My husband and I have developed what I think is the perfect Friday ritual: takeout and what we call “90s dad thrillers” — movies like The Hunt for Red October, The Fugitive, A Few Good Men, and the like — where there’s a guy yelling into a phone, a helicopter in the background, and the words “geopolitical conflict” are thrown around a lot. Max Reed wrote a great Substack about this a while back, which got us started. https://maxread.substack.com/p/90s-dad-thrillers-a-list
We’ve strayed from this format for reasons including the constraints of streaming services, wanting to watch movies with actually good female characters (though I think The Net and Contact are both ideal ’90s dad thrillers, despite both having strong female leads), or wanting to watch a hot new movie. But the ’90s dad thriller is a tried-and-true one for us: funny enough to entertain, far enough away from the present day to not be anxiety-inducing, and silly enough so we can enjoy a takeout while watching. It’s my favorite thing, and I get really sad when I have plans for Friday and can’t make it.
