John Carpenter's 1982 film The Thing, now widely regarded as a horror and sci-fi classic, is available to stream for free on YouTube. Although Carpenter had already built a strong reputation with Halloween (1978) and The Fog (1980), The Thing was met with harsh reviews on release, including a scathing critique from Roger Ebert, and was seen by many at the time as a betrayal of the more optimistic sci-fi tone popularised by E.T., which came out shortly before it.

The film follows a group of Antarctic researchers, played by actors including Kurt Russell, Keith David and Charles Hallahan, who are hunted by a shape-shifting alien capable of perfectly imitating anything it encounters, sowing paranoia and distrust among the team. Despite its cold reception in 1982, the film's reputation has grown enormously over the decades, with particular praise now given to Rob Bottin's groundbreaking practical creature effects, and it has since spawned a sequel and a wider media franchise spanning comics, board games and video games.