Top 10 Films of 1989
by muybueno16 | created - 29 Mar 2018 | updated - 17 Mar 2020 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
PG-13 | 127 min | Action, Adventure
In 1938, after his father goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, Indiana Jones finds himself up against the Nazis again to stop them from obtaining its powers.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Alison Doody, Denholm Elliott
Votes: 810,755 | Gross: $197.17M
2. Glory (1989)
R | 122 min | Biography, Drama, History
Robert Gould Shaw leads the U.S. Civil War's first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices from both his own Union Army, and the Confederates.
Director: Edward Zwick | Stars: Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes, Morgan Freeman
Votes: 144,388 | Gross: $26.83M
3. Lean on Me (1989)
PG-13 | 108 min | Drama
The dedicated but tyrannical Joe Clark is appointed the principal of a decaying inner-city school he is determined to improve by any and all means.
Director: John G. Avildsen | Stars: Morgan Freeman, Beverly Todd, Robert Guillaume, Alan North
Votes: 22,977 | Gross: $31.91M
4. We're No Angels (1989)
PG-13 | 106 min | Comedy, Crime
Two fugitives pass themselves off as priests in the hope of evading capture and passing the police blockade at the border with Canada.
Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Demi Moore, Hoyt Axton
Votes: 24,668 | Gross: $10.56M
5. Best of the Best (1989)
PG-13 | 97 min | Action, Drama, Sport
A team from the United States is going to compete against Korea in a Tae Kwon Do tournament. The team consists of fighters from all over the country - can they overcome their rivalry and work together to win?
Director: Robert Radler | Stars: Eric Roberts, James Earl Jones, Sally Kirkland, Phillip Rhee
Votes: 15,255 | Gross: $1.70M
6. Triumph of the Spirit (1989)
R | 120 min | Biography, Drama, History
In Greece during World War II, a young Jewish boxer, his girlfriend, and their families are sent to Auschwitz. When the camp guards learn of his boxing abilities, they force him to participate in weekly boxing matches.
Director: Robert M. Young | Stars: Willem Dafoe, Edward James Olmos, Robert Loggia, Wendy Gazelle
Votes: 2,778 | Gross: $0.41M
7. 84C MoPic (1989)
R | 95 min | Drama, War
The title refers to the U.S. Army's former "MOS" (job code) for a combat cameraman. The story follows a unit of American G.I.s in Vietnam, all with different backgrounds and motives for being there, through the lens of his camera.
Director: Patrick Sheane Duncan | Stars: Jonathan Emerson, Nicholas Cascone, Jason Tomlins, Christopher Burgard
Votes: 1,938 | Gross: $0.15M
8. Romero (1989)
PG-13 | 102 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
The life and work of Archbishop Oscar Romero who opposed, at great personal risk, the tyrannical repression in El Salvador.
Director: John Duigan | Stars: Raul Julia, Richard Jordan, Ana Alicia, Eddie Velez
Votes: 2,448 | Gross: $1.32M
9. Street of No Return (1989)
93 min | Action, Drama, Crime
A rock star-turned-bum, his vocal chords severed at the height of his career for the love of a woman, reclaims his forgotten past after viewing a music video and seeks revenge against the mobster who maimed him.
Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Keith Carradine, Valentina Vargas, Bill Duke, Andréa Ferréol
Votes: 598
10. Music Box (1989)
PG-13 | 124 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A lawyer defends her father accused of war crimes, but there is more to the case than she suspects.
Director: Costa-Gavras | Stars: Jessica Lange, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Frederic Forrest, Donald Moffat
Votes: 8,660 | Gross: $6.26M
11. Powwow Highway (1988)
R | 91 min | Adventure, Drama
Two Northern Cheyenne men take a road trip from Montana to New Mexico to bail out the sister of one of them who has been framed and arrested in Santa Fe. On the way, they begin to reconnect to their spiritual heritage.
Director: Jonathan Wacks | Stars: Gary Farmer, A Martinez, Joanelle Romero, Amanda Wyss
Votes: 1,899 | Gross: $0.28M
12. Longtime Companion (1989)
R | 96 min | Drama, Romance
The emergence and devastation of the AIDS epidemic is chronicled in the lives of several gay men living during the 1980s.
Director: Norman René | Stars: Stephen Caffrey, Patrick Cassidy, Brian Cousins, Bruce Davison
Votes: 6,128 | Gross: $4.61M
13. Lost Angels (1989)
R | 116 min | Drama
A troubled youth from a split Los Angeles family is sent to a private psychiatric hospital after a violent scrape with the police. In the hospital, he makes a connection with one of the doctors who has his own problems.
Director: Hugh Hudson | Stars: Donald Sutherland, Adam Horovitz, Amy Locane, Don Bloomfield
Votes: 1,075 | Gross: $1.25M
14. Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)
R | 100 min | Drama
A sexually repressed woman's husband is having an affair with her sister. The arrival of a visitor with a rather unusual fetish changes everything.
Director: Steven Soderbergh | Stars: James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, Laura San Giacomo
Votes: 59,433 | Gross: $24.74M
15. The Unbelievable Truth (1989)
R | 90 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A man returns to his home town after serving a prison sentence for homicide, and finds that the details of the crime have been forgotten and replaced with local legends and rumors.
