Top 25 Oscar winning movies from the 80s

by rodakja | created - 03 May 2023 | updated - 1 week ago | Public
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1. The Last Emperor (1987)

PG-13 | 163 min | Biography, Drama, History

76 Metascore

Bernardo Bertolucci's Oscar-winning dramatisation of the life story of China's last emperor, Pu Yi.

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci | Stars: John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, Ruocheng Ying

Votes: 111,576 | Gross: $43.98M

9 awards 9 nominees

2. Amadeus (1984)

R | 160 min | Biography, Drama, Music

87 Metascore

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: 428,419 | Gross: $51.97M

8 awards 11 nominees

3. Gandhi (1982)

PG | 191 min | Biography, Drama, History

79 Metascore

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: 240,270 | Gross: $52.77M

8 awards 11 nominees

4. Out of Africa (1985)

PG | 161 min | Biography, Drama, Romance

69 Metascore

In 20th-century colonial Kenya, a Danish baroness/plantation owner has a passionate love affair with a free-spirited big-game hunter.

Director: Sydney Pollack | Stars: Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Michael Kitchen

Votes: 86,425 | Gross: $87.10M

7 awards 11 nominees

5. Terms of Endearment (1983)

PG | 132 min | Comedy, Drama

79 Metascore

Follows hard-to-please Aurora looking for love and her daughter's family problems.

Director: James L. Brooks | Stars: Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito

Votes: 65,533 | Gross: $108.42M

5 awards 11 nominees

6. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

PG | 99 min | Comedy, Drama

81 Metascore

An old Jewish woman and her African-American chauffeur in the American South have a relationship that grows and improves over the years.

Director: Bruce Beresford | Stars: Morgan Freeman, Jessica Tandy, Dan Aykroyd, Patti LuPone

Votes: 117,612 | Gross: $106.59M

4 awards 9 nominees

7. E.T. (1982)

PG | 115 min | Adventure, Family, Sci-Fi

92 Metascore

A troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape from Earth and return to his home planet.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Peter Coyote, Dee Wallace

Votes: 437,890 | Gross: $435.11M

4 awards 9 nominees

8. Platoon (1986)

R | 120 min | Drama, War

92 Metascore

Chris Taylor, a neophyte recruit in Vietnam, finds himself caught in a battle of wills between two sergeants, one good and the other evil. A shrewd examination of the brutality of war and the duality of man in conflict.

Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Keith David

Votes: 439,831 | Gross: $138.53M

4 awards 8 nominees

9. Rain Man (1988)

R | 133 min | Drama

65 Metascore

After a selfish L.A. yuppie learns his estranged father left a fortune to an autistic-savant brother in Ohio that he didn't know existed, he absconds with his brother and sets out across the country, hoping to gain a larger inheritance.

Director: Barry Levinson | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Valeria Golino, Gerald R. Molen

Votes: 546,988 | Gross: $178.80M

4 awards 8 nominees

10. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

PG | 115 min | Action, Adventure

86 Metascore

In 1936, archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis can obtain its awesome powers.

Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies

Votes: 1,037,491 | Gross: $248.16M

4 awards 8 nominees

11. The Right Stuff (1983)

PG | 193 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama

91 Metascore

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: 65,388 | Gross: $21.50M

4 awards 8 nominees

12. Chariots of Fire (1981)

PG | 125 min | Biography, Drama, Sport

78 Metascore

Two British track athletes, one a determined Jew and the other a devout Christian, are driven to win in the 1924 Olympics as they wrestle with issues of pride and conscience.

Director: Hugh Hudson | Stars: Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Nicholas Farrell, Nigel Havers

Votes: 65,936 | Gross: $58.97M

4 awards 7 nominees

13. Ordinary People (1980)

R | 124 min | Drama

86 Metascore

The accidental death of the older son of an affluent family deeply strains the relationships among the bitter mother, the good-natured father and the guilt-ridden younger son.

