'90s Movie Characters You Crushed On Growing Up

Before the days of Facebook stalking and Instagram photos, you'd had to go out of your way to see a crush. As in, you'd search through old yearbooks, or worse, have to pass by her locker a few times a day just for a glimpse.

Which is why it was easier on your heart to obsess over something more accessible, like the girls in movies. Well, accessible in the sense that you could drop in a VHS tape and watch them on screen over and over again. These are a few of the '90s movie characters you crushed on growing up.

Played by: Ali Larter

Darcy Sears (Ali Larter) just wanted to escape her small town life, and she thought she could fulfill that fantasy by marrying a football player. She wanted to wed a player so bad that she tried to seduce the quarterback, Mox (James Van Der Beek), by appearing in whipped cream underwear. We can only assume he rebuked her advances because he was diabetic. Or because he was anticipating a nasty yeast infection. No, really—sugar's not supposed to go down there.

Played by: Bridgette Wilson

It takes a truly special woman to look past the idiotic actions of a full-grown man enrolled as a student in a third grade classroom. Bridgette Wilson was that woman. As Veronica, Billy Madison's (Adam Sandler) third grade teacher (the second time around, not the first when he would've been, like, 8), she encouraged Billy to learn and to try to be better than just a rich kid loser who drinks all day. To do this, she took her top off.

Played by: Moira Kelly

They came from different worlds. Her heart was made of ice and her perfectionism was ideal for the world of Olympic figure skating. He was a down-and-out hockey player looking for one more chance at a gold medal. Their relationship was truly one of love/skate. The movie's words, not ours.

Moira Kelly, playing Kate, did a great job of getting on our nerves. She was entitled and spoiled and her perfectionism drove everyone away. But, truth be told, we'd still skate with her, even thought figure skating is lame. Amiright?!

Anything we can do to thaw your icy heart, Kate. Anything.

Played by: Jada Pinkett

Awkward teenagers and summers of love—there's no better recipe for a '90s comedy. Add a young Jada Pinkett in a bikini and you've got a classic. She may have been snooty and insufferable, but Lauren still hooked us on the beaches of Martha's Vineyard. We still haven't seen those beaches, but if Big Sean can do what he does, there's hope for us yet.

Played by: Bre Blair

Stacey (Blair), we love you, but we just don't know if we can believe you anymore! How could you lie to us about something so important? Perhaps the most unbelievable drama in The Babysitters Club is Stacey worried about telling her 17-year-old boyfriend about her diabetes. Oh, and also, she's only 13. Which, you know, seems like a bigger deal.

Played by: Brittney Powell

We recently saw the movie poster for Airborne and swore it was a badly photoshopped joke. Then, we began experiencing flashbacks. How could we forget that legends aren't made? They're Airborne. How could we forget men weren't meant to fly? Kids were. How could we forget one of our (many, apparently one of 25) first loves? Brittney Powell. Just thinking about her makes us want to rollerblade really fast! Like, real fast.

Played by: Kristy Swanson

Swanson was the OG Buffy Summers, and she's often left in the shadow of her counterpart played by Sarah Michelle Gellar on TV. That doesn't make her less of a slayer, it just means you really need to revisit the movie that started it all.

Swanson's Buffy was the typical cheerleader and it's extremely satisfying to watch her kill vampires. We're not sure how women began falling for these bloodsuckers, like in Twilight, because we're still really attached to the idea of an optimistic high schooler thrusting wooden stakes into their hearts. It's the romantic in us, we guess.

Played by: Winona Ryder

How adorable was Winona Ryder in Edward Scissorhands? The blonde wig, the happy-go-lucky personality, the kindness—it's no wonder her jock boyfriend (Anthony Michael Hall) and Edward (Johnny Depp) were both in love with her. So much so that they had a fight to the death over her.

Guess who won.

Played by: Samantha Mathis

Pump Up the Volume is the prime example of how popular teen angst was during the early '90s. Alternative music, suicide, and fighting the system were major themes. Teen angst and going against the status quo is personified in Samantha Mathis' Nora. She had dyed black hair, dude. That's deep. She wore long dark tunics and black and white stockings. Of course we'd fall for this punk. Be still our hearts—if we had one—bro.

Played by: Liv Tyler

That flattering blue, fuzzy, midriff-bearing sweater and the plaid skirt?! If a girl was at a record store dressed like Corey (Tyler), we'd lose our mind. Her looks, her full lips, her brain, and her confidence—see, '90s nostalgia does make sense.

Played by: Christina Applegate

Applegate played the ultimate cool girl, Sue Ellen. Sure, she couldn't afford going to Europe with her friends, but she was going to have a pretty sweet summer without her mom being around.

But wait! Being a teenager is wack. Her mom hired a babysitter?! Come on! Until, of course, the old tyrant kicks the bucket. If we found a dead old woman in our house we'd probably just pee our pants. But not Sue Ellen. She dumped that body off at the funeral home and went on with her life. DGAF.

Played by: Angelina Jolie

While your mom was lecturing about not telling Internet predators your A/S/L, a group of cyberpunks gathered. If '90s movies are to be believed, anyone attractive and somewhat computer savvy could hack any mainframe. That's why they had names like Acid Burn and Zero Cool.

Jolie was, of course, the too cool for school Acid Burn, a.k.a. Kate. We'd go to the after-hours hackclub with her any day, but we know better than to beat her high score in wipEout. Killing her pride would not be the move.

Played by: Reese Witherspoon

Nobody plays innocent better than Reese Witherspoon, and there's something totally appealing about the good girl who wants to rebel against her dad. But what's good with Mark Wahlberg's characte David? He's kinda crazy, right? It's one thing to use the name of your crush as your AIM password, but what's up with his weird shrine to Nicole, or, like, killing the family dog and hurting her family? Something's not right here...

Played by: Jodi Lyn O'Keefe

Is it any wonder that the geeky, glasses-wearing dork turned out to be the gorgeous-underneath-it-all Rachael Leigh Cook? What a twist! Of course, we did just learn that M. Night Shyamalan ghostwrote this flick.

But besides that, let's show some respect to the school's resident mean girl, played by the girl who always plays the school's resident mean girl, Jodi Lyn O'Keefe. Let's be real, we're all shallow creatures. Remember her pink bikini? Her prom queen dress? Get Shyamalan back in here—we just died at the memory and don't eve know it.

Played by: Sarah Michelle Gellar

In a world where dial-up Internet connection was ofen interrupted by frequent phone calls from parents, Cruel Intentions was the closest thing to porn most of us could get. And Sarah Michelle Gellar, as Kathryn, starred ina lot of fantasies. (Sorry, is this weird for you?)

Her creepy relationship with her step-brother? We're electing to ignore that, as it made us uncomfortable. But there were a few other quite infamous scenes worth buying the VHS for.

Played by: Rose McGowan

Man, we love Scream. Slasher film mixed with tongue-in-cheek comedy? Brilliant. Of course, when we watched in the '90s is was more horrifying than it was hilarious. Still, there was one source of comfort in the form of the best-friend character Tatum, played by the gorgeous Rose McGowan. She's the perfect combo of spunky, cute, and cynical.

Played by: Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, Neve Campbell, and Rachel True

Football, school newspaper, covens, glee club. We all had our preferred after-school activity, so who are we to judge the four girls who become obsessed with witchcraft? Not us, we swear! Please don't curse us!

What was the point of a love spell anyway? With women like Tunney, Balk, Campbell, and True running around the school, we would already be smitten. No need to summon your overlord, ladies, we'll perform sacrifices for you. Not the dark-arts kind, with pigs, but we'd happily give up some bad habits if necessary.

Played by: Jordana Brewster

We're a sucker for a girl in glasses who treats us poorly. We can't help it, especially when that girl is portrayed by Jordana Brewster. In her first movie role, Brewster portrayed the editor-in-chief of the school paper and head cheerleader (of course), Delilah, in a school occupied by infectious, violent body snatchers.

You can infect us any day, Jordana. Wait, no. That sounds gross.

Played by: Shannon Elizabeth

American Pie succeeded where every health class failed—we understood sexuality, finally.

How? Shannon Elizabeth as the foreign exchange student, Nadia, gets half naked and masturbates to the pornography she found in Jim's (Jason Biggs) room. Try not to have an aneurysm.

Played by: Alicia Silverstone and Stacey Dash

Cher (Silerstone) and Dionne (Dash) are a kind of Holy Grail. They're gorgeous, rich, and the most popular girls at school. But, they still have soul and an odd wisdom about them, unlike most of the stereotypical cool girls. Granted, we know we'd never have a chance with Dionne—she was, like, in love with her boyfriend Murray (Donald Faison). And Cher was even more of a longshot, as she found dating boys in high school would be as "pointless as trying to find meaning in a Pauly Shore movie." Still, we could dream, couldn't we?

Played by: Larisa Oleynik

Forbidden fruit has never tasted so sweet. Larisa Oleynik played Bianca Stratford, the beautiful and popular sophomore every boy desired.

Unfortunately, she had an overbearing father who never let her date, until her older shrew of a sister (Julia Stiles) begins to date. Which is impossible, until Heath Ledger.

To make her Valley girl-next-door character even more desirable? She knew how to throw a punch and fell for the geek. Hency why we were too confident that girls would like us in high school. Wishful thinking.

Played by: Marley Shelton

Sometimes, when we close our eyes, we can still hear the crack of the bat at the sandlot. The feel of the dirt sliding underneath fingernails as we crash into home. The smell and melty taste of s'mores.

Just kidding. When we close our eyes, we picture Marley Shelton as Wendy Peffercorn clad in her red lifeguard uniform at the side of the pool in The Sandlot. Being banned for life from the only public swimming pool in town would be well worth trying to steal a kiss from that stately queen of a woman.

We used to think of Squints (Chauncey Leopardi) as the biggest dork in the outfield, but it couldn't be further from the truth. He almost killed his damn self for Wendy. Respect.

Played by: Jessica Alba

Camp Nowhere seemed like an ideal set up for a kid. Avoiding the boring summer camp where their parents were sending them, be it military, computer, or fat camp, each child convinced their parents to send them to this fake camp to hang out. No parents! No counselors! No rules! Ideal.

Except you had one creepy drama teacher (Christopher Lloyd, of course) who agreed to help the kids for $1,000 so that he could make his car payment. Suddenly, this is a parent's nightmare: a lone man alone in the woods with all the children. But we digress.

We want to only talk about Jessica Alba, in her first movie role, as the flrty Gail. She didn't even seem real to us. She was so mature in her overalls, making out with dudes behind the bushes. Is that what the future would be like, we wondered?

No, of course not.

Played by: Jennifer Love Hewitt

Ah, House Arrest. The perfect film for the '90s kid from a broken home. What kid didn't daydream about locking up their feuding parents in their house until they could squash the drama? It seemed perfect.

Let's ignore the fact that the parents could have just called the cops or, say, outsmarted their own children, and instead focus on Jennifer Love Hewitt. We fail with words when it comes to describing the middle school pangs of love for Brooke.

Sompe people on the Interwebs say, "Jennifer Love Hewitt was like porn to me." But where's the poetry in that? That sounds like how the older kids talk.