15 movies you won't believe are 25 years old this year

This is on T about every six days, and with good reason – it’s a big silly fun romp, with Brendan Fraser doing his best Indiana Jones, Rachel Weisz clobbering people in the head and Arnold Vosloo (from Darkman!) as the titular bandaged wrong’n.

It was bad enough when the original Toy Story hit 20 years old. Now the sequel, which doesn't even look that old to our rheumy eyes, is 25. It's arguably the best of the entire series. Buzz is stolen, and the gang, which now includes Jessie, have to rescue him. But it doesn't quite go to plan.

Still one of the coolest films ever made (despite two underwhelming sequels and a million misguided jacket purchases), The Matrix is an ingenious, visually extraordinary, completely dazzling sci-fi spectacle, a perfect match of style and substance and theatrical proof that sunglasses don’t need arms if you’re super badass.

Part deconstruction of toxic masculinity, part problematic celebration of it, the more time that goes by, the stranger a cultural artefact Fight Club is. Nevertheless, it’s an extraordinarily well-made film, with star turns from Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, a scene-stealing, be-bosomed Meat Loaf and weird, clever, postmodern gags.

Tied with Fight Club as the 1999 film that most demanded an immediate rewatch, The Sixth Sense may not stand up to enormous narrative scrutiny, but its twist was so shocking at the time that director M. Night Shyalaman’s name is still used as shorthand for that kind of holy-heck-what-just-happened ending.

Immortalised in the Guinness Book of Records for having the most swear words of any animated feature (399), the South Park movie also got itself an Oscar nomination for Best Song, leading to the memorable sight of Matt Stone and Trey Parker showing up to the awards tripping on acid wearing the dresses Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow had worn the year before. Ambitious, vulgar, hilarious and razor-sharp in its attacks on self-appointed guardians of youth, it’s the cleverest movie ever to feature the line “You’re a boner-biting bastard, uncle-fucker”.

An updated version of Les Liasons Dangereuses updating the setting to the upper echelons of New York society, Cruel Intentions is the impossibly glamorous, twisty-turny, sexy tale of wealthy teen socialites (played by actors nearing thirty, phew) getting off with one another. It’s deeply silly but takes itself deadly seriously, and somehow works. Killer soundtrack too – every time you watch it, the chap from Placebo gets a few bob.

The teen sex comedy that brought in an era of dozens of teen sex comedies, American Pie introduced the world to both Stifler and the Shermanator, had a split-second cameo from Blink-182, was progessive in certain ways and deeply regressive in others, and changed what we thought flutes were capable of.

The second Austin Powers film arrived in a very different context to the first – the original was a sleeper hit that only found major success on home video, while The Spy Who Shagged Me was a huge release (oo-er!). It introduced the world to Mini-Me and Fat Bastard, and gave unfunny people licence to be so, so unfunny. It also led to a lot of conversations in the media about the rudeness or lack thereof of the word “shag”, which was a great deal of fun at the time.

The best Star Trek film ever made isn’t a Star Trek film at all, but this lovingly-made, laugh-out-loud parody, in which the cast of a cheesy Trek-like show are abducted by aliens who believe them to be the real space heroes they portrayed. The cast is magnificent, with a never-more-weary Alan Rickman totally stealing the show. It also features the best ever cinematic appearance of an individually wrapped cheese and cracker pack.

Mena Suvari clearly peaked in 1999. Not only did she star in American Pie, she was in the once beloved American Beauty too. Of course, watching it in 2024 has a distinctly different feel, after all the allegations surrounding Kevin Spacey. Funnily enough, a lot happens in 25 years.

Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge wrote and directed this hilarious satire of corporate life that, apart from the dated technology, holds up perfectly today – computers have changed, dickheads haven’t. The sheer agony of life as a tiny anonymous cog in a huge corporate machine is beautifully and hideously portrayed. You’ll laugh, you’ll shudder, you’ll update your LinkedIn.

Notable more for the meta-narrative surrounding it than as a film itself, The Blair Witch Project arrived with one of the first ever viral marketing campaigns. Thanks to nobody knowing for certain whether it was real or not, this micro-budget improvised film starring nobody anyone had ever heard of became one of the most profitable movies ever made, and ushered in a new era of found-footage horror.

Probably the most anticipated film event in history, The Phantom Menace was the subject of an immediate, unprecedented backlash as fans who had grown up with the Star Wars films decided that George Lucas, the man who had invented it all, had it wrong. “It’s like it’s for children!” they cried, longing for the days of the funny space cowboy’s hairy friend and the really grown-up Ewoks.

Contender for the most fun shark movie of all time. Deep Blue Sea is the movie that sees Samuel L. Jackson swallowed whole by a great white, in a great moment of pulpy filmmaking years before Snakes on a Plane was a thing. Despite being extremely silly, it's one of the best shark movies ever made.