Mid90s -

In Jonah Hill’s 2018 directorial debut, mid90s , a young boy named Stevie sits on a curb, his face bloodied and bruised. He has just endured a brutal skateboarding accident, one that could have ended his day—or his skating career. Yet, as his newfound older brother-figure, Ray, helps him up, Stevie’s response to the pain is not a cry but a quiet, breathless laugh. “I’m okay,” he whispers, before asking, “Can we go back?” That moment is the thesis of the entire film. mid90s is not a nostalgic home movie about the decade of flannel and dial-up internet; it is a raw, unflinching, and surprisingly tender portrait of how we find family in the unlikeliest places, and how the scars we earn—both physical and emotional—become the proof that we are alive.

The film’s primary achievement is its radical empathy for the “lost boy.” Stevie (Sunny Suljic) lives in a broken home in 1990s Los Angeles. His single mother (Katherine Waterston) tries her best but is distracted by her own loneliness and an abusive boyfriend. His older brother, Ian (Lucas Hedges), is a font of toxic masculinity, using Stevie as a punching bag to assert his own fragile dominance. Stevie is invisible, a ghost in his own house. His escape is a dingy skate shop and the motley crew of older skaters who loiter outside it. At first glance, these are not role models. There is Fuckshit (Olan Prenatt), the charismatic peacock; Fourth Grade (Ryder McLaughlin), the quiet documentarian; and Ruben (Gio Galicia), the angry cynic. They are foul-mouthed, reckless, and unsupervised. But to Stevie, they are a universe. Hill wisely refuses to sanitize these characters. They smoke, they steal, they crash cars. Yet, through Stevie’s eyes, their crude banter becomes a liturgy of belonging. They give him a nickname (Sunburn) and a new language. In the film’s most poignant scene, Ray (Na-kel Smith), the group’s sage, explains the philosophy of skateboarding: “You just learn to take a beating.” This isn’t about masochism; it’s about resilience. For a kid who has only ever known victimhood, learning to fall and get back up is revolutionary.

Hill’s direction is a masterclass in verisimilitude. Shooting on grainy 16mm film with a 4:3 aspect ratio, he traps the audience in Stevie’s limited, claustrophobic perspective. The world outside the skate shop is dangerous and adult-shaped; the world inside is loud, sweaty, and safe. The soundtrack—a pulsating mix of hip-hop, punk, and obscure indie rock—doesn’t just set the mood; it drives the narrative. The music is the boys’ emotional register. When Stevie lands his first trick, the beat drops. When he gets drunk at a party to impress the older kids, the score becomes a disorienting roar. The film refuses to judge Stevie’s choices, even when they lead him to a hospital bed. After that party, he gets into a car with a predatory older woman, an act of “coolness” that leaves him hollow. Hill shows us the seduction of rebellion and its immediate, ugly comedown with equal honesty.

Yet, for all its grit, mid90s is ultimately a story about the invention of the self. Stevie arrives at the skate shop as a blank, victimized child. He leaves—after a brutal fight with Ian that forces both brothers to confront their shared trauma—as someone with a chosen identity. The climax is not a triumphant skate competition or a heroic rescue. It is a quiet conversation in a car where Ray tells Stevie that he sees him, that he is not nothing. The final shot is a long, silent take of Stevie attempting a dangerous trick over and over, crashing hard each time, until finally, bloodied and exhausted, he rolls away. He doesn’t land it. That’s not the point. The point is the trying. In a decade defined by irony and detachment, mid90s offers a shocking amount of sincerity. It argues that the families we choose are often more honest than the ones we are born into, and that growing up isn’t about avoiding the fall—it’s about finding the people who will help you stand up and ask, “Can we go back?”