53 Movie Actors From The '90s That Teens Crushed On Hard Back In The Day
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Hello, my fellow Gen X'ers (and older millennials)! Let's leave behind our stresses of adulthood for a moment and travel back in time to the 1990s...and remember what it was like being a teenager with all of the celeb crushes we had!
Paramount
Wayne and Garth voices: "Doodleleedo, doodleleedo, doodleleedo..."
Look, we did it! We're back in the '90s! As teenagers! Wow, my back doesn't hurt anymore! OK, here are 52 movie stars '90s teens crushed on hard:
1.Brendan Fraser
To '90s teens with their hormones working overtime, Brendan's chiseled and on-display physique in Encino Man and George of the Jungle was almost too much to take. Add in his easy smile, natural charisma, and comedic timing, and it was a no-brainer crush.
2.Drew Barrymore
Teens in the '90s first got to know Drew as the little girl in E.T., but then she disappeared for a while after partying too much at a much-too-young age. There were a lot of rumors about what had become of her, and when she finally returned to screens in the early '90s, she gave off a bad girl vibe in films like Poison Ivy that scared us a little. After all, by that point she'd lived nine lives, and we were still doodling in our notebooks in geometry class.
But whether she was flashing her breasts at David Letterman or, later, transitioning into the sweet, rom-com Drew of The Wedding Singer and Never Been Kissed, we all had a spot for her in our hearts.
3.Edward Furlong
Edward was 13 when he played John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and set tongues wagging in junior high schools across the land. He was a cute kid with a working-class swagger you generally didn't see in actors his age, but the thing that most impressed people was...his hair! Yep, those bangs swooping over one eye were like teenage catnip! I remember a lot of guys trying to grow their hair like his and never, ever looking anywhere near as good.
4.Salma Hayek
First off, I need to tell any younger readers that the above photo was not created using AI and the prompt, "Create the most ridiculously gorgeous human possible." Nope, that was just how Salma looked casually dropping into a '90s-era movie premiere.
She first caught our eye in Desperado with Antonio Banderas (another gorgeous human, but one who seemed to appeal more to our moms than to us teens), then showed her range doing comedy in Fools Rush In. Lastly, I have to mention the snake scene in From Dusk Till Dawn because...my goodness.
5.Keanu Reeves
Keanu started the decade as a shaggy-haired cutie/human puppy in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Parenthood, then morphed into a badass action star in Point Break and Speed. He also really stretched as an actor, surprising those who had underestimated him by taking roles in mature and complex films like My Own Private Idaho and Little Buddha.
We loved him then as we do now, and we even listened to him play bass in his rock band Dogstar. Well, we listened at least once...because it was Keanu!
6.Reese Witherspoon
Reese was a real-life teenager for much of the '90s, making her debut in 1991's The Man in the Moon, playing a tomboy having her first romance. She was very cute in the '90s (l mean, look at that photo above!) and won over teens with her wholesome, bubbly charm in films like Pleasantville...as well as with her impressive range as an actor in films like Election and Cruel Intentions. Of course, for Reese, the best was yet to come in the next century!
7.Christian Slater
With his slicked-back hair and voice that adults complained sounded almost exactly like Jack Nicholson's, Christian was Mr. Cool to teenagers back in the day.
He was most popular in the early '90s while playing young characters in films like Mobsters, Kuffs, and Pump Up the Volume, then graduated into older, more serious roles that interested teens less (Murder in the First, anyone?). Still, there was a time when he probably couldn't have safely walked through a high school without being absolutely mobbed!
8.Winona Ryder
Winona says that when she was a young actor starting out in the '80s, a casting agent told her to give up acting because she wasn't pretty enough, which is absolutely wild to me, considering how many '90s teens flipped out over her at first sight (including me...full disclosure: She was my #1 crush back in the day). I hope that casting agent left the business, considering their judgment!
