The 90's took film up a notch. Science Fiction became cool, which meant more money for film budgets. Computer Generated Imaging began to mature, giving directors the ability to create scenes that hadn't been possible before (for better or worse).

Part I: The Before Times; the 60's & 70's
Part II: The Awesome 80's
Part III: The 90's; Bigger & Badder
Part IV: Into the 21st Century

Jurassic Park (1993)

Director: Steven Spielberg (Schindler's List, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Starring: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum
Summary: Based on the novel by Michael Crichton. A tycoon opens an Amusement Park, but not everything goes as planned.
Fun Fact: The novel's writer, Crichton, intended John Hammond's character to be a "Dark Walt Disney"

Demolition Man (1993)

Director: Marco Brambilla (Excess Baggage)
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Westley Snipes, Sandra Bullock
Summary: A bad cop and a viscious criminal are cryogenically frozen for 35 years to find Arnold Schwarteznegger in politics, self-driving cars, mega-corporations controlling the world, and the three seashells.
Fun Fact: Lenina Huxley's (played by Bullock) name is a play on the Lenina Crowne character in Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' novel, which inspired the film.

Stargate (1994)

Director: Roland Emmerich (The Patriot, 2012, White House Down)
Starring: Kurt Russell, James Spader
Summary: An outcast in the scientific community joins a top-secret team to decypher glyphs on a mysterious object found in the Egyptian desert.
Fun Fact: One of Roger Ebert's most hated films.

Independence Day (1996)

Director: Roland Emmerich (The Patriot, 2012, White House Down)
Starring: Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pulman
Summary: Alien ships arrive at Earth, hovering over major cities.
Fun Fact: Will Smith turned down the sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence, to play Deadshot in Suicide Squad

Contact (1997)

Director: Robert Zemeckis (Romancing the Stone, Forrest Gump, Cast Away)
Starring: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey
Summary: Based on the novel by Carl Sagan. Memories of building radios to listen to far off places with her deceased father lead Dr. Arroway to point her radio the stars.
Fun Fact: In the movie, Jodie Foster's character pleads for SETI funding to save the program. In 2011, the actress actually helped fund SETI and save the program.

The Fifth Element (1997)

Director: Luc Besson (Léon: The Professional, Lucy, La Femme Nikita)
Starring: Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Chris Tucker, Ian Holm
Summary: In the 23rd century, a cab driver must use the ultimate weapon to defeat the ultimate evil. He'll need a multipass.
Fun Fact: Vin Diesel voices Finger, but is never seen or credited.

Gattaca (1997)

Director: Andrew Niccol (Lord of War, The Host)
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Jude Law
Summary: Society is driven by genetic maniupulation to create perfect people, leaving "invalids" struggling to overcome discrimination. Vincent goes to extraordinary measures to follow his dreams.
Fun Fact: The film's title draws on the names of DNA nucleobases; guanine, adenine, thymine, and cystosine.

Men in Black (1997)

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld (The Addams Family, Get Shorty, Wild Wild West)
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino
Summary: Loosely based on Lowel Cunningham's comic. A cop is drawn into a shadowy government organization.
Fun Fact: The American Humane Society certified that no bugs were hurt in the making of the film.

Starship Troopers (1997)

Director: Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Hollow Man)
Starring: Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Neil Patrick Harris
Summary: Follow trooper Johnny Rico as he fights "Arachnids". Do you want to know more?
Fun Fact: The movie is from a script called "Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine" and has little to do with Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers". The book was licensed after someone noticed both included "bugs".

Dark City (1998)

Director: Alex Proyas (The Crow, I Robot)
Starring: Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly
Summary: A noir film which John Murdoch finds himself unable to remember any details about himself and apparently responsible for killing a young woman.
Fun Fact: Seek out the Director's Cut. From Wikipedia: "For the theatrical release, the studio was concerned that the audience would not understand the film and asked Proyas to add an explanatory voice-over narration to the introduction. A director's cut was released in 2008, restoring and preserving Proyas's original artistic vision for the film"

The Matrix (1999)

Directors: The Wachowskis (Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas, Jupiter Ascending)
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss
Summary: Hacker Thomas A. Anderson questions the world around him.
Fun Fact: The studio would only give the Wachowskis a $10 million budget at first. This was used to film the opening scene. When they showed the executives, the originally proposed $80 million budget was given.

The Thirteenth Floor (1999)

Director: Josef Rusnak (Small Lights, Beyond)
Starring: Craig Bierko, Gretchen Mol, Vincent D'Onofrio
Summary: Loosely based on the novel 'Simulacron-3' by Daniel Galouye. Douglas Hall enters a computer-generated world to uncover a hidden discovery left by a murdered colleague.
Fun Fact: Hall's apartment is the same house as Deckard's from Blade Runner.