RIP David Bowie: Where To Stream The Rock Icon’s Greatest Film Roles

David Bowie, international rock legend and pop icon, passed away Sunday, January 10 after an 18-month battle with liver cancer. The English musician, who released album Blackstar just two days earlier, was 69 years old.

Though he’s primarily known as a pioneering figure of glam and progressive rock, Bowie’s acting career predates his rise to musical fame in the late ’60s and early ’70s. A student of theater, Bowie got his start on the London stage in productions like Peirrot in Turquoise, which was later made into the TV movie The Looking Glass Murders. In 1976, Bowie impressed audiences and critics alike in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth, playing the role of planet-less vagabond alien, Thomas Jerome Newton. The part, fittingly, earned the rock star a Saturn Award for Best Actor.

Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976).

In addition to cameo appearances in German drug drama Christiane F. and Mel Damski’s pirate parody Yellowbeard, the androgynous Bowie was cast as the lead in Jim Henson’s 1986 cult phenomenon, Labyrinth, welcoming a new generation of fans as goblin king, Jareth. In 1988, Bowie starred as the Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese’s controversial The Last Temptation of Christ before briefly appearing as Agent Phillip Jeffries in David Lynch’s film prequel Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. In 1996, the musician stunned audiences with his brief but powerful embodiment of artist and influencer Andy Warhol in Julian Schnabel’s Basquiat. After, once again, playing himself in comedies Zoolander and BBC series Extras, Bowie starred as inventor and engineering Nikola Tesla in Christopher Nolan’s mystery The Prestige, fictionalizing the longtime rivalry between magicians Robert Angier and Alfred Borden.

As we remember Bowie’s transcendent influence as an artist and musician, see where you can revisit some of his greatest film roles.

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Bowie in his award-winning role of Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976).
[Where to stream The Man Who Fell to Earth]Photo: Everett Collection
Bowie as Paul Ambrosius von Przygodski in Just a Gigolo (1978).
[Just a Gigolo is not available to stream]Photo: Everett Collection
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Bowie in Christiane F. (1981)
[Christiane F. is not available to stream]Photo: Everett Collection
Bowie as Major Jack "Strafer" Celliers in WWII drama Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983).
[Where to stream Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence]Photo: Everett Collection
Bowie with Madeline Kahn in pirate parody Yellowbeard (1983).
[Where to stream Yellowbeard]Photo: Everett Collection
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Ann Magnuson and David Bowie in The Hunger (1983).
[Where to stream The Hunger]Photo: Everett Collection
The musician in Absolute Beginners (1986).
[Absolute Beginners is not available to stream]Photo: Everett Collection
Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie in Jim Henson's Labyrinth (1986).
[Where to stream Labyrinth]Photo: Everett Collection
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Bowie with Rosanna Arquette in crime comedy The Linguini Incident (1991).
[The Linguini Incident is not available to stream]Photo: Everett Collection
Bowie as Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
[Where to stream The Last Temptation of Christ]Photo: Everett Collection
Bowie as himself with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson in Zoolander (2001).
[Where to stream Zoolander]Photo: Everett Collection
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The musician as inventor and physicist Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006).
[Where to stream The Prestige]Photo: Everett Collection
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Photos: Everett Collection