The best 1980s movies include a strong mix of teenage coming-of-age stories, buddy cop films, and a true renaissance for horror and science fiction. While often called the decade of excess, there were over-the-top blockbusters with loud soundtracks, bright colors, and skyrocketing budgets, but it was much more than that. A lot of heart, creativity, and inventive filmmaking took place in that decade, and there are so many films that remain iconic 40 years later.
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The 1980s saw the rise of slasher movies and the beloved and iconic high school films of John Hughes. It also saw names like John Carpenter, Terry Gilliam, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, and Martin Scorsese really come into their own as some of the world’s best directors. It also marked the rise of names like Tom Cruise, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kurt Russell, Sigourney Weaver, Bruce Willis, Glenn Close, and Harrison Ford, and many films from this decade have been entered into the National Film Registry.
10 The Breakfast Club (1985)
Directed By John Hughes
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8/10 The Breakfast Club RComedyDrama
After receiving detention, a group of five high-school students bonds as they realize they have quite a bit in common despite being from different friend groups. Despite being over 35 years old, The Breakfast Club still stands as one of the quintessential movies of the ‘80s and one of director John Hughes standout films.
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*Availability in US Director John Hughes Release Date February 15, 1985 Distributor(s) Universal Pictures Cast Molly Ringwald , Ally Sheedy , Anthony Michael Hall , Judd Nelson , Emilio Estevez Runtime 97 minutes
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In the 1980s, John Hughes came into his own and released several films that remain iconic coming-of-age movies decades later. These include Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. However, the movie that stands above them all is his masterpiece, The Breakfast Club. The film has everything in place that teen comedy fans recognize as stereotype clichés, but that was the point of this film – to break down these stereotypes.
Related The Breakfast Club’s Most Important Scene Was Completely Ad-Libbed
The Breakfast Club’s confession scene is one of the movie’s most pivotal and revealing, and it was also surprisingly ad-libbed by the film’s cast.
The Breakfast Club has a jock, popular girl, outcast, nerd, and loner all sent to a Saturday morning detention where they realize they aren’t all that different and learn that all of them have problems that they have to deal with as teenagers in the 80s. The film was a monster hit and made stars out of the Brat Pack actors of the 80s. It was also added to the National Film Registry in 2016 for its cultural significance. Every teen coming-of-age movie that followed owes so much to The Breakfast Club.
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9 Back To The Future (1989)
Directed By Robert Zemeckis
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20 9/10 Back to the Future PGAdventureComedyFamilySci-Fi
Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown. In 1955, he meets his parents when they were his age, and must step in to make sure they wind up together before he gets back to 1985.
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*Availability in US Director Robert Zemeckis Release Date July 3, 1985 Distributor(s) Universal Pictures Cast Claudia Wells , Christopher Lloyd , James Tolkan , Thomas F. Wilson , Michael J. Fox , Wendie Jo Sperber , Crispin Glover , Marc McClure , Lea Thompson Runtime 116 minutes
Robert Zemeckis is a filmmaker who has helped bring the latest tech to movies at the same time that James Cameron started his experimental stages. However, while Cameron mostly got stuck with his tech for the Avatar franchise, Zemeckis kept pushing things in different directions. He was responsible for combining live-action and animation with Who Framed Roger Rabbit, mastered adding actors into historical situations with Forrest Gump, and was all over motion capture with The Polar Express.
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However, his 1980s movie Back to the Future remains his most beloved release. Michael J. Fox stars as Marty McFly, a teenager who ends up sent back to the past when his parents first met, and he has to find a way to fix his disruption of the timeline before he disappears from existence. The movie was a monster success, becoming a hit blockbuster, and spawned two sequels. It was also added to the National Film Registry in 2007.
8 Die Hard (1988)
Directed By John McTiernan
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10/10 Die Hard RActionThriller
During a holiday party, NYPD detective John McClane’s wife’s workplace is hijacked by German terrorists led by evil icon Hans Gruber. McClane (Bruce Willis), evades capture and fights to save hostages, including his wife, and foil Gruber’s elaborate heist initially without weapons, shoes, or a shirt.
