Paper for your first, tin for your 10th, gold for your 50th — anniversaries are such important events, and there’s an entire taxonomy of ways to commemorate them.
When the life of a movie hits a milestone, that’s also something to celebrate. Maybe it evokes seeing a film for the first time — in the year it was released, or discovering something decades later. Or the anniversary reminds you to watch a movie you haven’t seen yet. And after that, perhaps it inspires you to find something else like it (from the same filmmaker, actor, genre) to stream next.
So while we’re all looking ahead to the new films 2024 will bring, resolve to also spend some time looking back: Netflix is launching Milestone Movies: The Anniversary Collection, a new way to discover and celebrate movies — award-winners, guilty pleasures, and cult classics among them — marking big anniversaries this year.
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 the cinematic celebrations in your Netflix queue, there will also be in-person special screenings at the Paris Theater in New York, and at Los Angeles’ Egyptian and Bay theaters throughout the year. No matter where you do your milestone marking, just don’t forget: The perfect gift for movie anniversaries is always popcorn.
Keep scrolling to see the first batch of films in Milestone Movies: The Anniversary Collection, and be sure to check back for more updates.
1974 movies turning 50
GENRE: Comedy, romance
DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese
CAST: Ellen Burstyn, Jodie Foster, Diane Ladd, Alfred Lutter, Harvey Keitel, Kris Kristofferson, Vic Tayback
LOGLINE: A widowed singer and single mother starts over as a diner waitress in Arizona, befriending her co-workers and romancing a ruggedly handsome rancher.
GENRE: Action, adventure
DIRECTOR: Robert Clouse
CAST: Scatman Crothers, Gloria Hendry, Jim Kelly
LOGLINE: High-kicking Black Belt Jones is dispatched to take down a group of Mafia goons trying to muscle in on a downtown karate studio.
GENRE: Comedy, Western
DIRECTOR: Mel Brooks
CAST: Cleavon Little, Slim Pickens, Gene Wilder
LOGLINE: 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.
GENRE: Comedy, drama
DIRECTOR: Robert Altman
CAST: John Considine, Jeff Goldblum, Elliott Gould, Ann Prentiss, George Segal, Gwen Welles
LOGLINE: 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.
GENRE: Mystery, thriller
DIRECTOR: Roman Polanski
CAST: Faye Dunaway, John Hillerman, John Huston, Perry Lopez, Jack Nicholson, Burt Young
LOGLINE: With a suspicious femme fatale bankrolling his snooping, private eye J.J. Gittes uncovers intricate dirty dealings in the Los Angeles waterworks.
GENRE: Thriller, mystery
DIRECTOR: Francis Ford Coppola
CAST: Robert Duvall, Harrison Ford, Teri Garr, Gene Hackman, Cindy Williams
LOGLINE: 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.
GENRE: Action, thriller
DIRECTOR: Michael Winner
CAST: Charles Bronson, Vincent Gardenia, Christopher Guest, Steven Keats, Hope Lange, William Redfield, Kathleen Tolan
LOGLINE: 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.
GENRE: Crime, thriller
DIRECTOR: Karel Reisz
CAST: Morris Carnovsky, James Caan, Lauren Hutton, Paul Sorvino, Burt Young
LOGLINE: 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.
GENRE: Romance, drama
DIRECTOR: Jack Clayton
CAST: Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Mia Farrow, Robert Redford, Sam Waterston
LOGLINE: 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.
GENRE: Horror, sci-fi
DIRECTOR: Larry Cohen
CAST: Andrew Duggan, Sharon Farrell, John P. Ryan
LOGLINE: 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.
GENRE: Musical, fantasy
DIRECTOR: Stanley Donen
CAST: Bob Fosse, Richard Kiley, Donna McKechnie, Clive Revill, Steven Warner, Gene Wilder
LOGLINE: 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.
GENRE: Comedy, drama, romance
DIRECTOR: Martin Davidson and Stephen Verona
CAST: Armand Assante, Susan Blakely, Perry King, Paul Mace, Sylvester Stallone, Henry Winkler
LOGLINE: 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.
GENRE: Thriller, noir
DIRECTOR: Alan J. Pakula
CAST: Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss
LOGLINE: While investigating the assassination of a leading US senator, a journalist uncovers a conspiracy involving a shadowy multinational corporation.
