Teens were a top priority in 1999, at least from a pop culture perspective. The cohort, which included the tail end of Generation X and the early millennials — the last to know a world before and after the Internet — had come to be big business in the last few years on both the big and small screen, driving hits like “Felicity” and “Dawson’s Creek,” and (“Titanic”), but it reached its apotheosis in the year before the new millennium.
The U.S. domestic box office in 1999, according to Box Office Mojo, saw films like “Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace” top the charts with $431,088,295; with “The Matrix” ($171,479,930); and “The Blair Witch Project” ($140,539,099) rounding out the top 10.