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*Availability in US Director John McTiernan Release Date July 15, 1988 Cast Bruce Willis , Bonnie Bedelia , Reginald VelJohnson , Paul Gleason , William Atherton , Hart Bochner Runtime 132 minutes
Throughout the 1980s, the action movie genre was full of larger-than-life heroes, with names like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Dolph Lundgren leading the way. Giant muscular men, former soldiers with big guns, and martial arts experts were par for the course. However, in 1988, everything changed, and the action genre was never the same. Bruce Willis, best known for his comedy acting in the TV show Moonlighting, starred as John McClain in Die Hard.
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McClain was the “every man” who wasn’t a giant muscular hero or a master of the martial arts. Instead, he was just a regular cop forced to survive against all odds and save his estranged wife during a Christmas party hijacking. Die Hard was a huge success and remains a film that is a Christmas favorite decades after its release. It created a franchise with four sequels and was added to the National Film Registry in 2017 for its cultural significance.
7 Brazil (1985)
Directed By Terry Gilliam
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Brazil (1985) RComedySci-Fi
In a dystopian future, a low-level government employee becomes entangled in a bureaucratic nightmare after encountering the woman of his dreams. As he navigates an oppressive system marked by inefficiency and surveillance, his quest for freedom and love spirals into chaos, highlighting the absurdity of totalitarian regimes and the human desire for individuality.
Director Terry Gilliam Release Date December 18, 1985 Distributor(s) Universal Pictures Cast Jonathan Pryce , Robert De Niro , Katherine Helmond , Ian Holm , Bob Hoskins , Michael Palin , Ian Richardson , Peter Vaughan , Kim Greist Runtime 142 Minutes
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Out of all the Monty Python members, the one who ended up as the best director was Terry Gilliam. He had several great movies over his career, from Time Bandits to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, 12 Monkeys, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. However, his masterpiece might be his most bizarre and offbeat movie release. Brazil was Gilliam’s dystopian science fiction black comedy released in 1985, which was much more than its synopsis might indicate.
The movie was a box office failure but quickly became a cult classic when it hit home video and even received a Criterion release.
Jonathan Pryce stars as Sam Lowry, a bureaucrat who works a monotonous job and finds his life ruined when his air conditioner stops working and a wanted terrorist shows up to fix it. The movie was a box office failure but quickly became a cult classic when it hit home video and even received a Criterion release. The film is a satire of a government agency turning normal people into cogs in a machine, a perfect dystopian story during Reagan-era America. The Coen Brothers, Neil Marshall, and Rian Johnson call it an inspiration.
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6 The Thing (1982)
Directed By John Carpenter
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10 9.5/10 The Thing RHorror Sci-FiMystery
A team of researchers set out to study an alien spacecraft found in Antarctica, where they also discover an alien body on the site. The alien buried in ice is actually alive and has the ability to imitate human form. The group must find a way to distinguish who the real person is from The Thing and stay alive. John Carpenter’s 1982 film is a remake of 1951’s The Thing from Another World and stars Kurt Russel as the hero RJ MacReady.
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*Availability in US Director John Carpenter Release Date June 25, 1982 Distributor(s) Universal Pictures Cast T.K. Carter , David Clennon , Keith David , Kurt Russell , wilford brimley Runtime 109 minutes
John Carpenter’s The Thing is an 80s movie that was a massive box office failure that later became one of the best-selling home video releases of its era, gaining a new life. Kurt Russell stars as R.J. MacReady, a pilot stationed at a research facility in Antarctica. One day, an alien being invades the facility, and it can replicate anyone that it kills, so soon, no one knows who they can trust and who they can’t as they start to die one by one at the hands of this murderous being.
