The Best Super Bowl Trailers and Movies in the ’90s, According to Chuck Klosterman

Meatballs 1979

Stripes 1981

Ghostbusters 1984

Animal House 1978

Reitman produced it, one of several Canadian productions he backed before his own directing run.

Twins 1988

Kindergarten Cop 1990

Sean's pick for a favorite Reitman movie.

Dave 1993

Joanna's pick — she, Bill Simmons, and Amanda Dobbins did a Rewatchables episode on it in 2019.

Draft Day 2014

Up in the Air 2009

Ivan produced; he and son Jason earned a shared Oscar nomination for it.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife 2021

Their last collaboration before Ivan's death at 75.

Nope 2022

Jordan Peele's third feature. Sean drafted it in the movie auction and calls the trailer a masterclass in giving away nothing but vibe.

Deep Water 2022

Adrian Lyne's long-delayed Ben Affleck/Ana de Armas erotic thriller, teased via a Hulu drop rather than a trailer proper.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness 2022

Sam Raimi leaning into horror; Joanna clocks what sounds like Patrick Stewart's voice and a rumored Tom Cruise variant cameo.

Doctor Strange 2016

Joanna's least favorite Marvel movie, brought up only by comparison.

Spider-Man: No Way Home 2021

The cameo-chasing high the sequel is rumored to be reaching for.

Jurassic World Dominion 2022

Colin Trevorrow's back in the chair; both hosts have made peace with this being the last one.

Jurassic Park 1993

Both call it a perfect film that nothing since has touched.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park 1997

Sean says it has real problems but still likes parts of it.

Jurassic World 2015

Sean had fun with it, just not Jurassic Park-elegant fun.

The Batman 2022

Three weeks out at the time of taping.

Black Adam 2022

The Flash 2023

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom 2023

Aquaman 2018

Both call it a perfect piece of junk-food cinema — the first time DC got the tone right, in their view.

Wonder Woman 2017

The other DC movie that made them think the studio had figured it out.

Death on the Nile 2022

Branagh's second Poirot outing. Both find it visually plasticine and are baffled by the accent choices, but enjoy the mustache-origin cold open as unintentional comedy.

Death on the Nile (1978) 1978

Joanna's benchmark — Peter Ustinov's Poirot and a stacked cast (Mia Farrow, Bette Davis, Maggie Smith, Angela Lansbury) shot on real locations.

Murder on the Orient Express 2017

Branagh's first Poirot film; set expectations lower than the 1978 Death on the Nile did.

Exodus: Gods and Kings 2014

Joanna's comparison point for the same over-lit, location-shot-but-fake look.

Much Ado About Nothing 1993

Joanna calls it one of the greatest films ever made, part of her general affection for Branagh.

Belfast 2021

Referenced as Branagh's big awards-season moment this year.

Tenet 2020

Cited alongside his Poirot films as evidence Branagh is now happily chewing scenery.

Titanic 1997

The hinge point Klosterman says movie culture pivoted on.

Reality Bites 1994

His entry point for the decade's idea of selling out — a film about that very subject that is itself a sellout product.

Falling Down 1993

The Michael Douglas rampage film Klosterman says the culture has chosen to half-forget because its ideas are too uncomfortable now.

The Matrix 1999

His pick for the single most significant film of the decade — a movie, he argues, about the internet before most people had it.

Kids 1995

Used in the book to illustrate how much language has shifted since.

In the Company of Men 1997

Paired with Kids for the same point about language.

The Blair Witch Project 1999

His example of a marketing con — total information vacuum — that couldn't be pulled off today.

Reservoir Dogs 1992

His stand-in for the walk-in-blind theater experience the internet has erased.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 2008

Klosterman recalls loving it at an early press screening with no context, then remembering it as bad years later.

Meet Joe Black 1998

His example of the most financially successful movie ever among films nobody actually watched — audiences bought tickets just to see the Phantom Menace trailer attached.

The Sixth Sense 1999

Reviewed at the time for the Akron Beacon Journal; he argues it's well-made independent of its twist.

Fight Club 1999

He'd read the novel first, so the twist didn't land the same way it did for other critics.

The Village 2004

His example of a twist-reliant film where he'd guessed the reveal twenty minutes in.

Licorice Pizza 2021

The last thing he'd seen — he liked it, ranks it middle of the pack for Paul Thomas Anderson.

Punch-Drunk Love 2002

The one PTA film he doesn't like, over its sympathy for a character who can't control his anger.

Saturday Night Fever 1977

His example of a movie that became a period piece by accident, not by design.

Slacker 1990

Seeing it on video in 1992 is the one movie experience he says actually changed his life.