What are your favorite 80's movies?

Simone411

To Boldly Explore Figure Skating Around The World
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19,216
Adding The Shining by Stephen King because I LOVE Jack Nicholson!
Beetlejuice
Full Metal Jacket
The remake of The Thing
Labyrinth
National Lampoon's Vacation. Just have to add the song, Holiday Road by Lindsay Buckingham!
 
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manhn

Well-Known Member
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14,770
A Room With a View
Children of a Lesser God
Terms of Endearment
Moonstruck
Fatal Attraction
Broadcast News
Amadeus
The Accidental Tourist
Witness
Platoon
Ordinary People
The Color Purple
Hannah and Her Sisters

"Fun" Flicks

Breakfast Club
Adventures in Babysitting
Some Kind of Wonderful
Clue
The Untouchables
Mystic Pizza
About Last Night...
Baby Boom
Steel Magnolias
Karate Kid
Say Anything
When Harry Met Sally
The Empire Strikes Back
 

Susan1

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Messages
12,006
Fatal Attraction
Saw that with boyfriend who is now ex-husband too!
[
About Last Night...
Thank you! That was very popular with a bunch of us. My friend, Shauna, saw it with her sister, then asked me if I wanted to go see it, so we did. Then I got my boyfriend to see it at the $1 theater.
QUOTE="manhn, post: 5607368, member: 495"]
Steel Magnolias
[/QUOTE]
If I'm flipping channels, I'll stop and watch however much of that is left. I can recite all the dialogue. Favorite line - "You know I love you more than my luggage".

And Field of Dreams. I just looked - that was 1989 too. Too many movies to make that 2 hour show on CNN.

p.s. I mentioned first date with ex was Tootsie. The last movie we saw in a theater was Ghost - 1990 - after we were married. Then there were videos in every store everywhere, so it was easier and cheaper to do that! :) One I remember renting was A Fish Called Wanda mentioned earlier.
 

snoopy

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Messages
12,274
Out of Africa is one of my favorite movies (I don't care peeps). Love the soundtrack too. In the same vein, Somewhere in Time, which just makes it in at 1980. War Games, another favorite.

I checked ET was 1982 - not one of my favs but surprised it hasn't shown up on anyone's list yet.
 

Josh78

Well-Known Member
Messages
627
Serious:

The Color Purple (absolutely my favorite film of all-time -- Whoopi and Oprah both deserved Oscars, and you can fight me on that one)
Steel Magnolias (Sally Field DESERVED to at least get nominated, and even to this DAY it BURNS me that she didn't)
Working Girl (This was a great ensemble film that really never gets it due because Melanie was never considered a great actress)
Terms of Endearment
Moonstruck
Field of Dreams
Out of Africa
The Karate Kid
Back to the Future
The Empire Strikes Back
Somewhere in Time
RED SONJA (I can't believe no one has mentioned this yet?? Ahnold and Brigitte in their prime??? COME ON!)
Maurice (an LGBT classic with a young Hugh Grant)

Comedy:
Adventures in Babysitting (Can't tell you HOW many times as a kid I secretly did the Elisabeth Shue dance at the beginning of the movie lol)
Clue (Absolute CLASSIC that STILL gets me laughing)
Beetlejuice (totally danced to the "Shake Shake Shake Senora" ending too many times)
National Lampoon's Vacation
The Breakfast Club
Sixteen Candles
The Goonies (I wanted to be those kids SO BAD and go on that adventure -- except for the being chased by a criminal gang part)
 

AngieNikodinovLove

Frangi & Piazza & Paul & Hektor & Theo. Oh My! 😝
Messages
12,675
Serious:

The Color Purple (absolutely my favorite film of all-time -- Whoopi and Oprah both deserved Oscars, and you can fight me on that one)
Steel Magnolias (Sally Field DESERVED to at least get nominated, and even to this DAY it BURNS me that she didn't)
Working Girl (This was a great ensemble film that really never gets it due because Melanie was never considered a great actress)
Terms of Endearment
Moonstruck
Field of Dreams
Out of Africa
The Karate Kid
Back to the Future
The Empire Strikes Back
Somewhere in Time
RED SONJA (I can't believe no one has mentioned this yet?? Ahnold and Brigitte in their prime??? COME ON!)
Maurice (an LGBT classic with a young Hugh Grant)

Comedy:
Adventures in Babysitting (Can't tell you HOW many times as a kid I secretly did the Elisabeth Shue dance at the beginning of the movie lol)
Clue (Absolute CLASSIC that STILL gets me laughing)
Beetlejuice (totally danced to the "Shake Shake Shake Senora" ending too many times)
National Lampoon's Vacation
The Breakfast Club
Sixteen Candles
The Goonies (I wanted to be those kids SO BAD and go on that adventure -- except for the being chased by a criminal gang part)

SO many good ones y'all are mentioning that I forgot.. Karate Kid, Somewhere In Time.....