But OK, OK, there were a LOT of beautiful young actors in the '90s. So, what made Winona so special? It was her prodigious acting talent and, well, the just plain-unstoppable life force that she brought to every role. Whether she was a goth teen talking to the dead in Beetlejuice, the Civil War–era go-getter Jo March in Little Women, the ultimate Gen X'er in Reality Bites, or a suicidal young woman in a psychiatric hospital in Girl, Interrupted, she absolutely inhabited her roles, breathing so, so much life into her characters. And she was funny!
To quote the tattoo her then-boyfriend Johnny Depp got at the time: "Winona forever."
9.Leonardo DiCaprio
Do I even need to explain this one? The '90s started with classmates talking about that "new cute kid" on Growing Pains, and from there, our interest in him only grew...and grew...and GREW...with films like Romeo + Juliet and Titanic.
Without a doubt, Leo was the undisputed #1 teen crush of the decade.
10.Jennifer Love Hewitt
Jennifer Love Hewitt...now, that's a name I haven't thought about in a while, but boy, did we all love her back in the day! She burst onto the scene as the ultimate girl next door on Party of Five, and her wholesome vibe made her the kind of girl your mom would want you to date as much as you would! (Not that any of us dorks talking about Party of Five over cups of ramen in the cafeteria ever had a shot.)
I Know What You Did Last Summer from 1997 was Jennifer's big movie breakout, and she stole the show, if you ask me, despite the number of other actors on this list who also starred in it.
11.Tia Carrere
There was a stretch in the '90s when teens were doing a whooole lot of thinking about Tia after seeing her play Cassandra in the smash hit Wayne's World. She was funny and charming and sang her character's songs in the film (and on the soundtrack, which every self-respecting '90s teen had). And to quote Garth when talking about her character: "If she were a president, she would be Baberaham Lincoln."
My buddies and I even went to see the Sean Connery–Wesley Snipes actioner Rising Sun when we heard she was in it. The movie wasn't great, but she looked great in it!
12.Sean Murray
You might be surprised by this inclusion, but over the years, a whoooole lot of former '90s teens have told me that Sean's appearance as Thackery Binx in Hocus Pocus — a movie most DEFINITELY not meant to be sexy — ignited their sexual awakening. Who knew?
13.Dante Basco
And since we just mentioned Sean Murray as Thackery Binx, we absolutely need to mention Dante as Rufio in Steven Spielberg's Hook. The guy was super cool, oozed charisma, and felt a little dangerous...and like Sean, he had preteens and young teens leaving the theater wondering about all of the FEELINGS they were experiencing.
14.Julia Roberts
Julia was among the biggest '90s teen crushes of them all, and it didn't matter who you were or where you lived — after seeing her flash her smile and laugh her infectious laugh in Pretty Woman, you were crushing.
We followed her love life — She married who? — and went to see all of her movies no matter what they were about, like Dying Young, which, wow, was as depressing as the title suggests. Still, we were happy to see her onscreen!
15.Patrick Swayze
Patrick may have turned 40 in the early '90s, but I still remember his name coming up again and again at school when we'd discuss our movie star crushes. And why not? The dude was cool! He could win a fight and dance like a pro (which he was), and he had A+ hair.
After seeing him with charisma to spare in Ghost and Point Break, '90s teens then rented Dirty Dancing at Blockbuster...and his crush status was cemented!
16.Jennifer Connelly
Teens in the '90s first got to know and appreciate Jennifer when she played Sarah in 1986's Jim Henson classic Labyrinth, but when she popped back onto our radar in the early '90s in films like The Rocketeer and the John Hughes–scripted Career Opportunities, we definitely sat up and took notice...much like the criminals did when she rode the coin-operated horse in the latter film. It was definitely a scene that teens were breathlessly discussing in school hallways the next day!
17.River Phoenix
This one still hurts. River (Joaquin's older brother) was the complete package, and just about every '90s teen loved him one way or the other. He was gorgeous (which made him a mainstay of the era's teenybopper magazines) but also a brilliant, Academy Award–nominated actor with the charisma and inner complexity of movie legends like Paul Newman. No kid was ever cooler than River in 1986's Stand by Me, and he only earned more cool points by playing the young Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
The '90s brought acclaimed performances in films like My Own Private Idaho, plus the box office smash Sneakers, but he died of combined drug intoxication on Halloween night in 1993. He was just 23.
