You may well have seen our feature on albums that turned 30 this year, and felt like the years were getting away from you. Well, this probably won’t help, but why not indulge in a healthy dose of nostalgia and learn what movies are celebrating their third decade of existence?
The eventful year of 1995 was a brilliant time for film, with a whole lot of big hitters and sleeper successes being released. The James Bond franchise got its seventeenth installation with Goldeneye, and the world of animated films was changed forever with the addition of a collection of talking toys (more on that one later). There will undoubtedly be some classics we miss out on this list, but these are the ones that stuck out for the What Hi-Fi? Team.
12 Monkeys
If you follow me on social media you’ll know I’m a fan of our adorable simian siblings. But that’s not the reason I chose Terry Gilliam’s 1995 classic 12 Monkeys for this list.
Though I was debatably a little too young to fully grasp the time travelling, dark sci-fi masterpiece’s nuance, and plot in general, when I first saw it on my dad’s VHS tape many moons ago – which I 100 per cent didn’t sneakily watch like I did with Terminator, Species and the ilk after they had gone to bed – it is a key title that still holds up in 2025.
With an all-star cast including Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt and Christopher Plummer, the film is a post-apocalyptic tale where a convict is sent back in time to try and stop a pandemic before it starts.
The film remains interesting thanks to its use of physical props and gritty tone, being mainly shot in Philadelphia and Baltimore. But it’s the story and direction that make it a brilliant movie, with it remaining a masterclass on how to tell a non-linear story in film. If you liked Interstellar, Three Body Problem or anything similar, trust me, you’ll love 12 Monkeys.
Words by Alastair Stevenson
Buy 12 Monkeys on 4K Blu-ray at HMV
Toy Story
Finding out this film is turning 30 this year was like LARPing as Andy in the third installation when he heads off to college, but it did mean I got to revisit this gem. Pixar’s Toy Story was monumental for animation techniques, not to mention its creation of some of the most recognisable characters in cinema. It was the first fully computer-animated feature film, moving away from the more traditional hand-drawn 2D animation style that had been partially popularised by Disney.
For those who have lived under a rock the last three decades and do not know what Toy Story is about, the movie follows a group of sentient toys belonging to 6-year-old Andy. Leader of the pack Woody is Andy’s favourite, but his position is threatened when a new astronaut action figure named Buzz Lightyear enters the group. To make matters worse, Buzz is convinced that he is an actual astronaut who must destroy his nemesis. Emperor Zurg.
Watching back as an adult, the film is packed with humour and creativity that still stands up today. There are some genuinely unsettling moments, too. I’m mainly thinking of when Andy’s neighbour Sid creates mutant toys that could have come straight out of Five Nights At Freddy's. Sure, the animation does not look impressive compared to recent animated releases like The Wild Robot or Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, but Toy Story walked so those films could run.
Words by Robyn Quick
Buy Toy Story on 4K Blu-ray at HMV
Seven
Much to the dismay of certain members of the What Hi-Fi? crew, 1995 is a few years before my time; nevertheless, I can appreciate films from that year, and Seven is an absolute killer of a movie (pun intended).
Directed by the legendary David Fincher (post Alien 3, pre Fight Club), Seven follows two detectives (played by Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman) tracking down a serial killer whose grim murders are themed after the seven deadly sins — hence the name.
I wouldn’t recommend this film for a family movie night by any means, but even my aversion to horror movies couldn’t deter me from watching and thoroughly enjoying this macabre thriller. It’s is a dark, gritty and generally unpleasant movie that manages to capture a morbid yet fascinating atmosphere extremely well.
That’s what makes it a great movie to watch on a capable system, as the dark, dingy aesthetic requires a TV or projector that can muster up plenty of dark detail. Its sound design is also striking and unsettling, making it a great test for your sound system’s capabilities.
Seven has also just been released on 4K Blu-ray, and while I haven’t had a chance to pick up a copy of it to test myself, I’ve heard many good things about this long awaited 4K physical release of the film.
Words by Lewis Empson
Buy Seven on 4K Blu-ray at HMV
La Haine
"It's not the fall that matters. It's how you land." La Haine is every film nerd's dream, focusing on the inequality in the outskirts of Paris to cinematic perfection.
It follows three friends, Vinz, Hubert and Said, across a full (very eventful) day and night. One of their friends is tortured by the police, and riots explode across the capital. All this violence feels a lot closer to home when Vinz finds a gun and threatens to kill a police officer if his friend dies.
The film is completely in black-and-white which makes all of its extremities even more visceral throughout the runtime. It's not just its cinematography that has made it a favourite; the soundtrack absolutely shows director Matthieu Kassovitz to be a master in his element. In one swooping aerial shot of the banlieues, for example, a track by DJ Cut Killer melds with French icon Edith Piaf's Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien to really double down on the diversity of Paris' cultural landscape.
