10 Best Movies Not Streaming Anywhere

Streaming has completely upended the film industry, changing distribution models and essentially putting the physical media market on life support, if not outright killing it. In this day and age, where so many films and television series are just a search engine away from viewers, it makes those movies that aren’t widely available in the online space all the more coveted.

With some recent wins in the world of lost media, such as Kevin Smith gaining back the rights to his best film, Dogma, it’s a good time to highlight some of the other classics that have fallen through the digital cracks. These are ten of the best movies that can’t currently be watched on streaming. Some might be rather obscure, but others are outright classics of the medium, and it’s a true shame that they are not more widely available.

10

‘Rebecca’ (1940)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

It’s downright criminal that Rebecca, an essential film from Alfred Hitchcock and a Best Picture winner to boot, is unavailable to stream anywhere, yet the mediocre remake is readily available on Netflix. Hitchcock’s version is vastly superior and features terrific performances from both Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. It’s a beautifully shot gothic romance that is among the master of suspense’s best.

Based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier, Olivier stars as the mercurial Maxim de Winter, a wealthy widower who begins to woo Fontaine’s easily impressionable, unnamed protagonist, and they soon marry. Cracks begin to form in this romance, though, as the young woman discovers more and more pieces of the puzzle that is her betrothed, and that puzzle forms the shape of his deceased wife Rebecca, whose shadow hangs over everything. Rebecca is an all-time classic that needs to be brought in from the cold and warmly embraced on streaming.

9

‘Straw Dogs’ (1971)

Directed by Sam Peckinpah

Sam Peckinpah‘s vicious, controversial revenge thriller Straw Dogs is a raw nerve of a film that leaves an impact on viewers, or at least it would, if they could find somewhere to watch it (legally). Instead, streaming audiences are left with the forgettable remake, which doesn’t have near the power of Peckinpah’s original. Indeed, this 1971 gem continues to inspire debate for its unflinching violence and transgressive gender dynamics.

Following an American mathematician and his English wife who buy a house in her hometown where the rowdy locals are less than welcoming, the movie charts a collision course with violence and, on the way there, delivers a psychological nightmare of a thriller. Peckinpah was known to court controversy with his films and their penchant for ultraviolence, and this revenge movie is easily his most controversial, but, for viewers who can stomach it, is an unforgettable viewing experience.

8

‘The Heartbreak Kid’ (1972)

Directed by Elaine May

Yet another classic film that is nowhere to be found on streaming despite its inferior and pointless remake being readily available, The Heartbreak Kid is an incredible black comedy. It stars Charles Grodin as a quintessential movie jerk who discovers the woman he believes to be his soul mate, despite recently marrying another woman.

Directed by comedy maven Elaine May from a script by Neil Simon, the movie finds comfort in discomfort, mining humor out of awkward social interactions in ways that only films of the ’60s and ’70s seemed to be able to do with deftness and without overplaying the broad comedy. The Heartbreak Kid deserves far more recognition in the pantheon of romantic comedies, instead of being vanished from all corners of the internet.

7

‘Cocoon’ (1985)

Directed by Ron Howard

Ron Howard‘s career is filled with plenty of proficient films, if not many that are considered all-time classics. The former Happy Days star is a steady hand behind the camera, and his ’80s output is all kinds of feel-good, including his cozy sci-fi dramedy Cocoon. Despite being one of the highest-grossing films of 1985 and receiving two Oscar nominations, the movie hasn’t found a streaming service to call home, an issue that apparently wasn’t resolved in Disney’s buyout of Twentieth Century Studios’ catalog.

Set in a retirement community, the movie features elder stars Don Ameche, Jessica Tandy, and Wilford Brimley (who, shockingly, was only 50 years old during filming) as senior citizens who discover their next-door neighbors with a pool are in fact extra-terrestrials, and that the pool itself has been imbued with a rejuvenating life force that makes them feel young again. Howard is playing with the same themes as Steven Spielberg‘s segment from the cursed production that was Twilight Zone: The Movie, but actually manages to outdo the master at his game with a heartwarming picture trimmed of its treacly trappings.

6

‘Near Dark’ (1987)

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

For a director with as many rewatchable movies as Kathryn Bigelow, several of her early pivotal efforts remain frustratingly hard to track down. Her underappreciated sci-fi noir Strange Days is a no-show across streaming services, as is her must-watch vampire Western Near Dark, which has, over the years, come out into the sunlight for the briefest of moments, only to recede into its blacked-out van just as quickly.

