Best of the 1980's
by nick2151 | created - 23 Jun 2011 | updated - 4 months ago | PublicMy picks for the 40 best films of the 1980's in chronological order
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1. The Shining (1980)
R | 146 min | Drama, Horror
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers
Votes: 1,105,990 | Gross: $44.02M
2. The Elephant Man (1980)
PG | 124 min | Biography, Drama
A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of kindness, intelligence and sophistication.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud
Votes: 258,339
3. Heaven's Gate (1980)
R | 219 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
During the Johnson County War in 1890 Wyoming, a sheriff born into wealth does his best to protect immigrant farmers from rich cattle interests.
Director: Michael Cimino | Stars: Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken, John Hurt, Sam Waterston
Votes: 17,138 | Gross: $3.48M
4. Raging Bull (1980)
R | 129 min | Biography, Drama, Sport
The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent
Votes: 380,048 | Gross: $23.38M
5. Blow Out (1981)
R | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A movie sound recordist accidentally records the evidence that proves that a car accident was actually murder and consequently finds himself in danger.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz
Votes: 63,214 | Gross: $13.75M
6. The Thing (1982)
R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi
A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Richard Masur
Votes: 466,359 | Gross: $13.78M
7. Blade Runner (1982)
R | 117 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
A blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos
Votes: 822,753 | Gross: $32.87M
The "final cut" is the best version.
8. First Blood (1982)
R | 93 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
A veteran Green Beret is forced by a cruel Sheriff and his deputies to flee into the mountains and wage an escalating one-man war against his pursuers.
Director: Ted Kotcheff | Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Brian Dennehy, Richard Crenna, Bill McKinney
Votes: 275,419 | Gross: $47.21M
9. The King of Comedy (1982)
PG | 109 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A passionate yet unsuccessful comedian stalks and kidnaps his idol to take the spotlight for himself.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Diahnne Abbott, Sandra Bernhard
Votes: 119,094 | Gross: $2.50M
10. Fanny and Alexander (1982)
R | 188 min | Drama
Two young Swedish children in the 1900s experience the many comedies and tragedies of their lively and affectionate theatrical family, the Ekdahls.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Bertil Guve, Pernilla Allwin, Kristina Adolphson, Börje Ahlstedt
Votes: 67,471 | Gross: $4.97M
11. The Ballad of Narayama (1983)
Not Rated | 130 min | Drama
In a poor 19th century rural Japanese village, everyone who reaches the age of 70 has to climb a nearby mountain to die. An elderly woman is reaching close to her cut-off age during her last days with her family.
Director: Shôhei Imamura | Stars: Ken Ogata, Sumiko Sakamoto, Tonpei Hidari, Aki Takejô
Votes: 9,112
12. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983)
R | 123 min | Drama, War
During WWII, a British colonel tries to bridge the cultural divides between a British POW and the Japanese camp commander in order to avoid bloodshed.
Director: Nagisa Ôshima | Stars: David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano
Votes: 20,004 | Gross: $2.31M
13. Local Hero (1983)
PG | 111 min | Comedy, Drama
An American oil company has plans for a new refinery and sends someone to Scotland to buy up an entire village, but things don't go as expected.
Director: Bill Forsyth | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Fulton Mackay, Denis Lawson
Votes: 26,686 | Gross: $5.90M
14. Videodrome (1983)
R | 87 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A programmer at a Toronto TV station that specializes in adult entertainment searches for the producers of a dangerous and bizarre broadcast.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: James Woods, Debbie Harry, Sonja Smits, Peter Dvorsky
Votes: 102,923 | Gross: $2.12M
15. Paris, Texas (1984)
R | 145 min | Drama
Travis Henderson, an aimless drifter who has been missing for four years, wanders out of the desert and must reconnect with society, himself, his life, and his family.
Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, Dean Stockwell, Sam Berry
Votes: 118,798 | Gross: $2.18M
16. Yellow Earth (1984)
TV-PG | 89 min | Drama, History, Music
A communist soldier travels to Shanbei to collect folk songs for propaganda while visiting a poor family.
Director: Kaige Chen | Stars: Xueqi Wang, Bai Xue, Quiang Liu, Tuo Tan
Votes: 2,569
17. The Company of Wolves (1984)
R | 95 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
A teenage girl in a country manor falls asleep while reading a magazine, and has a disturbing dream involving wolves prowling the woods below her bedroom window.
Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, David Warner, Graham Crowden
Votes: 18,399 | Gross: $4.39M
18. The Terminator (1984)
R | 107 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
A human soldier is sent from 2029 to 1984 to stop an almost indestructible cyborg killing machine, sent from the same year, which has been programmed to execute a young woman whose unborn son is the key to humanity's future salvation.
Director: James Cameron | Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn, Paul Winfield
Votes: 923,747 | Gross: $38.40M
19. Streetwise (1984)
91 min | Documentary, Drama
Gritty documentary that looks at the lives of teenagers living on the streets of Seattle.
Director: Martin Bell | Stars: Annie, Eddie, Antoine, Erica
Votes: 2,956 | Gross: $0.01M
20. The Times of Harvey Milk (1984)
Not Rated | 90 min | Documentary, Biography, History
A documentary of the successful career and assassination of San Francisco's first elected gay city supervisor.
Director: Rob Epstein | Stars: Harvey Fierstein, Harvey Milk, Anne Kronenberg, Tory Hartmann
Votes: 6,573 | Gross: $0.01M
21. Desert Hearts (1985)
R | 91 min | Drama, Romance
While waiting for her divorce papers, a repressed professor of literature is unexpectedly seduced by a carefree, spirited young lesbian.
