Great movies often rely on clichés to make the characters more easily accessible to audiences, but these 1990s icons took it to another level.

The 1990s ushered in a new crop of clichéd characters to combat the tropes and clichés of the 1980s. Some of these characters, though clichés, were fully integrated into many movies of the 1990s. Because of their popularity, these character types were formulaically placed in various films throughout the 1990s and beyond.

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From different genres, there cropped up various reoccurring clichés. Many of these would then become comedic fodder for the movies of the 2000s. These characters have impacted popular culture, either because of how identifiable the character and their specific cliché are or because the character is a part of an identifiable cliché.

The Faculty's Casey Conners is the typical mild-mannered science nerd who is the narrative's protagonist. Casey finds the alien specimen and shows it to his science teacher, who can conduct some experimentation on it. His character is made to band the ragtag group together to stop the aliens, but before he can do that, Casey must cross the social barriers of '90s teen movies to create the team that's needed to save the day.

The cliché of Casey's character is primarily the notion that the hero is the unsuspecting nerdy kid that other students make fun of to feel better about themselves. They become the leaders of their equally clichéd group in the plot to save the school, town, or planet.

In most teen romantic comedies from the 1990s, there is always the cool girl that both the jock/equally popular and vapid guy and the new/socially average to nerdy guy like. Bianca Stratford fills that role in 10 Things I Hate About You. She is the pawn to start the bet and the romantic interest between the boys on opposite sides of the high school social spectrum.

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Characters like Bianca are there solely to push the plot. Need someone to bet someone else to date; this is the character that influences this. Need there to be commentary about whether the "nice guy" gets the girl in the end; enter a version of Bianca Stratford.

Scream's Sidney Prescott is the answer to the female protagonists of 1980s horror movies. Instead of the virginal damsel in distress, Sidney adds layers with each film in the franchise. However, as the clichéd new "scream queen," this character is both prudish in a sense and conflicted with her significant other throughout the movie, but is quick to adapt to the situation to come out on top.

Another character that follows this idea is Julie James in I Know What You Did Last Summer, which isn't too surprising since both films were written by Kevin Williamson. The cliché of these characters lies in their ability to face their fears and the antagonists in a way that shows they have regained control.

Agent J is a clichéd character that Will Smith played in the Men in Black series, and a version of the type of character Smith often played in the 1990s. The smooth, wise-cracking agent, police officer, military pilot, etc., are the foundations of the Will Smith character in every movie in the 1990s, including the wildly unpopular Wild Wild West, which saw Smith perhaps take on the clichéd character type one too many times for audiences.

Though this is a specific cliché for Will Smith's characters, there is also an argument that these are characteristics of other leading male action roles of the 1990s. It could be why Will Smith was considered to play Neo in The Matrix.

The Fifth Element's Ruby Rhod is a flamboyant radio host on a luxury ship. His character's extreme and comedic tendencies are overly cliché, even for the more flamboyant characters that were popular during this era. These character types are only there to play the over-the-top sidekick to the protagonist, who usually has more masculine energy and follows the archetypical storyline of the hero.

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Because of the difference in the energies of this particular character and the story's hero, there can be a sense of balance between these characters. The vivid character brings a sense of fun to the hero's main quest while allowing the hero to remain "tough."

In She's All That, a classic teen romantic comedy from the 90s, Laney Boggs is the stereotypical nerdy who is never crushed on by her classmates. This is, of course, until a jock/popular guy plucks her from obscurity, more likely because of a bet with a friend, and has to transform the ugly duckling into a swan.

There are several issues with this character's premise. Still, the more entertaining one is the idea that the way to make this character suddenly beautiful is by removing her glasses and letting down her hair. This specific cliché was one of the clichés mocked in the film Not Another Teen Movie.

The character tropes of The Matrix's Neo are more of a crossover cliché. This type of hero was starting to return to the mainstream in the late '90s and continues to this day. The trope of Neo's character, the unexpected hero that is also the savior of his world and people, can be found in Harry Potter and Star Wars.

Another way this character is cliché is in how the film and the characters look. In the late '90s, movies like The Matrix and Blade had a distinctive style in both dress and darkness in the film. This cliché is a crossover because movies like Underworld copied the black leather and cool shades style of Neo and The Matrix.

While not new to the 1990s, the entire underdog tale of Little Giants is a basic storytelling cliché. Most sports movies of the 90s follow a similar trope of a ragtag group of kids that band together to join a sport. Sure enough, there is a time when the banded friends almost break up, or their star player has a change of heart and chooses to back out at the last second.

And like all true underdog tales, the star player remembers that their friends are out there, and they rejoin the game to win it out in the end. There are variations of this group and story throughout the '90s feel-good movies.

The Craft's Nancy is a caricature of the Goth girl of the 1990s. She studies witchcraft and has her hair dyed black and styled in a messy manner, along with dark makeup, to signify how far she is from the typical beauty standards of society forced on young teenage girls. At the same time, this character is feared by her peers, despite her wanting some form of connection with them.

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Another version of this character is Stokley "Stokes" Mitchell in The Faculty. These characters are often misunderstood and, in the case of Nancy, dangerous.

The vapid and popular Cher Horowitz of Clueless is an iconic cliché of the 1990s. Similar to Bianca Stratford in a sense, but different in her having more of a sense of self, Cher became a pop culture icon as much for her style as her complete adherence to the basic "popular girl" cliché. Cher is both mature and immature, perfectly symbolizing that period between childhood and adulthood where most people begin to truly discover who they really are.

There are two versions of this popular-girl character in the realm of '90s cinema. There is the nice popular girl, like Cher, and then there are the mean girls, like Taylor Vaughan in She's All That.

Next: 10 2000 Action Movies That Deserve A Remake

CBR Movies/TV List Writer. Based in New York, she is the product of New York public schools and 90s/00s television. Alicia's interests span multiple genres and decades.

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