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While the film was a failure when released, it has since been named one of the best horror movies of all time and one of the top sci-fi horror flicks ever made. One reason for the film’s failure was that fans loved optimistic sci-fi like E.T., and this was a darker, more nihilistic release. That played into its reassessment, which really started in the 1990s when it began to show up on best-of lists and spawned video games, comics, and film sequels.
5 Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)
Directed By Steven Spielberg
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9.3/10 Raiders of the Lost Ark PGAdventureAction
The most popular and well-received film in the Indiana Jones movie franchise, Raiders of the Lost Ark follows Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones in a race against Nazi forces to recover the famed Ark of the Covenant. Aided by his former lover, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Indy must work to keep the Nazis, led by Dr. Rene Belloq, from obtaining the Ark and thus becoming recipients of its power. The film is widely regarded as one of the all-time greatest movies ever made.
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*Availability in US Director Steven Spielberg Release Date June 12, 1981 Distributor(s) Paramount Pictures Cast Harrison Ford , Karen Allen , Alfred Molina , Paul Freeman , Ronald Lacey , John Rhys-Davies , Denholm Elliott Runtime 115 Minutes
Steven Spielberg became a star in the 1970s thanks to Jaws, but he really came into his own in the 1980s, when he released both blockbusters (E.T.) and dramas (The Color Purple). The film that really showed the director at his best was the 1981 action-adventure movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. Harrison Ford stars as a treasure-hunting, Nazi-fighting adventurer in Spielberg’s love letter to classic adventure movies of the past. It was a monster success.
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Related Where The Raiders of the Lost Ark Cast Are Now
The first Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark boasted a stellar cast that continued to be as iconic in the decades that followed the film.
The first film had Indiana Jones fighting the Nazis to stop them from recovering the Ark of the Covenant and using its powers to win World War II. The film made $389 million on a $20 million budget (via Box Office Mojo) and went on to win five Academy Awards with four other nominations (including Best Picture and Best Director). It spawned a sequel and a spinoff TV prequel and is often listed as one of the best adventure movies in film history. It was added to the National FIlm Registry in 1999.
4 Blade Runner (1982)
Directed By Ridley Scott
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7.5/10 Blade Runner RDramaSci-FiThriller
The original Blade Runner is a sci-fi neo-noir film set in 2019 in a dystopian cyber-punk society. Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard as a Blade Runner for the LAPD, tasked with hunting rogue replicants, genetically engineered humans designed to tackle tasks that human beings cannot. When four replicants go rogue and begin killing humans, Deckard is forced out of retirement to hunt them down and stop them – but the truth isn’t as simple as it seems. Deckard will have to reckon with the philosophical dilemma of what makes someone human.
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*Availability in US Director Ridley Scott Release Date June 25, 1982 Distributor(s) Warner Bros. Pictures Cast Harrison Ford , Rutger Hauer , Sean Young , Edward James Olmos , M. Emmet Walsh , Daryl Hannah , William Sanderson , Joe Turkel Runtime 117 minutes
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Ridley Scott has made some true masterpieces over his career, including the first Alien movie in the 1970s and Gladiator in 2000. However, the one film that science fiction fans consider his greatest work was the 1982 release, Blade Runner. The dystopian science fiction film stars Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a law enforcement official tasked with hunting down advanced “Replicants,” which were human-created androids meant for manual labor, but ones who escaped and tried to live real lives.
Several sci-fi filmmakers reference it as one of their biggest influences to this day, and it was selected for the National Film Registry in 1993.
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Based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the film was not a massive hit upon its release but has since become known as one of the seminal and most important science-function movies of all time. The story asks what it means to be alive and “human,” and the best thing is that it doesn’t give a straight answer. Several sci-fi filmmakers reference it as one of their biggest influences to this day, and it was selected for the National Film Registry in 1993.
