10 movies every millennial should watch

With the history of Hollywood at our fingertips (thanks Netflix), catching up on the classics has never been easier – yet studies reveal millennials are exponentially more likely to have binged on films of the last 15 years than oldies-but-goodies from bygone decades. While the ‘Golden Age’ of cinema is well worth revisiting, the tail end of the 20th century served up some of our favourite ever movies. 

Here we give you 10 movies from the 80s and the 90s that as a millennial, you should watch! Keep reading...

1. American Beauty

A biting, penetrating and often humorous take on contemporary life in suburban America, Lester Burnham becomes intrigued by a young girl named Angela, and this fascination sparks him to make some major changes in his life. He relishes these changes, much to the exasperation of his wife Carolyn.

2. The Breakfast Club

Trapped in a day-long Saturday detention in a prison-like school library are Claire, the princess (Molly Ringwald); Andrew, the jock (Emilio Estevez); John, the criminal (Judd Nelson); Brian, the brain (Anthony Michael Hall); and Allison, the basket case (Ally Sheedy). These five strangers begin the day with nothing in common, each bound to his/her place in the high school caste system. Yet the students bond together when faced with the villainous principal (Paul Gleason), and they realize that they have more in common than they may think, including a contempt for adult society.

3. Pretty Woman

Edward is a rich and sophisticated businessman who specializes in corporate raiding - buying up businesses to break them up and sell them off in pieces. Vivian is a Los Angeles prostitute struggling with her lifestyle and a need to pay the rent. On a business trip to Los Angeles, Edward hires Vivian to be his girlfriend for a week while he traverses the local social circles. Love and various social complications invade their tidy arrangement and have the pair wondering if this Cinderella-story could have a happy ending.

4. Thelma & Louise

Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon play Thelma and Louise, two working-class friends who together have planned a weekend getaway from the men in their lives. Thelma's husband, Darryl (Chris McDonald), is an overbearing oaf, and Louise's boyfriend, Jimmy (Michael Madsen), simply will not commit. Though the road trip starts out as a good time, the pair eventually wind up at a bar. A tipsy Thelma ends up in the parking lot of the bar with a would-be rapist. Louise shoots the man dead. The two decide that they have no choice but to go on the run.

5. Fatal Attraction

Dan (Michael Douglas) is a family man whose one-night affair with Alex (Glenn Close) turns into a nightmare when she insists on continuing the relationship, claiming to be carrying his baby. Alex systematically terrorizes Dan, even temporarily kidnapping his daughter, in her attempts to win back his affection. Douglas' besieged family man guiltily tries to preserve his marriage and family from the consequences of his own indiscretion. Close's performance as the love-struck psycho-siren remains her signature role: She conveys the buried feminist message of the film in her challenge to Dan to take responsibility for his sexual behavior.

6. Dirty Dancing

A teenage girl learns about love, adult responsibility, and how to do The Dirty Boogie in this romantic drama. In 1963, "Baby" Houseman (Jennifer Grey) is a 17-year-old spending the summer with her family at a resort hotel in the Catskills. Baby doesn't get along with her older sister, Lisa (Jane Brucker), and she's bored to tears by most of the older guests at the resort. However, one night Baby hears what sounds like a party going on in the employee's dormitory, and she pokes her head in to discover most of the hotel staff enjoying the sort of close dancing that would get you kicked out of the senior prom in no time flat. Baby is particularly struck by handsome Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), a dancer in the resort's floor show, and falls head over heels in love, wanting to be near him. 

7. Basic Instinct 

The film follows a police detective, Nick Curran (Douglas), who is investigating the brutal murder of a wealthy rock star. During the investigation Curran becomes involved in a torrid and intense relationship with the prime suspect, Catherine Tramell (Stone), an enigmatic writer.

8. Romeo + Juliet

The classic Shakespearean romantic tragedy is updated by director Baz Luhrmann to a post-modern Verona Beach where swords are merely a brand of gun and bored youths are easily spurred toward violence. Longtime rivals in religion and business, the Montagues and the Capulets share a page from the Jets and Sharks of West Side Story when they form rival gangs. Romeo (Leonardo DiCaprio) is aloof toward the goings-on of his Montague cousins, but after he realizes that Juliet (Claire Danes) is a Capulet at the end of one very wild party, the enmity between the two clans becomes the root of his angst.

9. Four weddings and a funeral

Richard Curtis wrote this popular screwball comedy about a young Englishman whose confirmed avoidance of marriage begins to crumble when he meets the woman of his dreams--and she seduces him during a wedding at which he's supposed to be the best man! Cinematography by Michael Coulter; score by Richard Rodney Bennett.

10. Wall Street

"Greed is Good." This is the credo of the aptly named Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), the antihero of Oliver Stone's Wall Street. Gekko, a high-rolling corporate raider, is idolized by young-and-hungry broker Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen). Inveigling himself into Gekko's inner circle, Fox quickly learns to rape, murder and bury his sense of ethics.