Netflix is helping movie fans wish a happy anniversary to a number of classic movies this year with a brand new category — Milestone Movies: The Anniversary Collection. This new category on the streaming service is going to feature movies that are celebrating 20th, 30th, 40th and 50th anniversaries in 2024, starting with a slate of 14 classic movies turning the big 5-0 this year.
Among the movies that are part of this 50th anniversary collection are Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles, Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Jack Nicholson's Chinatown, Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation and more. We provide some more details on all the movies directly below, but you can find them on all on Netflix right here.
The Milestone Movie collection is going to change over the course of the year, with movies celebrating their 40th anniversary (released in 1984) taking over in April, followed by 30th anniversary titles (1994 movies) in July and 20th anniversary movies (from 2004) in October. That gives Netflix subscribers about three months to re-watch or discover the featured movies before they’re swapped out.
For movie fans living in Los Angeles and New York City, Netflix has another treat for you to celebrate these movies. In-person screenings of some of these movies are going to be taking place at New York's Paris Theater and the Egyptian and Bay theaters in Los Angeles. Check those movie theater's websites for more information on these special screenings.
But for everyone else, these you can stream these movies on Netflix right now:
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Ellen Burstyn, Kris Kristofferson, Harvey Keitel, Diane Ladd and a young Jodie Foster, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore centers on Alice (Burstyn), a widowed singer and single mom who starts over as a waitress at a diner in Arizona. Though Scorsese wasn't nominated, this is the first of his movies to be nominated for Oscars (50 years before Killers of the Flower Moon expects to earn a solid swath of Oscar noms), including Burstyn winning Best Actress.
Black Belt Jones
Part of the storied history of blaxploitation movies, Black Belt Jones features Jim Kelly as the titular martial artist who takes on a group of mafia goons trying to muscle in on a downton karate studio. Also in the Black Belt Jones cast are Scatman Crothers and Gloria Hendry. The movie was directed by Robert Clouse.
Blazing Saddles
One of the funniest movies of all time, Mel Brooks' western spoof stars Cleavon Little as Sheriff Bart, the first Black sheriff of a racist western frontier town, and Gene Wilder as his partner The Waco Kid. Together they must foil the plans of the evil Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) and his goons, with plenty of laughs along the way. Not included in the collection but also celebrating its 50th anniversary this year is Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder's Young Frankenstein.
California Split
California Split is one of director Robert Altman's (M*A*S*H, Nashville, Gosford Park) more under-the-radar titles, but this dramedy starring Elliot Gould and George Segal as gamblers who team up hoping to turn their bad luck around is a lot of fun and one to catch up on from the legendary director. Keep an eye out for a young Jeff Goldblum in it.
Chinatown
No list of the best crime movies would be complete without Chinatown, the Jack Nicholson noir where he plays private investigator J.J Gittes, tasked with uncovering a delicate and seedy scheme involving the Los Angeles waterworks. Chinatown is one of the definitive movies of the 1970s, with a cast that includes Faye Dunaway and John Huston.
The Conversation
Incredibly, sandwiched between The Godfather and The Godfather Part II (also celebrating its 50th in 2024), Francis Ford Coppola was able to make The Conversation, a tense conspiracy thriller starring Gene Hackman as an audio surveillance expert that begins to suspect one of the jobs he's been hired for could lead to a murder. Like Scorsese, Coppola is still at it, with the director's latest movie, Megalopolis, believed to a 2024 new movie.
Death Wish
Charles Bronson was a 70s action icon, with Death Wish being one of his most popular movies and the first in an action franchise. Bronson stars as an architect whose wife is murdered and his daughter assaulted, leading him to pursue vigilante justice against the culprits and other wrongdoers.
The Gambler
One of the late James Caan's most memorable movies, The Gambler sees him play Axel Freed, a professor with a gambling addiction who has to try and win back the $44,000 he owes to a mobster. Paul Sorvino and Burt Young co-star.
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel has been adapted a few times by Hollywood, but this edition saw Robert Redford star as the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, while Mia Farrow starred as his long lost love Daisy Buchanan, with Bruce Dern as her husband Tom and Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway. The movie was directed by Jack Clayton, but Francis Ford Coppola wrote the screenplay; another sign the filmmaker was very busy in the 1970s.
It's Alive
Horror may not have had the same kind of cache in the 70s as it does today, but there were still plenty of fantastic and scary movies made during that time, like It's Alive. The movie is about Frank and Lenore Davis, an ordinary married couple whose child is a fanged mutant that goes on a killing spree.
The Little Prince
The classic children's book The Little Prince was turned into a musical by Singin' in the Rain director Stanley Donen and starring Bob Fosse, Gene Wilder, Richard Kiley and Steven Warner as the Little Prince. The story, for those who don't know, is about a pilot forced down in the Sahara that listens to a magical boy's stories about distant planets, strange people and animals.
The Lords of Flatbush
Henry Winkler and Sylvester Stallone are Hollywood legends, but how many of you have seen one of their earliest projects, The Lords of Flatbush. This coming-of-age drama about two teens part of a gang called the Lords of Flatbush coming face to face with the realities of adulthood premiered the same year Winkler began his run on Happy Days and two years before Stallone broke out with Rocky. The movie also stars Armand Assante, Susan Blakely, Perry King and Paul Mace.
The Parallax View
Alan J. Pakula (who also directed Klute, All the President's Men and Sophie's Choice) directs Warren Beatty in this thriller about a journalist investigating the assassination of a US Senator, only to uncover a conspiracy involving a multinational corporation. Paula Prentiss and William Daniels also star.
The Street Fighter
Netflix's collection does not just include classic Hollywood movies, as The Street Fighter is a Japanese martial arts movie from 1974. It features martial arts legend Sonny Chiba as a ruthless street fighter hired by the Japanese mafia to kidnap the beautiful heiress to a vast oil fortune.
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