A surprising number of iconic and underrated 80s movies are currently available to stream – here’s the best of the best
Several incredible movies from the 1980s are available to stream, but what’s the cream of the crop?
Many film buffs will agree that the 80s was one of, if not the best decade for cinema in history, with many of the most iconic films of all time releasing in the space of just 10 years.
From rip-roaring blockbusters to spine-tingling horror movies, the decade launched franchises, produced acclaimed filmmakers and broke box office records left, right and centre.
Let’s run down 10 of the best undeniable classics and a handful of underrated gems, from sci-fi epics to stunning animation and guaranteed tearjerkers.
And, even better, they’re all available to stream right now in the UK, including a handful you can watch completely free.
NOW subscribers are guaranteed a toe-tapping good time with the Blues Brothers(Image: UNIVERSAL PICTURES)
This musical masterpiece starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd is undoubtedly one of the funniest movies produced during this decade.
Based on their iconic Saturday Night Live characters, Jake and Elwood Blues race against time to assemble their R&B band for one last show to save the orphanage where they were raised.
Featuring appearances from beloved blues musicians such as Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and James Brown, this love letter to music and the city of Chicago is guaranteed to leave you tapping your toes.
The Blues Brothers is available to stream on NOW.
This coming-of-age classic from Steven Spielberg will have you reaching for the tissues(Image: UNIVERSAL PICTURES)
ET
If there’s one name who dominated film culture in the 80s, it’s almost certainly Steven Spielberg.
From acclaimed historical dramas such as The Colour Purple and Empire of the Sun, to rollicking adventures with Indiana Jones, the blockbuster filmmaker released what many consider to be his best films during the decade.
One of his most daring and personal projects at that time, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, was a risky venture thanks to its small-scale drama and bold premise. Thankfully, the gamble paid off, knocking Star Wars off its podium and remaining the highest-grossing film of all time, until Spielberg beat his own record a decade later with Jurassic Park.
ET is available to stream on Netflix.
Die Hard is still the greatest action movie ever made(Image: 20TH CENTURY FOX)
Grab Disney Plus’ £1.99 membership right now
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Disney Plus is offering its membership for £1.99 a month for the next four months. You can enjoy classic Disney shows, Marvel and much more.
Die Hard
For our money the best action film ever made, Die Hard is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser whether you’re watching at Christmas or during a heatwave.
Launching the big screen career of Hollywood powerhouse Bruce Willis, John McTiernan’s sublime thriller remains so influential to this day that ‘Die Hard on a [insert location/vehicle here]’ is still a bankable pitch for an action film.
With so many imitators out there, make sure you find time for the triumphant genuine article soon.
Die Hard is available to stream on Disney+.
This often overlooked historical drama is a must-watch(Image: MGM, UA)
A Dry White Season
This underrated historical drama shines a light on the devastating realities of apartheid in South Africa during the 1970s.
Featuring Donald Sutherland as a teacher at a school for white students, he’s forced to question his morals when the son of his Black gardener is viciously murdered by the white police.
One of the first major Hollywood films directed by a Black woman, Euzhan Palcy, and also featuring an oft-forgotten Oscar-nominated performance from Marlon Brando, A Dry White Season is an essential and gripping part of cinema history that often gets overlooked.
A Dry White Season is available to stream on Prime Video.
Kurt Russell takes on a shape-shifting monster from outer space(Image: UNIVERSAL PICTURES)
The Thing
Body horror became a defining sub-genre of the 1980s thanks to the advancement of special effects and film fans’ growing appetite for boundary-pushing scares.
Widely considered the best example, with masterful practical effects and tension in every frame, John Carpenter’s The Thing is a creature feature like no one had ever seen before – or since.
Starring Kurt Russell, this eerie, paranoid thriller about an Antarctica research team who get infiltrated by a shape-shifting extra-terrestrial was a box office flop at the time but has since become a beloved horror classic.
The Thing is available to stream for free on ITVX.
Prepare to be afraid – be very afraid(Image: 20TH CENTURY FOX)
The Fly
With so many excellent gory masterpieces to choose from, why just settle for one example?
Arguably even more horrifying than The Thing is David Cronenberg’s masterpiece The Fly, a morbid reimagining of a classic sci-fi horror from 1958.
