By
Brian Tallerico,
a film critic with over 20 years of experience covering movies and TV.
He is the president of the Chicago Film Critics Association, the co-producer of the Chicago Critics Film Festival, and managing editor of RogerEbert.com.
The Holdovers.
Photo: Courtesy of the Studio
This article is updated frequently as movies leave and enter Peacock. New titles are indicated with an asterisk.
Who’s ready for another streaming service? NBCUniversal jumped into the crowded pool in 2020 with the launch of Peacock, a destination for everything from classic monster movies to episodes of 30 Rock to original programming. But as with all of these services, it can all be a little overwhelming. The truth is that Peacock’s film catalogue is a little thin and a little strange (there’s an amazing number of B-movies like Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus), but it does have some of the weight of the Universal brand and all its history, including classic franchises and recent hits (and the service will likely have more when licensing deals expire with other streaming platforms). But until the selection expands, you can’t go wrong with any of the following films.
Year: 2023
Runtime: 2h 13m
Director: Alexander Payne
Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph have already won Golden Globes on their way to what feels like likely Oscar wins for this phenomenal comedy, exclusive to Peacock while it’s still playing in some theaters. The ‘70s-set story of a boarding school over holiday break already feels like a comedy classic, a movie that people will be watching, especially around the end of the year, for generations to come.
Year: 2013
Runtime: 2h 39m
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
You’ve never seen a documentary quite like The Act of Killing. One of the best films of the 2010s, Joshua Oppenheimer’s film unpacks the Indonesian genocides of the 1960s and how the men who perpetrated them have never faced consequences. These men act out their crimes in reenactments, leading to what’s almost an exorcism for both the killer and the survivors. It’s breathtaking.
Year: 2006
Runtime: 2h 17m
Director: Mel Gibson
Mel Gibson, king of the brutal historical blockbuster, took an honest risk when he helmed this story of the Yucatan in Mexico around 1502. Told entirely in the Mayan language, Apocalypto is the story of Jaguar Paw, a young hunter whose tribe is invaded by outsiders. The film made an absolute fortune at the box office and has a loyal following.
Year: 2009
Runtime: 2h 2m
Director: Werner Herzog
Director Werner Herzog was an unexpected choice for an unexpected sequel to Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film Bad Lieutenant, but this isn’t your normal sequel. In fact, it has nothing really to do with that first film other than it also centering a corrupt cop. Nicolas Cage gives one of his most unhinged and impressive performances here, and that’s really saying something.
Year: 2011
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director: Richard Linklater
Richard Linklater directed this black comedy based on the true story of Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), a man who befriended an elderly Texas woman named Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine) and ended up murdering her. It’s a quirky little movie with one of Black’s best performances and a great supporting turn by Matthew McConaughey.
Year: 1981
Runtime: 1h 27m
Director: Lucio Fulci
Dario Argento gets the most attention from Giallo fans, but you should take the time to fall under the spell of Lucio Fulci too. The Beyond is one of his most beloved films, a 1981 supernatural horror story of a woman who inherits a motel in Louisiana only to learn the hard way that it might just be a portal to Hell. Don’t you hate when that happens?
Year: 2018
Runtime: 2h 28m
Director: Lee Chang-dong
The best foreign language film of 2018 has finally landed on Peacock and should definitely be seen by anyone who fell in love with Steven Yeun’s Oscar-nominated work in Minari or his stellar acting on Netflix’s Beef. Lee Chang-dong adopts a novella by Haruki Murakami into a riveting dissection of class and gender in modern Korea. Yeun is mesmerizing as the mysterious Ben, someone who our protagonist starts to think might be a killer. Don’t miss this one.
Year: 2003
Runtime: 1h 42m
Director: Wayne Kramer
William H. Macy gives one of his best film performances as Bernie Lootz, a guy who is so unlucky that the Shangri-La casino has him on the payroll as a “cooler,” such a consistent loser that just being near other gamblers can cool their hot streaks. Alec Baldwin received his first Oscar nomination for his excellent work here, and Maria Bello is phenomenal too.
Year: 2004
Runtime: 2h 13m
Director: Richard Kelly
It’s a mad world in Richard Kelly’s sci-fi hit starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, and Jena Malone. Darko made almost nothing in theaters but developed a loyal following on the home market, becoming one of the more acclaimed sci-fi films of the ‘00s. Join in the conversation that seems to constantly surround this film (and maybe Kelly will be encouraged to make another one soon — he hasn’t directed in over a decade). Note that the version on Peacock is the slightly inferior director’s cut, but still worth a look.
