10 movies we love because they’re always on cable TV

In the age of streaming, we’ve become accustomed to having everything at our fingertips. Gone are the days of rushing to the TV after dinner to make sure you don’t miss a minute of the latest episode of your favorite show, or checking the listings to see what movies are playing over the long weekend to save yourself a trip to Blockbuster. Apps have made everything easier to access, which is a net gain in many ways. Still, there was still some fun to be had later in the evening, flipping through the channels and coming across something you’d never seen before.

Those of us who lived a few decades before the advent of streaming saw most of our favorite movies for the first time on television, either because we missed them in the theater or because we were unaware of their existence until we happened to be watching the last hour on TV and had to look up what we’d just seen. The heyday of movies on cable coincided with the blockbuster era of the ’80s and ’90s, and many movies that didn’t do as well as hoped in theaters got a second chance when they were on television.

To wistfully celebrate a bygone era and remind ourselves why we love some of our favorite movies, we’re looking back at ten films we all have a special fondness for simply because we saw them on cable when we were younger. These films are crowd-pleasers, highly watchable, and have something for everyone. Many of them are big action spectacles that still look great on the home TV screen, and others seem to be made for those times when we want to relax and watch something cozy at home. They’re not all the best movies of all time, but when you come across one on TV late at night, there’s nothing you can do but stay and watch until the end.

READ MORE: The definitive list of the best films of the year