There’s a reason people talk about the 1990s the way they do. It was a decade when cinema felt genuinely electric, when a film could detonate in the culture, when new voices arrived fast and loud, when the art house and the multiplex were having the most interesting conversation they’d ever had. This summer, VIFF Centre is bringing all of it back.
90s, Baby! runs from June 19 through the end of August at VIFF Centre (1181 Seymour St), and it is, by programmer Tom Charity’s own description, “the biggest series we have ever put on” — and almost certainly the biggest film series ever mounted in Vancouver.
What You’re In For
The series opens the way any great 90s story should: with Tarantino. Pulp Fiction screens on 35mm on June 19, with surf band The ReViberators playing a live set of Dick Dale tunes beforehand. From there, the program moves chronologically through the decade — one week per year — charting the arc of an era that gave us Schindler’s List, Heat, Fargo, The Matrix, and Magnolia, alongside cult touchstones like Dazed and Confused, Gummo, Buffalo ’66, and My Own Private Idaho.
It’s a program built with real ambition and real love for the period. The series doesn’t just hit the obvious landmarks — it maps the full terrain.
The Strands Worth Knowing
Sundays go international. Wong Kar-Wai’s Chungking Express, Kieslowski’s entire Three Colours Trilogy, Claire Denis’s Beau Travail, Sally Potter’s Orlando, and key works of Japanese anime (including Ghost in the Shell and Princess Mononoke) make the case that the 90s belonged to world cinema as much as Hollywood.
Tuesday evenings are “Girl Power” nights. The strand takes an honest look at the decade’s complicated relationship with female-centered stories — from genuine breakthroughs (Thelma & Louise, The Silence of the Lambs) to provocations (Basic Instinct, The Last Seduction) to early explorations of non-binary identity (Orlando, But I’m a Cheerleader). It kicks off with the charming 1990 Canadian gem The Company of Strangers.
1999 gets two weeks. The Matrix, Magnolia, Fight Club, Being John Malkovich, Eyes Wide Shut, The Sixth Sense, Ghost Dog, Office Space, The Blair Witch Project — the program acknowledges that 1999 was simply an extraordinary year, one that earns special treatment.
Live Events All Summer
VIFF is also programming live music events throughout the series:
- June 19: The ReViberators (surf/Dick Dale) before Pulp Fiction
- June 27: Julio Avila’s Cuban Band before The Mambo Kings
- July 12: Chen Baker with Cantopop for Chungking Express
- July 25: Andrea Superstein performs Burt Bacharach before Austin Powers
How to Get In
Series passes are $249 and include free entry to all regular screenings — at roughly 85+ films, that works out to less than $3 per film. The first 20 passes sold include free entry to the opening night VIFF Live event. Ten-ticket packs are also available for $149.
Whether you lived through it the first time or you’re discovering it for the first time, 90s, Baby! is the rare retrospective that feels like an event. The 90s made us who we are. Come remember why.
More info and passes at viff.org/series/90s