18.Whitney Houston
OK, we already loved Whitney because of her infectious hits and fresh-faced beauty in her MTV videos, but when she stepped to the mic and sang "And IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII..." in the romantic thriller The Bodyguard, well, she really had us.
Did I, a dweeby little 15-year-old, fantasize about being Whitney's bodyguard and keeping her safe like Kevin Costner did in the film? No comment. (But yes, I totally did.)
19.Ethan Hawke
I didn't love Ethan in the '90s because, man oh man, did the girls go wild over him! But since then, I've gained an appreciation of him as a thoughtful actor-writer. Plus, after looking at the above photo from Reality Bites, I need to apologize to the girls from my high school and say, "I get it! You were right! Just look at that dude!"
20.Lucy Liu
Of all the people on this list, Lucy is probably the one who made people go, "Oh my god, she's so pretty" more than anyone else. And look at her up there! You can see why! Truth be told, '90s teens knew her for TV's Ally McBeal more than her movies (only Payback was a hit), but she became a movie star in the '00s with winning performances in Shanghai Noon and the Charlie's Angels and Kill Bill movies...all of which had our twentysomething selves once again saying, "Oh my god, she's so pretty!"
21.Gary Oldman (but Only in Dracula)
You're probably thinking...what?! But I remember the weekend after Dracula came out, all of the girls at my school went on and on about how sexy and romantic he was in the movie! I did NOT see that coming, but there you have it! I'm curious if other '90s teens felt this way or if there was just something in the water at my school!
22.Sharon Stone
Oh my goodness, if there was ever a movie that forced '90s teens to perfect the art of sneaking into movies they weren't supposed to see, it was 1992's Basic Instinct. But we'd all heard about the infamous interrogation scene, and Sharon's beyond-sexy performance in the film's preview alone absolutely blew away our developing minds.
Bonus points to those '90s teens who had to sit through the steamy trailer while sitting next to their parents!
23.The Women of A League of Their Own
This smash hit in the summer of 1992 was a movie just about every teen saw (regardless of whether they liked baseball), and it seems like we all left the theater crushing on one of the stars. Many, of course, couldn't stop talking about Madonna, but Geena Davis and Lori Petty won a lot of hearts too!
24.Tom Cruise
Sure, he was more of our older sibling's crush than our own, but there was no bigger star in the world than Tom in the '90s...and love him or hate him, there's no denying the man was beautiful! He had presence onscreen too!
Sometimes your older sibling's crush becomes your crush too, you know?
25.Jennifer Lopez
LOL...I don't have to waste too many words explaining why people were attracted to J.Lo, do I? If a '90s teen's crush didn't start when she was a Fly Girl on In Living Color, it definitely began when she starred in movies like Selena and Out of Sight (where she and George Clooney were very steamy). But if they somehow avoided J.Lo fever after all of that, they surely would have got it once the sexy On the 6 videos dropped!
26.Luke Perry
OK, so his movie career didn't exactly blow up (8 Seconds and Buffy the Vampire Slayer were only minor hits), but he and the rest of his castmates on TV's Beverly Hills 90210 captivated '90s teens like no other. Luke — with his good looks and brooding cool — was probably the most popular of them all.
Since we're all friends here, I will admit the embarrassing fact that as a teen, I grew long sideburns like his and wore dress shirts unbuttoned halfway down the front, 90210 style. Thankfully, those were pre-internet days, LOL!
27.Madonna
Gen Z'ers may not be able to imagine it now, but in the '90s, there was no one as edgy, cool, and unafraid to be sexy as Madonna. Parents hated her — which was part of why teens loved her — and her catchy songs and envelope-pushing videos were on constant rotation on MTV. And while she never became a major movie star, we all saw at least one of her movies, like Dick Tracy or A League of Their Own.
