My wife and I (both 55) rewatch this probably once a year. It's a really solid film that holds up SUPER well -- so many great elements came together here. Obviously, the principal cast is outstanding; it's not just Baldwin and Connery.

Sam Neill we always love (Connery's XO; "I would like to have seen Montana"), and Scott Glenn (Mancuso, captain of the Dallas) rarely disappoints. We also get a late appearance by Richard Jordan (would would die only a few years later) and an early one by Courtney Vance as the Dallas' sonar tech. Stellan Skarsgard is Tupolev, the Soviet sub captain who pursues Connery. Jeffrey Jones, mostly of note to our generation as the principal in Ferris Bueller, has a small role as the former Navy intelligence man Skip Tyler. And there's a blink-and-you-miss-it role for Gates "Beverly Crusher" McFadden as Ryan's wife in the early moments of the film.

It was only on a relatively recent viewing that we noticed one of the Red October's minor officers was played by an actor we'd recently seen on TV. On THE AMERICANS one of the main Soviet characters is a man named Burov who eventually rotates back to the USSR to work in the same government ministry as his father. His father is played by Boris Krutonog, who 30 years before played Slavin -- his big moment is denouncing the political officer as a "pig" at the tense dinner scene early on.

I never know how film-nerdy people are, so I'll also note that Red October was directed by John McTiernan, who also directed the original Predator, Die Hard, The Last Action Hero, Die Hard with a Vengence, and the 1999 Thomas Crown remake. Unfortunately he did some deeply shady shit around one of his films and ended up in some significant legal trouble that basically blew up his career, but the films he made in the 20th century basically all hold up pretty dang well. The sense of momentum you get in October is present in Die Hard and in Crown as well.