These Retro Movies Need To Be on Your Watchlist After ‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the Fantastic Four in a world that was full of hope and excitement about the future. Humans had just taken to space. Technological advances promised an easier tomorrow. Attitudes about race and gender were changing for the better, and all of this social progress was reflected in music, movies, fashion, and especially in the mid-century modern design that came to define the era. In today’s world, space travel is becoming the leisure activity of the billionaire class. The role of technology in our daily lives poses a problem at best and an existential crisis at worst. Attitudes about race and gender seem to be regressing. And there is no dominant culture anymore to reflect our 21st-century anxieties.

One of the most effective choices director Matt Shakman made with The Fantastic Four: First Steps was to keep this well-meaning family of astronauts in something resembling their world, not ours. As opposed to the live-action adaptations that came before it, the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s Fantastic Four (at least in their debut film) exists in the fairly utopian 1960s of Earth-828. It looks a little like an episode of The Jetsons, and it feels a little like an episode of Bewitched, especially with Vanessa Kirby’s Sue Storm at its center. This isn’t the first time a filmmaker has revisited mid-century America with a 21st-century lens. It isn’t even the first time Shakman has done it. If the mood of The Fantastic Four: First Steps was your favorite part, you’ll appreciate the times and places recreated by these four films.

'Down with Love'

Rent the Underrated Romantic Comedy on Prime Video and Apple TV

This underseen and underrated romantic comedy is perhaps the best example of a film from the 2000s capturing the vibe of the 1960s, or at least the vibe of the 1960s, as it was in the Rock Hudson and Doris Day movies of the time. It also happens to take place in the same year as The Fantastic Four: First Steps (1962), just on our multiversal version of the third planet from the sun.

In Down with Love, Renée Zellweger plays Barbara Novak, a fictional early self-help author with a new book out (the titular Down with Love) that encourages women to stop chasing men and start chasing their own happiness. Ewan McGregor is Catcher Block, a men’s magazine writer and playboy in his own right, who tries to seduce Barbara to expose her as a hypocrite.

Down with Love is both a parody of and an homage to the tame-by-comparison sex comedies that Hollywood was churning out as the buttoned-up ’50s gave way to the loosey-goosier ’60s. It received mixed reviews back in 2003 and barely made back its budget despite the fact that romantic comedies often did well at the box office, and its co-stars were at the peak of their celebrity. It was good then; it plays better with more than 20 years of nostalgia. Come for the fabulous costumes, sets, and soundtrack. Stay for the charming performances and effervescent story that goes down like a crisp flute of champagne.

'Catch Me if You Can'

Rent One of Steven Spielberg's Best Films on Prime Video and Apple TV

Steven Spielberg has so many all-time great movies to his name that 2002’s Catch Me If You Can might not immediately come to mind when people think about the legendary director’s essential films. But make no mistake, it’s one of his best, and it’s got the ticket sales, awards nominations, and Rotten Tomatoes score to show for it. It’s also one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s most impressive performances. He plays a quintessentially unreliable narrator, Frank Abagnale Jr., in a sort of true story that spans 1963 to 1969.

After his parents’ marriage falls apart, teenage Frank embarks on a life of crime, first as a means of survival, but eventually just for the love of the game. He forges checks, impersonates airline pilots, and falls in love with a braces-wearing Amy Adams in her breakout role. Hot on his trail is Tom Hanks as Detective Carl Hanratty. Catch Me If You Can has come to be seen as a deeply personal Spielberg film that explores the effect of infidelity and divorce on families, as well as how people can disappear into their work — and even fantasy versions of themselves — to cope.

It’s as hilarious as it is heartbreaking, and though it’s about a conman, Spielberg’s perspective and DiCaprio’s embodiment of the real-life character always feel genuine. That authenticity is buoyed by impeccable production design, including a killer opening credits sequence.

'Don't Worry Darling'

Rent Florence Pugh and Olivia Wilde's Mind-Bending Thriller on Prime Video and Apple TV

Okay, Don’t Worry Darling isn’t a great movie. This 2022 romantic psychological thriller by second-time director Olivia Wilde got downright nasty reviews, and its notoriously troubled production and tabloid-fodder press tour got more attention than the film itself. But Don’t Worry Darling isn’t nearly as thoroughly terrible as its reputation suggests. For all its imperfections, which mostly have to do with the resolution of the ambitious final act, it has some interesting topics on its mind and some incredible fits and cribs to boot. Maybe that’s why it became a quiet favorite of Gen-Z girls.

Florence Pugh and Harry Styles are a newlywed couple trying to work their way into the good graces of the secretive boss (Chris Pine) who owns their perfectly planned company town. But, as is often the case with these kinds of set-ups, things are not as they seem. Don’t Worry Darling is at times seductive, terrifying, and a little too convoluted to be completely understood. It might not work for everyone as a fully-realized piece of art, but it’s worth the ride for the gorgeous dresses and the expertly-rendered creeping sense of dread.

'A Single Man'

Stream Tom Ford's Directorial Debut on Tubi

This 2009 drama marked the directorial debut of famed fashion designer Tom Ford. It adapts the novel of the same name, by Christopher Isherwood, and both use the same day-in-the-life structure to illustrate the inner life of a gay man living in 1962 Los Angeles. Colin Firth plays aging professor George Falconer, who has recently lost his partner of many years in a car accident. In his orbit are his friend (Julianne Moore), his student (Nicholas Hoult), and most of all, the ghost-like memory of his lost love (Matthew Goode).

With a fashion mogul in the director’s chair, it should be no surprise that A Single Man looks amazing. It’s as cool and distinct as anything that’s ever been made about the 1960s, in part because Ford collaborated with the design team from Mad Men. What might surprise viewers is how well Ford directs his actors. Firth won the Volpi Cup for best actor at the Venice Film Festival as well as the BAFTA, and earned Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and Academy Award nominations for his performance. A Single Man may not be as fun a watch as the other films on this list. However, it gets at something even more of a universal experience today than it was in the ’60s… loneliness and the near-impossibility of truly being known.