Sandra Bullock's 6 Most Iconic '90s Roles

From Taco Bell to the three seashells, Demolition Man might be one of the strangest sci-fi action movies of the 1990s. Watching it feels a bit like Total Recall with the fish-out-of-water humour of Back to the Future thrown on top. For Bullock’s career, however, it was a huge breakout moment.

Wesley Snipes stars as Spartan, a violent criminal who is frozen in a kind of cryogenic sleep in jail, only to be woken up in a future where nobody knows how to be violent anymore and where cursing gets you a fine. He's needed to stop a criminal even more violent than he was — as I said, it’s pretty bizarre.

In what was her first blockbuster mega-hit, Sandy plays Lenina Huxley (a character named after the author and protagonist of Brave New World), an officer who, unlike her colleagues, is fascinated by 20th-century history and who gets Spartan brought back to help with her investigation. Naturally, the two soon become romantically involved.

Jan de Bont’s directorial debut, Speed, is the platonic ideal of a '90s action flick. It's a movie that takes the simplest premise imaginable (a bus has to stay above 40mph or it blows up), dreams up a bunch of cool ways to exploit it, and executes them with style and swagger.

Keanu Reeves plays Jack Tavern, a bomb squad cop who ends up in the crosshairs of the raving lunatic (played by notable raving lunatic Dennis Hopper) who rigs up the aforementioned death bus. After boarding, he strikes up a friendship with a passenger named Annie (played by Bullock, in what is still one of her most charismatic performances) who hops behind the wheel when the driver is injured. From there, she must attempt to navigate the cumbersome vehicle through the busy streets of LA as she and Jack hit it off.

De Bont made his name as a cinematographer on movies like Die Hard and Basic Instinct, and Speed oozes with that same impossibly slick ‘90s energy. You can basically watch this one on repeat.

You can’t have an all-timer ‘90s run without at least one major rom-com, and for Sandra Bullock, that movie is While You Were Sleeping. For this enormous hit (which really hasn't aged a day), the actress plays an MTA ticket saleswoman who has a crush on a regular commuter (played by Peter Gallagher).

One day, he falls on the tracks, and she saves his life, but he ends up in a coma just the same, and when his family comes to visit and ask if she's his fiancé, she decides to go along with it. By the time he wakes up, however, she's already fallen for his brother (a lovely turn from Bill Pullman). It's the kind of twisty rom-com setup you can't really get away with as much these days, but thanks to Bullock's effortless relatability, it's impossible to not be charmed.

Bullock’s rom-com heyday arguably came in the late ‘00s, but it's hard to imagine that run happening without this still-delightful gem.

You’ll have to decide for yourself which movie on this list has aged the worst in a cultural sense, but in terms of basic technology, it’s easily The Net. Along with Sandy's performance, of course (which honestly really saves it), it's also the main reason why it's worth a watch.

As a paranoia thriller, the story is pretty run-of-the-mill and not particularly well told — a reclusive computer hacker (played by Bullock) has her identity stolen by a nefarious government corporation when she comes into possession of some top-secret files — but the extremely WEB1.0-coded images (think Bullock ordering pizza online and being hit on by some dudes in a chat room, but framed in a techy/futuristic way) are an interesting document of how people thought about the internet at that time. 

For an example of the vibe at that moment, check out this incredible promotional video of Bullock becoming the first-ever person to purchase a movie ticket online.

Having nailed a classic action movie, a classic sci-fi action movie and a classic rom-com in the first half of the decade, Bullock began the second half by more or less nailing a courtroom drama with 1996’s A Time to Kill — even if the movie itself hasn't aged the best.

Based on John Grisham’s novel of the same name (Coppola's adaptation of Grisham's The Rainmaker came just one year later) and set in America’s deep South in the still essentially segregated aftermath of the Jim Crow era, the movie stars Samuel L. Jackson as a father seeking justice against the group of white men who murdered his 10-year-old daughter. Matthew McConaughey plays his lawyer, Jake Brigance, with Bullock delivering yet another wonderful supporting turn as Ellen Roark, an idealistic law student on his team. 

The cast is absolutely stacked from top to bottom, including a first-ever big-screen appearance for Octavia Spencer, but Bullock still manages to stand out.

We end our list in the same place where we started: the 1998 classic Practical Magic — a cosy, witchy tale about love, sisterhood and autumnal colours that boasts about as many iconic tunes as it does iconic outfits. And don't even get me started on that house.

As the Owens sisters, this is a movie that gives you Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock at the early height of their powers — with Kidman still in her miraculous red hair era as Gillian, the more outgoing of the two; and Sandy delivering some of her best awkward schtick as the overly cautious Sally.

On top of all that, it's scored by the great Alan Silvestri, possibly the most comforting movie composer of all time — think Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Cast Away, Avengers: Endgame, the list goes on.

If you haven’t seen it yet, enjoy. If you’ve seen it a million times, enjoy it, too.