10 Movies We Love Because They’re Always on Cable

In the age of streaming, we’ve gotten used to having everything at our fingertips. Gone are the days of rushing to the TV after dinner to make sure you didn’t miss a minute of the latest episode of your favorite show, or checking the program guides to see what movies were on for the long weekend and saving yourself a trip to Blockbuster. Apps have made everything more accessible, which in many ways is a net benefit. Still, there was something nice about flipping through TV channels late at night and stumbling upon something you’d never seen before.

Those of us who lived a few decades before streaming took over first watched most of our favorite movies on TV, either because we missed them in theaters or because we didn’t know they existed until we randomly watched the last hour of TV and had to look up what we’d just seen. The heyday of cable movies coincided with the blockbuster era of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and many films that didn’t do as well in theaters as they’d hoped got a second chance when they started airing on TV.

To wistfully celebrate a bygone era and remember why we love some of our favorite movies, we’re looking back at ten films that we all love simply because we watched them on cable when we were younger. These films are crowd-pleasers, extremely watchable, and have something for everyone. Many of them are big action movies that still play great on a home TV screen, while others seem tailor-made for those moments when we just want to kick back and watch something cozy at home. They’re not all the best movies ever made, but when you come across one on TV late at night, you can’t help but watch it until the end.

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