Good not great movies I'd like to see again

[mrkelley23]

Posted this on EFB, and it got a pretty good response, so I thought I'd post it here for my friends. The difference is everyone here is by definition old enough to have seen at least most of these. Anyway, feel free to tack on your own list. I just came up with these in about a half-hour.

My list of ten movies I'd like to see again some time. Not great movies, just good, but worth seeing again. Feel free to add yours. The oldest is from 1950, the newest from 1987. Release year and current streaming options included.

1. The Boys in Company C (1978) pay only
2. A Boy and His Dog (1975) Prime, tubi
3. Foul Play (1978) not currently available
4. Oh, God! (1977) pay only
5. Times Square (1980) TCM?
6. Hollywood Knights (1980) pay only
7. Mannequin (1987) Amazon Prime sometimes
8. The Gnome-mobile (1967) pay only
9. The Hunger(1983) pay only
10. In a Lonely Place (1950) Prime, tubi

This is one of the things I don't like about the current atmosphere. Even with the proliferation of services and channels, there doesn't seem to be the variety of movie choices there used to be. Or, I guess, if you know what you're doing, you can find most things, but you have to take the initiative, as opposed to flipping channels and saying, "Oh! I liked this movie before. Think I'll watch it again."

[MarkBarrett]

1. The Dead Zone
2. The Brady Bunch Movie
3. In the Line of Fie
4. One Hour Photo
5. Rocky IV
6. Walk the Line
7. Time Bandits
8. Arachnophobia
9. Little Big League
10. The Strongest Man in the World

[silverscreenselect]

TCM is a good source of older movies, including a number of offbeat ones from the 50s through 80s. The problem is that they only show movies for about a month, corresponding to when they're airing them on their cable channel, so you need to check back often. In the last two months, I've seen two of the films I'd put on my list on TCM: The Silent Partner and Dark of the Sun.

HBO Max has a section dedicated to "TCM Classics." Some of these movies rotate through on HBO while others seem to be on there permanently. At first, the classics were mostly genuine classics like Casablance and Gone with the Wind (which caused a controversy). But they've gotten a lot looser with what they include in recent months. They currently have the original Willard, the Michael Caine Get Carter (which would make my list) and Magic (with Anthony Hopkins).

Of the free, ad-supported services, I prefer Tubi TV. They have an extensive collection of older non-public-domain films, and they also have "channels" that feature films curated from other, more specialized services like ConTV, Shout Factory, and Full Moon.

For those interested in looking up the availability of any movie or TV show, check out Reelgood.com. They keep tabs on 150 different streaming services, and can tell you immediately on which services any film or TV show is currently available for free or subscription streaming or to rent or buy (along with current prices for rentals and purchases). If a movie or show is not currently available, you can have them notify you by email when it does become available.

I'd add that you can find a lot of old movies and TV show episodes on YouTube, but many of them are bootlegs and video quality varies greatly. The studios police the better-known films fairly regularly, so you won't find Star Wars on there for very long, but nobody really cares about reporting a lot of the older shows. It's a great place to catch isolated episodes of lesser known 50s and 60s TV shows (many of which are in the public domain).

[silverscreenselect]

2. A Boy and His Dog (1975) Prime, tubi

10. In a Lonely Place (1950) Prime, tubi

Both of these movies are in the public domain, so you'll find them in a lot of places (although the print quality isn't always very good). Zulu is another very popular movie of this general vintage that is also in the public domain.

[silverscreenselect]

I found another "new" streaming channel on Roku that has a lot of good 50s-80s films. It's called Movieland TV, and it was on Roku last summer, then got taken down (probably for copyright infringement) and is back on again for now. I'm almost positive that their non-public domain offerings are still bootlegs, so there's no telling how much longer they'll stay on this time. Right now, they are the only streaming service I know of that has Charley Varrick, El Cid, Kelly's Heroes, and the original Sleuth.