Which were the best films of the 1980s? Here are my selections! The 1980s is a decade that cinema critics deign to remember as a time when the big budget studios were wrestling control back from the ‘70s creative mavericks in favour of producing family fare and teen comedies. That is certainly true to an extent, but there were plenty of quality films that should not be neglected. So which were the best films of the decade? I make no apologies for my choices or omissions (none of the “Police Academy” series makes the list!), as these are my favourites, but I hope you get some inspiration to add to your own film collections when you’re shopping for DVDs!
Here are my favourite movies for each year of the 1980s:
1989
For my money, 1989 is one of the most plentiful years for cinema. “Driving Miss Daisy” is a fine film, it won Best Picture at the Oscars, and along with “My Left Foot” took much of the critical acclaim. Neither make my list for the year! My sentimental favourite is “Dead Poets Society”, although American Civil War epic “Glory” and baseball tale “Field of Dreams” follow close behind. Also pay attention to two very fine movies due to the quality acting. The Bridges brothers and Michelle Pfeiffer make “The Fabulous Baker Boys” an excellent movie, and the shenanigans of Ron Silver and his various women in “Enemies, A Love Story” are highly amusing.
1) DEAD POETS SOCIETY
(dir: Peter Weir, stars: Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke)
2) GLORY
(dir: Edward Zwick, stars: Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington)
3) FIELD OF DREAMS
(dir: Phil Alden Robinson, stars: Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones)
4) THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS
(dir: Steve Kloves, stars: Jeff Bridges, Michelle Pfeiffer)
5) ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY
(dir: Paul Mazursky, stars: Ron Silver, Anjelica Huston)
6) BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY
(dir: Oliver Stone, stars: Tom Cruise, Raymond J. Barry)
7) DO THE RIGHT THING
(dir: Spike Lee, stars: Danny Aiello, John Turturro)
8) CINEMA PARADISO
(dir: Giuseppe Tornatore, stars: Philippe Noiret, Salvatore Cascio)
9) CAMILLE CLAUDEL
(dir: Bruno Nuytten, stars: Isabella Adjani, Gerard Depardieu)
10) DEAD CALM
(dir: Phillip Noyce, stars: Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill)
1988
John Sayles is one of the great American filmmakers for his choice of subject matter. Perhaps not very well-known in the UK, “Eight Men Out” recounts the baseball scandal of 1919 in which eight members of the World Series Chicago White Sox team were thrown out of the sport for allegedly taking money to lose the Championship, is part of American sporting lore. Great drama, a fine ensemble cast, and it fits nicely in to the canon of ‘80s baseball cinema, such as Costner’s “Bull Durham” in fourth place this year. “Rain Man” took the Best Picture, but for a funny and touching road movie of a different kind, see Robert De Niro trying to take prisoner Charles Grodin across country in “Midnight Run”!
1) EIGHT MEN OUT
(dir: John Sayles, stars: John Cusack, David Strathairn)
2) MIDNIGHT RUN
(dir: Martin Brest, stars: Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin)
3) RAIN MAN
(dir: Barry Levinson, stars: Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise)
4) BULL DURHAM
(dir: Ron Shelton, stars: Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon)
5) BIG
(dir: Penny Marshall, stars: Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Perkins)
6) RUNNING ON EMPTY
(dir: Sidney Lumet, stars: River Phoenix, Judd Hirsch)
7) THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING
(dir: Philip Kaufman, stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche)
8) DANGEROUS LIAISONS
(dir: Stephen Frears, stars: John Malkovich, Glenn Close)
9) STAND AND DELIVER
(dir: Ramon Menendez, stars: Edward James Olmos, Carmen Argenziano)
10) A FISH CALLED WANDA
(dir: Charles Crichton, stars: John Cleese, Kevin Kline)
1987
James L. Brooks won 3 Oscars for writing, directing and producing “Terms of Endearment” in 1983. He may now be celebrated for creating “The Simpsons” cartoon over the past two decades, but I think “Broadcast News” is a very entertaining film about the television news business. Holly Hunter is angry at herself for falling for the “dumb blonde” new anchor, William Hurt, while her wise-cracking colleague Albert Brooks is desperately in love with her. “Matewan” features the excellent Chris Cooper as a labour union man, taking on the might of the mining industry, at the risk of violence and unemployment in an early 20th century mountain town. Michael Douglas won his Oscar for the summation of ‘80s “greed is good” corporate culture as the take-no-prisoners Gordon Gecko, mentoring Charlie Sheen to financial gain and moral ruin in “Wall Street”. Bertolucci’s beautiful “The Last Emperor” won Best Picture for 1987 at the Oscars, but for a lighter option, choose Woody Allen’s lovely nostalgia-ridden “Radio Days”. Special mention for Anne Ramsay (also of “The Goonies” fame) as the mother from hell in the darkly funny “Throw Momma From the Train”!
