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There are movies that I’ve avoided rewatching for much of my adult life for fear that my fond recollections might be ruined. It’s a great feeling when movies hold up long after watching it for the first time, but I try to exercise caution, especially when recommending them to friends: Plenty of movies have developed reputations as re-watchable classics, but it’s hard to tell whether they stood the test of time through our own lenses of nostalgia. And new viewers approaching an older movie with a modern perspective can often make it harder to enjoy than we realize.
You’ve likely experienced it before: You watched a popular movie long after it premiered and wondered what all the fuss had been about. It can be hard for longtime fans to accept, but without nostalgia, some classic movies just don’t hold up if you weren’t there when the magic happened. Still, most of the movies on this list are special for being original for their time, and many are understandably beloved. Just don’t expect a newcomer to share your enthusiasm.
Star Wars (1977)
The Star Wars franchise has been around long enough to have separate generations of nostalgia. By now, the prequel trilogy that started with The Phantom Menace can evoke its own sense of nostalgia separate from the original series, and even 2015’s The Force Awakens is old enough to inspire wistful recollections in some younger viewers. But for many Star Wars franchise fans, the original Star Wars is the best movie and the moment where it all began. To revisit or recommend George and Marcia Lucas’ original space drama, remember that while it’s a really good movie deserving of its place in pop culture history, it also didn’t carry decades of cultural history, toy marketing, obsessive fandom, and continuity when you first watched it. But it can also be refreshing to enter its universe without every scene and character explained backwards and forwards through prequels, sequels, requels, and sidequels.
Where to stream: Disney+, digital rental
Steel Magnolias (1989)
The word “iconic” is wildly overused, but look at the cast for Steel Magnolias: Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, and Julia Roberts all star in this adaptation of Robert Harling’s stage play. It’s ultimately a tragic story, but as Dolly’s character Truvy says, “Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion,” and it’s hard to beat Steel Magnolias on that score. If the movie weren’t so funny and quotable, it could easily have been a tearjerker that falls apart under the weight of schmaltz. Instead, its witty dialogue and committed performances give it an airiness to balance the weight of its themes.
Where to stream: Tubi, digital rental
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is justifiably remembered as one of Audrey Hepburn’s finest: she takes Truman Capote’s wildly contradictory character and pulls the disparate threads together into something cohesive. She’s as cunning as she is childlike, as delusional as she is insecure—and yet Hepburn makes her work. But there’s much else that falls flat. In the novella, George Peppard’s Paul (unnamed in the book) is gay, and turning him into a romantic interest makes for a clunky “she just needed the love of a good man all along” ending. Not to mention that Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi obviously didn’t age well, to say the least.
Where to stream: Paramount+, MGM+, Prime Video
Set It Off (1996)
Just a year after making his feature debut with Friday, F. Gary Gray (who’d go on to direct films including The Italian Job, Straight Outta Compton, and The Fate of the Furious) took on a pretty incredible cast led by Jada Pinkett Smith, Queen Latifah, Vivica A. Fox, and Kimberly Elise as four women who decide to rob a bank. Each of the women has specific and believable motivations for only needing the money, but Set It Off might not land the same outside the 1990s when it felt so special to have its cast together to tackle themes of economic anxiety, homophobia, misogyny, and racism.
Where to stream: Paramount+, digital rental
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
A bit of technicolor wizardry and pure cinematic joy that’s entertained audiences for well over 80 years, The Wizard of Oz follows Judy Garland’s Dorothy to the title’s land of Oz, where she learns not only is there no place like home, but that she and her band of fellow travelers have had everything they needed the whole time. As a great work of American cinema’s golden age, it’s hard to beat.
If there’s an element that limits its nostalgia, though, it’s the treatment of Judy Garland on set—something that audiences have only recently begun to discuss. There’s some debate over the extent of the abuse to which she was subjected, but she was reportedly given amphetamines for energy during the days and sleeping pills to counteract them. It would obviously be frowned on today, especially when used to get more productive work out of a 16-year old. It’s hard to avoid drawing a straight line between those days and the lifelong substance issues that led to her early death. Of course, none of that needs to ruin the film, but it still might affect enjoyment of it.
Where to stream: Max, digital rental
Back to the Future (1985)
Back to the Future cleverly punctures the very idea of nostalgia in its message that we like to misremember the past for our own purposes. When Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) visits the past with help from the time machine belonging to his pal Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), nearly the first thing he discovers is that his perpetually horrified mother was as horny as any other teenager—and maybe even a bit more. A smart script, fun performances, and an all-time great score from Alan Silvestri combine to make this a solid bit of nostalgic anti-nostalgia. There’s an uncomfortable bit about Marty kinda-sorta inventing rock and roll, but otherwise the idea of finding out what your parents were like when they were your age remains both tempting and effective.
