The 8 Best Adventure Movies of the 1990s

The 90s built adventure movies out of submarines, buses and dinosaurs. Here are the top 8 by movie.guru score, and the numbers did some rude things.

#1 is barely an adventure movie. The data didn't care. Neither do I.

1. 8
   The Rock (1996)7.6

   Michael Bay's best movie. Low bar, but he cleared it.

   Connery and Cage on Alcatraz turned a reported $75M budget into $335M worldwide. Audiences beat 87% of movies, critics only 56%. The explosions outrank the logic.
2. 7
   The Hunt for Red October (1990)8.2

   Nobody moves for two hours and it's still tense.

   88% on Rotten Tomatoes, $200.5M worldwide off a reported $30M. Connery plays a Soviet captain with a Scottish accent and nobody filed a complaint.
3. 6
   Speed (1994)8.5

   The best movie ever pitched in one sentence.

   A bus can't drop below 50 mph. That's the whole idea, and it pulled 95% on Rotten Tomatoes and $350M worldwide on a reported $30 to 37M.
4. 5
   Dances With Wolves (1990)8.9

   Gorgeous, earnest, and a little too in love with its director.

   Costner directed Costner to $424M worldwide on a reported $22M. Audiences love it, A+ CinemaScore. Guru's Take is 7.9, a full point under its 8.9.
5. 4
   Apollo 13 (1995)8.9

   You know how it ends and you still sweat.

   94% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.9 score. Gary Sinise in a simulator doing math is more thrilling than most car chases ever filmed.
6. 3
   Jurassic Park (1993)8.9

   Still the best-looking movie of the decade. Yes, still.

   $1.1B worldwide, 1.2 million IMDb votes, Guru's Take 9.3. It's tied at 8.9 with two others and landing at #3 feels like a clerical error.
7. 2
   The Iron Giant (1999)9.3

   The decade's biggest box office crime, and it's not close.

   A reported $48 to 50M budget, $23.3M worldwide. Then 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 9.3 score. Vin Diesel's best role is a giant robot.
8. 1
   Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)9.3

   Best sequel ever made. Calling it adventure is a stretch.

   Audiences beat 99% of movies, A+ CinemaScore, $518.9M worldwide on a reported $102M. It's tagged adventure, so it counts. Take it up with the robot.

$1,583 says someone in the comments puts Jurassic Park first and calls the rest of us cowards.

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Current mood: ready to fight about it