1) BROADCAST NEWS
(dir: James L. Brooks, stars: William Hurt, Holly Hunter)
2) MATEWAN
(dir: John Sayles, stars: Chris Cooper, David Strathairn)
3) WALL STREET
(dir: Oliver Stone, stars: Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen)
4) RADIO DAYS
(dir: Woody Allen, stars: Dianne Wiest, Mia Farrow)
5) THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN
(dir: Danny DeVito, stars: Billy Crystal, Danny DeVito)
6) THE LAST EMPEROR
(dir: Bernardo Bertolucci, stars: Peter O’Toole, Joan Chen)
7) WITHNAIL & I
(dir: Bruce Robinson, stars: Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann)
8) AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS
(dir: Louis Malle, stars: Gaspard Manesse, Raphael Fejto)
9) FULL METAL JACKET
(dir: Stanley Kubrick, stars: Matthew Modine, Vincent D’Onofrio)
10) HOPE AND GLORY
(dir: John Boorman, stars: Sarah Miles, Ian Bannen)
1986
Oliver Stone took all the Oscar plaudits in 1986, including Best Picture, for the first of his Vietnam trilogy (or will that be “quadrilogy” when “Pinkville” is released?!), “Platoon”. However, for my money his best work of 1986 was on “Salvador”. James Woods is superb as a journalist investigating killings and conflict in El Salvador in the early ‘80s. Also set “somewhere” in Central America, Harrison Ford is a man on a mission to find a utopian life for his family away from the United States. As with many of the great Peter Weir’s movies, the protagonist is a man living outside of his comfort zone, placed in another place or culture, while trying to make sense of his identity. Woody Allen received awards and acclaim for “Hannah and Her Sisters” with Michael Caine falling in love with his wife’s sister. Oh, and if you want to see Nick Nolte eating dog food, the very witty “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” places homeless Nolte in the charitable hands of wealthy Richard Dreyfuss and his neurotic family.
1) SALVADOR
(dir: Oliver Stone, stars: James Woods, Jim Belushi)
2) THE MOSQUITO COAST
(dir: Peter Weir, stars: Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren)
3) HANNAH AND HER SISTERS
(dir: Woody Allen, stars: Michael Caine, Barbara Hershey)
4) PLATOON
(dir: Oliver Stone, stars: Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe)
5) HOOSIERS (a.k.a. BEST SHOT)
(dir: David Anspaugh, stars: Gene Hackman, Dennis Hopper)
6) DOWN AND OUT IN BEVERLY HILLS
(dir: Paul Mazursky, stars: Richard Dreyfuss, Nick Nolte)
7) CROCODILE DUNDEE
(dir: Peter Faiman, stars: Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski)
8) BETTY BLUE
(dir: Jean-Jacques Beineix, stars: Beatrice Dalle, Jean-Hugues Anglade)
9) STAND BY ME
(dir: Rob Reiner, stars: River Phoenix, Kiefer Sutherland)
10) THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE
(dir: Denys Arcand, stars: Remy Girard, Yves Jacques)
1985
From “Chariots of Fire” and “Gandhi” through to “The Last Emperor”, Best Picture Oscars were often handed to epic films in the 1980s. “Out of Africa”, replete with soaring music and endless vistas of the African landscape, made for beautiful cinema and was a deserving winner. On a far smaller scale, my pick for 1985 is the intimate southern town romcom / dramedy / feel-good, well-written “Murphy’s Romance”, with James Garner and Sally Field as the age-gap cautious romantics. Harrison Ford and Peter Weir made the Amish community compelling viewing in “Witness”, while Michael J. Fox in “Back to the Future” has really stood the test of time in the popularity stakes. My guilty pleasure is “Cocoon”, featuring a community of pensioners given a lease of life while swimming in a pool filled with alien pods. A great cast of Hollywood oldies, and Steve Guttenberg drooling in the direction of the otherworldly Tahnee Welch!