Starring the triptych of reunited Aliens actors Jeanette Goldstein, Lance Henriksen, and Bill Paxton as members of a roving gang of bloodsuckers who cut a path of carnage across the American Southwest, Near Dark is one of the gnarliest and grittiest vampire movies ever made. Bigelow’s direction is as adrenalized as ever, and the cast is top to bottom fangtastic, which makes it all the more unfortunate that this killer horror thriller remains in the shadows.

5

‘Wild at Heart’ (1990)

Directed by David Lynch

Divisive at the time of its release, and controversially winning the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, David Lynch‘s underrated lovers-on-the-lam film Wild at Heart has been reevaluated over the years and has rightfully been given its flowers as an essential part of the iconic director’s filmography. Alas, that hasn’t helped its availability on streaming.

Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern play young star-crossed lovers who go on the run, violating his parole in the process. To complicate matters, her domineering mother, played by Dern’s real-life mother, Diane Ladd, who was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance, sends violent criminals after them. Despite the film’s violent content, which caused walkouts during test screenings, it’s filled with Lynch’s signature visual flourishes and is one of the most unique among the romantic crime subgenre.

4

‘Hard Boiled’ (1992)

Directed by John Woo

John Woo’s last true masterpiece, Hard Boiled, has three of the greatest action sequences ever committed to film that put many modern action films to shame. Yet while those lackluster actioners sit comfortably in many a couch sitter’s queue, Woo’s classic remains obscured. Luckily, for action fans, there is light at the end of the dove-filled tunnel as Hard Boiled, along with a catalog of other international classics, has been acquired by Shout Factory for new physical and streaming releases, though they have not yet been dated for those premieres.

The film stars Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung as two cops, one a loose cannon, the other a burnt-out undercover, who must reluctantly join forces in order to bring down a violent Triad boss. In the process, they’ll destroy half of Hong Kong in some of the most balletic gun battles filmed in any country. Woo pulls out all the stops in what was his last hurrah in Hong Kong before heading out west to Hollywood. Here’s hoping it makes it to streaming sooner rather than later.

3

‘Heavenly Creatures’ (1994)

Directed by Peter Jackson

Far and away Peter Jackson‘s most mature film, Heavenly Creatures was one of the most underrated films of 1994, and one that proves the director can master more than just gross-out splatter films and hobbit adventures. In a golden age of true crime obsession, it’s surprising that this movie, based on a real murder drama, hasn’t been reclaimed by a new age of fans, likely the result of its absence on streaming.

Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey play two schoolgirl friends who bond over a shared love of fantasy worlds and their shared social ostracization. Their relationship ferments into something far deeper (whether the two were romantically entangled has been debated despite a denial from one of them) before eventually curdling, leading to the murder of one of their mothers. Jackson uses his love of effects to bring the girls’ fantasy world to life, but he never lets the spectacle overwhelm the human story at the heart of this deeply empathetic film with two outstanding lead performances.

2

‘Sling Blade’ (1996)

Directed by Billy Bob Thornton

Despite its impact on pop culture, inspiring dozens of shallow impressions of its lead character, and for notably upgrading writer-director-star Billy Bob Thornton from character actor to legitimate star, the Southern drama Sling Blade has started to slip from cinematic memory. A revival on streaming could certainly help with that, so it’s a shame it’s nowhere to be found.

Thornton, who won an Oscar for the film’s screenplay, adapted the story from his one-man show and subsequent short film about intellectually disabled Karl’s re-emergence into society after a stint in a psychiatric hospital for a double murder. Karl’s budding friendship with a young boy and his mother, and his protectiveness of them from the mother’s abusive boyfriend, forms the spine of this emotionally wrenching Southern Gothic classic.

1

‘Happiness’ (1998)

Directed by Todd Solondz

Todd Solondz’s Happiness is hard to watch, and not just because it’s missing in action from every streaming service available. Dealing head-on with difficult subject matter, including pedophilia and sexual assault, Solondz’s jet-black comedy manages to wring awkward laughs in between scenes that can shock more than the straight-ahead suburban horror films.

Following three sisters and the varying degrees to which their lives have left them unfulfilled, Solondz delves deep into middle-class dysfunction, peeling back the layers of projected normalcy to expose the rotten fruit underneath. Featuring a career-best performance from character actor Dylan Baker and an equally astonishing one from generational talent Philip Seymour Hoffman, Happiness may not be an easy watch, but it’s one that demands to be seen all the same.

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