Grab yourself a New Coke, throw on your brightest leg warmers, and travel back to the future with a home entertainment system that, like, beams in movies from, like, outer space or something. It’s called “Netflix,” and it’s, like, a video store in the cloud. Far out, right?
If you’re finding yourself scrolling through Netflix in need of a retro fix — or if you’re a big Stranger Things stan and want to see some of its influences — we’ve got you covered on some of the greatest movies available to stream from the decade. Strap yourself in and enjoy the best 80s movies on Netflix.
Table of Contents
Blade Runner
Director: Ridley Scott
Writers: Hampton Fancher, David Peoples
Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos
If you ask your brain to conjure up an image of “cyberpunk,” it will likely produce something close to the incredible aesthetics present in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, a cult classic unfairly chopped and maligned upon its initial release which has only grown more and more in stature and influence as the years go by (luckily for you, Netflix has the “Final Cut”). Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard, a tired and frayed cop on the case to find a group of rogue replicants (cyborgs), including the instantly iconic Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah. The specifics of the case, in a narrative based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, feel indebted to noir — from Ford’s Bogart-on-downers performance to Sean Young’s ambiguously motivated love interest. But Scott, alongside DP Jordan Cronenweth and production designer Lawrence G. Paull, catapulted these time-honored genre tropes into a sleekly depressing neo-future, all rainstorms and skyscrapers and images that live on the uncanny edge between familiarity and shock.
The film has an awful lot to say about the ambiguity of human identity in an increasingly inhuman world, from Young’s belief that she’s human even though she’s a replicant, to Hauer’s impassioned (and improvised!) speech about his false memories fading like tears in the rain, to the coyness with which Scott plays the truth of his protagonist’s humanity (or lack thereof). All of this, combined with the film’s patient pace, makes it feel like a warm bowl of wire soup, where boundaries and labels and answers to questions mean less than giving yourself over to the tempting textures of stylish singularity. Also: Shout-out to its very, very good sequel, the Denis Villeneuve-directed Blade Runner 2049. — Gregory Lawrence
She’s Gotta Have It
Director/Writer: Spike Lee
Cast: Tracy Camilla Johns, Redmond Hicks, John Canada Terrell, Spike Lee, Raye Dowell
She’s Gotta Have It is the fascinating debut of Spike Lee’s singular filmmaking voice. A black-and-white dissection of sexual identity, the patriarchy, slut-shaming, and the undue pressures put on black women. It features a terrific lead performance from Tracy Camilla Johns, a stunning deconstruction of male-crafted “Hollywood endings,” and a worldview so ahead of its time in 1986 that it was readapted for a two-season Netflix show in 2017. It also — and here I will give a content warning for sexual assault — features the worst scene Lee has ever committed to celluloid: and those are his words, not mine. At one point in the narrative, one of the three male suitors desperate to lock Nola (Johns) down into a form of oppressive monogamy, the most performatively “nice” of the three, rapes her.
Lee, speaking to Deadline, had this to say about this scene: “If I was able to have any do-overs, that would be it. It was just totally…stupid. I was immature. It made light of rape, and that’s the one thing I would take back. I was immature and I hate that I did not view rape as the vile act that it is. I can promise you, there will be nothing like that in She’s Gotta Have It, the TV show, that’s for sure.” If you’re willing to contextualize this depiction as an artifact of the shortcomings of historical perspectives, or even read it as being in dialogue with the rest of the film’s chaotic renderings of progressive ideals (i.e. monogamy can never work under our patriarchy because of horrible senses of entitlement and trauma like this), She’s Gotta Have It remains an alive arrival of a lively filmmaker. — Gregory Lawrence
Watch She’s Gotta Have It on Netflix
Stand By Me
Director: Rob Reiner
Writers: Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon
Cast: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, and Richard Dreyfuss
Based on the novella, “The Body” by Stephen King, Stand By Me is a coming-of-age movie of four friends who decide to go on an adventure in the summer of 1959 in search of a rumored dead body. Sure the goal is to get the reward money being offered, but in actuality, it’s a story of four 12-year-olds (Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell) who are making memories that will last a lifetime. Together they grapple with fear, sadness, excitement, anger, and laughter as only 12-year-olds can. Told in retrospect by a grown member of the group (Richard Dreyfuss) as he is writing a book, he can only look back with fondness on that time, even if it was their last real time together as friends. — Jennifer McHugh
The Lost Boys
Director: Joel Schumacher
Writers: Janice Fischer, Jeffrey Boam, and James Jeremias
Cast: Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland, Dianne Wiest, Corey Haim, Edward Hermann, Barnard Hughes, Jami Gertz, Corey Feldman, and Jamison Newlander