Director: Donna Deitch | Stars: Helen Shaver, Patricia Charbonneau, Audra Lindley, Andra Akers
Votes: 7,287 | Gross: $2.49M
22. My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
R | 97 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
An ambitious Pakistani Briton and his white boyfriend strive for success and hope when they open a glamorous laundromat.
Director: Stephen Frears | Stars: Saeed Jaffrey, Roshan Seth, Daniel Day-Lewis, Richard Graham
Votes: 17,288 | Gross: $2.45M
23. The Angelic Conversation (1985)
Not Rated | 77 min | Drama
An unseen woman recites Shakespeare's sonnets - fourteen in all - as a man wordlessly seeks his heart's desire. The photography is stop-motion, the music is ethereal, the scenery is often ... See full summary »
Director: Derek Jarman | Stars: Paul Reynolds, Phillip Williamson, Judi Dench, Dave Baby
Votes: 910
24. Brazil (1985)
R | 132 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A bureaucrat in a dystopic society becomes an enemy of the state as he pursues the woman of his dreams.
Director: Terry Gilliam | Stars: Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond
Votes: 211,167 | Gross: $9.93M
25. Shoah (1985)
Not Rated | 566 min | Documentary, History, War
Claude Lanzmann's epic documentary recounts the story of the Holocaust through interviews with witnesses - perpetrators as well as survivors.
Director: Claude Lanzmann | Stars: Simon Srebnik, Michael Podchlebnik, Motke Zaïdl, Hanna Zaïdl
Votes: 10,542 | Gross: $0.02M
26. Come and See (1985)
Not Rated | 142 min | Drama, Thriller, War
After finding an old rifle, a young boy joins the Soviet resistance movement against ruthless German forces and experiences the horrors of World War II.
Director: Elem Klimov | Stars: Aleksey Kravchenko, Olga Mironova, Liubomiras Laucevicius, Vladas Bagdonas
Votes: 97,111
27. Day of the Dead (1985)
Not Rated | 101 min | Horror, Thriller
As the world is overrun by zombies, a group of scientists and military personnel sheltering in an underground bunker in Florida must decide on how they should deal with the undead horde.
Director: George A. Romero | Stars: Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joseph Pilato, Jarlath Conroy
Votes: 74,342 | Gross: $5.80M
28. Vagabond (1985)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama
A young woman's body is found frozen in a ditch. Through flashbacks and interviews, we see the events that led to her inevitable death.
Director: Agnès Varda | Stars: Sandrine Bonnaire, Macha Méril, Stéphane Freiss, Setti Ramdane
Votes: 13,640
29. The Fly (1986)
R | 96 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A brilliant but eccentric scientist begins to transform into a giant man/fly hybrid after one of his experiments goes horribly wrong.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz, Joy Boushel
Votes: 201,785 | Gross: $40.46M
30. Blue Velvet (1986)
R | 120 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern
Votes: 215,610 | Gross: $8.55M
31. RoboCop (1987)
R | 102 min | Action, Crime, Sci-Fi
In a dystopic and crime-ridden Detroit, a terminally wounded cop returns to the force as a powerful cyborg haunted by submerged memories.
Director: Paul Verhoeven | Stars: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O'Herlihy, Ronny Cox
Votes: 282,960 | Gross: $53.42M
32. Where Is the Friend's House? (1987)
Not Rated | 83 min | Drama, Family
Eight-year-old Ahmed has mistakenly taken his friend Mohammad's notebook. He wants to return it, or else his friend will be expelled from school. The boy determinedly sets out to find Mohammad's home in the neighbouring village.
Director: Abbas Kiarostami | Stars: Babek Ahmed Poor, Ahmed Ahmed Poor, Khodabakhsh Defaei, Iran Outari
Votes: 18,678
33. Maurice (1987)
R | 140 min | Drama, Romance
Two English school chums find themselves falling in love at Cambridge. To regain his place in society, Clive gives up Maurice and marries. While staying with Clive and his wife, Maurice discovers romance in the arms of the gamekeeper Alec.
Director: James Ivory | Stars: James Wilby, Rupert Graves, Hugh Grant, Denholm Elliott
Votes: 23,559 | Gross: $3.13M
34. Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Not Rated | 89 min | Animation, Drama, War
A young boy and his little sister struggle to survive in Japan during World War II.
Director: Isao Takahata | Stars: Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Akemi Yamaguchi, Yoshiko Shinohara
Votes: 310,172
35. The Vanishing (1988)
Not Rated | 107 min | Mystery, Thriller
Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins receiving letters from the abductor.
Director: George Sluizer | Stars: Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege, Gwen Eckhaus
Votes: 44,132
36. They Live (1988)
R | 94 min | Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They live.
Director: John Carpenter | Stars: Roddy Piper, Keith David, Meg Foster, George 'Buck' Flower
Votes: 145,389 | Gross: $13.01M
37. Do the Right Thing (1989)
R | 120 min | Comedy, Drama
On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.
Director: Spike Lee | Stars: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson
Votes: 112,364 | Gross: $27.55M
38. Tongues Untied (1989)
Not Rated | 55 min | Documentary
A documentary about the experiences of black homosexual men living in the United States of America.
Director: Marlon Riggs | Stars: Marlon Riggs, Michael Bell, Kerrigan Black, Blackberri
Votes: 1,849
39. Dead Poets Society (1989)
PG | 128 min | Comedy, Drama
Maverick teacher John Keating returns in 1959 to the prestigious New England boys' boarding school where he was once a star student, using poetry to embolden his pupils to new heights of self-expression.
Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, Josh Charles
Votes: 545,551 | Gross: $95.86M
40. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989)
PG-13 | 104 min | Comedy, Drama
An ophthalmologist's mistress threatens to reveal their affair to his wife while a married documentary filmmaker is infatuated with another woman.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Bill Bernstein, Claire Bloom
Votes: 60,771 | Gross: $18.25M
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