80s movies
Here are a few lists of the best movies of the 80s.
I’ve always thought that it was a slight decade, cinematically speaking, and that seems borne out by those lists, many of which include popcorn movies such as Robocop, Predator and Ghostbusters.
I love Ferris Bueller’s Day Off as much as the next person, but I’ve never been able to consider it a great movie, in that way that, say, Raging Bull is great.
For me that decade is where enjoyment and quality parted company quite cleanly, giving us the enormous fun of the aforementioned titles (plus Die Hard, The Terminator, Back To The Future, E.T., etc.), but leaving us wanting in terms of greatness.
If you look at the two decades that bookended the 80s there are so many riches that it makes any 80s list look slight by comparison:
The 1970s: The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon, Apocalypse Now, Annie Hall, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, All The President’s Men, Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange, Harold And Maude, American Graffiti, Aguiire: The Wrath Of God (and many, many more).
The 1990s: Three Kings, Boogie Nights, The Silence Of The Lambs, The Age Of Innocence, Schindler’s List, Goodfellas, Unforgiven, Magnolia, Being John Malkovich, LA Confidential, Se7en, Short Cuts, Fight Club, The Three Colours trilogy, etc.
But the 80s?
Full Metal Jacket, Raging Bull, The King Of Comedy, Do The Right Thing, Blue Velvet (I haven’t seen Grave Of The Fireflies, which appears on many of these lists)…
Then you drop down a level to movies like Platoon (a little too surface; bad performance from Charlie Sheen. Ditto Wall Street), Amadeus (too slick), The Last Emperor (too long and boring), Jean De Florette (is it great?), Spinal Tap and Airplane (not as funny as I remembered them)…
Anyway, that’s just my somewhat damning opinion on an entire decade of movie making.
What do you think?
An awful lot of movies, TV, music and commercials produced in the 80s was ruined by the rampant cocaine use of those concerned. When everything is great all the time, it’s probably going to suck.
I’d have to argue that there haven’t been any real GREAT movies since Hitchcock and Lean quit directing.
The 50s. That was a decade for movies.
Weird Science.
Most people will vote for the ’70’s but the ’40’s, and the ‘50’s were the best – because directors had bigger freedom to experiment and try different things.
They invented stuff – editing, and thrillers, decent westerns, musicals, and film noir, anti-heroes, stars, and sex bombs, teen movies, epics, science fiction…Kurosawa, Bergman, Fellini, Bunuel, and of course Hitchcock…
I think during the ’80’s people started to go to the movies mainly to eat popcorn.
’81 Gregory’s Girl
’82 My favourite Year
’84 Blood Simple
’84 Killing fields
’85 Brazil
’85 Letter to Brezhnev
’86 Mona Lisa
’87 Raising Arizona
I can’t be arsed to go on, but you get my point.
Oh yes I can…
’87 Withnail and I
Withnail and I? definitely. The others? not so much.
Erm… Scarface?
Depends on your definition of great.
If it’s about love/affection for a film, the 80’s kicks most other decades’ arses (you’re talking 3 Indiana Jones’s, 2 Back to the Futures and 2 Star Wars films).
If it’s about intellectuality then you’re probably right, but I’ve seen plenty of thoughtful films that were mind-numbingly dull. The 80’s redressed the balance with mind-numbingly fun and completely thoughtless (see: Commando).
You just fucking take that back about Airplane.
Have you watched it lately? I had to turn it off.
I have indeed! And while the humour may not aged particularly well (neither has very much Monty Python for that matter ) I have to say I think it is brilliantly, inventively funny.
Spinal Tap too – you rotten blasphemer.
Even if neither made me laugh ever again, I would consider them to be brilliantly funny. The styles and exectutions of jokes are breathtakingly good.
In my opinion, anyway.
Oh who am I kidding? Not ‘in my opinion.’ They ARE.
Blade Runner
The Goonies
Laputa:Castle in the Sky….in fact loads of Studio Ghibli stuff
The Goonies?
I’ve never liked Blade Runner that much. Maybe it’s great; not for me.
And Ghibli films are nice, but they ain’t great.