It’s never easy when you move to a new city, especially when it’s a town filled with vampires. Michael (Jason Patric), his little brother, Sam (Corey Haim), and their mom (Dianne Wiest) to the town of Santa Carla in Northern California. Michael, along with help from Grandpa (Barnard Hughes) and the comic-book-loving Frog Brothers (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander) must save his family and his new love interest, Star (Jami Gertz) from the scary gang of vampires that rule the coastal town. Long before Twilight and Buffy, The Lost Boys is a cult classic that showcases the horrific glam of the 1980s. — Jennifer McHugh
Watch The Lost Boys on Netflix
The Neverending Story
Director: Wolfgang Peterson
Writers: Wolfgang Peterson and Herman Weigel
Cast: Noah Hathaway, Barret Oliver, Tami Stronach, Patricia Hayes, Sydney Bromley, Gerlad McRaney, and Moses Gunn
Based on the book of the same name by Michael Ende, Basitan (Barret Oliver) loves reading books. When he comes upon this particular book, he hides in the attic of his school away from his bullies to get sucked in (literally) to an adventure. As the story goes on, he realizes that HE is one of the characters and may be one of the last hopes for the Empress (Tami Stronach) and the world of Fantasia as an avail force known as “the Nothing” threatens their very existence. Billed as a movie for kids, The Neverending Story is another dark fantasy for kids which always leaves room for everlasting scars. Nonetheless, it is filled with imagination and emotion that empowers Bastian with the confidence to find strength in himself in the real world. — Jennifer McHugh
Watch The Neverending Story on Netflix
Gremlins
Director: Joe Dante
Writer: Chris Columbus
Cast: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Polly Holliday, Frances Lee McCain
Don’t expose them to sunlight, don’t let them get wet, and above all, don’t feed them after midnight. Even if you never watched Gremlins, you are probably familiar with the rules you need to follow if you ever adopt a mogwai. There’s a reason why Gremlins is such a popular franchise, as it mixes easy scares and good fun to create a family-friendly experience that has both cute creatures and mischievous monsters. With a mix of a fairy tale, a classic teenager adventure, and a horror B movie, there’s just something for everybody in Gremlins. And if we ever need to choose a single film that could reflect the cultural atmosphere of the ‘80s, Gremlins would be a fitting choice. — Marco Vito Oddo
Annie
Director: John Huston
Writer: Carol Sobieski
Cast: Aileen Quinn, Albert Finney, Carol Burnett, Ann Reinking, Tim Curry, Bernadette Peters, and Geoffrey Holder
The film adaptation of the popular stage musical Annie by Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin, and Thomas Meehan which was based on the comic Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray hit theaters in 1982 to the delight of little girls everywhere. The rags-to-riches story of Annie (Aileen Quinn) who gets to spend a week with billionaire Oliver Warbucks (Albert Finney) to help his PR image. As one could imagine, the two get quite attached, and even with some scheming by her former orphanage mom (Carol Burnett) and her shady brother (Tim Curry) and his girlfriend (Bernadette Peters), Oliver is able to realize that all the money in the world isn’t worth much when you don’t have someone to share it with. – Jennifer McHugh
Caddyshack
Director: Harold Ramis
Writers: Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, and Brian Doyle-Murray
Cast: Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, Michael O’Keefe, Bill Murray, Sarah Holcomb, Thomas A. Carlin, Cindy Morgan, Brain McConnachie, and Brian Doyle-Murray
Country club caddie Danny (Michael O’Keefe) finds himself in the middle of a pissing match between the rich Judge Smails (Ted Knight) and the goofy Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield). When Danny is forced to choose between a scholarship offered by the Judge or beating him in an ultimate match, the entire club turns out for the last shot. The movie also features Chevy Chase as Ty Webb, a seeming agent of chaos, and Bill Murray as Carl Spackler, the wacko groundskeeper who will stop at nothing to catch a mischievous gopher. In his directorial debut, Harold Ramis directs one of the funniest summer classics of all time. – Jennifer McHugh
Pet Sematary
Director: Mary Lambert
Writer: Stephen King
Cast: Dale Midkiff, Fred Gwynne, Denise Crosby, Brad Greenquist, Michael Lombard, Miko Hughes, Blaze Berdahl
While never as effective in disturbing the audience as the Stephen King’s novel it adapts, Pet Sematary is still a cult classic thanks to how it deals with the painful process of grief. The film follows a couple prepared to do whatever it takes to bring back their son, who died in a gruesome road accident. That means burying the kid’s corpse in a cursed cemetery and letting it come back to the world of the living possessed by an evil force. While there’s a lot to criticize about Mary Lambert’s directing and how the movie embraces horror clichés, Pet Sematary is still scary because it forces you to face the fragility of life. What’s even worse, the film shows how we can lose those we love in a blink of an eye. For those reasons, Pet Sematary remains a bone-chilling experience that sticks with you long after it is over. — Marco Vito Oddo
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