIB being a huge hit then someone must have flashy-thinged you. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones killed it, and some big alien bugs, in their first outing, netting a quarter of a billion.

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8 Home Alone: $285 million

With blowtorches and swinging paint cans to the face, Macaulay Culkin did a number on Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern (probably more than the villains could have survived). But the film did even bigger damage to the movie market, smashing into eighth place with $285 million in gross.

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7 The Sixth Sense: $293 million

If you’ve somehow made it 21 years since the 1999 premiere of “The Sixth Sense” without having the twist ruined for you, please go watch it and lift the burden of keeping the secret off the rest of society. It’s M. Night Shyamalan at his peak, for which audiences paid nearly $300 million.

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6 Independence Day: $306 million

“Independence Day” hits TVs every July, but in its original run in theaters it netted over $300 million. Will Smith (in his second appearance on this list), along with a who’s who of ‘90s celebrities, lights up the screen in an intergalactic action flick.

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5 The Lion King: $312 million

Long before Disney was rebooting their classic cartoons in live action, “The Lion King” became the studio’s biggest film of the 1990s, beating other classics like “Aladdin” and “Beauty and the Beast.”

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4 Forrest Gump: $329 million

It won Best Picture at the 67th Academy Awards, so it’s no surprise “Forrest Gump” snatched up lots of ticket sales as well. The film covers decades of American history, but it’s a quintessential ‘90s movie.

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