Unlike streaming services including Netflix, Disney+, and HBO Max, NBCUniversal’s new platform, Peacock, gives users an opportunity to recreate the linear television experience. As a result, Peacock’s library of television series is vast, and includes both original programs (like a new adaptation of Brave New World) and beloved legacy titles (30 Rock and Cheers, among many others). But that doesn’t mean Peacock is devoid of quality movies; the service also contains everything from Old Hollywood classics to modern favorites.
Ahead, 11 movies for subscribers to watch once they sign up for the app at peacocktv.com. To learn more about Peacock, including its cost, its subscription tiers, and how it differs from Netflix and other competitors, head here.
MOVIES
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
Long before cinematic universes and crossover events, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello tangled with Universal’s army of horror icons. Released in 1948 to broad box office success that paved the way for renewed interest in the legendary comedy duo, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is part of a larger string of movies where the title stars tangled with the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll (and Mr. Hyde), and the Mummy.
All of those films are also available to stream via Peacock—but you should start with the first and best of the bunch, which puts Abbott and Costello opposite Bela Lugosi as Dracula and Glenn Strange as Frankenstein’s monster. “To be honest, there were times when I thought Bela was going to have a stroke on the set,” director Charles Barton once said. “You have to understand that working with two zanies like Abbott and Costello was not the normal Hollywood set. They never went by the script, and at least once a day there would be a pie fight. Bela, of course, would have nothing to do with any of this. He would just glare at those involved with his famous deadly stare, and the only emotion he would show physically was one of utter disgust.”
Children of Men
He won Oscars for directing Gravity and Roma, but the best movie Alfonso Cuarón has made so far—in this writer’s opinion, anyway—is Children of Men. Released in 2006, in the shadow of both the September 11 attacks and the Iraq war, Children of Men imagines a world on the brink of extinction brought about by a global infertility crisis. The result is a populace driven by fear and xenophobia, and a division of haves and have-nots that feels more prescient with every passing crisis. Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, and Chiwetel Ejiofor star in the film, but the real leads are Cuarón and his longtime collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki, both of whom here created some of the most memorable sequences and images in the last 15 years of cinema—including two lengthy “one-shot” set pieces that paved the way for Gravity and Roma.
Do the Right Thing
It is never a bad time to watch Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. But now, in the shadow of the George Floyd protests and the broad cultural reckoning with systemic racism and police brutality, the movie feels particularly essential. Do the Right Thing is one of a number of Lee films available on Peacock right now. Also available are Clockers, Crooklyn, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, and Mo’ Better Blues.
Dracula
If the jokes of Abbott and Costello are too much for fans of Universal’s classic monster movies, Peacock has a lengthy list of straight-faced horror classics from the 1930s and 1940s, including Lugosi’s famed Dracula.
Howard the Duck
Not all recommendations have to be for good movies. Produced by George Lucas and based on the Marvel comic, Howard the Duck is one of the most infamous disasters of the 1980s, a misbegotten superhero adventure film about an alien duck who saves the world. If it is remembered at all, beyond as a punch line, it’s for an honestly unbelievable scene in which Lea Thompson (bless her) tries to seduce Howard the Duck—an alien who is also a talking duck. It would be easy to think something like Howard the Duck could not exist in 2020, when intellectual property is increasingly micromanaged by risk-averse corporations. But that would be wrong. After all, last year Universal also released Cats.
Jurassic Park
Eighteen years after Steven Spielberg released Jaws, upended Hollywood, and all but invented summer blockbusters, the director updated its format for ’90s kids. Jurassic Park remains one of Spielberg’s best blockbusters, a relentless and quotable thriller that still resonates with today’s culture. Life finds a way, after all.
Reservoir Dogs
The debut film from Quentin Tarantino is a blueprint for the sort of projects Tarantino would make for the next two decades. The film, about a heist gone wrong and told from the perspective of the bad guys, is loaded with reprehensible characters who say and do terrible things in between making references to popular culture. So much of this movie is embedded deep within the zeitgeist still; the scene in which Michael Madsen, playing the most sadistic member of the group, tortures a police officer while dancing to the Stealers Wheel song “Stuck in the Middle With You” has been referenced and spoofed countless times. But for those who decide to rewatch the movie now that it’s available on Peacock, pay special attention to Chris Penn. The late brother of Sean Penn plays the hotheaded and insecure son of the film’s central crime boss, and he explodes off the screen with an energy that remains sorely missed.
The Deer Hunter
A winner of five Academy Awards, including best picture, best director for Michael Cimino, and best supporting actor for Christopher Walken, 1978’s The Deer Hunter was the last movie honored by the Oscars during the 1970s. (Kramer vs. Kramer, which was released in 1979, won its best-picture honor at the 1980 ceremony.) Maybe that’s fitting: The sprawling epic, which also stars Robert De Niro and Meryl Streep, is ostensibly about the cost of the Vietnam War, but it also feels like the peak of the New Hollywood era of filmmaking that saw Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Brian De Palma, and Steven Spielberg rise to power. Decades later The Deer Hunter remains an excellent piece of film history, made all the more poignant by what would happen to its breakout director in the years that followed. Cimino’s next film, 1980’s Heaven’s Gate, was one of the most calamitous and costly flops of all time. From that point until his death in 2016, he made only four other movies.
The Paper
Never has working for a New York City tabloid looked so fun. Ron Howard’s 1994 film is a day-in-the-life look at an over-caffeinated editor (a cocky and hilarious Michael Keaton) who clashes with his failing newspaper’s editorial leadership (embodied by Glenn Close) in an effort to get a front-page story right.
The Sting
Four years after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, director George Roy Hill and stars Robert Redford and Paul Newman reunited for The Sting, a massive box office hit about two con men who seek revenge on a crime boss (Robert Shaw). The film won seven Oscars, including best picture and best director. Even 47 years after its debut, it remains a highly watchable classic.
Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock released his best movies under the Universal banner, and many of the director’s projects are available via Peacock, including Rear Window, Psycho, North by Northwest, and Vertigo. The 1958 thriller starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak has long been considered Hitchcock’s masterpiece, and it was named the greatest film of all time in Sight & Sound’s poll of critics in 2012. For new fans hoping to learn about Hitchcock and how he earned the moniker “Master of Suspense,” this is a good place to start.
TV SHOWS
As mentioned, Peacock is really loaded with some of the best television shows of all time—including vintage series like 21 Jump Street, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Carol Burnett Show, Leave It to Beaver, Murder, She Wrote, Columbo, Cheers, The Munsters, and The Rockford Files, among many others. There are also recent favorites, like 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, Friday Night Lights, Parenthood, and Law & Order: SVU, available to stream in their entirety as well.
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July 15, 2020 at 07:32PM
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What to Watch on NBC’s Peacock: TV Shows and Movies to Stream - Vanity Fair
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