A classic creature feature horror movie that is one of Quentin Tarantino’s favorites has found a new streaming home at the perfect time.
The director is best known for helming snappy crime and action movies including Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, and Jackie Brown. The fact that Quentin Tarantino movies are chock-full of references to cult and genre films, especially those from the 1970s, has led him to become regarded as something of a cinema historian, to the point that he recently published the film theory book Cinema Speculation. A lot of weight is often put on the movies that he lists as his favorites, which include Sorcerer, Rolling Thunder, The Great Silence, and the genre-redefining movie that has recently joined a new streamer.
High Octane · No Brakes How Well Do You Know Action Movies? “Yippee-ki-yay… let’s see what you’ve got.”
💥ExplosionsWalk away, don’t look back
🏎Car ChasesFloor it
🥊Fist FightsNo mercy
🚁StuntsGet to the chopper
🔥MayhemBurn it all down
01
In the 1988 classic Die Hard, NYPD cop John McClane spends Christmas Eve picking off Hans Gruber’s heavily armed crew one by one inside a single Los Angeles high-rise. What is the name of that skyscraper?
✓ Direct hit! Nakatomi Plaza — the headquarters of the fictional Nakatomi Corporation where McClane (Bruce Willis) is trapped. It was filmed in the real Fox Plaza in Century City, which was still under construction at the time. McClane’s barefoot dash across broken glass remains one of the genre’s defining moments.
✗ Missed! The answer is Nakatomi Plaza. The film was shot in the real Fox Plaza in Century City (then Fox’s own HQ), which is likely why “Fox Tower” sounds plausible — but on screen it’s the fictional Nakatomi Plaza where Hans Gruber’s crew holds the Christmas party hostage.
02
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) introduced the shape-shifting T-1000, a groundbreaking villain that could melt, reform, and morph into anyone. What futuristic material is the T-1000 made of?
✓ Direct hit! The T-1000 is made of “mimetic poly-alloy” — essentially liquid metal — letting it flow through bars, sprout blades, and impersonate its victims. Robert Patrick’s eerily calm performance and the era-defining morphing CGI made it cinema’s scariest robot. The T-800 (Arnold), by contrast, is metal under living tissue.
✗ Missed! The answer is liquid metal (“mimetic poly-alloy”). That’s what lets the T-1000 pour through prison bars, reform from a shattered frozen state, and mimic anyone it touches. The older T-800 played by Arnold is the one with a hard metal endoskeleton under flesh — the T-1000 is a whole new threat.
03
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) was a near-non-stop desert car chase praised for its practical stunts, winning six Oscars. Which director returned to the franchise he created decades earlier to make it?
✓ Direct hit! George Miller created Mad Max with Mel Gibson back in 1979 and returned 36 years later to direct Fury Road, with Tom Hardy as Max and Charlize Theron as Furiosa. The film leaned on real vehicles and stunts in the Namibian desert. Snyder, Villeneuve, and Bigelow are all acclaimed — but the Wasteland belongs to Miller.
✗ Missed! The answer is George Miller — the Australian filmmaker (and former doctor) who launched the series in 1979 and came back to direct Fury Road. Zack Snyder, Denis Villeneuve, and Kathryn Bigelow are all major action/sci-fi directors, but none made Mad Max.
04
In John Wick (2014), Keanu Reeves plays a retired hitman pulled back into a brutal underworld war after Russian gangsters break into his home. What act ignites his legendary rampage of revenge?
✓ Direct hit! They kill his dog — a beagle puppy named Daisy, a final gift from his late wife — and steal his vintage Mustang. That cruelty unleashes “Baba Yaga,” the boogeyman hitman, on the entire criminal underworld. The deceptively simple revenge hook launched one of modern action’s biggest franchises.
✗ Missed! The answer is they kill his dog. The puppy, Daisy, was the last gift from John’s dying wife — so when Iosef’s crew beats John and kills the dog (also stealing his car), it triggers the full “Baba Yaga” rampage. It’s the purest revenge setup in modern action cinema.
05
The Mission: Impossible franchise is famous for its star performing his own death-defying stunts — scaling the Burj Khalifa, clinging to a plane at takeoff, and a HALO jump. Who plays super-spy Ethan Hunt?
✓ Direct hit! Tom Cruise has played Ethan Hunt since 1996, famously insisting on doing his own stunts — hanging off the Burj Khalifa, strapped to an Airbus A400M, and performing a real HALO skydive. Matt Damon is Jason Bourne, Keanu is John Wick, and Statham headlines the Transporter and Expendables films.
