5 items
Half wolf, half dog, all underdog: Amblin's 1995 cartoon about the sled dog who carried the diphtheria serum into Nome. It opened a month after Toy Story and sank, then lived forever on VHS. The real Balto's statue still stands in Central Park, and the real story is messier than the movie.
The friendly ghost who just wanted a friend. Casper made history as the first feature film with a fully CGI lead character, and the 1995 merchandising blitz — Pizza Hut hand puppets, packed toy aisles — put him everywhere that summer. A Halloween cable staple ever since.
Rick Moranis and Ed O'Neill as feuding brothers coaching rival pee-wee football teams in Urbania, Ohio; Icebox, the girl who got cut for being a girl; a bus full of real NFL stars; and a trick play called the Annexation of Puerto Rico. It didn't earn back its budget in theaters, but it never left the kid-sports canon.
The 1985 adventure every 90s kid knew by heart from VHS and cable reruns — misfit kids chasing One-Eyed Willy's pirate treasure under Astoria, Oregon, with the Fratellis in pursuit. "Goonies never say die." At a 90s sleepover, someone always owned the tape.
Spanky's He-Man Womun Haters Club, Alfalfa's cowlick and his forbidden crush on Darla, a go-kart called The Blur, and a clubhouse that burns down: Penelope Spheeris's 1994 update of Hal Roach's Our Gang shorts, produced by Amblin and released by Universal on August 5, 1994. Critics called it a marketing exercise; kids wore out the VHS.