Did anyone like Silkwood?

and here's another gem.. and I recently met Drew Barrymore... FIRESTARTER...... Heather Locklear was her Mom in this.

And of course VACATION! Christmas Vacation too.

Regarding The Goonies.. Uggg.. It was Josh Brolin in this and Zach Galligan in Gremlins that confirmed to me that I was gonna grow up "different."

LOLLLLLL
 

moebius

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Messages
4,962
Fast Times At Ridgemont High...

I thought St. Elmo's Fire, Top Gun, all the Star Wars sequels, and Little Shop of Horrors were boring.

Ferris Bueller was fun to watch.
 

bardtoob

Well-Known Member
Messages
14,559
National Lampoons European Vacation

Update:

Real Genius
War Games
Lost Boys
All the Right Moves
Back to School
Stand By Me
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Valley Girl
Some Kind of Wonderful
Vision Quest
White Water Summer
Night of the Comet
Mischief
Friday the 13th . . . Kevin Bacon was :grope: until died like 5 minutes into the movie.
Caddyshack
The Natural
Back to the Beach
 
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PRlady

Cowardly admin
Staff member
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45,798
Silkwood and Broadcast News were great. Hannah and Her Sisters suffers from retroactive distaste for all things Woody. St Elmo’s Fire and Demi Moore in it are underrated. And wasn’t Fatal Attraction the 90s?
 

clairecloutier

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14,559
Silkwood, to me, is one of the scariest movies I've seen. It left a strong impression.

Other 80s favorites that I'm not sure have been mentioned yet: The Right Stuff, The Untouchables, Country, Coal Miner's Daughter, Sweet Dreams, Dangerous Liaisons, The River, and, more in the "guilty pleasure" territory :D , Legal Eagles, Black Widow, Tequila Sunrise.

One thing I really notice, with 80s movies, as I rewatch them today, is the often quite blatant sexism, as Molly Ringwald notes in her article. She is so spot on about how the female characters are portrayed in 16 Candles, etc. It's interesting how much things have changed. Like in the early scenes of Working Girl, one of my 80s faves, Melanie Griffith publicly exposes her leering boss as the pimp he is. Within the context of the movie, this is presented as a radical, irrational act and career-limiting move. i suppose it still would be--but people would be a lot less surprised by it today.
 

AngieNikodinovLove

Frangi & Piazza & Paul & Hektor & Theo. Oh My! 😝
Messages
12,675
Other 80s favorites that I'm not sure have been mentioned yet: The Right Stuff, The Untouchables, Country, Coal Miner's Daughter, Sweet Dreams, Dangerous Liaisons, The River, and, more in the "guilty pleasure" territory :D , Legal Eagles, Black Widow, Tequila Sunrise.

For some reason "Hannah And Her Sisters" just popped in my mind.

Legal Eagles??? Whoaa, I woulda never remembered that one....

@PRlady I just scrolled up and saw you too mentioned Hannah!!! Fatal Attraction qualifies... that was '87.
 

Vash01

Fan of Yuzuru, T&M, P&C
Messages
55,383
Silkwood, to me, is one of the scariest movies I've seen. It left a strong impression.

Other 80s favorites that I'm not sure have been mentioned yet: The Right Stuff, The Untouchables, Country, Coal Miner's Daughter, Sweet Dreams, Dangerous Liaisons, The River, and, more in the "guilty pleasure" territory :D , Legal Eagles, Black Widow, Tequila Sunrise.

One thing I really notice, with 80s movies, as I rewatch them today, is the often quite blatant sexism, as Molly Ringwald notes in her article. She is so spot on about how the female characters are portrayed in 16 Candles, etc. It's interesting how much things have changed. Like in the early scenes of Working Girl, one of my 80s faves, Melanie Griffith publicly exposes her leering boss as the pimp he is. Within the context of the movie, this is presented as a radical, irrational act and career-limiting move. i suppose it still would be--but people would be a lot less surprised by it today.