3 Do The Right Thing (1989)
Directed By Spike Lee
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9/10 Do the Right Thing RDramaDocumentary
Do the Right Thing is Spike Lee’s Oscar-nominated film starring himself, Giancarlo Esposito, Bull Nunn, John Turturro, and Ossie Davis. The comedy drama revolves around Spike Lee’s young character Mookie, who is stuck in Brooklyn on the hottest day of summer, where bigotry and hate build before exploding into violence.
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*Availability in US Director Spike Lee Release Date June 14, 1989 Distributor(s) Universal Pictures Cast Danny Aiello , Ossie Davis , Ruby Dee , Richard Edson , Giancarlo Esposito , John Turturro , Spike Lee Runtime 120 minutes
While the 1990s was best known for the rise of independent cinema, it actually started at the end of the 1980s with two seminal independent films that kickstarted the movement. These were both released in 1989 with Steven Soderbergh’s Sex, Lies and Videotape and Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. Both revolutionized independent filmmaking and helped later names like Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez, and Richard Linklater become top directors in the indie scene.
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Related Do The Right Thing Cast & Character Guide
The success of Spike Lee’s 1989 film Do The Right Thing was thanks in part to its incredible ensemble cast – here’s a guide to the key characters.
However, of the two movies, it is Do the Right Thing that remains the most important and essential of the two films. The story follows the residents of a Brooklyn neighborhood and sees racial tensions boil over between the African American residents and the Italian American owners of the local pizzeria. The film received two Oscar nominations (Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor) and was selected by the Library of Congress for the National Film Registry in 1999.
2 The Last Emperor (1987)
Directed By Bernardo Bertolucci
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One of the best 80s movies was Bernardo Bertolucci’s biographical epic about Puyi, the final Emperor of China. It was the first Western movie the Chinese government allowed to be shot inside the Forbidden City in Beijing. The film follows the life of Puyi from his days as an infant when he was named the Emperor of China, to his imprisonment and political rehabilitation by the Chinese Communist Party. It was a commercial and critical success and remains a highly respected film.
It also won three BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globes, and even a Grammy Award for its soundtrack.
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The Last Emperor won every Oscar it was nominated for, which included Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also won three BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globes, and even a Grammy Award for its soundtrack. Critics have the film Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with an 86% rating, while audiences have it even higher at 88%. Roger Ebert wrote the film “never makes the mistake of having only one thing to say about the life of a man who embodied all of the contradictions and paradoxes of 20th century China.”
1 Raging Bull (1980)
Directed By Martin Scorsese
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9.5/10 Raging Bull RBiographySportDrama
Directed by Martin Scorsese, Raging Bull is a 1980 sports drama based on the rise and fall of real-life boxer Jake LaMotta as he strives for success while dealing with his inner demons and his violent temper. Robert De Niro stars as the middleweight champion, with Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty, and Nicholas Colasanto in supporting roles.
Director Martin Scorsese Release Date December 19, 1980 Distributor(s) United Artists Cast Robert De Niro , Theresa Saldana , Nicholas Colasanto , Joe Pesci , Cathy Moriarty Runtime 129 minutes
A film that many consider the best movie not to win a Best Picture Oscar, Raging Bull saw Martin Scorsese tell the story of a volatile boxing champion named Jake LaMotta. The film shows his rise and fall in both the world of boxing and his personal life, and Robert De Niro turned in a career-defining performance as LaMatta. Shot in black and white and showing Jake at the height of his prowess and the depths of his post-boxing career, Scorsese told a deep story about a man who had everything and threw it all away.
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Despite that,
Raging Bull
stood the test of time, ranked as one of the best films ever made and added to the National Film Registry in 1990
Raging Bull received eight Oscar nominations but only won two. Robert De Niro won Best Actor, and the film won for Best Editing. However, it lost out to Ordinary People and its director, Robert Redford, for the top two prizes. Despite that, Raging Bull stood the test of time, ranked as one of the best films ever made and added to the National Film Registry in 1990, one of the titles selected in the first year the Library of Congress began preserving films