Jeff Goldblum portrays an ambitious scientist who begins to transform after perfecting the art of teleportation, only for his machine to malfunction with grotesque results.
The Fly is available to stream on Disney+.
One of the best films about race relations ever made(Image: UNIVERSAL PICTURES)
Do the Right Thing
From body horror to social satire, the 80s were also renowned for a wide variety of thought-provoking dramas.
Influential director Spike Lee was just 32 when he made Do the Right Thing, cementing himself as one of the most prominent Black artists in history by tackling race relations in America like never before.
Combining laugh-out-loud humour with high-stakes drama and career-best performances from much of its cast, which includes Lee himself alongside Danny Aiello, John Turturro and Rosie Perez, there’s a reason why many cinephiles still consider it among the filmmaker’s best work.
Do the Right Thing is available to stream on NOW.
This animated masterpiece is available on Netflix(Image: STUDIO GHIBLI)
Watch Stranger Things on Netflix for free with Sky
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Sky is giving away a free Netflix subscription with its new Sky Stream TV bundles, including the £15 Essential TV plan.
This lets members watch live and on-demand TV content without a satellite dish or aerial and includes hit shows like Stranger Things.
My Neighbour Totoro
We’d be remiss not to include any animated films on a list of the best of any decade and, while Disney had its fair share of hits, from The Fox and the Hound to The Little Mermaid, in our opinion this masterpiece from Studio Ghibli wipes the floor with all of them.
My Neighbour Totoro is a timeless tale of childhood seen through the whimsical lens of Japanese animation genius Hayao Miyazaki, who injects every heartfelt moment with fantasy and wonder.
If you’ve already seen this animated gem, or fall in love with the furry forest spirit on your first watch, all of Studio Ghibli’s incredible films are available on the same service.
My Neighbour Totoro is available to stream on Netflix.
Harrison Ford explores a bleak vision of the future(Image: WARNER BROS)
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Blade Runner
Yes, it’s yet another science fiction classic, but you can’t ignore perfection. While it may have spawned a generation of moody film bros, it’s easy to see why this atmospheric, neon-drenched cyberpunk thriller caught the imagination of so many.
From cinematic mastermind Ridley Scott, who already reinvented the genre with his seminal space horror Alien in 1979, comes a gripping existential head-trip starring Harrison Ford as a futuristic detective tasked with hunting down synthetic humans known as replicants.
Blending classic noir with one of the bleakest visions of the future ever put to film, Blade Runner is worth watching for the visual splendour alone, but will also keep you thinking long after the credits roll.
Blade Runner is available to stream on Prime Video.
80s movies don’t get much better than Raiders of the Lost Ark(Image: LUCASFILM)
Raiders of the Lost Ark
What’s left to say about Raiders of the Lost Ark that hasn’t been said a million times before?
Somehow, Spielberg delivered two masterpieces back-to-back, with the introduction of yet another iconic Harrison Ford hero arriving in 1981, a year before the acclaimed filmmaker made millions of moviegoers sob uncontrollably with ET.
The most iconic movie star of all time in his prime, an enthralling, globetrotting adventure, booby traps and ancient puzzles galore, and Nazis getting punched in the face. What’s not to love?
Raiders of the Lost Ark is available to stream on Netflix and for free on Channel 4.
Academy Award winner Billy Bob Thornton, who plays chain-smoking crisis manager Tommy Norris in Taylor Sheridan’s latest hit “Landman,”seems like a guy who can’t be intimidated. But get him in a room with Allison Janney and the truth comes out.
“I was afraid of you,” he tells her sheepishly on The Envelope’s Emmy Roundtable for drama actors.
“Really?” says Janney, the Oscar-, Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning performer who appears as cunning Vice President Grace Penn on the Netflix political thriller “The Diplomat.”
“The first time I met Allison, it was at another press function thing,” he says to the room. “And just seeing you, as an actor, and parts you play … But also, you have this very dignified quality about you.”
“It’s my height, I think.”
“No,” he continues. “You just have the face of someone who is powerful and really intelligent. So some idiot like me comes in, and I’m like, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t talk to her.’”