✗ Missed! The answer is Tom Cruise. Matt Damon plays a different super-spy (Jason Bourne), Keanu Reeves is John Wick, and Jason Statham has his own action stable. Cruise’s real, no-CGI stunt work — the plane, the building, the skydive — is the M:I series’ signature.
06
In The Matrix (1999), Morpheus offers Neo a choice between two pills: one returns him to blissful ignorance, the other reveals the harsh truth of reality. Which pill does Neo swallow to wake up?
✓ Direct hit! Neo takes the red pill to learn the truth — that humanity is enslaved in a simulation by machines. The blue pill would have let him wake up in bed believing “whatever you want to believe.” “Taking the red pill” has since become a permanent piece of pop-culture shorthand.
✗ Missed! The answer is the red pill. Morpheus’ line is the key: the blue pill ends the story safely in bed, but the red pill shows “how deep the rabbit hole goes.” Neo chooses red, unplugs from the Matrix, and the phrase has outlived the film as a cultural metaphor.
07
Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000) won Best Picture and gave us the roaring line “Are you not entertained?!” Which actor took home the Best Actor Oscar for playing the betrayed general-turned-gladiator Maximus?
✓ Direct hit! Russell Crowe won the 2001 Best Actor Oscar as Maximus Decimus Meridius, the Roman general enslaved and forced to fight for his freedom — and his revenge on the emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix). Gerard Butler later anchored 300, but the sands of the Colosseum belong to Crowe.
✗ Missed! The answer is Russell Crowe, who won Best Actor for Maximus. Gerard Butler led the similar-spirited 300, Mel Gibson made Braveheart, and Brad Pitt fought at Troy — all sword-and-sandal adjacent, but Gladiator’s Maximus is Crowe.
08
The Fast & Furious saga grew from a street-racing crime film into a globe-trotting blockbuster series obsessed with “family.” Vin Diesel anchors it as the gravel-voiced crew leader — what is the character’s name?
✓ Direct hit! Vin Diesel plays Dominic “Dom” Toretto, the loyalty-obsessed leader whose mantra is family. Brian O’Conner was the late Paul Walker’s undercover-cop-turned-ally, Luke Hobbs is Dwayne Johnson’s lawman, and Han Lue (Sung Kang) is the snack-loving fan favorite. But the wheel belongs to Dom.
✗ Missed! The answer is Dominic Toretto. Brian O’Conner is Paul Walker’s character, Luke Hobbs is Dwayne Johnson’s, and Han Lue is Sung Kang’s. Vin Diesel’s Dom — and his relentless “family” speeches — has been the heart of the franchise since 2001.
Mission Complete · Stand Down Your Action Hero Rank
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One-man army — or first to get caught in the crossfire?
The movie in question is Steven Spielberg’s 1975 shark thriller Jaws. During a 2022 interview on the CinemaBlend podcast ReelBlend, he called it “the greatest movie ever made.” The general public would seem to agree with him, because in addition to the movie boasting a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score of 97% from critics, it is Verified Hot on the platform’s Popcornmeter with a 98% score aggregated from more than 1,000 verified user reviews. The movie, which spawned legions of imitators, was also a runaway box office smash at the time, more or less single-handedly establishing the summer blockbuster tradition.
Now, as of July 1, Jaws – which was nominated for four Oscars on top of its commercial success, winning three – is streaming on the NBCUniversal streaming platform Peacock. All three of the movie’s sequels are also streaming on Peacock as of July 1, namely 1978’s Jaws 2, 1983’s Jaws 3-D, and 1987’s Jaws: The Revenge.
According to FlixPatrol, which uses proprietary methodology to determine the success of streaming titles, the original Jaws has already climbed to No. 10 on the daily chart of the most-watched movies on Peacock as of July 2, encroaching on a number of titles that have been well-established in the Top 10, including the DreamWorks animated smash Shrek 2 (which has been on the chart for more than 50 days) and the new Peacock-exclusive Chloe Bailey thriller Strung.
The creature feature franchise has found this new streaming home at the perfect time, because Independence Day is approaching in the United States, on July 4. The original movie has become inextricably linked with the holiday because the killer great white shark in the movie menaced the shores of Amity Island ahead of the Fourth of July weekend, a major tourist period that caused the mayor (Murray Hamilton) to clash with Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) about potentially closing the beaches.
While none of the sequels are specifically set during the Fourth of July (Jaws 2 and Jaws 3-D are set more generally during the summertime and Jaws: The Revenge takes place during the Christmas season), the fact that the original horror movie is so closely linked to the holiday will likely help boost its streaming viewership just three days after its arrival on the platform, and its legendary status could lead viewers to embrace a full marathon of the franchise during that period as well.
