Ah the 1980s. On the whole the worst time for Hollywood films. The decade where it all changed and Hollywood siloed itself into there being two sorts of films: blockbusters and artier Oscar contenders. Gone where the days where the likes of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest could become the biggest hit of the year. Instead the age of the franchise began, often with diminishing returns for each entry, many playing to the lowest common denominator. Internationally, directors continued to produce striking, landmark films – but still had their films squeezed at home by Rocky and Rambo style behemoths.
1980
 | Breaker Morant – three Australian officers go on trial for murder in the Boer War in this superb denunciation of war | Director: Bruce Beresford Cast: Edward Woodward, Bryan Brown, Jack Thompson |
 | The Elephant Man – heartbreaking version of the life of Joseph Merrick, beautifully made and also provokes tears | Director: David Lynch Cast: John Hurt, Anthony Hopkins, Anne Bancroft |
 | The Empire Strikes Back – the best ever Star Wars film, as Luke trains as a Jedi while his friends dodge capture by Darth Vader | Director: Irvin Kershner Cast: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher |
 | Flash Gordon – cult, but actually awful, campy attempt to capture some of the Star Wars magic. | Director: Mike Hodges Cast: Sam J Jones, Melody Anderson, Max von Sydow |
 | Kagemusha – a peasant acts as a double for a lord. When the lord dies he has to take his place. | Director: Akira Kurosawa Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsutomu Yamazaki |
 | The Last Metro – during the occupation, an actress hides her Jewish director husband in their theatre basement | Director: François Truffaut Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Gérard Depardieu, Heinz Bennett |
 | The Long Good Friday – a capitalist London gangster gets in over his ahead against the IRA in this brilliant Brit thriller | Director: John Mackenzie Cast: Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Derek Thompson |
 | Ordinary People – Best Picture winning exploration of grief as a family struggles to overcome the suicide of its oldest son | Director: Robert Redford Cast: Mary Taylor Moore, Donald Sutherland, Timothy Hutton |
 | Raging Bull – famous boxer Jake LaMotta can’t control his jealousy in possibly the greatest American film of the decade | Director: Martin Scorsese Cast: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty |
 | The Shining – a writer, stranded in an empty hotel full of evil spirits, loses his mind and tries to kill his family. Terrifying | Director: Stanley Kubrick Cast: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd |
1981
 | An American Werewolf in London – After being attacked by a crazed wolf, a backpacker develops a terrible new condition | Director: John Landis Cast: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne |
 | Atlantic City – a loser in a crumbling city tries to seduce a dreamer in this low-key, observant drama | Director: Louis Malle Cast: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Michel Piccoli |
 | Chariots of Fire – Best Picture winning biopic of 1924 British Olympic Gold medal winners with possibly the most famous score ever | Director: Hugh Hudson Cast: Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Ian Holm |
 | Clash of the Titans – Perseus needs the head of the Gorgon to save a princess in this past-its-best Harryhausen epic | Director: Desmond Davis Cast: Harry Hamlin, Judi Bowker, Burgess Meredith |
 | Escape from New York – the President gets lost in a New York turned prison in this very fun cult actioner | Director: John Carpenter Cast: Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Donald Pleasance |
 | Escape to Victory – bizarre POW movie in which a team of football legends take on the Germans. Pelé and Stallone together at last! | Director: John Huston Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine, Pelé |
 | Excalibur – dementedly Gothic version of the Arthurian legend, like a Opera on heat | Director: John Boorman Cast: Nigel Terry, Nicol Williamson, Helen Mirren |
 | For Your Eyes Only – Bond goes back to basics, in a low-key adventure hunting for a missing computer in Greece | Director: John Glen Cast: Roger Moore, Carol Bouquet, Topol |
 | The French Lieutenant’s Woman – a Victorian man loves a fallen woman, while the actor playing him loves his co-star | Director: Karel Reisz Cast: Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Leo McKern |
 | On Golden Pond – sentimental drama, mawkish, reliant on its legendary leads for impact | Director: Mark Rydell Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Jane Fonda |
