The 90s Film Soundtracks That Defined the Era

From Trainspotting to Cruel Intentions, music is less of a simple accompaniment and more an integral, living part of these five films’ DNA

August 05, 2025

The cinematic needledrop is a fine art and few eras unlocked its potential more than the 1990s. While well-timed songs aren’t exactly dying out, there’s a lack of finesse in today’s moviemaking. Soundtracks now often seem to traffic in familiarity (take the nostalgic chords of Take That’s Greatest Day in Anora), rather than elevating a song with fewer associations and birthing something gorgeous and new. In tentpole cinema, it’s commonplace to simply rope in whichever singer is doing numbers on TikTok for original tracks. None of it feels as precise as it used to.

Perhaps, then, the 90s really did it best. The Criterion Channel knows it, too, because this month the streaming service is toasting the soundtracks of that decade. They’re heralding the era when the premier indie filmmakers of the decade, like Danny Boyle, David Lynch, and Kevin Smith used soundtracks to bridge the gap between independent and mainstream cultures and upend notions about what movie soundtracks could be. In that period music became less of a simple accompaniment and more an integral, living part of these films’ DNA. As we inch further away from the decade, the soundtracks to 90s cinema have evolved into an increasingly valuable time capsule. 

Below, AnOther lists the greatest musical moments of the 90s, with films that embodied the decade and showed the alchemy of the perfect song meeting the perfect scene. 

Mallrats, 1995(Film still)

Kevin Smith is a filmmaker best known for throwing everything at the wall. Since the 90s, most of it has failed to stick because his taste has remained frozen in that decade. But in his heyday Smith was a terrific underdog director, who often brought his casts of lesser known actors and his alternative soundtracks to prominence. This has never been truer than in Mallrats, his 1995 slacker comedy. Hyperspecific indie bands like Sublime, Squirtgun, and Archers of Loaf populate the soundtrack with their cucumber-cool, offbeat sound. Susanne, a cutesy B-side by a then-emergent Weezer, plays over the finale, becoming part of a punchline involving a monkey (this is Kevin Smith). It’s a perfect example of 90s indie filmmaking making inroads to mainstream culture; what was once a niche and silly choice has only matured with age. In fact, Susanne went on to become such a cult favourite – it’s a great song! – that it was notoriously difficult to track down. Susanne’s inclusion on the soundtrack was the only way it was accessible to Weezer fans for years and Mallrats is now inextricably woven into the song’s fabric. 

Empire Records, 1995(Film still)

Empire Records is one of those vibe-led films so perfectly of its time that it’s surprising no contemporary producer has completely misunderstood its appeal and foolishly attempted to remake it. The synergy between stars Renee Zellweger, Liv Tyler, Anthony LaPaglia, and Ethan Embry, and an absolutely banging soundtrack was perfect and impossible to replicate. Set over the course of a day in a Delaware record store, Empire Records is a mostly plotless film that, in this case, happily coasts from scene to scene on the charm of its leads and the exceptional quality of the store’s vinyls. The rooftop set climax, where the employees dance to The The’s This Is the Day and celebrate their unknown futures, remains its highest point, a melancholic paean to the simplicity of youth. This Is the Day may be on the nose lyrics-wise, but it’s a bluntly effective finale to an absolute charmer of a film.

Lost Highway, 1997(Film still)

Music was always one of the most lethal and artfully wielded instruments in David Lynch’s arsenal. From The Loco-Motion in Inland Empire to In Dreams in Blue Velvet, Lynch was the master of musical timing, utilising the songs of last century to chilling, discombobulating effect. One such example is David Bowie’s I’m Deranged, which opens and closes Lost Highway. A sinister, foreboding track remixed for the film, it plays during the opening credits, as the camera flies down the centre of a highway like an unending rollercoaster. The prolonged repetition of the lane markings on the asphalt becomes a kind of off-kilter hypnosis, acclimatising you to the film’s dark, arrhythmic stylings long before any characters have appeared. A masterclass in atmosphere.

Trainspotting, 1996(Film still)

This list simply couldn’t exist without Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life – few songs have received such ecstatic new life as this 1977 track. Just under 20 years after it was first released, it became the musical accompaniment to one of the most legendary speeches in British film history: Renton’s opening monologue in Trainspotting. Like the film around it, Lust for Life is a deceptively peppy number about heroin addiction, and its use in Trainspotting – nimble, light and cheeky – was so perfect it felt like less of a narrative film and more like a music video. Indeed, Danny Boyle was so enamoured with Lust for Life and its aesthetic that, as part of Trainspotting’s promotion, he directed an official music video intercut with the film’s opening scene. 

Cruel Intentions, 1999(Film still)

Closing out Cruel Intentions – Roger Kumble’s slippery, smutty teen romp – with The Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony is not just one of the 90s’ greatest musical moments but one of the greatest ever. The film couldn’t exist without it; indeed, Kumble shelled out nearly $1m, around ten per cent of the budget, to use it. It is flawlessly used, a sharp, campy, fittingly melodramatic denouement to a film that has remained timelessly sharp, campy and melodramatic. Bitter Sweet Symphony was a global hit and hardly made famous by Cruel Intentions, but its use here was too exquisite not to include – it is a vital part of 90s cinema. You will never experience a purer joy than the satisfaction of watching Sarah Michelle Gellar’s wicked Manhattan socialite fall from grace over the baroque strings of The Verve’s 1997 hit. Perfection.

90s Soundtrack Movies is streaming on the Criterion Channel now. 

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