Year: 1982
Runtime: 2h 37m
Director: Werner Herzog
The production of this film (chronicled in the great doc Burden of Dreams) is almost more interesting than the movie as director Werner Herzog actually had a crew haul a 320-ton steamship up a hill and fought on the regular with the maniacal star Klaus Kinski. The cool thing about the movie is you can see the chaotic production right there on the screen, as Herzog captures the insanity of his subject matter in a way that required a little instability.
Year: 1992
Runtime: 1h 40m
Director: James Foley
David Mamet wrote the adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play and pulled off the rare trick of a nearly perfect version of a stage hit. It helps a great deal to have a cast of legends, and this one includes Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alex Baldwin, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, and Jonathan Pryce — every single one of them perfect in their part.
Year: 1986
Runtime: 1h 50m
Director: Russell Mulcahy
Who could have guessed that 1986 fantasy film starring Christopher Lambert would launch a franchise? Since the release of this goofy action movie about an immortal warrior, there have been four more films, two live-action series, comics, toys, novels, and so much more. See where it all began here. There can be only one!
Year: 2001
Runtime: 2h 9m
Director: Takashi Miike
Despite being one of Takashi Miike’s breakthrough films internationally, his action flick is still banned in several countries around the world. You may think you know what you’re in for, but Ichi is its own special category of crazy, as anyone who’s seen it can attest. When it was released, it was the kind of film that one had to special order from online companies, and now it can be streamed directly to your phone while you’re on the bus. Isn’t technology wonderful?
Year: 2009
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director: Wilson Yip
Donnie Yen is a sacred name in the martial arts branch of cinema appreciation, and you can see why with all five Ip Man films now available on Peacock. They tell the semi-true story of Ip Man, a legendary leader in the world of martial arts, who trained Bruce Lee. These are not traditional biopics or martial arts movies, working as a hybrid of period piece and action.
Year: 2008
Runtime: 1h 54m
Director: Tomas Alfredson
One of the best horror films of the new era is this Swedish horror film based on the 2004 novel of the same name. It’s the tale of a 12-year-old in a suburb of Stockholm dealing with being bullied who befriends a neighbor girl who turns out to be, well, different. A vampire tale that produced a (good) remake and a (not-so-good) Showtime series, this is arguably one of the most influential horror flicks of the 2010s.
Year: 1995
Runtime: 1h 34m
Director: Woody Allen
Peacock added an array of Woody Allen movies recently, and this is the best of the bunch, a film that won Mira Sorvino an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. She plays a prostitute in this loose adaptation of Pygmalion that also won Sorvino a Golden Globe and a gaggle of critics awards. She’s wonderful here and reason alone to watch it.
Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 41m
Director: Eliza Hittman
Released at the start of the pandemic, this drama deserves to find a bigger audience, especially given the recent attacks on women’s rights across the country. Sidney Flanigan stars as an average 17-year-old who tries to get an abortion, forcing her to travel the country with her cousin (Talia Ryder) to do so. Sharp, timely, and incredibly moving, this is one of 2020’s best films.
Year: 1968
Runtime: 1h 37m
Director: Clive Barker
It’s really hard to overstate the impact that George A. Romero’s classic black-and-white masterpiece had on not just the zombie genre but DIY microbudget horror filmmaking. So many people have been chasing that game-changing impact of Night of the Living Dead in the half-century since it came out, but it’s the original that’s passed the test of time.
Year: 1990
Runtime: 1h 42m
Director: Clive Barker
Clive Barker wrote and directed an adaptation of his Cabal and released it to a much more muted response than greeted his hit Hellraiser. Over the years, Nightbreed has developed a loyal following, in part due to the various versions of it now available. The one on Amazon is the theatrical, in which Craig Sheffer plays a man who becomes convinced his therapist is a serial killer, and his own investigation leads him to a tribe of monsters. Good times.
Year: 1979
Runtime: 2h 4m
Director: Werner Herzog
In 1979, Werner Herzog released his daring vision of the classic F.W. Murnau film Nosferatu. Klaus Kinski plays Count Dracula, Isabelle Adjani is Lucy Harker, and Bruno Ganz is Jonathan Harker in this unforgettable mood piece, a movie that’s so unsettling that one wonders if Kinski might actually be a bloodsucker. It remains one of Herzog’s most popular films for a reason.