One more thing that only '90s teens will remember: Madonna put out a coffee-table book called Sex with lots of racy (and sometimes nude) photos of herself in it. There was no real internet back then, so the only way to see the photos was by looking inside the book. Every teen longingly eyed the sample copy of Sex at Tower Records, but only the truly brave dared to open it up under the watchful eyes of the store clerks!
28.Uma Thurman
Pulp Fiction was the cool movie of the '90s, and all the teens who saw themselves as cinephiles or future cinema majors would not stop talking about how in love they were with Uma after watching her play Mia. And hey, why not? She was statuesque and beautiful, a versatile actor (dig her doing comedy in The Truth About Cats and Dogs), and even played Poison Ivy in Batman & Robin (actually, the less said about that movie the better). All of this came before the Kill Bill films in the aughts! Impressive!
29.Brad Pitt
Why did teens crush on him? Do you have to ask? Look at that SOB up there with all the hair! Brad was a literal Adonis with an exponentially improving acting ability. The romantic drama Meet Joe Black was probably teens' favorite film of his...but Seven, with Brad wearing a buzz cut, turned heads too. He had us getting all choked up with, "What's in the box?!"
30.Janet Jackson
Janet was already a massive music star whom '90s teens knew and loved, but when she starred in the romantic film Poetic Justice (writer-director John Singleton's highly anticipated follow-up to Boyz n the Hood), smiling like ^, well, all resistance was futile. Later in the '90s, she won over any holdouts by wearing that crop top in the "That's the Way Love Goes" video!
31.Cameron Diaz
Cameron playing a Game Boy?!?! Try not to get too excited, '90s teens...we're old now and could have a heart attack!
But in all seriousness, just about every teen went to see her film debut in The Mask, and her beauty and charisma were so strong, she just about upstaged Jim Carrey! There was also something refreshingly dorky about her at times (and I mean that in the best way possible). By the time she starred in There's Something About Mary, she was practically America's sweetheart...especially among teens.
32.Will Smith
Will was the perfect example of a celebrity whom '90s teens "wanted to be with or be like." After a successful rap career with Jazzy Jeff, he came to Hollywood to make The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and his performance had it all: He was cool and funny and looked fantastic! And he could act! Remember the "Why don't he want me, man?" scene?
By the time Bad Boys, Independence Day, and Men in Black came out, there was no one flying higher. Those sure were the days...back when the only thing that slapped was his No. 1 hit "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It."
33.Natasha Henstridge
Honestly, I don't expect anyone under 30 (or even 35) to have ever heard of the Species film series. But when this horror flick came out in 1995 with the impossibly stunning Natasha playing a sexy alien–human hybrid desperate to reproduce, well, it was as if it was created in a lab to titillate horny teenagers.
34.Freddie Prinze Jr.
Freddie's dad was a famous comedian, but Freddie didn't try too hard to be funny. While he did do some light comedy (and did it well), he mainly was a likable actor with a knack for appearing unaware of his teen-dream good looks.
His place on this list largely has to do with the I Know What You Did Last Summer films...it seems that he was the male member of the cast people couldn't stop talking about! Of course, if you had little brothers or sisters, they'd come to love him as Fred in the Scooby-Doo movies.
35.Claire Danes
Claire first won hearts playing Angela Chase on MTV's short-lived — but acclaimed — angsty teen drama My So-Called Life. Sure, part of the attraction was her striking red hair and big, expressive eyes, but the other part was her incredible performance, which made you feel as if you were watching an actual teen and not an actor playing one.
This list is about movies, though, and Claire was in one of the 1990s' biggest (according to the era's teens, at least), playing Juliet opposite Leo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet. So much about the film was iconic to teens — like Claire's wings, which girls wore in droves that Halloween — but it was the age-old concept of doomed, star-crossed teenage lovers that made the film so unforgettable to '90s teens...especially when they were played by stars as deeply crushworthy as Claire and Leo!