Even 30 years on, La Haine is considered a cult classic and, excitingly, there's a new release of the film in 4K Ultra HD from BFI coming this April.
Words by Robyn Quick
Get Shorty
The 1990s might have been Tarantino’s decade, but really we were in peak Elmore Leonard time. Leonard’s influence on Tarantino cannot be understated – the auteur has admitted to stealing his novel The Switch from a bookstore in his youth, and promptly snapped up the screen rights to three Leonard novels before deciding to adapt Leonard’s Rum Punch as Jackie Brown in 1998. And Tarantino’s critical and commercial success prompted a resurgence of interest in Leonard’s work. So what better to bring to the screen than a novel about how the Hollywood film industry works?
It’s an all-star cast. John Travolta (riding his second wind that started with his turn in Pulp Fiction) is at his wisecracking best as Chili Palmer, a loan shark who muscles his way into Hollywood to discover that film industry people aren’t all that different from the goons and mobsters he’s used to dealing with. The late Gene Hackman has never been gruffer or more ruffled than as director Harry Zimm, while Danny DeVito plays the eponymous ‘shorty’, film star Martin Weir.
Leonard knew what he was writing about. The novel reportedly took inspiration from a series of meetings with Dustin Hoffman over a possible screen adaptation of another Leonard novel. Hoffman subsequently phoned Leonard to complain about his depiction as a pint-sized egomaniac, and Leonard replied, “You think you’re the only short actor in Hollywood?”
Words by Joe Svetlik
Stream Get Shorty on Apple TV+
Pocahontas
Really, Harry? Pocahontas? A man of your tastes? Yes, really, and I’ll tell you exactly why. When I was a nipper, my older sister harboured only slightly worrying fantasies about becoming the eponymous Native American navigator, digging out and replaying Disney’s somewhat maligned 1995 release every single night until she was in danger of wearing out the plastic on the VHS. Those dreams faded only slightly when she saw Mulan and instead wanted to run away to save Han-era China from the Hunnic invasions.
That makes me something of a Pocahontas expert by proxy, and there’s no shame in that. Contemporary critics saw it as a bit of a misfire for Disney, citing its overly sombre tone and misplaced desire to tackle overly weighty topics in what was still essentially a kids’ film. Valid criticisms, fine, but it’s those exact weaknesses that also turn out to be the movie’s greatest strengths, provided you want something a bit meatier than The Little Mermaid to get your teeth into.
Pocahontas takes its subject matter seriously, bringing out the tension between its core protagonists – and their warring cultures – through a stormy visual palette and some of Disney’s most hard-hitting tunes. Chest-thumping anthem Savages is remarkably unflinching in its depictions of New World colonisation’s bloody ire, whereas Colours Of The Wind – and its resplendent on-screen sequence – is unquestionably one of the finest Disney hymns of all time.
Words by Harry McKerrell
Stream Pocahontas from Disney+
Buy Pocahontas on Blu-ray from HMV
The Usual Suspects
It’s a shame that so many people involved in The Usual Suspects have since become tarnished by so much controversy because it’s a truly fabulous movie that more than stands up today.
Back in 1995, it was groundbreaking and a breakout hit. That twist was, of course, the big talking point (and one wonders whether The Sixth Sense and, by extension, M Night Shyamalan’s whole career would have existed without Bryan Singer’s groundwork), but the script is just so damn good and the layers of intrigue so compelling that it provoked fevered discussion and demanded several viewings.
So many things had to fall into place for the movie to get made and then become a success: none of the big movie studios would touch it so a little European distributor had to step in to get the project off the ground; the cast originally had to agree to take pay cuts to do it; the famous line-up scene is essentially a selection of outtakes cut together; Benicio Del Toro insisted on doing a bewildering accent that none of his co-stars could understand and it turned out to be one of the best things about the film.
But a success it was. The Usual Suspects went from a barely noticed Cannes appearance to a very limited run in US cinemas, but then word of mouth propelled it to a global box office of $70 million. That’s about $140 million in modern money. Not bad for a movie that cost $5.5 million to make.
And now? The twist hits just as hard for those watching for the first time, and there are still oodles of little details to be hunted down by those on their twentieth viewing. And while there’s currently no 4K version available for streaming (at least not in the UK), the 1080p stream via Apple is nicely crisp and detailed. It’s well worth seeking out the 4K Blu-ray if you can, though, as it better represents the original negative: there’s a lovely ‘Limited Edition’ available via Arrow.
Words by Tom Parsons
Stream The Usual Suspects on AppleTV+
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