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.
The ‘Burbs
Year: 1989
Director: Joe Dante
Stars: Tom Hanks, Bruce Dern, Carrie Fisher, Rick Ducommun, Corey Feldman, Wendy Schaal, Brother Theodore, Courtney Gains, Gale Gordon, Dick Miller, Robert Picardo, Franklin Ajaye
Rating: PG
Yes, it is true that the star of Joe Dante began to dim somewhat in the horror scene after classics like Gremlins and The Howling, but The ’Burbs remains a film that is somewhat overlooked today. A darkly comic story with a touch of the macabre, it initially looks like a pretty conventional comedy until Tom Hanks starts suspecting their new neighbors of having killed and eaten the old man who lives at the end of the street. The cast is great, featuring Carrie Fisher, Bruce Dern, Corey Feldman and the diminutive (but hilarious) Henry Gibson in addition to Hanks, in addition to scene-stealing Rick Ducommun as the ultimate annoying neighbor, Art. Hanks, meanwhile, is at his spastic best, haranguing his neighbors about the disappearance and generally seeming extremely stressed–you can’t help but miss this comedic version of Tom Hanks, rather than the dour, dramatic actor he’s become. The cheeky cinematography only adds to the zany feel, as in the scene where Hanks and his neighbor realize the bone they’ve been tossing to the dog may well be from the deceased old man and engage in a protracted comedy scream while the camera zooms in and out in childish fashion. Gallows humor abounds, in what might be Joe Dante’s funniest overall movie. —Jim Vorel
Amadeus
Year: 1984
Director: Milos Foreman
Stars: Thomas Hulce, F. Murray Abraham
Rating: R
The fine line between genius and insanity is the subject of this big-budget costume drama that proved just how hip classical musicians can be. Milos Foreman tickles the vulgar underbelly of the sublime and the result is Thomas Hulce’s braying, chittering laugh as the wild-child prodigy, Wolfgang Mozart. F. Murray Abraham’s portrayal of Antonio Salieri’s descent into madness fueled by jealousy is the perfect foil. Lust, envy, greed—all of the deadly sins are here, set to some of the greatest music ever written. —J.R.
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
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Year: 1984
Director: Wes Craven
Stars: Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Johnny Depp, Amanda Wyss
Rating: R
Of the big three slasher franchises—Halloween, Friday the 13th and this—it’s Nightmare on Elm Street that presented us with the greatest and most complete of original installments. No doubt this is a factor of being the last to come along, as Wes Craven had a chance to watch and be influenced by the brooding Carpenter and the far more shameless and tawdry Cunningham in several F13 sequels. What emerged from that stew of influences was a killer who shared the indestructibility of Myers or Voorhees, but with a twist of Craven’s own demented sense of humor. That’s not to say Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) is a comedian—at least not here in the first Nightmare, where he’s presented as a serious threat and a genuinely frightening one at that, rather than the self-parodying pastiche he would become in sequels such as Final Nightmare—but his gleeful approach toward murder and subsequent gallows humor make for a very different breed of supernatural killer, and one that proved extremely influential on post-Nightmare slashers. The film’s simple premise of tapping into the horrors of dreaming and questionable reality was like a gift from the gods presented directly to the artists and set designers, given carte blanche to indulge their fantasies and create memorable set pieces like nothing else ever seen in the horror genre to that point. It’s a phantasmagoria of morbid humor and bad dreams. —Jim Vorel
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Year: 1987
Director: Chuck Russell
Stars: Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, Patricia Arquette, Priscilla Pointer, Craig Wasson, Lawrence Fishburne
Rating: R
Dream Warriors is almost invariably hailed as the best of the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, and this is one case where the horror fans aren’t wrong–although The Dream Master and New Nightmare are both solid, as well. After the oddball diversion (and famous gay subtext) of the first sequel, Freddy’s Revenge, Dream Warriors benefits greatly from a returning Heather Langenkamp as top tier final girl Nancy Thompson, now grown up and attempting to help a new generation of kids fight back against the pure evil that is Freddy Krueger. It’s a film that benefits from a perfect supporting cast of dreamers, all battling their own personal demons, but of course it’s Robert Englund who steals the show as Freddy. Building upon his persona from the first two Nightmare installments, this film is the zenith of “funny Freddy” as an archetype, expertly balancing the character’s menace with deadly one-liners that are instantly iconic. Every death scene in Dream Warriors is memorable, while the dream sequences are more unbound than ever. If the original A Nightmare on Elm Street is the series at its most frightening, then Dream Warriors is perhaps the series at its most purely entertaining–the mold that lesser sequels were always trying to duplicate in the years that followed, with diminishing returns. —Jim Vorel
