The “best” maybe not, but some favorites.
Blood Simple
Raging Bull
Paris, Texas
Hannah And Her Sisters
The Shining
Do The Right Thing
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Das Boot
Breaker Morant
Eggman. you don"t believe in commas?
Gallipoli
The King Of Comedy
The Breakfast Club
Down By Law
Withnail And I
The Princess Bride
The Vanishing
Big
Rainman
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Drugstore Cowboy
Sex, Lies And Videotape
The Blues Brothers, hands down.
I would add to the worthy mentions:
Kieslowski´s Dekaloge ( I don´t give a damn if it was presented in TV format).
Tron (keep the stones in your pockets: it´s a unique film)
Akira (idem)
The Falcon and the Snowman
An American Werewolf in London
It´s really comforting to see listed Body Double a couple of times instead of Scarface.
My personal favourites, not necessarily the best: River’s Edge, Blue Velvet, The Fly, Sid and Nancy, Polyester, Stand by Me, The Lost Boys, Near Dark, The Outsiders, Heathers, Weird Science, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, The Elephant Man, An American Werewolf in London, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Rain Man, The Land Before Time, The Neverending Story.
What about the Right Stuff and Body Heat?
What is amazing about Blade Runner is the reviews it got- most of them were very harsh.
Veronika Voss
I concur with Mishima: a Life in Four Chapters. A super ambitious film that is largely successful. There’s a great concept for the film, terrific music, set pieces that all come together—and made under difficult circumstances (Mishima’s widow opposed the making of the film and Schrader worked with an all-Japanese crew). Granted, I know little of the truth of Mishima’s life, but Schrader seems to create a plausible “explanation” of Mishima’s final act—which wasn’t an easy feat.
I know Raging Bull is often mentioned as the best film of the 80s, but I think Mishima could compete against it.
double post
Best of the 80’s HAVE to include:
The Sacrifice
Nostalghia
Fanny och Alexander
Once Upon a Time in America (Leone’s best imo)
Wings of Desire
The Decalogue
Brazil (Gilliam’s best by everyone’s opinion)
Blade Runner
Do the Right Thing
Das Boot
Crimes and Misdemeanors (Allen’s best imo)
Raging Bull
Ran
The Shining
After Hours
House of Games
Atlantic City
Au revoir, Les Enfants
Back to the Future
The Big Red One
Cat People
The Color Purple
Fitzcarraldo
Full Metal Jacket
Lethal Weapon
Married to the Mob
Moonstruck
Platoon
The Postman Always Rings Twice
Predator
Purple Rain
Scarface
The Thing
The Verdict
The Terminator
Roxanne
That’s all I can think from what I’ve seen and remembered. Not all great but they capture the eighties so accurately and are essential viewing. (For the 80’s I mean)
Lots of movies, no mention of the all-around best film of the 1980s – BEVERLY HILLS COP. It had action, it had romance (and it was Eddie Murphy and a white girl, it was progressive for it’s time), it had Balki from Perfect Strangers offering drinks with a “lymon twist” . . . there was nothing bad about this movie.
“I AIN’T FALLIN FOR NO BANANA IN MY TAILPIPE!”
Definitely THE SHINING and RAGING BULL. Both on my top 5 of all time.
pssshhh you guys and your “arty” films
Lethal Weapon
The Dark Crystal
The Empire Strikes Back
Ghostbusters
Reds was the best of the 80s
+ I would take Frantic even working girl or black rain
over blade runner
“pssshhh you guys and your “arty” films”
talking about a civilized comment…unless it was intended irony…
“Best film of the 80’s?”
not one but so many masterpieces and i’m quite bored to name some i’ve seen…
Paris, Texas!
Wings of Desire!
Au Revoir, les Enfants!
What comes to mind most immediately when thinking of the great films of the 80s are mostly very dark, terrifying genre pictures like BRAZIL, BLADE RUNNER, BLUE VELVET, BLOOD SIMPLE (lots of B’s), VIDEODROME, THE FLY, THE SHINING, FULL METAL JACKET, a whole host of great horror films, etc, and I think “Wow, what a awful place and time to be the 80s were, we were all convinced the world was going to end in atomic apocalypse, right around the corner”.
Then thinking a little harder and glancing at others’ pots on this thread reminds me the 80s weren’t all dystopic doom and gloom Some other favorites: Jarmusch’s STRANGER THAN PARADISE and DOWN BY LAW, Warren Beaty’s wonderful epic REDS, Kurosawa’s KAGEMUSHA and RAN, AMADEUS, FANNY AND ALEXANDER, and of course childhood favorites that I still love like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, TIME BANDITS, CLASH OF THE TITANS, etc….
So far I’ve only seen four films from the ‘80s I would happily call masterpieces (though I’ve seen very little);
1. Paris, Texas
2. Wings of Desire
3. Blade Runner
4. My Neighbour Totoro
There are many great films from the 80s. Here’s a sample…
The Age of the Earth (Glauber Rocha, 1980)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (Fassbinder, 1980)
In Search of Famine (Mrinal Sen, 1980)
Raging Bull (Scorsese, 1980)
Elephant Man (Lynch, 1980)
Mandala (Im Kwon-taek, 1981)
HImala (Ishmael Bernal, 1982)
Yol (Yilmaz Guney, 1982)
Boys from Fengkuei (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1983)
Sans Soleil (Chris Marker, 1983)
Okay, I quit…but you get the point.
Amadeus was one of my favourite films of the 80s.
“Okay, I quit…but you get the point.”
Oh, I wasn’t trying to say the ‘80s were bad! I just haven’t seen very much yet is all.
I don’t agree with all the titles that have posted here, but I must admit that the 1980s was far richer in good, even great, films than I’d been giving it credit for.
@ William, oh, I wasn’t even necessarily rebutting your post… :)
@ Harry, yeah, the 80s get a bad rap for some reason. I think one of the main reasons for it is that the decade did indeed mark a precipitous decline in quality for Hollywood/American films.
It has that reputation, Blue K, & it is a decade in which I severely curtailed going to the movies but I look at some of the titles just on this page: REDS, RAGING BULL, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, BRAZIL, probably Woody Allen’s best decade, TIME BANDITS, EVIL DEAD 1 & 2, AMADEUS, BLOOD SIMPLE, THE PRINCESS BRIDE, TRON (yes), THE LOST BOYS, HEATHERS, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, ATLANTIC CITY …. yes, some of these are popcorn flicks, but do they speak toward a decline in quality for Hollywood films … ?
but do they speak toward a decline in quality for Hollywood films … ?"
not really because to be honest, i’d rather take Time Bandits than some silly Spider-Mans….
still, Blue sideways refers to the one-dimensional 80’s point of view where most of these films dominated the world spectrum and left little to zero space for many masterpieces around Senegal, Netherlands, Brazil, Philippines, Korea (particularly pre-85) and even Greece, without the need to refer to the usual suspects, even Germany had periods of golden gems thanks to Von Trotta and Wenders as primary examples.
for one to think that these titles above are the ONLY 80’s examples would be a grave mistake to do…
1. Blood Simple
2. My Neighbor Totoro
Scorsese’s After Hours
Eggman
Raging Bull Once Upon A Time in America Paris, Texas The NeverEnding Story The Shining Brazil This Is Spinal Tap Kagemusha E.T. The Extraterrestrial Mad Max 2 The Terminator Aliens Das Boot Time Bandits Evil Dead ll: Dead By Dawn Die Hard Airplane! The Evil Dead Wings of Desire The King of Comedy Kagemusha Amadeus A Nightmare on Elm Street La Bamba Big Blade Runner Reds RoboCop Sex, Lies and Videotape