This is what happens when you gather seven Emmy contenders whose performances so convincingly shape our perceptions of who they are in real life. This year’s group also included Sterling K. Brown, who plays Xavier Collins, a Secret Service agent seeking the truth in Hulu’s “Paradise”; Britt Lower, who plays both wealthy heiress Helena Eagan and defiant data refiner Helly R. in Apple TV+’s “Severance”; Jason Isaacs, who plays Timothy Ratliff, an American financier desperately trying to keep a secret from his family in HBO’s “The White Lotus”; Noah Wyle, who plays Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch, a senior attending physician at a Pittsburgh trauma center in Max’s “The Pitt”; and Kaitlin Olson, who plays the underestimated but brilliant police consultant Morgan Gillory in ABC’s “High Potential.”
Read on for excerpts from our discussion about how they tap into their layered performances, navigate the business and more — and watch video of the roundtable below.
The 2025 Emmy Drama Roundtable. Back row from left: Britt Lower, Jason Isaacs, Noah Wyle and Kaitlin Olson. From row from left: Billy Bob Thornton, Allison Janney and Sterling K. Brown.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Tell me about an “Oh, my God, did that just happen?” moment — good or bad — from your early years on a Hollywood set. Kaitlin, your first credit was “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” I can’t imagine what it’s like making Larry David laugh.
Olson: Oh, you just have to scream in his face and insult him, and then he thinks that’s really, really funny. But yeah, there were no marks and there were no lines. So I didn’t really have an “Oh, my God” moment. You just talk and shut up when you should shut up.
Isaacs: On my first day [on 1989’s “The Tall Guy”], I remember I arrived first thing in the morning. I was playing Surgeon No. 2 in a dream sequence that Jeff Goldblum was in. The director, who’s hassled and busy, he goes, “OK, we’re going to start with you. We’re coming in on the dolly. But because I’m on a very wide lens, if you could start the eyeline somewhere near the bottom of the jib and then just go to the corner of bottle, then take it to the edge of the matte box when we’re getting close.” And I went, “Right … What the f— did any of those words mean?” Jeff is just out of frame. And he’s in his underpants, and it’s a dream sequence for him. And we’re just about to go and roll the cameras, and Jeff goes, “Hold on a second.” And he stands up and he starts standing on a chair reciting Byron love poems even though he was not in the shot. I’m like, “I don’t understand what the hell is going on here.” Years later, I sat next to him at a wedding and I said, “Do you remember that night?” He went, “Yeah.”
Jason Isaacs of “The White Lotus.”
Have there been moments where you fell out of love with acting or where you felt like, “This isn’t working out”?
Janney: My career didn’t start till I was 38 or something, because I’m so tall, and I was literally uncastable. I went to the Johnson O’Connor [Research Foundation]. And I did three days of testing to see what else I could possibly do.
Issacs: What is that?
Janney: It’s an aptitude testing place. They ask you to do all this stuff, and at the end of it they say, “This is what you should be.” And they told me I should be a systems analyst. I had no idea what that was. And the next day, I got cast understudying Faith Prince and Kate Nelligan in “Bad Habits,” a play at the Manhattan Theatre Club.
Allison Janney of “The Diplomat.”
Brown: I’ve never fallen out of love with it. I was an economics major in college who wound up switching to drama. When I got out of grad school and [was] hopping around through regional theater, I wound up booking a TV show, “Army Wives,” for six years, and a few years into the show, I was like, “I think I’ve done everything that I want to do with the character.” So when they came dangling the carrot for people to reup after Season 6, I was like, “I’m curious to see what else the universe has in store.” I was able to pay off student loans. We had our first child, I had a home and I was like, “Let’s take a gamble on Brown.” I did a pilot for AMC that didn’t get picked up; then had a recurring [role] on “Person of Interest” for six episodes. I was like, “Oh, man, I got a wife and a kid and a house. Did I mess up? Should I have stayed on the show or not?”
Then I auditioned for [“The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”], and I didn’t hear anything for four months. I was down in New Mexico shooting this movie, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot,” and I was having this really sort of morbid moment of going through my IMDb Pro account and looking at everybody who had booked all of the things that I had auditioned for. I was like, “Oh, Bokeem Woodbine booked Season 2 of ‘Fargo.’ Good for him.” And I got a call from my manager saying, “They want you to screen test with Sarah Paulson for this thing.” I was the only person that they brought in to audition for it.
Sterling K. Brown of “Paradise.”
