A few days ago, I celebrated a birthday, and it’s one of those milestone years. (I’m not going to come right out and tell you how old I am, but this article contains enough context clues that you’ll probably figure it out.) I’m feeling reflective in my now-advanced age, so the time is right for a confession: up until very recently, I’d never seen the 1995 movie Empire Records.
How could this have happened? We’ll get there, don’t worry. First, some background of the movie is necessary. Please note, from this point forward, I’ll be including minor spoilers for a movie that came out over 30 years ago. Proceed with caution!
Empire Records takes place mostly over the course of a single day, and almost entirely within the confines of the record store that bears its name, which is located in Delaware. Most of the action is driven by an employee named Lucas (Rory Cochrane), who learns that Empire Records is about to be sold to a national record store chain called Music Town.
Armed with this knowledge, Lucas does what any of us would have done: he steals $9,000 from the store and then travels to Atlantic City, where he tries and fails to win enough money to stop the sale.
Now, if you read that and thought to yourself “What do you mean, what ‘any of us’ would do???,” you reacted more to Lucas's actions than anyone in the movie did. Even Joe (Anthony LaPaglia), the store’s manager, responds by ... forcing Lucas to sit on a couch for the rest of the day. Not a harsh punishment for theft. Anyway, Joe had his own plan to become part-owner of Empire Records and stop the sale to Music Town, but, thanks to Lucas, he now doesn’t have enough money to buy in.
The other big thing happening while Lucas is off gambling away money is "Rex Manning Day!" Rex Manning (Maxwell Caulfield) is a former TV star and musician with a new album and music video. He stops at the store to sign autographs and take photos, and it’s obvious his best days are behind him. The crowd lined up to see him is comprised almost entirely of middle-aged women, who offer up back-handed compliments like “You were my favorite singer in high school!” All that’s missing is a throwaway joke about how Rex Manning is huge in Germany.
Empire Records is an ensemble movie, and there are plenty of other characters with storylines that all come to a head on Rex Manning Day, many of them that defy my understanding.
Empire Records was a spectacular flop when it was released. During its theatrical run, the movie made a little over $300,000 (it reportedly cost $10 million to make). Critics weren’t kind either, with the AV Club criticizing Empire Records for its “cheesy dialogue, overstuffed plot, and predictable character arcs that come across as superfluous.” Another reviewer called it “a soundtrack in search of a movie.”
Speaking of which, the soundtrack has proven to be the most enduring part of the movie. It was a very weird time for music in the mid '90s, with alternative still doing well but fading in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s death. Hence, there was a bit of a “genre free-for-all” that’s captured pretty well by the movie and the soundtrack. There are some pretty good songs here, with the standout being Edwyn Collins’ “A Girl Like You,” which you can hear on Studio One once in a while. The soundtrack appeared on the Billboard chart and received Gold certification in both the United States and Canada.
And yet, in the decades since it was released, Empire Records has become a “cult classic,” and is held up as an essential part of the Gen-X cultural canon. Part of this is because of social media: a flyer in the movie shows the date as April 8, so of course every year you see people on Facebook posting about Rex Manning Day. Part of it is just how it captured the Gen-X ethos in the midst of the mid-'90s culture, odd as that sounds. It's clearly developed a devoted following, as my recent Google search for the film turned up 30th anniversary screenings that happened in 2025 at film festivals — film festivals!
Ok, back to me not watching it in the '90s. I was in college when Empire Records was released, and the first time I remember hearing about it was when I was working as a DJ at the campus radio station. To my knowledge, there had been no real previews or advertising (though others may argue otherwise) — otherwise I might have checked it out. It was a year after the movie had been released, but our radio station was still playing the soundtrack, and that's what sparked the conversation where I actually learned about the film. Since then, at no point in my life has anyone expressed any shock at me having not seen it. Nobody ever sat me down and forced me to watch it, the way my friends did with The Princess Bride, Monty Python and the Holy Grail or The Blues Brothers.
You may be surprised to learn that my wife, hereafter referred to as “Mom,” is a big fan of the movie. How is it possible that she never got around to making me watch it? I don’t know. I’ve never gotten around to making her listen to Electric Ladyland or Bitches Brew either. Stuff happens!
It was a little over a month ago when we sat down on a Friday night to watch it, and as the movie started, Mom said excitedly, “I love this movie!”
“I kind of wish you hadn’t said that,” I said in response. “Now I feel like I can’t make fun of it without you getting mad at me.”
“No, go ahead and make fun of it,” said Mom. “It’s okay!”
Well, I’m not here to make fun of it. I’ve watched Empire Records a couple of times now, and I can confirm that … it’s fine. It's a perfectly entertaining movie, and a solid way to spend a Friday evening. It clearly has plot problems and I'm pretty sure it was made for a teenage audience, but it's still watchable.
If you’re disappointed by that nonreaction, I am too. This article would have been way easier to write if it had been a complete mess, or if I’d decided it was an underappreciated masterpiece that was ahead of its time. I was definitely rooting for one of those two outcomes. But as it wrapped up, I remember thinking, “Hmmm … guess I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
I do think it’s fair to wonder if I would have liked this movie a lot more if I’d seen it when it was new. There’s no question that “Teenage Tony” would have attempted to identify with one of the male leads. I can be a bit of a romantic like A.J., but his behavior in this movie is pretty cringy, even if he means well (oh — A.J.'s a budding artist who's trying to work up the nerve to confess his love for Corey, who's an overachieving high school student who’s decided she’s going to lose her virginity to Rex Manning — like I said earlier, it's an ensemble movie). Teenage Tony would also probably have seen Lucas and his attempts to save the store with his Atlantic City adventure as noble and righteous, as opposed to utterly insane, the way I do now.
Given how average it landed for me, you can imagine how I felt when I learned there’s a Remix! Special Fan Edition DVD of Empire Records — which adds back in 16 minutes of deleted footage! I’m sure this will fix all of my issues with the movie, so I guess I’ve got my plans set for Rex Manning Day next year ... I’ll report back then.
The original theatrical cut of Empire Records is streaming on Hulu and is also available to rent from multiple services.
