There are cult favourites, and there are movies whose popularity has skyrocketed so consistently since their release that to call them cult feels outdated – Labyrinth, first released in 1986, is one of the latter. It's also the third entry in our 12 Days of Streaming collection, where T3 brings you a must-watch movie from Christmas Day through to Twelfth Night.
Labyrinth is a dazzling, weird (and at times almost disturbing) fantasy straight from the mind of The Muppets master Jim Henson, and has a couple of crazy famous performances to offer up. Speaking of which, here are 5 movies we wish were remade with The Muppets.
Before we get into all that, though, we should make sure you know that Labyrinth is leaving Netflix in the UK on the 1st of January 2024, meaning New Year’s Eve will be your very final chance to enjoy it. Just like in the film itself, it's a race against the clock.
That’s sad news in one way, obviously, but it has pretty clear a silver lining if it gets you to sit down and watch it – as this is one of those movies that pairs absolutely perfectly with the weird in-between zone that rests between Christmas and the New Year. Dare call it Betwixtmas, if you will.
A young Jennifer Connelly shines as teenager Sarah, rashly and accidentally wishing her baby brother away into the captivity of the Goblin King, played with maniacal glee by a famously tight-trousered David Bowie.
She has to journey into his fantasy kingdom too, and try to puzzle her way through his confusing labyrinth of obstacles to get her brother back, aided and hindered by an array of odd characters. You can see many of them in the gallery embedded below – how wonderfully 1980s yet perfectly timeless they appear.
It’s such a weird and wonderful movie, not least because of its constant use of classic puppetry techniques and prosthetics – there are characters in Labyrinth who would have aged horribly if they were made with early CGI, but the mid-80s techniques being leveraged have aged terrifically for the most part.
Labyrinth is also from that pedigree of ostensibly family-friendly films that nonetheless contain a fair few creepy or unnerving moments – some of them more detectable for older viewers, and others still plenty scary for young’uns. We say that as a good thing, mind – too many kids’ movies now are over-saccharine. Although if you do just want easy watching then here are 7 of the best Christmas movies streaming right now...
