Classic movies on Netflix simply don’t stick around very long. They’re more like cameos than full-time additions to the Netflix film library. That’s why Back to the Future, The Secret of My Success, The Breakfast Club, and Conan the Barbarian are all leaving the streamer at the end of September.
Fortunately, there are some other films that can fill the void. Midnight Run, Jaws, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Field of Dreams, and Stand by Me are all streaming on Netflix in September and into October. Taken together, that’s a pretty great list of films to add to our roundup of the best classic movies on Netflix right now.
Midnight Run (1988)
How influential is Midnight Run? Even Deadpool & Wolverine clearly took a few cues from this classic action comedy. Robert De Niro stars as Jack Walsh, an ex-cop turned burned-out bounty hunter. Jack is ready to quit the business when he gets assigned to a “midnight run” to bring a bail-jumping mob accountant, Jonathan “The Duke” Mardukas (Charles Grodin), back for trial.
Catching Jonathan is the easy part. Getting him there alive may prove to be more of a challenge, as federal agents attempt to take Jonathan themselves, while mobsters have a contract out on his life. As long as Jonathan is in his custody, there’s a target on Jack’s head as well.
Watch Midnight Run on Netflix.
Jaws (1975)
You’re gonna need a bigger boat as Jaws closes in on its 50th anniversary. Stephen Spielberg’s first blockbuster movie adapts Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel and scared a generation of kids out of the water. A tourist town, Amity Island, is under assault from a vicious shark, and Mayor Larry Vaughn (Carl Gottlieb Meadows) just won’t close the beaches.
That’s why it comes down to Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and an enigmatic hunter called Quint (Robert Shaw) to take on the shark by themselves. Unfortunately, once the trio are in the water, they’re the ones being hunted.
Watch Jaws on Netflix.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
There are so many future stars who came out of Fast Times at Ridgemont High that it’s easy to lose track of them. But Sean Penn makes the biggest impression as Jeff Spicoli, a slacker who drives his history teacher, Mr. Hand (Ray Walston), up a freaking wall. The funny thing is that Spicoli isn’t that important in this high school movie.
Instead, the focus largely falls on Mark “Rat” Ratner (Brian Backer), his buddy, Mike Damone (Robert Romanus), as well as Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates), her friend, Stacy Hamilton (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and Stacy’s brother, Brad Hamilton (Judge Reinhold). Rat desperately wants to date Stacy, but Mike betrays their friendship by courting her first. Meanwhile, Brad has a very famous fantasy sequence about Linda, yet his actual life is anything but a fantasy as he has to work at some humiliating dead-end jobs just to get by.
Watch Fast Times at Ridgemont High on Netflix.
Field of Dreams (1989)
Before Kevin Costner settled on Westerns, baseball movies were his thing. Costner’s Field of Dreams might be one of the very best in the genre. Costner plays Ray Kinsella, a struggling farmer who hears a mysterious voice that encourages him to build a baseball field in his cornfield. Much to his shock, this summons dead baseball legends, some of whom need redemption, like Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) and the Chicago Black Sox.
But for Ray, the field has a deeper meaning as he helps a former player, Archibald “Moonlight” Graham (Burt Lancaster), recapture his youth and dreams. Ray feels that maintaining the field is his penance for never reconciling with his late father. It’s also his chance for redemption.
Watch Field of Dreams on Netflix.
Stand by Me (1986)
Stand by Me is one of the rare Stephen King movies that isn’t a horror story. Instead, it’s a coming-of-age film about a group of kids: Gordon “Gordie” Lachance (Wil Wheaton), Chris Chambers (River Phoenix), Teddy Duchamp (Corey Feldman), and Vern Tessio (Jerry O’Connell). In 1959, the boys discover that the body of a child their age has been spotted by Vern’s brother. They decide that they can be heroes if they find the corpse and report it to the police.
Along the way, the boys are menaced by John “Ace” Merrill (Kiefer Sutherland) and his gang. However, the bonds of friendship that they’ve forged resonate into the present.
Watch Stand by Me on Netflix.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Monty Python is a group of comedy legends, and their second film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, may be one of the funniest movies ever made. It’s the relentlessly silly story of King Arthur (Graham Chapman) and his knights, Lancelot (John Cleese), Robin (Eric Idle), Bedevere (Terry Jones), and Galahad (Michael Palin) as they stumble across the countryside in search of the Holy Grail.
On their journey, Arthur and his servant, Patsy (Terry Gilliam), encounter the Black Knight (Cleese) in a sequence that’s still hilarious and quotable nearly five decades later. The rest of the movie is also amazingly funny, and it’s one of the rare films that never seems to get old as long as you’re willing to embrace the Pythons’ brand of bizarre comedy.
Watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail on Netflix.