The 1980s were a great decade for movies, but if we’re being honest that really doesn’t cover it. Every decade is, in its own way, a great decade for movies but what really makes the 1980s special for movie fans is really more of a perfect storm of factors. It’s a decade where the modern blockbuster really took shape, and special effects—most of them still heavily practical—really made movies a rich experience. There’s also the dominance of genre and genre-mixing that brought incredible stories to the screen in ways moviegoers had never seen before and it was great. But the greatness of 1980s movies went beyond the big screen to the small. Thanks to the rise and popularity of home video technology, for the first time people were able to watch movies at home well after they left theaters.
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It’s that accessibility that is what really makes the 1980s such a great time for movies and has, in turn, made 1980s so popular among movie fans even today, four decades later. But while there are some 1980s movies that are automatic must-watches for many who claim to love movies from the decade, if you really want to call yourself a fan of films from the decade, I feel like you need to go a little bit deeper than the typical major pop culture hit. Sure, Back to the Future is iconic and you really can’t go wrong with Top Gun, but to be a real 1980s movie fan, you need to dig deep into those shelves at the video rental place. How deep? We’ve got a list.
10) WarGames
Given the growing prevalence and concerns about AI in our own modern world, WarGames is probably going to be one of the no-brainer movies on this list as it’s been seeing something of a second life in recent years. A movie about a high school student who accidentally hacks an American military computer that’s job is to simulate nuclear war and, in doing so, damn near triggers World War III feels a little too possible. Seriously, the phrase “shall we play a game?’ has honestly never been so ominous. But while the dangers of somewhat autonomous computers and programming feels very much of the moment, WarGames is also very much a classic of the 1980s. It’s a film that had major cultural impact for its day—it’s credited with making concepts like cybersecurity and information technology a lot more mainstream and popular—and it’s just a good movie that gives you a great sense of the Cold War anxieties of the era, too.
9) Porky’s
Look, you can’t call yourself a fan of 1980s movies without getting into some of the coarser movies of the era and that’s where Porky’s enters the list. Sex comedies have always had a place in film, but they really started to become their own thing in the late 1970s which directly gets us to 1981’s Porky’s. It’s a crass and honestly pretty tasteless movie that follows the escapades of teens in the fictional Angel Beach High School in Florida in 1954, but if there’s one thing about crass and tasteless humor is that it sells. It was a box office hit and a bit of a cultural moment with some pretty significant impact on movies after it and, if for that alone makes it a movie you have to have seen to be an ‘80s movie fan. Porky’s is credited by many to either be the film that started the teen film genre or, if not the start of it, a film that heavily influenced it.
8) Empire of the Sun
When we talk about Steven Spielberg’s movies, there is one that is frequently left out of the overall conversation and it’s Empire of the Sun. Part of that is because it wasn’t much of a commercial success and ultimately had to make up its budget through foreign release, home video, and television broadcast licensing. But the film is truly a great movie and one of the best of the 1980s (and, bonus, Christian Bale’s first major role.) A gripping war movie that is also a loss of innocence story. It’s a brutal film and is admittedly not an easy watch, but it’s one of those truly great films that doesn’t get nearly enough acclaim. It’s one of Spielberg’s best that is unfortunately quite overshadowed by the filmmaker’s other great films of the 1980s. There’s also another reason Empire of the Sun is a significant movie for movie fans: Ben Stiller, who made his film debut as Dainty in Empire of the Sun, came up with the idea for Tropic Thunder on the set of the Spielberg film.
7) The Great Mouse Detective
While the Disney Renaissance wouldn’t start until the end of the 1980s, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t Disney movies from the 1980s that every movie fans needs to have seen and if you have to pick one, it better be The Great Mouse Detective. The film is significant for several reasons. While it’s not as revolutionary as The Black Cauldron (that film is also a must-watch but for different reasons), the film was just successful enough at the box office that it helped bolster Walt Disney Animation and set the stage for that renaissance that would ultimately give us The Little Mermaid and beyond. The Great Mouse Detective is also just fun. It’s basically a “what if Sherlock Homes was a mouse” and it’s awesome. It’s a delight. It’s also a solid reminder of the very good, family-oriented film offerings from the 1980s, especially considering that most of the films that fit that category for the era tend to be live-action.
6) Return to Oz
Speaking of Disney movies, I’m not sure you’d actually consider this one family friendly and you might not even consider this one a particularly deep cut when it comes to movies from the 1980s you have to see; Return to Oz has very much earned itself a cult fandom over the years, especially thanks to Wicked and a bump in popularity for all things Wizard of Oz related. Return to Oz is unique, though, in that it’s more of a dark fantasy than a safe “children’s” story. It’s more mature and in many ways, more authentic to L. Frank Baum’s books. It is also a very cool snapshot of the mid-1980s in film, combining a lot of genre elements and dipping into horror in ways that you might not see today. The film also has some fantastic visual effects that remind you just how good filmmaking in the 1980s really was. And if that’s not enough, there’s a character who swaps out her head like some people change shoes. It’s great.