Director: Hal Hartley | Stars: Adrienne Shelly, Robert John Burke, Chris Cooke, Julia McNeal
Votes: 6,286 | Gross: $0.55M
16. Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
R | 145 min | Biography, Drama, War
The biography of Ron Kovic. Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country for which he fought.
Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Tom Cruise, Bryan Larkin, Raymond J. Barry, Caroline Kava
Votes: 115,901 | Gross: $70.00M
17. 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: 112,384 | Gross: $27.55M
18. The Blood of Heroes (1989)
R | 90 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Sport
In a future where most of mankind and technology is wiped out, six people travel from place to place playing a brutal form of football with a dog skull. They hope one day to play in the league in a city.
Director: David Webb Peoples | Stars: Rutger Hauer, Joan Chen, Delroy Lindo, Anna Katarina
Votes: 7,570 | Gross: $0.88M
19. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
R | 101 min | Crime, Drama
A pharmacy-robbing dope fiend and his crew pop pills and evade the law.
Director: Gus Van Sant | Stars: Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, James Le Gros, Heather Graham
Votes: 40,614 | Gross: $4.73M
20. Fine Gold (1989)
PG-13 | 96 min | Drama
Two European winemaking families' friendships are destroyed by false accusations after a theft in this melodrama.
Director: José Antonio de la Loma | Stars: Ted Wass, Jane Badler, Andrew Stevens, Ray Walston
Votes: 67
21. New York Stories (1989)
PG | 124 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A middle-aged artist obsessed with his pretty young assistant, a precocious 12-year-old living in a hotel, and a neurotic lawyer with a possessive mother make up three Gotham tales.
Directors: Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese | Stars: Woody Allen, Nick Nolte, Rosanna Arquette, Marvin Chatinover
Votes: 19,734 | Gross: $10.76M
22. Silence Like Glass (1989)
R | 102 min | Drama
A ballet dancer is affected with cancer.
Director: Carl Schenkel | Stars: Jami Gertz, Martha Plimpton, George Peppard, Bruce Payne
Votes: 408
23. Monsieur Hire (1989)
PG-13 | 81 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A recluse is accused of murdering a young woman simply because his neighbors think he is strange.
Director: Patrice Leconte | Stars: Michel Blanc, Sandrine Bonnaire, Luc Thuillier, André Wilms
Votes: 7,134 | Gross: $1.42M
24. The Church (1989)
R | 102 min | Horror
An old Gothic cathedral built over a mass grave develops strange powers that trap a number of people inside with ghosts from a 12th Century massacre seeking to resurrect an ancient demon from the bowels of the Earth.
Director: Michele Soavi | Stars: Hugh Quarshie, Tomas Arana, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Barbara Cupisti
Votes: 8,880
25. Face of the Enemy (1989)
R | 100 min | Drama
A former victim of torture attempts revenge on the Middle-Eastern woman who ruined his life many years ago. His need for vengeance is rooted in his days as a CIA agent, when he was captured... See full summary »
Director: Hassan Ildari | Stars: Rosanna DeSoto, George DiCenzo, Cynthia Harrington, Ariana Richards
Votes: 59
26. 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: 545,659 | Gross: $95.86M
27. True Love (I) (1989)
R | 104 min | Comedy, Romance
Donna and Michael are getting married. But first, they have to plan the reception, get the tux, buy the rings, and cope with their own uncertainty about the decision. Michael fears ... See full summary »
Director: Nancy Savoca | Stars: Annabella Sciorra, Ron Eldard, Aida Turturro, Roger Rignack
Votes: 819 | Gross: $1.35M
28. Santa Sangre (1989)
NC-17 | 123 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his armless mother - the leader of a strange religious cult - and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name as he becomes "her arms".
Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky | Stars: Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Guy Stockwell, Thelma Tixou
Votes: 23,318
29. Welcome Home (1989)
R | 96 min | Drama
Jake died in Vietnam; his family mourned him, then moved on. When he reappears, quite alive, the question is, what must he do and how will his family respond to him?
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: Kris Kristofferson, JoBeth Williams, Sam Waterston, Brian Keith
Votes: 397 | Gross: $1.03M
30. Bert Rigby, You're a Fool (1989)
R | 94 min | Comedy, Musical
Bert Rigby lives in the small English town of Langmore, where most people depend on work at the local mine, which is faring poorly. While his mates are on strike once again, he decides to ... See full summary »
Director: Carl Reiner | Stars: Robert Lindsay, Robbie Coltrane, Cathryn Bradshaw, Jackie Gayle
Votes: 334 | Gross: $0.08M
31. Longtime Companion (1989)
R | 96 min | Drama, Romance
The emergence and devastation of the AIDS epidemic is chronicled in the lives of several gay men living during the 1980s.
Director: Norman René | Stars: Stephen Caffrey, Patrick Cassidy, Brian Cousins, Bruce Davison
Votes: 6,128 | Gross: $4.61M
32. Splendor (1989)
115 min | Drama
Jordan, forced to close his movie theater due to financial problems, recalls the events, the characters and the films that marked his life.
Director: Ettore Scola | Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Massimo Troisi, Marina Vlady, Paolo Panelli
Votes: 1,051
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