1) MURPHY’S ROMANCE
(dir: Martin Ritt, stars: James Garner, Sally Field)
2) WITNESS
(dir: Peter Weir, stars: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis)
3) OUT OF AFRICA
(dir: Sydney Pollack, stars: Meryl Streep, Robert Redford)
4) BACK TO THE FUTURE
(dir: Robert Zemeckis, stars: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd)
5) AGNES OF GOD
(dir: Norman Jewison, stars: Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft)
6) COCOON
(dir: Ron Howard, stars: Steve Guttenberg, Don Ameche)
7) THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO
(dir: Woody Allen, stars: Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels)
8) THE OFFICIAL STORY
(dir: Luis Puenzo, stars: Norma Aleandro, Hector Alterio)
9) KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN
(dir: Hector Babenco, stars: William Hurt, Raul Julia)
10) RUNAWAY TRAIN
(dir: Andrei Konchalovsky, stars: Jon Voight, Eric Roberts)
1984
Take America’s pastime of baseball, bathe Robert Redford in golden light, tell a story about an enigmatic sportsman trying to become a success when he’s old enough to be “past his prime”, and you get a wonderful piece of cinematic Americana. “The Natural” was down the pecking order at the Oscar ceremony for 1984 behind Best Picture winner “Amadeus” and weighty pair “The Passage to India” and “The Killing Fields”, but I think it makes for a beautiful movie. Bill Murray getting “slimed”, Sigourney Weaver being “transformed”, and Rick Moranis being strange are all features of the classic popcorn film “Ghostbusters”. I don’t mind admitting I own it on video in a double pack with its sequel! I’m a broad-minded film fan, equally at home with Salieri’s rivalry with Mozart in “Amadeus”, as I am with Tom Hanks chasing Daryl Hannah in her “Splash” mermaid outfit!
1) THE NATURAL
(dir: Barry Levinson, stars: Robert Redford, Glenn Close)
2) THE KILLING FIELDS
(dir: Roland Joffe, stars: Sam Waterston, Dr. Haing S. Ngor)
3) AMADEUS
(dir: Milos Forman, stars: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce)
4) PLACES IN THE HEART
(dir: Robert Benton, stars: Sally Field, John Malkovich)
5) GHOSTBUSTERS
(dir: Ivan Reitman, stars: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd)
6) SPLASH
(dir: Ron Howard, stars: Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah)
7) BROADWAY DANNY ROSE
(dir: Woody Allen, stars: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow)
8) A SOLDIER’S STORY
(dir: Norman Jewison, stars: Howard E. Rollins, Adolph Caesar)
9) ROMANCING THE STONE
(dir: Robert Zemeckis, stars: Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner)
10) THE RIVER
(dir: Mark Rydell, stars: Mel Gibson, Sissy Spacek)
1983
“Theatrical” films catch my eye for 1983’s collection. Playwright Harold Pinter wrote the magnificent “Betrayal” where Ben Kingsley is the cuckolded friend of Jeremy Irons, who secretly knows his “pal” is having an affair with his wife. By contrast, the relationship in “The Dresser” is between theatrical powerhouse Albert Finney, onstage as King Lear during the Second World War, and his backstage assistant, Tom Courtenay. “Terms of Endearment” won Best Picture, and was recognised for its ensemble of great performances. “The Big Chill” features a number of Hollywood icons, and “The Right Stuff” is a fascinating look at the rise of America as a country demanding its top pilots handle spaceships instead of airplanes.
