Jordan's Video — Required Viewing

95% AUDIENCE SCORE

Back to the Future

19851h 56mRobert Zemeckis

🍅 95% audience ⭐ 8.5 IMDB

A teenager, a mad scientist, and a time machine built out of a DeLorean. Marty McFly gets accidentally blasted thirty years into the past and has one job: don't break history. He immediately breaks history. Now he's racing a clock — and a lightning storm — to undo the damage before he erases himself.

The most quoted movie in pop culture. "Great Scott!", "1.21 gigawatts", the DeLorean — you've been getting these references secondhand your whole life. Time to get them firsthand.

🎬 Video clerk trivia

Eric Stoltz originally played Marty and filmed for weeks before being replaced by Michael J. Fox — the do-over cost millions. And Ford offered big money to make the time machine a Mustang; the producer's answer: "Doc Brown doesn't drive a f***ing Mustang."

WHERE TO WATCHStreaming on AMC+ — or rent ~$4

Clueless

19951h 37mAmy Heckerling

🍅 81% critics ⭐ 6.9 IMDB

Cher Horowitz is rich, gorgeous, and completely convinced she's already figured out everyone's life for them — starting with a total makeover of the clueless new girl at school. It's secretly Jane Austen's Emma relocated to a Beverly Hills high school, and every one of Cher's little schemes backfires in a way that accidentally teaches her something.

The blueprint for every teen comedy that came after. "As if!", the yellow plaid, a whole decade of slang and style — Cher basically invented the '90s teen. Ugh, as if you'd skip it.

🎬 Video clerk trivia

Amy Heckerling sat in on real Beverly Hills high-school classes to nail the slang — and some of the best bits ("Baldwin," "Betty," "Monet") she made up, only for teens to start using them for real after the movie hit. It also began life as a rejected TV pilot before Paramount turned it into a feature.

WHERE TO WATCHStreaming on Paramount+ — or free on Kanopy

The Craft

19961h 41mAndrew Fleming

A new girl at an LA Catholic school falls in with three outcasts who dabble in witchcraft — and with her in the circle, the spells suddenly start working. Revenge, glamour, power: it's everything four teenage girls ever wanted. Then they find out magic charges interest.

THE 90s teen-witch movie. The whole goth-girl aesthetic, "we are the weirdos, mister," every witchy Halloween costume since '96 — it all starts here.

🎬 Video clerk trivia

85 actresses screen-tested for the four leads — including Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson. A real practicing Wiccan was hired as a consultant and wrote the actual incantations used on screen.

WHERE TO WATCHFree on Tubi & Plex

Practical Magic

19981h 44mGriffin Dunne

Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman are the Owens sisters — small-town witches from a family with a centuries-old curse: any man who falls for an Owens woman is doomed. One sister wants a normal life, one wants no rules at all, and one very bad night forces them to team up and out-magic the curse itself.

The ultimate cozy-witchy comfort movie. Midnight margaritas, a perfect Victorian house, aunts who solve problems with spells — this is a warm blanket in film form, with teeth.

🎬 Video clerk trivia

That gorgeous seaside Victorian mansion? Never a real house. Built from scratch on San Juan Island over nearly a year — then demolished after filming. The movie also had its entire musical score replaced just before release.

WHERE TO WATCHRent ~$4 — Amazon / Apple TV

Groundhog Day

19931h 41mHarold Ramis

🍅 93% critics ⭐ 8.0 IMDB

A cynical, self-important TV weatherman gets sent to cover the Groundhog Day festival in a small Pennsylvania town he can't stand — and then wakes up to find it's Groundhog Day again. And again. The same day on infinite repeat, with only him aware of the loop. What do you do with a day that has no tomorrow and no consequences? Turns out, eventually, everything.

So culturally embedded that "a Groundhog Day" is now a real dictionary phrase for any inescapable, repeating loop. Every time-loop movie since — every single one — is standing on this one's shoulders.

🎬 Video clerk trivia

The film never says how long Phil is trapped — Harold Ramis once guessed "about 10 years," while fans argue for decades or even centuries. Bill Murray was bitten twice by the groundhog during filming. And it was shot in Woodstock, Illinois, not the real Punxsutawney — the town still throws "Groundhog Day" celebrations for the movie today.

WHERE TO WATCHStreaming on AMC+ & Philo — or rent ~$4