Netflix' Stranger Things inspired by these 80s Classics
This is a list of movies that have inspired the Netflix series "Stranger Things".
List activity
76 views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
21 titles
- DirectorFred DekkerStarsAndre GowerRobby KigerStephen MachtA group of young monster fanatics attempts to save their hometown from Count Dracula and his monsters.A rag-tag group of little kids banding together to fight the forces of evil. Sounds familiar?
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsRichard DreyfussFrançois TruffautTeri GarrRoy Neary, an Indiana electric lineman, finds his quiet and ordinary daily life turned upside down after a close encounter with a UFO, spurring him to an obsessed cross-country quest for answers as a momentous event approaches.Joyce Byers, mother of her missing boy Will, goes to great lengths to prove that there is something out there beyond what everyone else can see much like Roy in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsHarrison FordKate CapshawKe Huy QuanIn 1935, Indiana Jones is tasked by Indian villagers with reclaiming a rock stolen from them by a secret cult beneath the catacombs of an ancient palace.If you've seen the climax to Season 2 of Stranger Things, you may have noticed a nod to this classic film.
- DirectorRichard DonnerStarsSean AstinJosh BrolinJeff CohenA group of young misfits called The Goonies discover an ancient map and set out on an adventure to find a legendary pirate's long-lost treasure.A group of misfit kids, each with their own unique quirks, on a fantastic adventure together....much like Steve, Nancy, Jonathan, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin in Stranger Things.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsHenry ThomasDrew BarrymorePeter CoyoteA troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape from Earth and return to his home planet.A kid on his bike has a run-in with a strange creature and hides it in his house, teaching it about the ways of life in suburbia, while a government agency hunts it down. Also have you checked out the Hazmat suits worn by Hopper and the Scientists at Hawkins Lab? They are almost identical to those worn by the Scientists in E.T.
- DirectorJohn CarpenterStarsKurt RussellWilford BrimleyKeith DavidA research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.The Duffer Brothers were heavily inspired by the practical effects used for the creatures in The Thing and sought to replicate that process in Stranger Things.
- DirectorJoel SchumacherStarsJason PatricCorey HaimDianne WiestAfter moving to a new town, two brothers discover that the area is a haven for vampires.Season 2 of Stranger Things expands upon the premise of misfit teens whom are psychologically damaged runaways with special abilities causing chaos in their wake. Additionally if you saw in Steve and Max's older brother, Billy, a resemblance to Jason Patric's Michael Emerson (the older brother of Sam Emerson played by the late Corey Haim), you wouldn't be wrong. Also....Corey Feldman's red bandanna makes a cameo in Stranger Things.
- DirectorKatsuhiro ÔtomoStarsMitsuo IwataNozomu SasakiMami KoyamaA secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath who can only be stopped by a teenager, his gang of biker friends and a group of psychics.A kid with telekinetic powers is kidnapped by a shadowy government agency that conducts experiments on him....much like in Stranger Things and the story of Eleven.
- DirectorDavid CronenbergStarsJennifer O'NeillStephen LackPatrick McGoohanA scientist trains a man with an advanced telepathic ability called "scanning" to stop a dangerous Scanner with extraordinary psychic powers from waging war against non scanners.Scanners is about people with special psychic abilities that can read minds and kill people. It's also about a government agency that is hunting them down in order to learn more about their minds and potentially use them as living weapons. This is the sub-plot of Stranger Things.
- DirectorWilliam FriedkinStarsEllen BurstynMax von SydowLinda BlairWhen a young girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two Catholic priests to save her life.Evil forces possess a child and use her body as a host. Check out Season 2 of Stranger Things to see the connection to this classic film.
- DirectorTobe HooperStarsJoBeth WilliamsHeather O'RourkeCraig T. NelsonA family's home is haunted by a host of demonic ghosts.In Poltergeist, they use TV static to see and reach into another dimension. Eleven uses the same method to reach into another dimension in order to see far away events and speak with others. Not to mention that in a more direct reference, Will while trapped in another dimension is able to contact his mother, much like little Carol Anne in The Poltergeist, who is also trapped in another dimension by supernatural forces.
