25 films of the 1980s
by nscivoletto | created - 17 Mar 2020 | updated - 22 Dec 2021 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Breaker Morant (1980)
PG | 107 min | Drama, History, War
Three Australian lieutenants are court martialed for executing prisoners as a way of deflecting attention from war crimes committed by their superior officers.
Director: Bruce Beresford | Stars: Edward Woodward, Jack Thompson, John Waters, Bryan Brown
Votes: 14,419 | Gross: $7.14M
2. 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: 380,024 | Gross: $23.38M
3. Gallipoli (1981)
PG | 110 min | Adventure, Drama, History
Two Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during World War I.
Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Mel Gibson, Mark Lee, Bill Kerr, Harold Hopkins
Votes: 41,942 | Gross: $5.73M
4. Southern Comfort (1981)
R | 106 min | Action, Thriller
During a routine exercise, a team of National Guardsmen are threatened by angry and violent locals.
Director: Walter Hill | Stars: Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, Franklyn Seales
Votes: 21,890 | Gross: $5.00M
5. Atlantic City (1980)
R | 104 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
In a corrupt city, a small-time gangster and the estranged wife of a pot dealer find themselves thrown together in an escapade of love, money, drugs and danger.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid, Michel Piccoli
Votes: 18,285
6. Gandhi (1982)
PG | 191 min | Biography, Drama, History
The life of the lawyer who became the famed leader of the Indian revolts against the British rule through his philosophy of nonviolent protest.
Director: Richard Attenborough | Stars: Ben Kingsley, John Gielgud, Rohini Hattangadi, Roshan Seth
Votes: 240,159 | Gross: $52.77M
7. Das Boot (1981)
R | 149 min | Drama, War
A German U-boat stalks the frigid waters of the North Atlantic as its young crew experience the sheer terror and claustrophobic life of a submariner in World War II.
Director: Wolfgang Petersen | Stars: Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer, Klaus Wennemann, Hubertus Bengsch
Votes: 264,233 | Gross: $11.49M
8. Diner (1982)
R | 110 min | Comedy, Drama
A group of college-age buddies struggle with their imminent passage into adulthood in 1959 Baltimore.
Director: Barry Levinson | Stars: Steve Guttenberg, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Daniel Stern
Votes: 22,810 | Gross: $14.10M
9. 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: 822,719 | Gross: $32.87M
10. 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: 20,003 | Gross: $2.31M
11. The Right Stuff (1983)
PG | 193 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
The U.S. space program's development from the breaking of the sound barrier to selection of the Mercury 7 astronauts, from a group of test pilots with a more seat-of-the-pants approach than the program's more cautious engineers preferred.
Director: Philip Kaufman | Stars: Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid
Votes: 65,325 | Gross: $21.50M
12. The Big Chill (1983)
R | 105 min | Comedy, Drama
A group of seven former college friends gather for a weekend reunion at a South Carolina vacation home after the funeral of another of their college friends.
Director: Lawrence Kasdan | Stars: Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt
Votes: 41,385 | Gross: $56.20M
13. 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: 119,085 | Gross: $2.50M
14. Amadeus (1984)
R | 160 min | Biography, Drama, Music
The life, success and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was deeply jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him.
Director: Milos Forman | Stars: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Roy Dotrice
Votes: 427,783 | Gross: $51.97M
15. A Passage to India (1984)
PG | 164 min | Adventure, Drama, History
Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.
Director: David Lean | Stars: Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft, James Fox
Votes: 20,833 | Gross: $27.19M
16. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
R | 229 min | Crime, Drama
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan 35 years later, where he must once again confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams
Votes: 377,513 | Gross: $5.32M
17. Blood Simple (1984)
R | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
The owner of a seedy small-town Texas bar discovers that one of his employees is having an affair with his wife. A chaotic chain of misunderstandings, lies, and mischief ensues after he devises a plot to have them murdered.
Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen | Stars: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, M. Emmet Walsh
Votes: 105,175 | Gross: $2.15M
18. 1984 (1984)
R | 113 min | Drama, Sci-Fi
In a totalitarian future society, a man, whose daily work is re-writing history, tries to rebel by falling in love.
Director: Michael Radford | Stars: John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, Cyril Cusack
Votes: 78,943 | Gross: $8.40M
19. 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: 211,164 | Gross: $9.93M
20. The Mission (1986)
PG | 125 min | Adventure, Drama, History
Eighteenth-century Spanish Jesuits try to protect a remote South American tribe in danger of falling under the rule of pro-slavery Portugal.
Director: Roland Joffé | Stars: Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, Ray McAnally, Aidan Quinn
Votes: 65,667 | Gross: $17.22M
21. Withnail & I (1987)
R | 107 min | Comedy, Drama
In 1969, two substance-abusing, unemployed actors retreat to the countryside for a holiday that proves disastrous.
Director: Bruce Robinson | Stars: Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths, Ralph Brown
Votes: 47,878 | Gross: $1.54M
22. Eight Men Out (1988)
PG | 119 min | Drama, History, Sport
A dramatization of the Black Sox scandal when the underpaid Chicago White Sox accepted bribes to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series.
Director: John Sayles | Stars: John Cusack, Clifton James, Jace Alexander, Gordon Clapp
Votes: 22,073 | Gross: $5.68M
23. Talk Radio (1988)
R | 110 min | Drama, Thriller
A rude, contemptuous talk show host becomes overwhelmed by the hatred that surrounds his program just before it goes national.
Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Eric Bogosian, Ellen Greene, Leslie Hope, John C. McGinley
Votes: 14,607 | Gross: $3.47M
24. 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: 40,604 | Gross: $4.73M
25. 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: 112,353 | Gross: $27.55M
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