Director: Robert Redford | Stars: Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Judd Hirsch, Timothy Hutton

Votes: 56,722 | Gross: $54.80M

4 awards 6 nominees

14. Fanny and Alexander (1982)

R | 188 min | Drama

100 Metascore

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: 67,524 | Gross: $4.97M

4 awards 6 nominees

15. Reds (1981)

PG | 195 min | Biography, Drama, History

76 Metascore

A radical American journalist becomes involved with the Communist revolution in Russia, and hopes to bring its spirit and idealism to the United States.

Director: Warren Beatty | Stars: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Edward Herrmann, Jerzy Kosinski

Votes: 24,725 | Gross: $40.38M

3 awards 12 nominees

16. On Golden Pond (1981)

PG | 109 min | Drama

68 Metascore

Norman is a curmudgeon with an estranged relationship with his daughter Chelsea. At Golden Pond, he and his wife nevertheless agree to care for Billy, the son of Chelsea's new boyfriend, and a most unexpected relationship blooms.

Director: Mark Rydell | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda, Doug McKeon

Votes: 34,889 | Gross: $119.29M

3 awards 10 nominees

17. A Room with a View (1985)

Not Rated | 117 min | Drama, Romance

83 Metascore

Lucy Honeychurch (Helena Bonham Carter) shares a brief romance with George Emerson in Florence. Yet as she tries to move on with her life and look for marriage elsewhere, can she truly forget the events of that summer?

Director: James Ivory | Stars: Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham Carter, Denholm Elliott, Julian Sands

Votes: 47,903 | Gross: $20.97M

3 awards 8 nominees

18. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

PG-13 | 107 min | Comedy, Drama

90 Metascore

Between two Thanksgivings two years apart, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.

Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Michael Caine, Barbara Hershey

Votes: 76,821 | Gross: $40.08M

3 awards 7 nominees

19. The Killing Fields (1984)

R | 141 min | Biography, Drama, History

76 Metascore

A journalist is trapped in Cambodia during tyrant Pol Pot's bloody 'Year Zero' cleansing campaign, which claimed the lives of two million 'undesirable' civilians.

Director: Roland Joffé | Stars: Sam Waterston, Haing S. Ngor, John Malkovich, Julian Sands

Votes: 59,277 | Gross: $34.70M

3 awards 7 nominees

20. Dangerous Liaisons (1988)

R | 119 min | Drama, Romance

74 Metascore

A scheming widow and her manipulative ex-lover make a bet regarding the corruption of a recently married woman.

Director: Stephen Frears | Stars: Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Swoosie Kurtz

Votes: 75,184 | Gross: $34.70M

3 awards 7 nominees

21. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

PG | 104 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy

83 Metascore

When a cartoon rabbit is accused of murder, he enlists the help of a burnt out private investigator to prove his innocence.

Director: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Bob Hoskins, Christopher Lloyd, Joanna Cassidy, Charles Fleischer

Votes: 217,025 | Gross: $156.45M

3 awards 6 nominees

22. Tess (1979)

PG | 186 min | Drama, Romance

82 Metascore

A strong-willed young peasant girl attracts the affection of two men.

Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Nastassja Kinski, Peter Firth, Leigh Lawson, John Collin

Votes: 18,295

3 awards 6 nominees

23. Moonstruck (1987)

PG | 102 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

83 Metascore

Loretta Castorini, a bookkeeper from Brooklyn, New York, finds herself in a difficult situation when she falls for the brother of the man she has agreed to marry.

Director: Norman Jewison | Stars: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Olympia Dukakis, Danny Aiello

Votes: 68,622 | Gross: $80.64M

3 awards 6 nominees

24. Glory (1989)

R | 122 min | Biography, Drama, History

78 Metascore

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: 144,571 | Gross: $26.83M

3 awards 5 nominees

25. A Passage to India (1984)

PG | 164 min | Adventure, Drama, History

78 Metascore

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: 20,908 | Gross: $27.19M

2 awards 11 nominees



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