The best 80s movies

Just been rewatching Ghostbusters. The special effects have not aged that well but it’s still fun. I do love 80s movies tho, maybe it’s the nostalgia. Also voting for The Karate Kid and Top Gun (back when Tom wasn’t a nutjob)  

There is a hilarious US fight pilot documentary called "Top Guns: the Documentary" on Amazon Prime at the moment.

I wasn't sure if it was real 1980s documentary, but if it's not it is a ridiculously high budget spoof.

It's full of incredibly competitive US Navy fight pilot Alpha Dogs.

Saw Back to the Future at a drive in the other with the family. We all enjoyed it: Great little film and much better than I remembered tbh.

A case of:

“you may not be ready for it yet but your kids are gonna love it”

That said quite a few of the big 80s films feel a bit naff now. Some of the High Concept stuff is really terrible.

There are a few really great films though that I still love:

Stand By Me

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Trading Places

Raging Bull

Chariots of Fire

(oddly the last two I assumed were 70s films, which probably says something about how naff some of the filmmaking in tbe 80s was)

Id throw Empire Strikes back in there too. 

 

The ones that I never tire of watching:

Cocktail

Working Girl

The Fabulous Baker Boys

Back to the Future

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade

The Year of Living Dangerously

The Bounty

Dangerous Liaisons

Witness

Return of the Jedi

A Fish Called Wanda

The Tall Guy

Dirty Dancing

A Handful of Dust

So may good suggestions here. I regard Back to the Future as pretty much a perfectly made movie. Predator is the greatest Arnie movie ever and anyone who says Commando is wrong.

Can't believe nobody has mentioned the Goonies.

To the already illustrious works of art mentioned, I would add:

Big

Space Camp

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

The Never Ending Story

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Terminator

Heathers

But, for me Clive, Back To The Future wins this hands down.

For the grown-ups at that time, I still think Nightmare on Elm Street is the scariest film ever made.

I was about to say never-ending story.

That bit with the horse

*chokes with tears*

Would add flight of the navigator, dark crystal and to properly fck u up, poltergeist 

IMDB says Home Alone is 1990 - otherwise that would have bossed this thread.

Poltergeist is a good shout. I remember the 'Poltergeist curse'.

Also, - say 'Poltergeist' out loud 5 times. Sounds really odd.

The Oscar winners for Best Picture in the 1980s:

 

Ordinary People

Chariots of Fire

Gandhi

Terms of Endearment

Amadeus

Out of Africa

Platoon

The Last Emperor

Rain Man

Driving Miss Daisy

 

Worst decade for films?  The AFI's 100 films for 100 years only had six from the eighties and only two in the top fifty, and the only one in the Sight & Sound critics' poll that made the top 50 was Shoah. 

 

So, Raging Bull.

Ooh these have brought back some amazing memories. 
 

have films got worse or do we just have too many responsibilities to watch them? 
 

Overboard is a brilliant one. 
 

anyone remember a coming of age one where the girl fell in love with a boy driving a pink Cadillac? 

Not pretty in pink. 
 

was a girl with dark hair early teens and an older guy visits and she falls in love with him. 
 

ah I’ve just got it as I was typing - my American cousin. 

Having reviewed the thread, I am confirmed in my view it was probably the worst decade for filmmaking..

the only ones i missed that jump out  at me as reallt great films are

Ferris Bueller

Bladerunner

Terminator

 

maybe Last Emperor and Platoon. Need to watch them again.