I have not seen any of these movies, except Dangerous Liaisons. I didn’t watch as many movies back then, probably because I was busy in Graduate School. Now it’s easier to see movies on dvd, and I have more time.
 

Cachoo

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Messages
10,751
Local Hero
Some Girls (the one with Jennifer Connelly)
When Harry Met Sally
Do The Right Thing
Hannah and her Sisters
Moonstruck
Wings of Desire
Reds
This is Spinal Tap
An American Werewolf in London
Real Genius
The Outsiders
The Right Stuff
St Elmos Fire
Sixteen Candles
About Last Night
Raiders of the Lost Ark
ET
Top Gun
Bull Durham
Big
 

Vagabond

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25,385
It's interesting how much things have changed. Like in the early scenes of Working Girl, one of my 80s faves, Melanie Griffith publicly exposes her leering boss as the pimp he is. Within the context of the movie, this is presented as a radical, irrational act and career-limiting move. i suppose it still would be--but people would be a lot less surprised by it today.
Would people really be less surprised if it happened in their own workplace, not in something they read or in a movie? :unsure:
 

gk_891

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Messages
4,261
Silkwood, to me, is one of the scariest movies I've seen. It left a strong impression.

Other 80s favorites that I'm not sure have been mentioned yet: The Right Stuff, The Untouchables, Country, Coal Miner's Daughter, Sweet Dreams, Dangerous Liaisons, The River, and, more in the "guilty pleasure" territory , Legal Eagles, Black Widow, Tequila Sunrise.

One thing I really notice, with 80s movies, as I rewatch them today, is the often quite blatant sexism, as Molly Ringwald notes in her article. She is so spot on about how the female characters are portrayed in 16 Candles, etc. It's interesting how much things have changed. Like in the early scenes of Working Girl, one of my 80s faves, Melanie Griffith publicly exposes her leering boss as the pimp he is. Within the context of the movie, this is presented as a radical, irrational act and career-limiting move. i suppose it still would be--but people would be a lot less surprised by it today.

I guess movies like Sixteen Candles were a product of their time period. I remember watching it about 5-6 years ago (as I had never watched it back in the 80s) and I remember being appalled at not only the sexism but also the Asian jokes (that one Asian character was just awful). I also recall at least one Black joke as well.

But I do recall reading one interview with the actor who played that Asian character and I think he said something along the lines of how his character and most of the other characters were supposed to be offensive stereotypes and how the movie was poking fun at them. I don't really remember much of the movie itself to agree or disagree with that though.
 

gk_891

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4,261
One movie I thought was underrated was Valmont. It came out a year after Dangerous Liasons but is the same story (IIRC, Forman based his script on the novel while Frears based his movie on the play). I honestly liked Valmont a lot better.
 

clairecloutier

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14,559
I guess movies like Sixteen Candles were a product of their time period. I remember watching it about 5-6 years ago (as I had never watched it back in the 80s) and I remember being appalled at not only the sexism but also the Asian jokes (that one Asian character was just awful). I also recall at least one Black joke as well.

But I do recall reading one interview with the actor who played that Asian character and I think he said something along the lines of how his character and most of the other characters were supposed to be offensive stereotypes and how the movie was poking fun at them. I don't really remember much of the movie itself to agree or disagree with that though.


Yeah, Sixteen Candles is definitely a product of its time period, no question. When I was a teenager, it was one of my favorite movies. Even at that time, I was turned off by the Ling Duck Dong storyline, and I felt like the movie was unfair and uncool for making so much fun at the expense of him and his tall, overweight, retainer-wearing girlfriend. I never liked that part of the film. But I loved Samantha's ordinary-girlness, her fears about her own seeming invisibility in her world, and her crush on the seemingly unattainable, dreamboaty Jake. Also loved Samantha's insta-friendship with the geek/burnout character of Anthony Michael Hall--it's totally one of those things that happens in high school. Even the depiction of popular-girl Caroline felt real--she was so cool and pretty, even Samantha was half in love with her. I rewatched the movie many times as a teenager.

But now, when I see it as an adult, I can't help but be appalled at how the boys in the story treat Caroline. It pretty much ruins Jake as a character--with him becoming a willing accomplice to date rape.
 

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