For all the harm that was done in the 1980s, from deregulation to the drug wars, the decade did deliver the age of the blockbuster, and several of its best examples are streaming on Netflix right now. Directors such as Spike Lee, Ridley Scott, Rob Reiner, Harold Ramis, Barry Levinson and Ivan Reitman delivered grand adventures, prestige drama and silly comedy that still hold up four decades later. It was the age of the numbered sequel, and the drive to make every film bigger and bolder than the previous. It’s no surprise that the ’80s movies on Netflix get a lot of attention.
These films are likely to leave Netflix soon, so enjoy your blockbusters while you can. Here are the best movies from the 1980s you can stream on Netflix right now.
Stand By Me
Year: 1986
Director: Rob Reiner
Stars: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman
Rating: R
Stephen King has referred to Stand By Me as one of the best-adapted films, which is curious, because it’s such a sincere film, hitting only some of the author’s signature themes. Still, it really captures some of the mythological aspects of childhood—the way the junkyard dog’s fearsome reputation can’t possibly stand up to reality, or how friendship can be a source of healing or how friendships change after innocence is lost. Gordie Lachance’s (Wil Wheaton) group of friends are the kinds of pals one has as a child: They come from very different worlds, but haven’t yet learned that they’re not supposed to hang out together. Would that real-life friendships could persist and reflect these ones more often. —Jim Vorel
Silverado
Year: 1985
Director: Lawrence Kasdan
Stars: Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Rosanna Arquette, John Cleese, Kevin Costner, Brian Dennehy, Danny Glover, Jeff Goldblum, Linda Hunt
Rating: PG-13
Lawrence Kasdan’s winning homage benefited from a sterling ensemble cast (Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, Kevin Cline, Danny Glover, Brian Dennehy, John Cleese, Jeff Goldblum, Rosanna Arquette), keen pacing—both in action and humor—and an all-in approach to the classic Western. The traditional motifs are all there as a quartet of cowboys treks to the film’s namesake town and helps its citizens fight back against corrupt powers that be. From fraught duels to wagon trains and cattle stampedes, Silverado is neither revisionist nor original, but it’s terrifically energetic and fun, not to mention beautifully polished in production. —Amanda Schurr
The Blues Brothers
Year: 1981
Director: John Landis
Stars: John Belushi, Dan Aykryod, Carrie Fisher, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, James Brown, Cab Calloway, Henry Gibson, Charles Napier
Rating: R
For an intensely absurd, farcical comedy, The Blues Brothers is so much more sincere than one would ever expect it to be, both in its adoration of classic blues and R&B and the way it captured a moment in the life of the city of Chicago. Indeed, this John Landis classic lovingly shows off a Chicago that no longer exists in several instances, most notably the Maxwell Street Market, Chicago’s great open-air flea market where one could buy just about anything, legal or illegal, and also gave birth to both Chicago blues and the famed Maxwell Street Polish sausage before the city forcibly moved the market to make room for university housing among other things. It doesn’t try to put a shine on the city, though, showing both the high-rent (the Richard J. Daley Center) and the low (Elwood’s flophouse, numerous low-income neighborhoods) right alongside one another. This is just one of those films that completely changes the popular conception of a cityscape—if you go to Chicago, you will start picking out things from The Blues Brothers. Trying driving on Lower Wacker Drive without thinking about the Bluesmobile rocketing along and police cars smashing into one another in absurdly spectacular pile-ups. It can’t be done. It might be Chicago’s single most beloved cinematic representation. —Jim Vorel
Sixteen Candles
Year: 1984
Director: John Hughes
Stars: Molly Ringwald, Justin Henry, Anthony Michael Hall, Gedde Watanabe
Rating: PG
It’s the movie that made Molly Ringwald a star, and rightfully so: as Samantha, the everywoman whose parents forgot her birthday and whose crush doesn’t know she exists, she appeals to the angsty high-schooler yearning to be seen in all of us. Samantha’s undeniably middle-of-the-road—she’s not popular, but she’s not a geek; her home life is messy, but it’s not dysfunctional—and that gives her mass appeal, so much so that her story’s become sort of a modern fairy tale, the American Dream of teen romantic comedies. —Bonnie Stiernberg
Beverly Hills Cop
Year: 1984
Director: Martin Brest
Stars: Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Lisa Eilbacher, Ronny Cox, Steven Berkoff
Rating: R
We might remember Beverly Hills Cop for Eddie Murphy’s one-liners and that perfect microcosm of 1984, “Axel F,” but at its heart, it’s an action movie. In fact, Mickey Rourke and Sylvester Stallone were both attached to Murphy’s role before last-minute re-writes catered the story to the SNL actor. And this was Murphy at his cocky, wise-cracking best—always in complete charge of the situation no matter how much of a fish-out-of-water his Axel Foley might have been.—Josh Jackson
Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack
Year: 1988
Director: Yoshiyuki Tomino
Stars: Toru Furuya, Shuichi Ikeda, Hirotaka Suzuoki, Maria Kawamura, Nozomu Sasaki, Koichi Yamadera
Rating: TV-14
The first Gundam theatrical film and final chapter in the original saga begun in 1979 with the “Universal Century Timeline” of the Mobile Suit Gundam TV series, Char’s Counterattack has the weight of three seasons of TV behind it. Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of the Gundam series, directed and wrote the film, adapting it faithfully from his novel, Hi-Streamer. Widely considered the best film in the Gundam franchise, Char’s Counterattack is most successful at wrapping up the 14-year rivalry between the “hero” of the Earth Federation, Amuro Ray, and the leader of Neo-Zeon, Char Aznable. The story involves a classic Gundam dilemma: Char’s Neo-Zeon force attempts to drop an asteroid filled with nuclear weapons onto Earth, which would free the colonies from the yoke of oppression by their rivals, the Earth Federation, and kill everyone on Earth in the process. As with all of the best Gundam tales, Tomino approaches the story from a hard sci-fi point of view, clearly laying out the science behind things like giant mobile suits and “newtypes” (humans that have evolved to acquire psychic abilities). Tomino carefully lays out the reasoning behind Char and Amuro’s passions and hatreds, not allowing the viewer to choose a clear side. Gundam series have always been willing to take on discussions about the horrors of war and how mankind, for all its advancements, never seems to be able to free itself from humanity’s baser instincts. Char’s Counterattack attempts this as well, yet it’s mostly concerned with wrapping up the rivalry between Amuro and Char—and on that note, it succeeds wildly. Featuring gorgeous, tense fight sequences set in space, an excellent soundtrack by Shigeaki Saegusa, and some of the most lauded Gundam designs in the history of the franchise, the film is inarguably one of the high points of the Gundam Universe. One downside: If you don’t have the investment of spending hundreds of episodes of television with these characters, the plot can be confusing, and Char/Amuro’s ending will likely not resonate as strongly. Regardless, Char’s Counterattack remains a key moment in the Gundam universe, one still worth checking out almost 30 years later. Hail Zeon!—Jason DeMarco