 | Raiders of the Lost Ark – one of the greatest adventure stories in the movies: bullwhips, snakes and hats all in one movie | Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman |
 | Reds – epic political biopic as journalists John Reed and Louise Bryant fight for Socialism in America and Russia in the 1910s | Director: Warren Beatty Cast: Warren Beatty, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson |
 | Time Bandits – a young boy joins a group of time travelling dwarves in this wonderful fantasy for history buffs | Director: Terry Gilliam Cast: Craig Warnock, David Rappaport, Kenny Baker |
1982
 | Blade Runner – a detective is hired to find (and terminate) rogue replicants in this influential dystopian sci-fi classic | Director: Ridley Scott Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young |
 | Das Boot – perhaps the definitive submarine film, a masterpiece of claustrophobia and suspense | Director: Wolfgang Petersen Cast: Jürgen Prochnow, Herbert Grönemeyer |
 | The Draughtsman’s Contract – deliberately oblique, art film about a murder in a country house in the 1680s | Director: Peter Greenaway Cast: Anthony Higgins, Janet Suzman, Anne-Louise Lambert |
 | Fanny and Alexander – Bergman’s family film, a gorgeous thought-provoking family epic | Director: Ingmar Bergman Cast: Ewa Fröling, Jan Malmsjö, Gunn Wållgren |
 | Gandhi – Best Picture winning biopic of India’s greatest statesman, a little schoolboy history but earnestly endearing | Director: Richard Attenborough Cast: Ben Kingsley, Rohini Hattaggadi, Roshan Seth |
 | Missing – in the aftermath of the Chilean revolution an American father hunts for his missing son | Director: Costa-Gravas Cast: Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek, John Shea |
 | The Missionary – witty, gentle comedy: a priest working with fallen women finds himself in endless sexual entanglements | Director: Richard Loncraine Cast: Michael Palin, Maggie Smith, Denholm Elliott |
 | An Officer and a Gentleman – a naval candidate learns to be a better man in this kitchen-sink drama masquerading as romance | Director: Taylor Hackford Cast: Richard Gere, Debra Winger, Louis Gossett Jnr |
 | Rocky III – Rocky takes on Mr T in this buddy movie retread of the formula, still good fun | Director: Sylvester Stallone Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Carl Weathers, Talia Shire |
 | Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – the best Star Trek film, Kirk duels with an old enemy who is desperate for revenge | Director: Nicholas Meyer Cast: William Shatner, Ricardo Montalban, Leonard Nimoy |
 | The Thing – on an Antarctic base, a shapeshifting alien hunts down the crew. Body horror classic. | Director: John Carpenter Cast: Kurt Russell, Wilfrid Brimley, TK Carter |
 | Tootsie – a difficult actor finds work disguised as a woman and winning a part on a TV soap. Superb, smart comedy | Director: Sydney Pollack Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Teri Garr |
1983
 | L’Argent – Bresson’s final film, a chilling social drama on the corrupting power of money on society | Director: Robert Bresson Cast: Christian Patey, Vincent Ricterucci |
 | The Big Chill – excellent ensemble drama as a group of college friends gather for a funeral | Director: Lawrence Kasdan Cast: William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Glenn Close |
 | The Dresser – an ailing actor prepares for one more Lear with his faithful, obsessive dresser. Marvellous film about theatre. | Director: Peter Yates Cast: Albert Finney, Tom Courtenay, Eileen Atkins |
 | Gorky Park – excellent crime drama as a Soviet cop investigates murders that tie into an international smuggling ring | Director: Michael Apted Cast: William Hurt, Lee Marvin, Brian Dennehy |
 | Heat and Dust – a woman travels to India to find out more about the scandalous love life of her Grandmother under the British Raj | Director: James Ivory Cast: Julie Christie, Greta Scacchi, Shashi Kapoor |
 | The King of Comedy – savage satire on fame, with one of De Niro’s greatest ever performances | Director: Martin Scorsese Cast: Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Sandra Bernhard |
 | The Right Stuff – the Mercury Programme retold as shrewd satire. Clever but not surprisingly a massive bomb | Director: Philip Kaufman Cast: Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris |
 | Scarface – OTT crime drama about a Cuban gangster making it big in the US and self-destructing. Satire on greed and bling culture | Director: Brian de Palma Cast: Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer |
 | Tender Mercies – a reformed country and western singer searches for joy in Chekovian drama | Director: Bruce Beresford Cast: Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Betty Buckley |
 | Terms of Endearment – Best Picture winning tearjerker about the fractious relationship between a mother and daughter | Director: James L Brooks Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson |
 | Trading Places – a banker and tramp’s lives are turned upside down in this very 80s slice of comedy | Director: John Landis Cast: Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Lee Curtis |
 | Under Fire – well-made but naive film about Nicaragua that pulls its punches and settles for melodrama | Director: Roger Spottiswoode Cast: Nick Nolte, Gene Hackman, Joanna Cassidy |
 | WarGames – a computer wants to play a game: unfortunately the game is Thermonuclear war… | Director: John Badham Cast: Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, John Wood |
1984
 | The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension – cultish OTT sci-fi a polymath takes on aliens | Director: WD Richter Cast: Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Ellen Barkin |
 | Amadeus – Best Picture winning epic on the life of Mozart and the envy of his (unacknowledged) rival Salieri. I love this film | Director: Milos Forman Cast: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge |
 | The Bounty – revisionist version of the mutiny that sympathises more with Bligh than usual. | Director: Roger Donaldson Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Mel Gibson, Laurence Olivier |
 | Greystroke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes – revisionist version, takes itself very, very seriously | Director: Hugh Hudson Cast: Christopher Lambert, Ralph Richardson, Ian Holm |
 | 1984 – dripping with dystopian oppression and post-industrial gloom with Hurt perfectly cast | Director: Michael Radford Cast: John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton |
 | Once Upon a Time in America – Leone’s Godfather riff, an operatic coming-of-age tale of kids becoming gangsters | Director: Sergio Leone Cast: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern |
 | A Passage to India – Lean’s handsome Forster adaptation: a Raj woman accuses an Indian doctor of rape – is it true? | Director: David Lean Cast: Judy Davis, Victor Bannerjee, Peggy Ashcroft |
 | Places in the Heart – a farmer’s widow struggles against adversity in the Depression in this flawed drama | Director: Robert Benton Cast: Sally Field, Danny Glover, John Malkovich |
 | A Soldier’s Story – in 1942 on a military base, a black NCO is killed – a racist crime? A black JAG is sent to investigate | Director: Norman Jewison Cast: Howard E Rollins Jnr, Adolph Caesar, Art Evans |
 | The Terminator – Cameron’s original, a stripped-back, mystique packed thrill-a-minute chase movie | Director: James Cameron Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton |
 | 2010: The Year We Make Contact – all the answers from 2001 and none of the mystery or magic | Director: Peter Hyams Cast: Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, Helen Mirren |
1985
 | Agnes of God – a psychiatrist questions a nun in this well-acted but not successful theatre adaptation | Director: Norman Jewison Cast: Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, Meg Tilly |
 | Back to the Future – a teenager time travels and screws up his parents meeting. Can he get them back together? 80s classic | Director: Robert Zemeckis Cast: Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Crispin Glover |
 | The Color Purple – a Black woman lives with an abusive husband in a sentimental film with many merits | Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Margaret Avery |
 | Dance with a Stranger – ill-treated Ruth Ellis becomes the last woman hung in Britain in this sympathetic drama | Director: Mike Newell Cast: Miranda Richardson, Rupert Everett, Ian Holm |
 | Jagged Edge – silly but fun steamy exploitation flick as laywer romances her client, a man accused of murder | Director: Richard Marquand Cast: Glenn Close, Jeff Bridges, Robert Loggia |
 | Out of Africa – Best Picture winner, all show and no depth. A Danish farmer in Africa falls in love with a British adventurer | Director: Sydney Pollack Cast: Meryl Streep, Robert Redford, Klaus Maria Brandauer |
 | Plenty – dry theatre adaptation: a female SOE agent finds post-war life dull and oppressive when she returns home | Director: Fred Schepisi Cast: Meryl Streep, Charles Dance, Sam Neill, John Gielgud |
 | Prizzi’s Honor – would-be gangster comedy which is a bit too slow and dense to work | Director: John Huston Cast: Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Anjelica Huston |
