Netflix does pretty much everything well — except have a deep library of classic movies.
There’s not a lot to choose from, but Watch With Us has culled the best films from a slim selection.
At the top of our binge-watch list is the uproarious ’80s comedy Ghostbusters, starring Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver.
Not too far behind are the Robert De Niro mob drama Casino and the Kevin Costner baseball fantasy Field of Dreams.
New York City cellist Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) has a big problem — her refrigerator houses a giant demon from another dimension, Zuul. I hate it when that happens, and so do Peter (Bill Murray), Ray (Dan Aykroyd) and Egon (Harold Ramis). Otherwise known as the Ghostbusters, the three men, alongside new recruit Winston (Ernie Hudson), soon discover Zuul wants to take over the city and needs Dana and nebbish neighbor Louis (Rick Moranis) to open otherworldly portals to let all kinds of supernatural forces run rampant in the Big Apple. Can the Ghostbusters live up to their name and bust some ghostly butt?
One of the defining hits of the era, Ghostbusters holds up surprisingly well — the special effects still seem special and all the jokes land as they should. This is a movie that has the right director, right script and right cast, and it was made when sci-fi comedies were the exception rather than the rule. It’s hard to pick a favorite scene, but the arrival of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man has to rank near the top.
While walking in a cornfield one evening, farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) hears a voice that whispers, “If you build it, they will come.” That “it” turns out to be a baseball diamond, which Ray builds even though it’s impractical and causes many of his peers to think he’s crazy. But once built, the baseball field does what that voice promised — they come, and they’re the ghosts of the disgraced 1919 Chicago White Sox team. They want to play ball again, and it seems Ray is the only one who can help them.
Field of Dreams is a great “dad” movie — nostalgic, sentimental and unabashedly old-fashioned, its stakes are as low as the dugout Ray digs near the diamond. Costner is peak-Midwestern Dude here, all soft smiles and warm platitudes, while recent Oscar winner Amy Madigan is fun as Ray’s firecracker wife.
When mob man Sam Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is sent to Las Vegas to oversee a struggling casino, he realizes he’s facing an almost impossible task — to increase revenue and kick out the riff-raff. But with the help of his best friend, the psychotic Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), he somehow succeeds. When he meets former showgirl Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone), he thinks he’s hit the jackpot. But Sam quickly realizes love is a losing game, especially in a city that thrives on addiction and sin.
Initially dismissed by many when it was released in 1995, Casino is now recognized as one of Martin Scorsese’s best movies — epic in scope but intimate when it needs to be. In addition to the love story at the center of the plot, Casino chronicles a fascinating era in Vegas, when it still was a city that was as glamorous as it was corrupt. De Niro and Pesci are superb, while the Oscar-nominated Stone cries, shouts and cries some more as the unpredictable — and ultimately tragic — Ginger.
When beautiful Soviet counter-intelligence agent Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi) wants to defect to the West, it’s up to James Bond (Sean Connery) to help. But he doesn’t know that Tatiana is a double agent working for Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya), a former head of the Russian spy organization SMERSH. And Tatiana doesn’t know that Rosa is really working for SPECTRE, who wants to use her as bait to exact revenge on Bond for killing operative Dr. No.
The second film in the James Bond franchise, From Russia with Love solidified all the elements that make 007 such an enduring pop cultural icon. The title song, the dramatic intro, the silly gadgets (really, switchblades in shoes?!?) and the trademark quips are all there, and a breathless fight aboard the Orient Express still ranks as one of Bond’s best ever action sequences. Perhaps most importantly, the movie showcases Connery at his peak — with his rugged good looks, impeccable style and dry wit, it’s easy to see why Tatiana would give up her country just to be with him. After watching From Russia with Love, I would too.
When two submarines — one British, the other Soviet — suddenly disappear, James Bond (Roger Moore) is called to investigate. He’s joined by KGB agent Triple X (Barbara Bach), who reluctantly teams up with her Western rival to solve the mystery. While the Cold War slowly thaws with their heated rivalry, a mysterious henchman with metallic teeth, Jaws, tracks their every move. Who is Jaws working for, and what happened to those missing submarines?
You’ll never guess the answer because it’s absurd — even for a Bond movie. Still, it somehow doesn’t matter, since The Spy Who Loved Me is one of the best Bond films in the post-Connery era. Moore has never been more smooth as 007, while Bach’s Triple X is every bit Bond’s equal. No mere Bond girl, she’s the spy you’ll fall in love with in The Spy Who Loved Me, along with the Hulk-like Jaws (Richard Kiel), who returns in the next Bond film, the ridiculous Moonraker, as an unexpected ally. Special mention should be given to Carly Simon, who sings the film’s signature tune, “Nobody Does It Better,” with such orgasmic resignation that you’ll want to smoke a cigarette after the opening credits.
Julia Roberts won a well-deserved Oscar for her great performance as the non-nonsense legal assistant in Erin Brockovich. When Erin researches a seemingly routine real estate case involving a cancer-stricken woman and her employer, the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, she discovers the company has been covering up a far more serious crime — they’ve been poisoning the water supply near their headquarters. But once Erin and her boss, Ed (Albert Finney), take the case to court, they’ll face an uphill battle to prove they’re right.
Also nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, Erin Brockovich is a rousing, David-and-Goliath story — except in this case, David wears a push-up bra and ruby red lipstick. Roberts’ Erin is headstrong without being cliched and phony, and Finney is terrific as Erin’s exasperated mentor. It’s the rare classic that hasn’t aged a bit in the quarter-century since its release.
George Romero’s iconic horror classic follows a group of people who are sequestered in a remote farmhouse during a night when corpses are reanimating from their graves and descending upon the flesh of the living. While Ben (Duane Jones) attempts to keep order, the other survivors are erratic and prone to panicking. Peace among the group dissolves as the zombies begin to find their way inside the house.
“They’re coming to get you, Barbara” is one of the most famous horror movie lines of all time, although the film was controversial upon release. Still, Night of the Living Dead became immensely popular in the years after, becoming extremely profitable with a passionate cult following. Critics and fans often regard Night of the Living Dead as one of the greatest horror films ever made.
In Spike Lee’s feature directorial debut, Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns) decides to date three men at once to figure out what kind of man she wants to be with. She goes for Greer Childs (John Canada Terrell), self-obsessed, rich and handsome; Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks), protective and macho; and Mars Blackmon (Lee), a good-hearted, if awkward, nerd. Despite widening her options, Nola feels ever further from reaching a decision.
She’s Gotta Have It features a provocative and boundary-pushing take on female sexuality and monogamy, allowing the lead protagonist the sexual freedom men are often allowed to enjoy. It’s an energetic debut from a confident new director who helped to bolster the American independent film movement of the 1980s