Your series are largely confronting or commenting on real-world anxieties or subjects that are changing in our world in real time. Noah, with Dr. Robbie and what he says about what’s going on in the healthcare system — we’re seeing him cope with the aftermath of COVID-19. We’re seeing stories that are very timely about vaccinations. Talk about what was important to you with this series and what you wanted to show through these characters.
Wyle: “ER” was very much a patient-centric show in a lot of ways. And this was more of an exercise to be practitioner- and physician-centric, to really show the toll that the last five years since COVID has taken on that community. The thesis being that it is as fragile as the mental health of the people that we have in those jobs and the quality’s what we received. Even though we had to peer into a crystal ball and try to figure out a year ago what would be the topical cases of today, we were really more interested in how everybody’s coping mechanisms have allowed them to practice what they’ve been doing for the last five years. How they’ve compartmentalized the toll it’s taken on them personally, and explore that in real time. Aggregate tension on a shift where you’re just embedded with them without release. The outset was more about identifying the mental health of the practitioner than identifying the ills in society … Can I just say how effing cool it is to sit at this table with you all and be the uncool one to say that I feel like my impostor syndrome is off the rails right now?
Olson: No way.
Noah Wyle of “The Pitt.”
Hopefully you’ll all guest star on each other’s shows by the time this is over.
Janney: I would love that.
Britt, what really spoke to me about “Severance” was its exploration of grief, but within that too, there’s the corporate overreach and the work-life balance that I think all of us can appreciate. Did it show you anything about how you navigate your work-life balance or what you could do better?
Lower: The cast talks a lot about how the “Severance” procedure is kind of like what we do for a living. We go to work and put on a different outfit and assume a new identity. There were some moments where you’re walking down the corridors on the way to your job, and there’s kind of this meta quality of being inside of a show about compartmentalizing and switching into a different part of yourself. But I think it’s so relatable. I think we do that as humans. We show up differently in different spaces in our lives, whether it’s work or home or going home for the holidays, versus your baseball team. You just put on a different person really.
Britt Lower of “Severance.”
Isaacs: If I go away to do a job on location somewhere, I can actually — even at my ripe old age; I’m a father and I’m a husband — just park my life and forget that. Now I see that metaphor very clearly and it’s irresponsible. I’m so much more comfortable in the fictitious world than I am in the real world.
Do you feel like there’s a misconception that you guys are just all at the pool?
Isaacs: I’m not really an actor anymore; I just do “White Lotus” publicity for a job. And in the billions of interviews, people expect you to say, “It was a holiday. We were in this resort.” Well, we’re not really in the resort. So I’ve said a few times, “You make friends. You lose friends, romances or whatever; things happen between departments and all the backstage drama that we’re all used to.” Well, the online world went mad trying to deconstruct, trying to work out who knew who and who was [doing what]. Actually, I’m talking about all the crew and all the departments — not that it’s anyone’s business. But it’s trying to deconstruct what we all think of each other. And what happened there is so much less interesting than Mike White’s brilliant stories. You shouldn’t be interested in who went to dinner with who. I kind of wish I hadn’t opened my mouth about it, but I don’t want to pretend it was a holiday. Not just the way that the show blew up but also the level of microscopic interest in anything any of us said, tweeted, posted — there aren’t many new experiences for actors who’ve been around a long time, but this one has been shocking, and I’m quite glad that it’s abating now. I’d like to return to my normal life, but I don’t know how people who are uber-famous deal with it.
The level of microscopic interest in anything any of us said, tweeted, posted, is a new — there aren’t many new experiences for actors who’ve been around a long time, but this one has been shocking.
— Jason Isaacs, on fan attention to ‘The White Lotus’
Billy Bob, how did you come to navigate it? You’ve experienced the extreme effects of that.
Thornton: You mean in the world of Hollywood and all that?
Isaacs: Do you go to the supermarket, take the subway … Do you do the stuff I do?
Thornton: It depends on what year it is. I’ve gone through times where I couldn’t go anywhere. Once my life got bigger, and that really happened with … I mean, I was a working actor doing OK, but “Sling Blade” is the one that, literally overnight, it was a crazy thing. From that point on, it’s been pretty steady. What I’ve done to not get involved in all that is I don’t really go anywhere. I’m either working or I’m at home with the family or in a recording studio or on the road. You don’t see me in the [tabloid] magazines, at the parties and all that kind of stuff.