 | Ran – Kurosawa transfers King Lear to Samurai Japan in this luscious but sometimes too stately epic | Director: Akira Kurosawa Cast: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu |
 | Rocky IV – Rocky fights the USSR champ to get revenge for the death of mentor Apollo Creed. Silly but fun | Director: Sylvestor Stallone Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Talia Shire |
 | A Room with a View – Merchant-Ivory triumph with this perfectly mounted Forster adaptation | Director: James Ivory Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Maggie Smith |
 | Witness – an Amish boy witnesses a murder. A detective goes undercover to protect him and falls in love with his mother | Director: Peter Weir Cast: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas |
1986
 | Aliens – brilliant sequel that resets the original wonderfully. Ripley leads marines to save a colony from more Aliens. | Director: James Cameron Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen |
 | Caravaggio – post-modern biopic of the artist, with plenty of killing and added motorbikes | Director: Derek Jarmon Cast: Nigel Terry, Tilda Swinton, Sean Bean |
 | The Color of Money – Scorsese’s one for the money with this belated Hustler sequel: Fast Eddie Felson trains a protege | Director: Martin Scorsese Cast: Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio |
 | Hannah and Her Sisters – family dramas abound as three sisters face romantic entanglements | Director: Woody Allen Cast: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Michael Caine, Dianne Wiest |
 | Highlander – cult adventure as immortals compete for a mystical prize. Spawned a whole franchise | Director: Russell Mulcahy Cast: Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Clancy Brown |
 | Jean de Florette – a farmer is betrayed by his neighbours in this luscious French Merchant Ivory style film | Director: Claude Berri Cast: Yves Montard, Daniel Auteuil, Gérard Depardieu |
 | Manhunter – the hunt for a serial killer leads to dangerous obsession in this moody Harris adaptation | Director: Michael Mann Cast: William Petersen, Dennis Farina, Brian Cox |
 | Manon des Sources – conspiring farmers are found out in the second of this French Merchant-Ivory style epic | Director: Claude Berri Cast: Yves Montard, Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Béart |
 | The Mission – tragic South American missionaries drama, as colonialism claims multiple victims. Breathtaking score | Director: Roland Joffé Cast: Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, Ray McAnally |
 | The Name of the Rose – a polymath monk investigates murders in a medieval abbey. | Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud Cast: Sean Connery, F. Murray Abraham, Christian Slater |
 | Platoon – Best Picture winning semi-autobiographical Vietnam war film, based on Stone’s own experiences | Director: Oliver Stone Cast: Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger |
 | Salvador – Stone’s angry denunciation of US Cold War policy, electric if at times a little obvious | Director: Oliver Stone Cast: James Woods, Jim Belushi, Michael Murphy |
 | Top Gun – Cruise flies planes and Goose dies: that’s the basic sum of the plot of this mega smash-hit | Director: Tony Scott Cast: Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Anthony Edwards, Val Kilmer |
1987
 | Broadcast News – heavy-handed media satire: a producer is torn between an empty-headed anchor and a sanctimonious reporter | Director: James L Brooks Cast: Holly Hunter, William Hurt, Albert Brooks |
 | Cry Freedom – earnest but misguided biopic that filters its story through the wrong lens | Director: Richard Attenborough Cast: Kevin Kline, Denzel Washington, Penelope Wilton |
 | The Dead – rather beautiful Joyce adaptation, low-key and gorgeous, the director’s swansong | Director: John Huston Cast: Anjelica Huston, Donal McCann, Cathleen Delaney |
 | Empire of the Sun – gorgeously filmed coming-of-age tale, that doesn’t quite engage with the novel’s complexity | Director: Steven Spielberg Cast: Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Nigel Havers |
 | Fatal Attraction – an affair goes wrong when the woman can’t let it go. A mega-hit that looks more and more sexist today | Director: Adrian Lyne Cast: Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Anne Archer |
 | The Last Emperor – Best Picture winning epic on the life of the last Chinese Emperor – looks a million dollars, but slightly shallow | Director: Bernardo Bertolucci Cast: John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O’Toole |
 | The Living Daylights – Dalton takes on his first mission and is masterful, in this overlooked Bond adventure | Director: John Glen Cast: Timothy Dalton, Maryam d’Abo, Jeroen Krabbé |