36.Kate Winslet
Titanic needed a romantic pairing for Leo DiCaprio who was every bit as crush-inspiring as he was, and they definitely found her in the incomparable Kate. She not only looked amazing in her early-20th-century gowns but also brought so much passion and spunk to the role.
As beautiful as Kate is, sometimes a crush is more about how phenomenally talented a person is...and her Oscar-caliber acting talent wowed (and wows) us every time.
37.Ben Affleck and Matt Damon
These guys were everywhere after their film Good Will Hunting blew up in 1997, which was nominated for multiple Academy Awards and won two. Teens loved them, and why not? They were good looking and hilarious and had an incredible camaraderie together. Heck, if you didn't crush on them, you wished you had a friendship like theirs!
38.Tyra Banks
Kids today likely think of Tyra as just another TV show host, but man, was she red hot in the '90s! Along with Kate Moss and Cindy Crawford, she was one of the decade's most talked-about supermodels, and when she graced the cover of Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue (a big deal in the pre-internet age) and appeared in the pages of the Victoria's Secret catalog (which often took a clandestine operation to flip through), she set lots of teen hearts aflutter.
39.Liv Tyler
Apologies to Steven Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith and Liv's dad, but if I had a dollar for every time a '90s teen said, "THAT GUY is her dad?!?!", well, I'd have a lot of dollars. (It certainly helped that her mom, Bebe Buell, was a model.) But man, was Liv beautiful!
If you ask me, Liv's beauty and nepo baby status made her perennially underrated as an actor. Maybe she wasn't showy, with big, dramatic crying scenes and the like, but she was so effortlessly real in teen faves like Empire Records and That Thing You Do, as well as indies like Heavy and Stealing Beauty.
Lastly, I'd be upsetting someone if I didn't mention the '90s movie that launched the most crushes on her: Armageddon.
40.Skeet Ulrich
The Scream bad boy was so swoonworthy in the 1996 horror classic that none of my classmates seemed to care that he played the murderer! Like, he killed Drew Barrymore! Not OK! But I guess when you look like he does, it wasn't a red flag. His role in The Craft also got a whole lot of teens interested in him.
Of course, like so many of our great '90s teen crushes, he went on to one day play the parent role on a teenage show (in his case, playing Jughead's dad on Riverdale). Oy, how did we all get so old!
41.Rose McGowan
Rose was like the movie star version of that impossibly cool but intimidating girl at your high school you never spoke to in fear of peeing yourself. Whether it was The Doom Generation, Scream, or Jawbreaker, Rose lit up the big screen with her life force...and when she wore that see-through dress to the 1998 MTV Movie Awards, it was impossible not to be impressed with how daring (and beautiful) she was.
42.Ryan Phillippe
Ryan was cool and brought the smolder in movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Cruel Intentions. And when he was shirtless in the latter film, it created a whole lot of conversation over landlines. He also dated Reese Witherspoon at the time (they later married and had kids). Talk about a teen-dream power couple!
43.Lauryn Hill
Damn, the Fugees were just about the coolest group in the '90s...with Lauryn at the front of the stage as their beautiful, charismatic, big-voiced lead singer. But teenage movie fans first noticed Lauryn playing Rita Louise Watson in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. She was magnetic in the role and got the chance to show off her incredible pipes. Considering how she went on to become such an influential artist, she might prefer that we forget about Sister Act 2, but sorry, Lauryn, we '90s teens can't do that!
44.Johnny Depp
Long before the problematic headlines of recent years, Johnny was a teenage heartthrob...big time. He was good looking (see above); the star of 21 Jump Street, a wildly popular TV show among teens (yep, the Channing Tatum comedies are based on it); and by the time he became a quirky and acclaimed movie star in films like Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood, his photo was on a whole lot of teenagers' bedroom walls.
