Alligator (1980)

Robert Forster delivers a commanding performance as a Chicago detective who teams with a reptile expert to deal with a gigantic alligator. The thing was flushed down a toilet as a baby gator years earlier and is now running amok, chomping down on whomever looks appetizing.

Directed by Lewis Teague (Cujo) and scripted by future arthouse darling John Sayles, Alligator is one of the most rigorous, well-produced B-movies of the 1980s. The DNA of the creatures-going-wild subgenre was forever rewritten with Alligator, which takes a ’50s sci-fi adventure setup and infuses it with modern carnage. What more could you ask for?

Where to watch Alligator: The Roku Channel

Director: Lewis Teague

Cast: Robert Forster, Robin Riker, Michael V. Gazzo, Dean Jagger

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (2023)

Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) and her parents (Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie) move to a new suburban home, away from her beloved grandmother (Kathy Bates) in New York City. As she reckons with new friends, tampons, crushes, and the bittersweet hallmarks of adolescence, Margaret begins to find that adults are just as confused as she is.

Kelly Fremon Craig’s adaptation of Judy Blume’s seminal YA novel is hysterically funny and genuinely heartbreaking. Every character is developed with a complete arc, always rendered with a humanist touch. Margaret is certainly upbeat, but you might be surprised by its willingness to examine the story’s darker corners.

Where to watch Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret: The Roku Channel

EW grade: A– (read the review)

Director: Kelly Fremon Craig

Cast: Rachel McAdams, Abby Ryder Fortson, Elle Graham, Benny Safdie, Kathy Bates

Desperado (1995)

Robert Rodriguez’s second picture is a hell-on-earth action extravaganza starring Antonio Banderas as a musician who, along with a spirited bookstore employee (Salma Hayek in her breakout role), must stop a gang of bloodthirsty drug dealers led by Joaquim de Almeida. Desperado, basically a remake of Rodriguez’s Spanish-language El Mariachi, is one of the very best shoestring-budget action movies out there.

Where to watch Desperado: The Roku Channel

EW grade: B (read the review)

Director: Robert Rodriguez

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Joaquim de Almeida, Steve Buscemi, Quentin Tarantino

The Good Thief (2002)

Drug-addled degenerate gambler Bob (Nick Nolte), wiling away his days along the French Riviera, sees an opportunity to pull off a score that could set him up for life. He assembles a motley crew of ne’er-do-wells … and of course, there’s an enterprising cop caught in the middle of it, too.

Neil Jordan helmed this stylish remake of Jean-Pierre Melville’s potboiler Bob le Flambeur, which gives Nolte a role he was born to play. Melville’s original is a cracker, but Jordan doesn’t imitate it. He transplants it to a romantically grimy modern Europe, using his keen insight into characters — especially in their desperate circumstances — to craft a sensational piece of entertainment.

Where to watch The Good Thief: The Roku Channel

Director: Neil Jordan

Cast: Nick Nolte, Ralph Fiennes, Nutsa Kukhianidze, Saïd Taghmaoui

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Don Siegel’s seminal sci-fi thriller stars Kevin McCarthy as a California doctor racing to stop an alien invasion in which people — namely his friends and family — are being swapped for emotionless replicas of themselves.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a masterclass in horror filmmaking, a movie that is deeply unsettling for what it doesn’t explicitly show. Siegel’s film, which was remade under the same title in 1978, went on to directly inspire genre-redefining classics like Night of the Living Dead (1968) and Halloween (1978) through its minimalistic style and use of music.

Where to watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers: The Roku Channel

Director: Don Siegel

Cast: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones

Labyrinth (1986)

Pouty teenager Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) embarks on an adventure to rescue her baby brother Toby from goblin Jareth (David Bowie) after she errantly wishes him expelled from her life. Tasked with solving Jareth’s labyrinth to secure Toby’s safety, Sarah races against time to defeat the goblin’s trickster army.

Jim Henson’s delightfully inspired musical has remained a classic for all the right reasons. It’s a relic of a time when family entertainment was fun for everyone and genuinely spooky, a combination lost over the years. Bowie and his original tunes are fantastic, but it’s Connelly who stands out in a performance that cemented her A-list ascent.

Where to watch Labyrinth: The Roku Channel

Director: Jim Henson

Cast: Jennifer Connelly, David Bowie, Toby Froud, Frank Oz, Brian Henson

Rob Roy (1995)

This old-fashioned adventure stars Liam Neeson as the eponymous real-life chieftain, who in 18th-century Scotland romances Mary MacGregor (Jessica Lange) and goes on the run to clear his name after being falsely targeted by Archibald Cunningham (Tim Roth). 