Where to stream: Netflix, digital rental
Grease (1978)
I had never seen Grease before a friend took me to a re-release when I was having a particularly bad week…and I loved it. Which is not to say that it’s a great movie, but that nostalgic feelings can be born from all sorts of circumstances. We often like movies we saw as kids, but sometimes we love stuff because we were having a bad day, a good day, or a particularly good date. Of course, there are misogynistic elements to Grease that don’t hold up (did Sandy really need to change her whole look for Danny?), but it also includes some great performances from Stockard Channing, Didi Conn, and Olivia Newton-John, none of whose characters are pushovers (at least until those last moments). The songs are memorable, even when you hate having them stuck in your head, so I’d give this one mixed marks as to whether or not it’s worthy of its reputation. But I won’t begrudge anyone the fun.
Where to stream: Paramount+, digital rental
Hook (1991)
Hook got pretty awful reviews during its initial release, certainly among the worst of Steven Spielberg’s career. And those reviews aren’t wrong. The film did pretty well at the box office, though, and I suspect it gelled especially well baby boomers who saw themselves in Robin Williams’ middle-aged Peter Pan, and 1991 kids who weren’t bothered by the sentimentality, and, unlike earlier generations, hadn’t really had a Peter Pan to call their own. It’s probably not a great movie today though, and even Spielberg’s not a fan, so it’s not really worthy of any sort of critical evaluation. I’ll hold onto fond memories and maybe not bother to rewatch it as an adult.
Where to stream: digital rental
Ghostbusters (1984)
Like Back to the Future and Beverly Hills Cop, filmmakers in the 1980s seemed to have a knack for the kind of action comedies that we’ve lost, where studios just let funny people be funny without the rest of the movie being overcomplicated. Ghostbusters works well on that level, though it becomes significantly less charming as we move toward the special effects-heavy finale. The “romance” between the Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver characters doesn’t always feel entirely consensual, while Ernie Hudson’s character, while ostensibly a full member of the team, gets treated as an afterthought and gets a billing so low that he doesn’t even appear on the poster. It all worked in the 1980s differently than it would to someone new to the franchise.
Where to stream: AMC+, digital rental
A Christmas Story (1983)
A Christmas Story wasn’t a total flop, but also didn’t do particularly good business when it was released back in 1983. Subsequent TV showings made it a hit, and that’s before the rights were picked up by Turner Broadcasting in the mid-1990s and TNT began annual 24-hour airings. As recently as 2019, 13 of the top 25 programs aired on Christmas were A Christmas Story, and I’m pretty sure that it’s a good movie (maybe even a great one). But, at this point, it’s so deeply ingrained in Christmas culture that I’m not sure how anyone who grew up with it would be able to tell if it’s actually enjoyable to others or not.
Where to stream: digital rental
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
It’s a Wonderful Life is another holiday classic made beloved (or tiresome) via endless TV airings. While Frank Capra and company were certainly not incapable of leaning on sentiment, the happy ending here is as hard-earned as they come: how many other Christmas movies, after all, turn on its main character attempting suicide? Aside from being an impressively directed and acted movie, it’s also a straight-up journey into hell for George Bailey (James Stewart) before things get better, maybe, in the final scene. I think its nostalgia is deserved, but also that it could use a reevaluation as a piece of cinematic art.
Where to stream: Prime Video
The Color Purple (1985)
With apologies to the very good 2023 musical adaptation, this Steven Spielberg take on Alice Walker’s novel remains the gold standard to most fans. Reviews at the time were mixed-to-positive, with near unanimous praise for Whoopi Goldberg, as well as for supporting performers Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey. The real criticism, though, came from voices in the Black community: the men in the film are almost all either weak or abusive, which might have been less commented upon had director Spielberg and screenplay writer Menno Meyjes not been white. Who were they, after all, to take on the story of Black women in the rural south of the early 20th century? It remains a fair question, but decades of TV airings have softened views on the movie.
Where to stream: digital rental
Stand By Me (1986)
Conventional wisdom holds that, at least of the non-horror offerings, The Shawshank Redemption is the best Stephen King adaptation. But personally, I think it’s Stand By Me, a smart visit to a small town in the late 1950s and the mismatched group of friends who set out to find a rumored dead body. Its sweetness is balanced by an undercurrent of melancholy, but it’s also impressively weird with its barf-o-rama fantasy sequence and testicle-hungry leeches. The movie also has a good ear for the dumb things that kids talk about, and the ways in which those conversations can turn unintentionally profound.
