Netflix is already arguably the go-to streaming service when you want to watch “something.” If you don’t know exactly what to watch, there’s a good chance you’re going to go to Netflix first before another streaming service like Max or Disney+. Now, the company wants to be the go-to place to watch classic movies as well.
In a blog post, the company announced Milestone Movies: The Anniversary Collection. The collection includes tons of classic movies that are celebrating their 20th, 30th, 40th, or even 50th anniversary on the silver screen. In January, the company is releasing a ton of movies celebrating 50th anniversaries.
Starting this month on Netflix in the US, you can watch a robust roster of movies released in 1974 and turning the big 5-0 this year. More offerings from 1984 (turning 40), 1994 (turning 30), and 2004 (yes, this is already somehow 20 years ago!) will follow in April, July, and October, respectively.
In addition to bringing the films to the streaming service, Netflix is also going to host “in-person special screenings at the Paris Theater in New York, and at Los Angeles’ Egyptian and Bay theaters throughout the year.” The company says that each release will include “award-winners, guilty pleasures, and cult classics.”
What’s in the Milestone Movies: The Anniversary Collection?
For January’s 50th anniversary collection, the service will stream a ton of classic movies. The full list is below:
- Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: A widowed singer and single mother starts over as a diner waitress in Arizona, befriending her co-workers and romancing a ruggedly handsome rancher.
- Black Belt Jones: High-kicking Black Belt Jones is dispatched to take down a group of Mafia goons trying to muscle in on a downtown karate studio.
- Blazing Saddles: This gleefully satirical take on Hollywood Westerns follows the tortured trail of a formerly enslaved man who’s elected as the sheriff of a racist town.
- California Split: Two compulsive gamblers with nothing in common except bad luck discover that they make an unbeatable team — and join forces to take on the reigning world champion.
- Chinatown: With a suspicious femme fatale bankrolling his snooping, private eye J.J. Gittes uncovers intricate dirty dealings in the Los Angeles waterworks.
- The Conversation: An audio surveillance expert faces a moral quandary when he suspects that a couple whose conversation he’s been hired to record will be murdered.
- Death Wish: After an architect’s wife is murdered and his daughter is raped, he seeks vigilante justice against not only the culprits but other wrongdoers as well.
- The Gambler: After a bad run at a casino leaves him $44,000 in debt to a mobster, a professor with a gambling addiction tries in vain to win the money back.
- The Great Gatsby: Mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby is obsessed with Daisy Buchanan, who’s married to unfaithful Tom, making for a tragic love triangle. Based on the classic Jazz Age novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
- It’s Alive: Frank and Lenore Davis are an ordinary couple who produce an extraordinary baby — a fanged mutant that sets off on a killing spree to survive.
- The Little Prince: A pilot who’s forced down in the Sahara listens to a boy’s magical stories about distant planets and strange people and animals. Based on the beloved novella by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
- The Lords of Flatbush: In 1957 Brooklyn, two teenage members of the Lords of Flatbush gang face the realities of adulthood in this nostalgic coming-of-age drama notable for its cast of rising stars.
- The Parallax View: While investigating the assassination of a leading US senator, a journalist uncovers a conspiracy involving a shadowy multinational corporation.
- The Street Fighter: Martial arts legend Sonny Chiba stars as tough guy Terry Tsurugi, a ruthless street fighter hired by the Japanese Mafia to kidnap the beautiful heiress to a vast oil fortune, all so that they can take over her family’s estate.
While the 50th-anniversary films will premiere this month, Netflix is planning to release more batches that include 40th, 30th, and 20th-anniversary films throughout the rest of the year. It looks like we have a lot of classic movies coming our way!
