What to stream: Dive into ‘The Substance’ of Demi Moore’s best films

Demi Moore stars in the intense new “beauty-horror” film “The Substance,” from French director Coralie Fargeat, which hits U.S. theaters this week after taking the Cannes and Toronto Film festivals by storm earlier this year. The film is a searing examination of aging, beauty standards and the desire to stay forever young, in a story that leverages Moore’s star persona as a beauty (and body) icon of the 1980s and ’90s.

She plays an older actress being replaced in her job as a television fitness star, who decides to undergo a mysterious anti-aging/biohacking treatment known as “the substance.” Ultimately, she ends up with a younger, more beautiful doppelganger (Margaret Qualley), who finds fame, adoration and success, until the balance between the two beings is interrupted.

It’s one of Moore’s best performances of her career, and because it uses her star power and persona so deftly, “The Substance” occasions a rewatch of her best and most memorable film roles. So here’s the best of Demi Moore’s work and where to stream each title.

Moore was famously a member of the “Brat Pack” in the 1980s, co-starring in one of the ur-texts for that group of actors, Joel Schumacher’s “St. Elmo’s Fire” (1985). Following a group of college grads navigating life and love in Washington, D.C., the film co-stars Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez, Mare Winningham, Judd Nelson and Andie MacDowell (who happens to be the mother of her “The Substance” co-star Qualley). Rent it on iTunes or Amazon.

In 1986, Moore co-starred with Lowe in Edward Zwick’s “About Last Night,” another film about young people finding love in the big city, this time in Chicago. Jim Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins co-star as their friends in this film based on a David Mamet play. You can also rent that one on iTunes or Amazon.

But it was “Ghost” in 1990 that cemented Moore as a superstar. The highest-grossing film of the year, “Ghost” is a romantic melodrama in which Moore plays an artist whose boyfriend, played by Patrick Swayze, is murdered. His spirit stays around to protect her, with the help of a psychic played by Whoopi Goldberg. This iconic movie is directed by Jerry Zucker and co-stars Tony Goldwyn. Stream it on Paramount+ or rent it elsewhere.

Moore went on to star in the Oscar-nominated military legal thriller “A Few Good Men” in 1992, directed by Rob Reiner, written by Aaron Sorkin, co-starring Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Tom Cruise, and Jack Nicholson (streaming on AMC+). She also appeared in a couple of mid-’90s erotic thrillers: Adrian Lyne’s “Indecent Proposal” (1993) with Robert Redford and Woody Harrelson (streaming on Prime Video or MGM+) and Barry Levinson’s “Disclosure” (1994) opposite Michael Douglas (available for rent on iTunes or Amazon).

She displayed her body in two different ways after that: first in 1996’s “Striptease,” for which she was paid an unprecedented salary of $12.5 million. The comedy about a single mother who works as a stripper is based on the Carl Hiaasen book and written and directed by Andrew Bergman (stream it on Paramount+ or rent). Then, in 1997, Ridley Scott cast her in “G.I. Jane,” where Moore was a muscular and pumped up version of herself, complete with a shaved head (stream it on Tubi or rent it elsewhere).

Though her career took a downturn, an appearance in McG’s 2003 action-comedy “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” gave Moore her due as an icon (rent it on iTunes or Amazon). With films like “The Substance” coming her way as a chance to once again demonstrate her remarkable acting chops (in a feminist film by a female director), here’s hoping there’s more Moore in the future.