Michael Caton-Jones’ rousing historical epic is the sort of movie that hardly gets made anymore. It’s a sweeping saga infused with palace intrigue and a fair amount of bodice-ripping, wrapped in an eminently marketable package that finds Neeson undertaking a proto-Taken plot in a period setting. It’s a blast, even if not all the details are exactly accurate.

Where to watch Rob Roy: The Roku Channel

Director: Michael Caton-Jones

Cast: Liam Neeson, Jessica Lange, Tim Roth, John Hurt, Brian Cox

Ronin (1998)

A group of highly trained specialists, led by ex-CIA Sam (Robert De Niro) and including a French hitman (Jena Reno) and an IRA member (Natascha McElhone), convene in France to steal a briefcase containing… well, something dangerous. Really, it’s an excuse to stage several breakneck car chases.

Ronin is John Frankenheimer’s last great movie. It’s a classically structured picture, practically a Western, infused with then-modern ultraviolence and a screenplay that, despite its straightforward arc, still contains enough twists to keep everyone (including the characters) on their toes.

Where to watch Ronin: The Roku Channel

Director: John Frankenheimer

Cast: Robert De Niro, Jena Reno, Natasha McElhone, Sean Bean

The Secret of NIMH (1982)

Widowed field mouse Mrs. Brisby (Elizabeth Hartman) must leave the safety of her farm to find an encampment of rats who possess a cure to her son’s illness in this vibrant adaptation of Robert C. O’Brien’s Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

In the tradition of Watership Down (but less traumatizing), Don Bluth’s film is as much for adults as for kids. The animation is flawless and the voice cast, including Dom DeLuise and Derek Jacobi, is note-perfect, but NIMH is most notable for its skillful blend of adventure yarn and emotional family drama, a combination rendered with expert care.

Where to watch The Secret of NIMH: The Roku Channel

Director: Don Bluth

Cast: Elizabeth Hartman, Dom DeLuise, Derek Jacobi, Arthur Malet

Shivers (1975)

David Cronenberg’s breakout feature revolves around an apartment complex in which murderously amorous parasites have begun infecting tenants, with the bug passed along through bouts of rigorous intercourse. It falls to a doctor (Paul Hampton) and his assistant (Lynn Lowry) to stanch the icky epidemic.

Here, the Canadian auteur began to rewrite, or define altogether, body horror, and Shivers finds him at his most disgustingly wacky. The film features an all-star exploitation cast — including genre stalwart Barbara Steele and adult film actor Marilyn Chambers in a rare mainstream role — at their best, working from a script packed with potent ideas but which never slows its rollicking pace.

Where to watch Shivers: The Roku Channel

Director: David Cronenberg

Cast: Paul Hampton, Lynn Lowry, Barbara Steele, Marilyn Chambers

The Toxic Avenger (1984)

Downtrodden ultra-nerd janitor Melvin Ferd (Mark Torgl) takes a tumble into a massive vat of nuclear waste and becomes the titular crime-busting monster (Mitch Cohen) — part Superman, part Swamp Thing, completely toxic.

The Toxic Avenger came to define schlock studio Troma’s mission to release the most tongue-in-cheek (read: purposefully bad) movies audiences had ever seen. But unlike a great many of Troma’s movies, The Toxic Avenger is actually good. It’s a properly witty superhero spoof whose impact, quite by accident, has only grown in years since, thanks to the influx of Marvel and DC properties populating screens.

Where to watch The Toxic Avenger: The Roku Channel

Director: Lloyd Kaufman, Michael Herz

Cast: Mark Torgl, Mitch Cohen, Andree Maranda, Cindy Manion

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)

This Roku Original stars Daniel Radcliffe as musical parodist Weird Al in an irreverent fake biopic that does for Al’s history what Inglourious Basterds did for World War II. Weird imagines a universe in which he aligned his stardom with Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood in a thrilling comedic turn) and slowly spirals out of control from there.

If you’re looking for a conventional biopic, you’ll be disappointed. Then again, if you like Weird Al, why are you looking for a conventional biopic? The movie burns through genre cliches both well-known and niche, taking a sledgehammer to the very idea of celebrity hagiography.

Where to watch Weird: The Al Yankovic Story: The Roku Channel

Director: Eric Appel

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Rainn Wilson, Toby Huss