- DirectorChris ColumbusStarsElisabeth ShueMaia BrewtonKeith CooganA babysitter must battle her way through the big city after being stranded there with the kids she's looking after.One word: STEVE!
- DirectorJames CameronStarsSigourney WeaverMichael BiehnCarrie HennDecades after surviving the Nostromo incident, Ellen Ripley is sent out to re-establish contact with a terraforming colony but finds herself battling the Alien Queen and her offspring.Do the Demogorgons look familiar? It's because they bare a slight resemblance to the terrifying creatures in this film.
- DirectorRob ReinerStarsWil WheatonRiver PhoenixCorey FeldmanA writer recounts a childhood journey with his friends to find the body of a missing boy.A coming of age story about a group of friends a they look for the body. This is inspiration for the coming of age of Mike, Dustin, and Lucas, as well as the second and older group of Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve (much like Stand By Me)....as they look for Will Byers.
- DirectorMark L. LesterStarsDrew BarrymoreDavid KeithFreddie JonesA couple who participated in a potent medical experiment gain telepathic ability and then have a child who is pyrokinetic.A girl with psychic abilities is hunted by a government agency that want to conduct experiments on her and use her as a weapon. This should sound familiar.
- DirectorWes CravenStarsHeather LangenkampJohnny DeppRobert EnglundTeenager Nancy Thompson must uncover the dark truth concealed by her parents after she and her friends become targets of the spirit of a serial killer with a bladed glove in their dreams, in which if they die, it kills them in real life.The fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana is inspired by the sleepy suburban town plagued by supernatural forces in this film.
- DirectorIvan ReitmanStarsBill MurrayDan AykroydSigourney WeaverThree parapsychologists forced out of their university funding set up shop as a unique ghost removal service in New York City, attracting frightened yet skeptical customers.Four best buds teaming up to fight supernatural forces. Peter, Egon, Winston, and Ray? Sure! They were the pre-cursor to Mike, Dustin, Will, and Lucas!
- DirectorKen RussellStarsWilliam HurtBlair BrownBob BalabanA psycho-physiologist experiments with drugs and a sensory-deprivation tank and has visions he believes are genetic memories.Altered States inspired Stranger Things with everything from the dunk tanks used on Eleven to the Psychologists and Psychiatrists conducting human experiments to tap into the human mind.
- DirectorStuart GordonStarsJeffrey CombsBarbara CramptonTed SorelA group of scientists have developed the Resonator, a machine which allows whoever is within range to see beyond normal perceptible reality. But when the experiment succeeds, they are immediately attacked by terrible life forms.A doctor conducts experiments to access another dimension....which turns out to be full of hostile creatures that start to kill people. Hmmm...where else have we seen this?
- DirectorTibor TakácsStarsStephen DorffChrista DentonLouis TrippKids left home alone accidentally unleash a horde of malevolent demons from a mysterious hole in their suburban backyard.Stop me if this sounds familiar: Kid accidentally opens a gate between our world and another world through which horrible creatures emerge.
- DirectorMarshall BrickmanStarsJohn LithgowChristopher ColletRichard CouncilA high school prodigy builds an atomic bomb with stolen plutonium to win the 45th National Science Fair and expose a nuclear weapons lab posing as a nuclear medical research facility in Ithaca, NY.The Cold War paranoia in Stranger Things takes more than a little inspiration from The Manhattan Project in which a secret government facility, in a suburban town, disguised as n medical company conducts covert experiments to develop weapons for the impending war with the Soviet Union. This is bares a striking similarity to the CIA psy-ops experiments conducted deep inside the Hawkins Lab disguised as a Department of Energy facility...again in the middle of quiet suburban town.