1) BETRAYAL
(dir: David Hugh Jones, stars: Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley)
2) THE DRESSER
(dir: Peter Yates, stars: Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay)
3) THE BIG CHILL
(dir: Lawrence Kasdan, stars: Kevin Kline, Glenn Close)
4) THE RIGHT STUFF
(dir: Philip Kaufman, stars: Sam Shepard, Ed Harris)
5) REUBEN, REUBEN
(dir: Robert Ellis Miller, stars: Tom Conti, Kelly McGillis)
6) TERMS OF ENDEARMENT
(dir: James L. Brooks, stars: Debra Winger, Shirley MacLaine)
7) ZELIG
(dir: Woody Allen, stars: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow)
8) TRADING PLACES
(dir: John Landis, stars: Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd)
9) THE RETURN OF MARTIN GUERRE
(dir: Daniel Vigne, stars: Gerard Depardieu, Nathalie Baye)
10) THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY
(dir: Peter Weir, stars: Mel Gibson, Linda Hunt)
1982
“The World According to Garp” may seem a surprising choice as my “best” of the year, particularly as it’s a slightly odd tale of a mother (Glenn Close) and son (Robin Williams) whose writing aspirations lead to differing results. John Lithgow steals the show while showing of his feminine wiles! Dressing in women’s clothes was also common to Dustin Hoffman’s hilarious performance in “Tootsie”, as a TV actor fed up with being rejected for parts as a man, who decides that being a woman might be a more rewarding career path. “Gandhi” took the top Oscar honours; “E.T.” deserves to be in every cinema fan’s collection, unless you’re completely heartless; and “Diner” was the first in a number of beautiful films that director Barry Levinson set in the city of Baltimore. Moral of the story: never sit next to Mickey Rourke in a cinema if he happens to be holding a box of popcorn!
1) THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP
(dir: George Roy Hill, stars: Robin Williams, Glenn Close)
2) DINER
(dir: Barry Levinson, stars: Mickey Rourke, Steve Guttenberg)
3) E.T.
(dir: Steven Spielberg, stars: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore)
4) TOOTSIE
(dir: Sydney Pollack, stars: Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange)
5) GANDHI
(dir: Richard Attenborough, stars: Ben Kingsley, Candice Bergen)
6) THE VERDICT
(dir: Sidney Lumet, stars: Paul Newman, Charlotte Rampling)
7) MISSING
(dir: Constantin Costa-Gavras, stars: Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek)
8) AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN
(dir: Taylor Hackford, stars: Richard Gere, Debra Winger)
9) SOPHIE’S CHOICE
(dir: Alan J. Pakula, stars: Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline)
10) ROCKY III
(dir: Sylvester Stallone, stars: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire)
1981
For me 1981 is a year of brilliant performances. Legends Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda make for great married sparring partners in “On Golden Pond” as they contemplate the aging process, and patching up their relationship with daughter Jane Fonda. Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon make for a touching pair in “Atlantic City”, while the entire ensemble of Oscar Best Picture winner “Chariots of Fire” are terrific. For atmosphere you have to track down either the Director’s cut German language version of Wolfgang Petersen’s “Das Boot” about a World War Two German U-boat, or the amazing full length series that I first saw many years ago on British television. It must have been at least six one-hour parts long, but extremely tense, claustrophobic, and so “authentic” in feel that you could practically smell the body odour and fear coming from the screen. However, push all those to one side and marvel at the amazing Klaus Maria Brandauer in Istvan Szabo’s “Mephisto”! Brandauer is probably best known in English-speaking cinema for playing Meryl Streep’s husband in “Out of Africa” (1985), but in the first of Szabo’s “trilogy” (that later included “Hanussen” and “Colonel Redl”), Brandauer is an actor in Nazi Germany who effectively sells his soul to the devil, supporting the regime, in order to further his theatrical career. Quite simply one of the most brilliant acting roles I think I’ve ever seen.