I’ll put it this way. Right now, with “Landman,” we thought it was going to be successful. We had no idea that it was going to be like this. I mean, we’ve got fans in Iceland and stuff. I can’t go to a Walmart in Texas. It’s literally impossible. I tried it. I would walk three feet at a time. Texans, their personalities are also very big, and they don’t really come up and go, “Excuse me, mister.” It’s not like that. It’s like, “Hey man, what’s going on? Get in a picture with me.”
I’ve had a reputation — weirdo. Angelina and I were vampires. We drank each other’s blood. You look on the internet, and there’s some kind of thing you’re trying to look up and, inevitably, it’ll show something else. So you go, “I hate this. I hate the internet, but I got to see it.”
Billy Bob Thornton of “Landman.”
Isaacs: There’s no good version of you. You either look much better on the screen or much better in real life. I wanted to say [looks at Allison], because I was a huge “West Wing” fan, I did some “West Wing,” I couldn’t break out of thinking that Bradley [Whitford] and Janel [Moloney] were, in fact, Josh and Donna. Did people think you were that political? People assumed you were that character?
Janney: I’ve been such a disappointment for people who think that I am C. J. [Cregg, her character on “The West Wing”], because I couldn’t be less like her. I’m not that person who’s able to verbally cut someone down in the second that she needs to. It was so great to play her, but I remember when they had the Democratic National [Convention] in California and there were more people who came up to me and asked me, “After this is over, will you come work for us? Will you come to…” I’m like, “You don’t understand. I’m so not like that.” And now on “The Diplomat,” playing the president of the United States and the smartest person in the room, it’s so much fun for me to play those kind of women because I’m not [like that]. I mean, I’m not an idiot, but I know nothing about being in the world of politics or being manipulative.
Kaitlin, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is in its 17th season now. You’re on “Hacks.” When you’re signing on to something like “High Potential,” what factors do you consider when thinking about how long you want to commit to something?
Olson: I don’t ever want to play a character that starts to get old to me. “Sunny” doesn’t feel like that to me because it’s a satire and the world’s always providing us with new content. And we do eight to 10 episodes a season. So it’s 17 seasons, which is insane, but it’s not even 20 episodes. It’s so much fun, which is the reason I’m not sick of that character yet. But I feel the same way as you, [Allison], when I’m playing characters who are super-smart, and then I have to talk about it, I just go into panic mode.
How has it been getting into Morgan’s head?
Olson: I love the other characters that I play, but there’s heart to this, and she’s a good mom and she is very insecure but puts on a big show. I love that she’s scrappy and has to figure it out, and she trusts that she will and doesn’t rely on anybody else to help her figure it out. The most important thing are her kids. I think she’s just fascinating to play.
Kaitlin Olson of “High Potential.”
What’s the most impressive skill you picked up on the job? Noah, you know I’m going to start with you. You went to medical boot camp. You’ve done really well with sutures. You can intubate any one of us, I think.
Wyle: I’ve never performed one.
Isaacs: The night is young.
Wyle: I wish everybody an opportunity to slip into a role that you have such great muscle memory with from another aspect of your life when you play a musician or when you do circusing or whatever. When you do something you’ve done for so long, and then you get to do it again, it is just amazing how much it’s in your body and how you don’t have to worry about that stuff. There was a moment earlier where Sterling choked on the grape in the greenroom. I was so ready to intubate him, even if it wasn’t necessary.
Thornton: I went to air-traffic control school for “Pushing Tin,” so I can still say, “Delta 2376, turn left, 20-0-4-0” and “Clear the Alice approach one-four right, call the tower one-eight-three,” because you just don’t forget it. That’s not air-traffic control, that’s just a line. With Noah, he learns this skill that he has been doing over the years, and that kind of knowledge is invaluable. Anytime you have stuff to do, without just acting, like you’re doing busy work — you’re, like, here’s how you do an appendectomy — and you learn and when you’re picking up the right tools, you’re saying the right stuff, you’re making incisions — that stuff you’ve got to learn.
Isaacs: One of the great privileges of being an actor that maybe doesn’t show up onscreen is you get to walk in people’s shoes. I shadowed heart surgeons and plastic surgeons and politicians and criminals and soldiers, and it’s just an amazing privilege to be in people’s lives and talk about it. And there may be some tiny bit you pick up for the screen.