 | The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne – a spinster with a drink problem tries to cease one final chance at happiness | Director: Jack Clayton Cast: Maggie Smith, Bob Hoskins, Wendy Hiller |
 | Moonstruck – little touches of Shakespeare abound in this romantic comedy and tribute to familial love | Director: Norman Jewison Cast: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Olympia Dukakis |
 | The Untouchables – FBI Agents take on Al Capone in this superb cops and robbers film (with added Eisenstein homage) | Director: Brian de Palma Cast: Kevin Coster, Sean Connery, Robert De Niro |
1988
 | Dangerous Liaisons – in pre-Revolutionary France, two aristocrats play seductive games with other people’s hearts. | Director: Stephen Frears Cast: Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer |
 | Die Hard – a cop, trapped in a hijacked building, gets into a battle with wits with a mastermind. Best action film of all time? | Director: John McTiernan Cast: Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Bonnie Bedelia |
 | Distant Voices, Still Lives – Davies’ poetic memory piece, inspired by his own life, is a unique piece of film-making | Director: Terence Davies Cast: Freda Dowie, Pete Postlethwaite |
 | The Last Temptation of Christ – one of the most controversial films ever, with a doubt-filled Jesus | Director: Martin Scorsese Cast: Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Barbara Hershey |
 | Midnight Run – bail-bondsman tracks down an accountant who stole from the mafia. Brilliant odd-couple comedy | Director: Martin Brest Cast: Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Yaphet Kotto |
 | Mississippi Burning – well-meaning film about racism that focuses on the FBI and white victims | Director: Alan Parker Cast: Gene Hackman, Willem Dafoe, Frances McDormand |
 | Rain Man – Best Picture winner about a man who discovers he has an autistic older brother. Lessons are learned. | Director: Barry Levinson Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Valeria Golino |
 | The Running Man – very stupid dystopian action thriller but somehow perfect beer-in-hand fun | Director: Paul Michael Glaser Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Richard Dawson |
 | Working Girl – a secretary has business smarts – but her ideas stolen by her female boss – in this Wall Street comedy | Director: Mike Nichols Cast: Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver |
1989
 | Back to the Future Part II – terrible sequel that goes to the future then an alternative 1985 then back to 1955 : a mess | Director: Robert Zemeckis Cast: Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson |
 | Batman – first big serious comic book movie, looks campier now than it did, but showed comics could be dark and serious | Director: Tim Burton Cast: Jack Nicholson, Michael Keaton, Kim Basinger |
 | Born on the Fourth of July – a veteran turns anti-war protestor in Strong’s powerful polemic | Director: Oliver Stone Cast: Tom Cruise, Willem Dafoe, Kyra Sedgwick |
 | Crimes and Misdemeanors – a celebrated doctor has his mistress murdered in this flattering-to-deceive Allen picture | Director: Woody Allen Cast: Martin Landau, Woody Allen, Alan Alda, Mia Farrow |
 | Dead Poet’s Society – a teacher inspires students in this sickly sentimental coming-of-age drama. He would fail DBS today | Director: Peter Weir Cast: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke |
 | Do the Right Thing – racial tensions simmer in a hot New York in Spike Lee’s masterpiece, a truly brilliant film | Director: Spike Lee Cast: Spike Lee, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee |
 | Driving Miss Daisy – in the South, a Black chauffeur drives a Jewish lady in infamous Best Picture winning feel-good film | Director: Bruce Beresford Cast: Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman, Dan Aykroyd |
 | A Dry White Season – an Afrikaner has his eyes opened to racism in one of the finest anti-Apartheid films | Director: Euzhan Palcy Cast: Donald Sutherland, Zakes Mokae, Marlon Brando |
 | Glory – during the civil war an all-Black company – and its white officers – have to struggle for respect | Director: Edward Zwick Cast: Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman |
 | Parenthood – a multi-generational family faces all sorts of troubles in this warm and witty comedy drama | Director: Ron Howard Cast: Steve Martin, Mary Steenburgen, Dianne Wiest |
 | Scandal – careful reconstruction of the Profumo scandal, with plenty of sex (of course) | Director: Michael Caton Jones Cast: John Hurt, Joanne Whalley, Ian McKellen |
Movie Musings 