Year: 1992
Runtime: 2h 15m
Director: John Sayles
The brilliant writer/director John Sayles delivered one of his most beloved films in the 1992 drama about a soap opera star (Mary McDonnell) who has been paralyzed after being hit by a cab. She returns to her family home, where she crosses paths with a nurse (Alfre Woodard) who refuses to give up on her. It’s moving in a way that feels genuine, never manipulative.
Year: 1991
Runtime: 2h 2m
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Whether one considers it a guilty pleasure or a legitimately great action movie, everyone kind of likes Point Break. It’s a really hard movie to hate, in no small part due to the charisma of stars Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, who plays an undercover FBI agent trying to break up a ring of surfing bank robbers. Kathryn Bigelow is one of our best action directors even if this one is a bit cheesier than her best work.
Year: 2005
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director: John Hillcoat
There aren’t a lot of great Westerns on any streaming service, but this more modern one is worth your time. John Hillcoat directs a gritty, vicious script by Nick Cave (of The Bad Seeds fame) and draws excellent performances from a cast that includes Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson, John Hurt, and a movie-stealing Danny Huston. With riveting cinematography by Benoit Delhomme, The Proposition is a Western that looks phenomenal, unfolding like a visualization of one of Cave’s albums.
Year: 2000
Runtime: 1h 41m
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky adapted Hubert Selby Jr.’s novel of the same name into one of the most harrowing films about addiction that has ever been made. Jared Leto, Ellen Burstyn, Marlon Wayans, and Jennifer Connelly star in a film that looks at four different spirals into drug abuse and the horrors that can often come with it. The performances are unforgettable, but it’s the incredible visual confidence that Aronofsky displayed in only his second film that makes this such a riveting experience.
Year: 2013
Runtime: 1h 36m
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
Long before she would be Captain Marvel, Brie Larson played a worker at a group home for troubled teenagers in this powerful drama. Based on his own experience, Destin Daniel Cretton wrote and directed this critical darling that now looks like a launchpad for a generation of stars including Larson, Lakeith Stanfield, Rami Malek, Stephanie Beatriz, John Gallagher Jr., and Kaitlyn Dever.
Year: 1987
Runtime: 1h 25m
Director: Prince
One of the best concert films of all time is sitting on Peacock waiting for you to jam to it. Largely produced as a tie-in to the 1987 album of the same name, which wasn’t selling like they hoped, this film captures Prince at his most electric, and has really stood the test of time.
Year: 1982
Runtime: 2h 30m
Director: Alan Pakula
Meryl Streep gives one of the best performances of all time in this story of a writer (Peter MacNicol) living in Brooklyn who befriends an Auschwitz survivor (Streep) and her beau (Kevin Kline) shortly after the Holocaust. Through flashbacks, we see Sophie’s harrowing journey, including what the title heartbreakingly refers to — a phrase that has been co-opted in the four decades since to refer to any difficult decision.
Year: 1974
Runtime: 1h 23m
Director: Tobe Hooper
What’s so stunning about this horror masterpiece is what it doesn’t show. So many people remember this flick as a gore-filled nightmare, but Hooper actually lets your mind do most of the work, rarely showing as much as the film’s reputation. It’s still an unforgettable film, one that changed the indie horror landscape forever.
Year: 2016
Runtime: 1h 58m
Director: Yeon Sang-ho
A legitimate phenomenon that has grossed almost $100 million worldwide, this 2016 South Korean movie is one of the best zombie flicks of its era. It’s simple — zombies on a train — but that’s one of the reasons it works so well. It has a propulsive, non-stop energy and it feels like its legacy is just getting started.
Year: 2010
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director: David Schwimmer
Friends fans may be surprised to learn that star David Schwimmer is also a hell of a director, as evidenced by this empathetic, searing 2010 drama. Liana Liberato stars as a 14-year-old girl who befriends a man on the internet who turns out to be a predator. Liberato is excellent, as are Catherine Keener and Clive Own as her parents.
Year: 2013
Runtime: 2h 59m
Director: Martin Scorsese
Leonardo DiCaprio should have won the Oscar for his amazing performance as Jordan Belfort, the financial criminal that rocked Wall Street and shocked audiences in one of Scorsese’s best late films. Arguments over whether or not this film glorifies a “bad guy” have become prominent—and could only really be made by people who haven’t actually watched it. Most of all, it’s a shockingly robust film, filmed with more energy in a few minutes than most flicks have in their entire runtime.
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