5) Batteries Not Included
Sci-fi is easily one of the biggest and best genres of films in the 1980s, but there is one little subgenre of sci-fi that gets overlooked: the feel-good sci-fi. Batteries Not Included is a film from 1987 that you might not have heard of before so here’s a little summary. It was originally created by Steven Spielberg as an episode of the awesome ‘80s television anthology series Amazing Stories but became a feature film with a script ultimately written by Brad Bird, Matthew Robbins, and others. It follows an older couple (played by Hume Cronyn and the incredible Jessica Tandy) whose apartment block is threatened by developers when aliens show up and help them. There is something really beautiful about the story. The apartment folk help the scared aliens and, in turn, the aliens help them win against the evil developers. You walk away from the movie feeling hope. It’s such a small and intimate film and a beautiful capsule of the 1980s.
4) Real Genius
There can be no doubt that Val Kilmer is one of the most definitive stars of the 1980s thanks to his roles in Top Gun and Top Secret! and he rose to even greater fame in the 1990s thanks to The Doors, Tombstone, and Batman Forever, but if you ask me one of his best roles ever was also in one of the best movies of the 1980s and that movie is Real Genius. Another great film from the decade that mixes genres—in this case sci-fi and comedy—Real Genius has a slightly absurd premise with the government trying to use a tech college to get the brains to figure out a wild superweapon that sets two students who couldn’t be more different on a quest to stop the military from misusing their creation, but it’s a very good film. You have Kilmer’s impressive performance that reminds you just how great of an actor he was. You have a story that was actually well executed, and you get a lot of the idealism of the 1980s that we kind of forget existed.
3) The Empire Strikes Back
I bet you didn’t think we’d get a Star Wars movie on this list but look, you were wrong! You really do need to have seen at least one of the two Star Wars films released in the 1980s to call yourself an ‘80s movies fan and not because they were big blockbusters. No, because of how they have massively impacted pop culture, filmmaking and pretty much everything. The Empire Strikes Back is arguably the best Star Wars movie, one of the best movies of the 1980s period, and also one of the best movies ever made. The moment where Darth Vader reveals he’s Luke’s father? Absolute cinema. The visual effects, the storytelling, the everything of it all—The Empire Strikes Back is just that good. While I would argue that more contemporary Star Wars films and television shows are just fine and the franchise is far from “ruined” by any stretch, when you go back and watch The Empire Strikes Back you really cannot compare anything to it.
2) Flight of the Navigator
The 1980s entirely changed filmmaking, particularly when it came to effects and one of the major films that you can point to for that is Flight of the Navigator. The story of a boy who is abducted by an alien spaceship, ends up time travelling to the future, and getting into a wild adventure, The Flight of the Navigator was well before its time in terms of effects as it was one of the first films to widely use CGI, specifically something called morphing. It also has one of the first entirely electronic music film scores making it not only a heavy hitter of sci-fi in terms of the actual story but in terms of who it was made. And it’s a Disney movie on top of that. Flight of the Navigator has a bit of a cult following (and has gained quite a few fans since arriving on Disney+) and there is a lot of hope for an eventual reboot but in terms of really being a fan of ‘80s films, this is a must see because of how surprisingly modern and high-tech it is. The effects, for the most part, hold up very well even 40 years later, and that’s saying something.
1) Brewster’s Millions
While sci-fi, fantasy, and horror were all major genres in the 1980s, the decade was one for great comedies as well. Movies like Airplane!, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, and more easily come to mind when we think of great ‘80s comedies, but if we’re going for deeper cuts, there’s another movie that you need to watch: Brewster’s Millions. What’s fun about Brewster’s Millions is that it’s actually an adaptation of a 1902 novel of the same name so the concept is pretty classic. This take stars Richard Pryor, John Candy, and more and follows a Minor League Baseball pitcher (Pryor) who accepts a unique challenge: he has 30 days to spend $30 million in order inherit $300 million from his great-uncle. Now, keep in mind, that’s 1985 money so we’re talking a massive fortune here. Of course, there are some rules to the spending so it makes things a genuine challenge. Brewster’s Millions isn’t exactly a great movie. The movie isn’t the funniest it could be considering its cast and honestly, that kind of makes it a must-watch. It’s an example of how a tried-and-true formula that was repeated frequently in the 1980s didn’t always add up. However, the chemistry between Pryor and Candy is solid and it’s actually a more thought-provoking story than you’d expect. It’s an overlooked gem—but real movie fans already know.
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