1) ATLANTIC CITY
(dir: Louis Malle, stars: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon)
2) CHARIOTS OF FIRE
(dir: Hugh Hudson, stars: Ben Cross, Ian Holm)
3) MEPHISTO
(dir: Istvan Szabo, stars: Klaus Maria Brandauer, Krystyna Janda)
4) DAS BOOT (full-length German version)
(dir: Wolfgang Petersen, stars: Jurgen Prochnow, Herbert Gronemeyer)
5) ON GOLDEN POND
(dir: Mark Rydell, stars: Henry Fonda, Katharine Hepburn)
6) GALLIPOLI
(dir: Peter Weir, stars: Mel Gibson, Mark Lee)
7) HEAVEN’S GATE
(dir: Michael Cimino, stars: Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken)
8) PRINCE OF THE CITY
(dir: Sidney Lumet, stars: Treat Williams, Jerry Orbach)
9) ARTHUR
(dir: Steve Gordon, stars: Dudley Moore, Liza Minnelli)
10) OUTLAND
(dir: Peter Hyams, stars: Sean Connery, Peter Boyle)
1980
One of the rules of cinema criticism is that “thou must love “Raging Bull” by Martin Scorsese, featuring the superb Robert De Niro as boxer Jake La Motta”. I humbly accept that I adhere to this mantra, however, I push two movies ahead of the black and white masterpiece as my favourites of 1980. Robert Duvall is excellent as a domineering military man who doesn’t know how to love his family without barking out orders in “The Great Santini”, and Peter O’Toole is one part mad one part hilarious as a film director pushing his cast and crew to the edge (and over it) in “The Stunt Man”. Robert Redford directed the year’s best Picture, “Ordinary People”, and stars in one of his lesser-known films, “Brubaker”, as a prison warden turning the system on its head. You also have to take note that after the cultural impact of “Star Wars” being released in 1977, this was the year of its first sequel, “The Empire Strikes Back” – definitely better than the original!
1) THE GREAT SANTINI
(dir: Lewis John Carlino, stars: Robert Duvall, Michael O’Keefe)
2) THE STUNT MAN
(dir: Richard Rush, stars: Peter O’Toole, Barbara Hershey)
3) RAGING BULL
(dir: Martin Scorsese, stars: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci)
4) BRUBAKER
(dir: Stuart Rosenberg, stars: Robert Redford, Yaphet Kotto)
5) ORDINARY PEOPLE
(dir: Robert Redford, stars: Donald Sutherland, Timothy Hutton)
6) THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
(dir: Irvin Kershner, stars: Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill)
7) TRIBUTE
(dir: Bob Clark, stars: Jack Lemmon, Robby Benson)
8) PRIVATE BENJAMIN
(dir: Howard Zieff, stars: Goldie Hawn, Eileen Brennan)
9) BREAKER MORANT
(dir: Bruce Beresford, stars: Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown)
10) TESS
(dir: Roman Polanski, stars: Nastassja Kinski, Peter Firth)
The 1980s offered plenty of mainstream commercial fare, but those films receiving critical acclaim were often dealing with historical, political, or even very nostalgic fare about America and its place in the world. The Vietnam War, baseball, and relationships featured prominently thematically. To pick a favourite ten movies from the decade is a challenge, but for the record, here they are:
TOP 10 MOVIES OF THE 1980s!
1) DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989)
(dir: Peter Weir, stars: Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke)
2) THE NATURAL (1984)
(dir: Barry Levinson, stars: Robert Redford, Glenn Close)
3) GLORY (1989)
(dir: Edward Zwick, stars: Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington)
4) ATLANTIC CITY
(dir: Louis Malle, stars: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon)
5) BETRAYAL (1983)
(dir: David Hugh Jones, stars: Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley)
6) FIELD OF DREAMS (1989)
(dir: Phil Alden Robinson, stars: Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones)
7) CHARIOTS OF FIRE (1981)
(dir: Hugh Hudson, stars: Ben Cross, Ian Holm)
8) SALVADOR (1986)
(dir: Oliver Stone, stars: James Woods, Jim Belushi)
9) EIGHT MEN OUT (1988)
(dir: John Sayles, stars: John Cusack, David Strathairn)
10) THE GREAT SANTINI (1980)
(dir: Lewis John Carlino, stars: Robert Duvall, Michael O’Keefe)