45.Kirsten Dunst
Kirsten was truly something else — she looked like the prettiest girl at your high school but acted like the most liked one, an infectious ball of energy and good vibes who remembered to sign everyone's yearbook. But underneath her giddy exterior was a deeper complexity, a darkness that she tapped into to play more dramatic and troubled characters, like in 1999's The Virgin Suicides (or, later, 2021's The Power of the Dog). Want some fun '90s-era Kirsten? Check out the charming Dick (about two 15-year-old girls who unwittingly bring down Richard Nixon's presidency).
46.Shannon Elizabeth
American Pie was a sexual awakening for a lot of '90s teens, which is more than a little gross in retrospect, considering that Elizabeth's most famous scene (undressing while the boys secretly watched her on a webcam) was wildly problematic and invasive. But while that scene was gross, she was anything but — gorgeous, with a winningly sunny onscreen presence.
47.Mark Wahlberg
Whether Mark was strutting around the stage half naked as Marky Mark, the lead singer and rapper of the Funky Bunch, or appearing, uh, half naked in absolutely ridiculous Calvin Klein ads, he set an impossible standard for teenage boys' bodies. Let me tell you, going to one of his movies and sitting next to a girl who oohed and aahed over his physique — while you were rocking your 15-year-old pencil arms — was a humbling experience! But hey, I get it! Look at the dude. Still, teens likely would've felt differently about him if they knew more about his history in those pre-internet days.
48.Christina Applegate
Christina's long run as the super-cool (and often daringly dressed) Kelly Bundy on TV's Married With Children made her a frequent crush of the '90s teen set, but it was the feature Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead that sealed the deal. What '90s kid didn't watch that movie and wish she were their babysitter?
49.Mike Vitar
Lots of young teens and preteens went to The Sandlot expecting a cute kid movie about baseball but found themselves perking up a bit in their seats and asking, "Who's that guy?" The smooth teenager later melted hearts on ice in D3: The Mighty Ducks.
50.Alicia Silverstone
Clueless was a straight-up phenomenon among teens in the '90s, and a huge part of its success had to do with its super-crushworthy cast...including, of course, its star, Alicia. I was a little inclined not to like her at the time because a girl at my high school was friends with her before she moved to Hollywood and used to say, "My friend just moved to Hollywood to get into the movies!" and I'd say, "That doesn't happen! You don't just move to Hollywood and get into movies!" And then Alicia did it in, like, less than a year.
Anyway, Alicia was so beautiful in the film — and really, really funny — that she won me over along with everyone else. And heck, the fashions she wore were iconic too! She stumbled a bit with her follow-up films (er, Excess Baggage?) but came back strong at the end of the decade with Blast From the Past.
51.Stacey Dash
Alicia Silverstone wasn't the only young star in Clueless who had teens' tongues wagging. Her costar and onscreen BFF Stacey (as Dionne Davenport) was just so damn cool and made teens wonder, How can someone be that pretty? Like Alicia, the fashions Stacey wore were truly iconic, and yes, some unfortunate souls at my high school tried to dress like her after the movie came out (mistake). About a decade later, Stacey appeared in Kanye West's "All Falls Down" video, and — whoa, Nelly! — that performance alone would earn her a spot in a post about "'00s Stars Twentysomethings Crushed On."
Of course, Stacey's story took a disappointing turn when she made divisive and upsetting comments as a Donald Trump–supporting Fox News commenter (which she's since expressed regret for). In that way, she's like a number of the stars on this list, who've done things to seriously test (or extinguish) our feelings for them. (Oh, the innocent, naive teens we were...unaware of what was to come in the next 30-plus years!)
52.And Donald Faison
We all really fell in love with Donald when he played Turk on Scrubs, but he had the same effortless charm and A+ comedic chops in Clueless, too. He was super cute too, which made it all the more believable that Stacey Dash's Dionne would hook up with him. Good movie! Great cast! You know what? I think I need to watch Clueless again.
But NOT Paul Rudd. Sure, he was in Clueless, but I don't remember anyone mooning over him. However, I do remember people talking about how Cher ending up with her stepbrother was a little weird. Of course, Paul would go on to sell his soul to the devil for eternal youth sometime in the late '90s, and we'd all fall in love with him shortly thereafter.
