3 Best Movies & Shows Released in 1988 On Tubi

Staff & contributors

Find the best movies and show to watch from the year 1988. These handpicked recommendations are highly-rated by viewers and critics.

This tender, autobiographical coming-of-age story about a working class family in post-war Liverpool is Terence Davies’ masterpiece—evoking memories through a series of loosely connected scenes that highlight the joys and woes of growing up. It is comprised of two films shot two years apart. The first details the tribulations of a young family surviving an abusive father in the ‘40s. The second part follows the kids grown up and finding their way in the ‘50s, and the influence of music and cinema on their lives. Davies uses a series of beautifully composed tableaux to tell the tale, which bring the setting and the characters intimately to life. Distant Voices, Still Lives is regarded as one of the greatest British films of all-time.

Genre: Drama, Music

Actor: Alan Bird, Andrew Schofield, Angela Walsh, Anne Dyson, Bill Moores, Carl Chase, Dean Williams, Freda Dowie, Ina Clough, Jean Boht, John Michie, Lorraine Ashbourne, Matthew Long, Michael Starke, Nathan Walsh, Pauline Quirke, Pete Postlethwaite, Roy Ford, Sally Davies, Susan Flanagan

Director: Terence Davies

Before anything else, Miracle Mile is a romance. It begins with a meet-cute so adorable, it convinces lovebirds Harry and Julie to stick to each other in the next moments of the film, which couldn’t be more different than the first. Where the opening scene is sweet and lovely, the ones that follow it are fraught and bleak and eerily existential. At this point, the film transforms into its true self: an apocalyptic nightmare. When Harry receives word that a nuclear attack is incoming, the news spreads like wildfire and all hell breaks loose in this film that makes you question reality and humanity. 

It's one of the smoothest shifts in cinematic history, but even with panic swirling and violence erupting, love is still there. Harry and Julie’s quest to save and savor the bond they’ve formed is genuinely moving, and it effectively grounds this out-of-this-world film about the end.

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Science Fiction, Thriller

Actor: Alan Berger, Alan Rosenberg, Anthony Edwards, Brian Thompson, Claude Earl Jones, Danny De La Paz, Denise Crosby, Diane Delano, Earl Boen, Edward Bunker, Howard Swain, Jenette Goldstein, John Agar, Jordana Capra, Kelly Jo Minter, Kurt Fuller, Lou Hancock, Lucille Bliss, Mare Winningham, Mykelti Williamson, O-Lan Jones, Peter Berg, Raphael Sbarge, Richard Biggs, Robert DoQui, Steve De Jarnatt

Director: Steve De Jarnatt

Rating: R

If you enjoy wondering aloud to yourself how filmmakers were able to make a movie at all, 1988's almost wordless tale of two bears trying to survive the Canadian mountains was somehow shot with real, expressive bear "actors," despite the film being a work of fiction. A cross between a stunningly photographed nature documentary and a brutal folktale, The Bear gets right to the uncompromising conditions out in the wild, where human beings are portrayed as just as savage—and just as merciful—as the beasts they hunt. Clever editing and Jean-Jacques Annaud's directorial vision hide all the seams in the movie's magic tricks, allowing us to fall in love quickly with these majestic bears and the all-too-human emotions they seem to be expressing.

Genre: Adventure, Drama, Family

Actor: André Lacombe, Bart The Bear, Jack Wallace, Tchéky Karyo, Youk the Bear

Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud