{"id":139577,"date":"2024-08-10T22:03:26","date_gmt":"2024-08-10T21:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodintoto.com\/?p=2040958"},"modified":"2024-08-10T22:03:26","modified_gmt":"2024-08-10T21:03:26","slug":"ultimate-80s-movie-list-best-of-the-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gamefootballmobileanimeiphone.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/10\/ultimate-80s-movie-list-best-of-the-best\/","title":{"rendered":"Ultimate \u201880s Movie List: Best of the Best"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is the quintessential 80s movie?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We don’t mean the best<\/em> movie from the 1980s. That\u2019s a different category.<\/p>\n

What movie truly represents and sums up the \u201880s?<\/p>\n

The Breakfast Club (1985)<\/strong> \u2014 Possibly nothing captures the decade as well as this John Hughes teen classic. He gathered five kids representing five different social cliques and their strategies for handling the disinterested system that has power over their lives.<\/p>\n

Beverly Hills Cop (1984)<\/strong> \u2014 What makes this movie great is it’s both fun and dramatic at the same time. Still, it\u2019s Eddie Murphy\u2019s Axel Foley who is unlike anyone from the ’70s, ’60s, ’50s or even \u201840s.<\/p>\n

Sure there have been smart-ass detectives before (that was an old trope even by the 1980s) but it\u2019s Axel\u2019s DGAF attitude regarding authority that shaped a generation.<\/p>\n

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Poltergeist (1982)<\/strong> \u2014 The first scene is one of the best openings of any movie ever, and it\u2019s pure 1980\u2019s suburbia. The feel of what it was like to live in the ’80s is depicted perfectly. Not until the arrival of Netflix\u2019s \u201cStranger Things\u201d has a movie or show captured the elan of the moment so well.<\/p>\n

Valley Girl (1983)<\/strong> \u2014 Every generation needs a star-crossed romance. The decade offered many to choose from, including \u201cSay Anything\u201d and \u201cRomancing the Stone,\u201d this is quintessential ’80s\u2026 with the Plimsouls leading a killer soundtrack.<\/p>\n

Back to the Future (1985)<\/strong> \u2014 Part of what makes Gen X different is movies like this one that challenged the very nature of reality. Our hero Marty McFly is aware of two realities, one good, one bad that result from actions and inactions taken. Talk about a mindf*** for teens and little kids.<\/p>\n

It’s not just asking a girl out to prom, which is challenging enough. It’s your entire existence on the line. Mess up and your life is Game Over, to quote another ’80s classic.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Terminator (1984)<\/strong> \u2014 The intensity of this film can\u2019t be understood unless you saw it in theaters, holding your breath for two solid hours. There had been nothing like it before, the sheer relentlessness of the pursuing Terminator. And a lot like \u201cThe Breakfast Club\u201d this film has a kind of nihilism to it, of the inevitable relentlessly running you down.<\/p>\n

It’s not high school bullies. The monster here is technology. It’s fitting since Gen X was the first generation consumed by technology.<\/p>\n

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Sex Lies & Videotape (1989)<\/strong> \u2014 Speaking of being consumed by technology, this brilliant little film by Steven Soderbergh (arguably one of his best) shows the challenges Gen X faced in the 1980s. The tensions between boys and girls, men and women weren’t enough. Now, it’s captured and witnessed on videotape.<\/p>\n

Gen X is the first generation that had to live with the critical parent getting turned into actual technology, and it\u2019s only gotten worse since then.<\/p>\n

Blue Velvet (1986)<\/strong> \u2014 I thought long and hard about the difference between a good movie made in the 1980s versus an essential ’80s movie. Could the movie have been made prior to 1980, or did it have elements that were uniquely ’80s?<\/p>\n

\u201cBlue Velvet\u201d makes the list because what kicks off the mystery is an ear found in a suburban yard. The deeper meta symbology of it being an ear. In a suburban yard. Brilliant.<\/p>\n

Did we listen? No.<\/p>\n

Ghostbusters (1984)<\/strong> \u2014 The decade featured plenty of great comedies, and more than a few were courtesy of Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman. Their \u201cGhostbusters\u201d tops \u201cStripes\u201d and \u201cCaddyshack\u201d (which really is a \u201870s comedy) and \u201cBack to School\u201d because it has ghosts.<\/p>\n

Ghosts are fun. Scary, sure, but interesting and like \u201cPoltergeist\u201d this movie hinted at a deeper truth: all the bodies buried were starting to come out both literally and figuratively in the form of mental illness, social justice, et al.<\/p>\n

Ferris Bueller\u2019s Day Off (1986)<\/strong> \u2014 Ferris is the shadow of \u201880s nihilism. We see him now for the villain in the story he always was, but back then he was like Axel Foley\u2026 full of fun and mayhem.<\/p>\n

Eighties films like \u201cFootloose\u201d capture both the best of that time and the worst. It\u2019s wild to think of a movie being made now where a teenage girl gets beaten up and nobody says “boo” about it. And just a few years later \u201cLove Potion No. 9\u201d where a man essentially rapes an entire sorority house<\/a> for laughs.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve come far as a culture since then. I miss some of it, but I’m happy we\u2019ve grown up or at least are pretending to be adults.<\/p>\n

What film would you say best characterizes the ’80s?<\/a><\/p>\n

Best ’80s Movies by Category<\/h2>\n

Comedy<\/strong><\/p>\n