For Fans of The Goonies

Both films came out of the same cultural moment, both follow a small group of boys on a journey that feels impossibly large, and both understand that the destination matters less than who you walk with. Where The Goonies leans into the comedic and the fantastical, Stand by Me leans into loss. Together they form a complete picture of what it felt like to be a kid in small-town America in the mid-1980s, before everyone grew up.

The Duffer Brothers have said openly that The Goonies was a primary reference for Stranger Things. The ensemble of misfit kids, the adult world failing to protect them, the monster in the basement: it is all there. What Stranger Things adds is a serialized structure that lets each character breathe across episodes. If you have watched the series and not revisited the film recently, the debt becomes obvious within the first ten minutes of either.

The Uncharted games are The Goonies at adult scale: a wisecracking protagonist, a partner who is smarter than them, and a series of death traps standing between them and a priceless discovery. Nathan Drake even narrates with the same slightly panicked, slightly delighted tone that the Goonies kids use throughout the film. Uncharted 4 is the series at its most emotionally grounded, and it hits the same note of treasure-hunting as self-discovery that the film strikes in its final beach scene.

Louis Sachar's novel and Andrew Davis's 2003 adaptation both do what The Goonies does: they use a seemingly absurd premise (kids forced to dig holes in the desert) to tell a story about community, injustice, and the weight of the past pressing down on the present. The mystery at the center of Holes is as genuinely satisfying as finding One-Eyed Willy's treasure. Read the book and watch the film in either order; neither spoils the other.