Parenthood
Year: 1989
Director: Ron Howard
Stars: Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, Dianne Wiest, Jason Robards, Rick Moranis, Tom Hulce, Martha Plimpton, Keanu Reeves, Harley Jane Kozak, Dennis Dugan, Joaquin Phoenix, Eileen Ryan
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 124 minutes
Parenthood is an irresistibly relatable family dramedy, featuring an ensemble cast of comic actor nirvana, all directed by Ron Howard (who could not be more within his wheelhouse here). Chiefly revolving around the parental anxieties of dad Gil Buckman (Steve Martin), the narrative weaves throughout his family, including sister Helen (the incomparable Dianne Wiest), who’s stuck refereeing her rebellious teenage daughter (Martha Plimpton) and secret-husband (Keanu Reeves, hot right off of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, released earlier the same year), as well as troubling over her puberty-stricken son, Gary (Joaquin Phoenix), whose withdrawn behavior is raising eyebrows within the family. Rounding out the dazzling cast are Rick Moranis, Mary Steenburgen and the legendary Jason Robards as Gil’s father. Parenthood has, practically, an overabundance of heart and simultaneously terrifying, but painfully funny, moments. Is there a parent alive who doesn’t wake up in existential horror wondering their well-meaning choices turn their child into a deranged watchtower shooter? —Scott Wold
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
Starman
Year: 1984
Director: John Carpenter
Stars: Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen, Charles Martin Smith, Richard Jaeckel
Rating: PG
John Carpenter’s Starman is one of those movies that is inextricably linked to another, similar film of the era that would go on to much greater pop cultural impact–in this case, Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Initially developed alongside Spielberg’s Night Skies (which would become E.T.) at Columbia, it was a film that was seen very differently by various writers, producers and would-be directors. Some envisioned Starman as a family drama, others as hard sci-fi spectacle. The eventual release of E.T. threw a spanner in the works for the Starman script, as it was also about a friendly alien who comes to Earth and is taken in by a supportive human presence. Enter, John Carpenter of all people, whose vision for Starman focused more on its dramatic and romantic aspects, and the bond that develops between a woman and an alien (who happens to look just like her dead husband) as they travel across the country on the run from the U.S. government. It’s safe to say this is about as different a take on alien life from Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece The Thing as is possible. Even with that in mind, though, you can’t really fail to note the Amblin-esque feel–this film is Carpenter at his most Spielbergian, something particularly inescapable during a sweeping close-up of the face of Karen Allen, who had starred in Raiders of the Lost Ark only three years earlier. And yet, there’s trademark Carpenter to spare here as well, particularly in the genuinely horrific transformation of the alien presence into an adult Jeff Bridges, which briefly calls to mind the body horror of The Thing. —Jim Vorel
Fletch
Year: 1985
Director: Michael Ritchie
Stars: Chevy Chase, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Tim Matheson, Joe Don Baker, Richard Libertini, Geena Davis, M. Emmet Walsh, George Wendt
Rating: PG
A comedy that borrows heavily from film noir, Michael Ritchie’s Fletch offered Chevy Chase a chance to show his comic range. Irwin “Fletch” Fletcher is an investigative reporter who assumed several wonderfully ridiculous disguises from John Coctotostan (“Can I borrow your towel? My car just hit a water buffalo.”) to Harry S. Truman (“My parents were big fans of the former president”). Relentlessly quotable and filled with memorable scenes (like his colonoscopy—”Mooooon River…You ever serve time, Doc?…Using the whole fist, Doc?”)—this is a comedy that only gets better with age. —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