Where to stream: MGM+, digital rental
Beauty Shop (2005)
Beauty Shop is a Barbershop spin-off, and both can be considered modern comedy classics. The jokes are hit-or-miss, which is typical for dialogue-heavy comedy, and there’s not much plot. But Queen Latifah is a beloved leading woman, and the supporting cast is packed: Alfre Woodard, Kevin Bacon, Della Reese, Djimon Hounsou, Alicia Silverstone, Octavia Spencer…it goes on and on. Cinematic comfort food doesn’t demand perfection (Beauty Shop got pretty bad reviews even at the time, and it only doing so-so at the box office), but it probably doesn’t view well without the nostalgia that often comes with whatever age you were in 2005.
Where to stream: Tubi, MGM+, digital rental
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
It might not be a fair criticism, but it’s worth considering the central limitation of To Kill a Mockingbird: it tells its story of anti-Black American racism from the perspective of White observers. Still, the movie is a glorious, beautiful adaptation, honoring Harper Lee’s perceptive eye and ear for dialogue, with Gregory Peck flawlessly cast as Atticus Finch alongside Mary Badham’s Scout and Brock Peters playing terror with dignity as Tom Robinson.
Where to stream: Tubi, digital rental
The Goonies (1985)
Goonies nostalgia has fallen, and there are good reasons for it. People who saw it as kids typically hold it close to their hearts, and understandably so: it’s a faster-paced movie starring actual kids who find themselves in increasingly cartoonish predicaments while on the hunt for pirate treasure. Even at the time of its release, I suspect it was a tougher sell for anyone older than the target age of 13 or so. But for modern parents, it can be a tough one to introduce to kids: the delightful Ke Huy Quan plays “Data,” the Asian kid who’s good at math but comically bad at English; Jeff Cohen’s “Chunk” is the fat kid who never stops talking about food; cleaner Rosalita is the butt of pranks because of her limited English; the Italian-American Fratelli family are all mobster stereotypes—expect for Sloth, the deformed kid with the heart of gold. And that’s not nearly all. The Goonies will never be “cancelled,” but there are reasons why its modern-day appeal is limited.
Where to stream: Tubi, digital rental
Casablanca (1942)
As a product of the golden-age Hollywood studio system, you can’t do much better than Casablanca. It’s polished but never feels sterile, in large part thanks to the impressive chemistry among and between the three leads: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. There’s a reason why it’s one of only a small handful of classic movies that pretty much everyone can name, and it’s worth watching (or rewatching) even if it won’t feel the same in the 2020s as it did in the 1940s.
Where to stream: Max, digital rental
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is a classic romp that makes the case for skipping school or work. It may not hold up, but at least it avoids most of the problematic parts of many other 1980s comedies, as well as those of other John Hughes movies (Pretty In Pink‘s Duckie and Sixteen Candles‘ Long Duk Dong, for example). If it’s not objectively the best Hughes teen movie (though I think it is), it’s the one that will play the best today’s era. Just don’t expect the same thrill without the prerequisite nostalgia.
Where to stream: Paramount+, digital rental
West Side Story (1961)
West Side Story was a collaboration between Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, who painstakingly directed some of the most impressively choreographed and athletic dance sequences in American film. But the musical sequences puts much of the rest of the film in its shadow: Rita Moreno and George Chakiris won Oscars, but other performances are less compelling: Natalie Wood is pretty abysmal in the lead and her performance swallowed by a comically fake Puerto Rican accent, and Richard Beymer as Tony can’t stop the movie’s central love story from being its least compelling aspect. Maybe it’s blasphemy to suggest that the 2021 Spielberg version is better, but newcomers will likely take to it better than the original.
Where to stream: Max, digital rental
Sister Act (1992)
As with something like, say, Mrs. Doubfire, Sister Act needed a difficult balance. It’s a high-concept comedy with a goofy premise (a mobster’s girlfriend hides out as a nun who winds up leading the choir) that somehow doesn’t feel dumb. Charming, committed performances from Goldberg, along with vets Maggie Smith, Kathy Najimy, Wendy Makkena, Mary Wickes, and Harvey Keitel sell the hell out of it, but a new viewer might understandably see the whole thing as excessively silly.
Where to stream: Disney+, digital rental
