Your favorite film of the 1980s?

Footloose, of course. The very best of the 80s.

Loved it too.

To add to the list:

An American Werewolf in London. One of my favorite horror-comedies. In fact possibly my only favorite horror-comedy.

I was going to say Life of Brian but that was 79. :frowning:

But The Meaning of Life makes it in.

Also:

This is Spinal Tap
Withnail and I
The Airplane Movies
Heathers

And for Iris Tsu:
The Princess Bride[/quote]

Why thank you. The Princess Bride is one class movie.

Funnily enough I watched An American Werewolf in London again just the other day. Still good.

Apologies if anyone’s mentioned it, but one fav of mine that isn’t on the list is “The Thing”.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

I used to have that poster in my room. I didn’t care for the movie much.[/quote]
I preferred Top Gun, French films are for batty boys. That French bitch in the movie were well hot though.

/ tw.youtube.com/watch?v=vyN8VN4BSzM :wink:

Jeez, yeah, that one was great. I watched it three or four times in a row in the theater, back in the days when they didn’t throw you out at the end of a showing.

What’s odd about the 80’s is how many good films there were. I voted for Bladerunner, but I can think of dozens of slightly quirky films like “American Werewolf” that were excellent.

[quote]What’s odd about the 80’s is how many good films there were.[/quote] :astonished:
Really? I thought it was a pretty average decade.
I like Westerns and the 80s were pretty lean years. One stand out for me was Clint Eastwood’s 1985 “Pale Rider.” A really nice pic from one of my heroes.

&

Jeez, yeah, that one was great. I watched it three or four times in a row in the theater, back in the days when they didn’t throw you out at the end of a showing.[/quote]

My 9 year old niece once asked me to tell her a story so I bascially related the movie. She loved it so much that when we went out swimming the next day, and ran into a friend of hers, she made me tell the story again.

Of course this was also the period where she loved all those sappy secondary romance stories in Don Quixote that most critics pan as blemishes on the masterpiece.

Don Q has romance bits in it? Errgh. I am so glad i read the Readers Digest condensed version. Plus, the language is so much easier to read than that old fake-sounding Spanish stuff.

Two of my favourite war films of the 80s are Aussie ones. “Breaker Morant” (1970) which is set during the Boer War.

“The Lighthorsemen” (1987) tells of one of the last great cavalry charges, that made by the Aussies against the Turks in a place called Beersheeba during the First World War. The film doesn’t go deep (i.e. no anti-war message to please the critics) but highly enjoyable for the military aspects.

My only complaint with the two films is the Aussie weakness for asserting themselves by being anti-Brit. Still, a minor complaint, and both films would have you gladly swapping the shameful drudgery of the classroom or office for an honourable death.

I probably shouldn’t pick a favorite, since so many movies are tied for first as far as I’m concerned, but I choose The Verdict.

Big Trouble in Little China?

I remember liking these as a kid, still a few of them i like today.

Plains, Trains and Automobiles
Stand by me
Strange Brew
Porky’s
48 hours
An officer and a Gentleman
Poltergeist
Flashdance
Rambo
Back to School
The Untouchables

Hey I love John Hughes and Star Wars (or whatever French flick that 12 people in Lyons saw in the spring of 1982) as much as the next guy but nothing in the 80s comes even close to Top Secret.

Chocolate Mousse says you can’t compete with a cow in rubber boots.

I worked in a movie theater in college, and have Back to the Future basically memorized. I still think it’s a great movie, though not really my favorite.

Yeah, I have fond memories of fan favorites like Ghostbusters, ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and Empire Strikes Back, and still like them. Blade Runner took me (and everybody else, I guess) longer to appreciate.

And yeah, I did watch a lot of those Big Chill / Breakfast Club / St. Elmo’s Fire type films, but think these are overemphasized.

Here are some more names that deserve mention:

Respectable Film Fare

Brazil (Terry Gilliam)
Serial (a comedy about life in Marin County)
Nightfall (loosely based on an Asimov story, filmed in Arcosanti)
My Dinner With Andre (you’d never think just two guys talking could be so interesting!)
The Company of Wolves (trippy version of Little Red Riding Hood)
Never Cry Wolf
Somewhere in Time
Monty Python’s Meaning of Life
Excalibur (John Boorman)
Carnal Knowledge (Jack Nicholson)
Empire of the Sun
Full Metal Jacket
[i]Little Shop of Horrors /i
Pink Floyd’s The Wall
Zelig (Woody Allen)

Guilty Pleasures

Weird Science
Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja
Masters of the Universe (yes, I confess that I did like this)
Prince of Darkness
Basket Case
Revenge of the Nerds
Mad Max 2
I’m Gonna Git You Sucka
Hell Comes To Frogtown (post-apocalyptic drama with Roddy Piper)
Police Academy

…the early films of Tom Hanks: Splash (falls in love with a mermaid), Volunteers (he and John Candy join the Peace Corps), and Bachelor Party (a horse snorts lines of cocaine)

…and the John Carpenter / Kurt Russell trilogy of classics that includes Escape from New York, Big Trouble In Little China, and They Live (only the first half is really worth it)

If anybody names Cannibal Holocaust or Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, may they be anathema!

[quote=“Screaming Jesus”]My Dinner With Andre (you’d never think just two guys talking could be so interesting!)
[/quote]
Not just the 80s, that’s one of the best films of all times, and yes, the whole movie is one long dinner conversation between two middle-aged men talking about the meaning of life. It’s the only movie during which I actually took notes, that’s how profound it was. I’d love to get my hands on a copy of the screenplay.

[quote=“Incubus”][quote=“Screaming Jesus”]My Dinner With Andre (you’d never think just two guys talking could be so interesting!)
[/quote]
Not just the 80s, that’s one of the best films of all times, and yes, the whole movie is one long dinner conversation between two middle-aged men talking about the meaning of life. It’s the only movie during which I actually took notes, that’s how profound it was. I’d love to get my hands on a copy of the screenplay.[/quote]

How about this?

cloudnet.com/~jwinder/dinner.htm

OMG, irishstu, that’s a gem! Thanks a mil! :notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy:

I’m in the middle of printing it out and I recommend everyone to read it. Maybe it’s time for me to add on a signature. There’re at least several dozen lines in there that would make excellent user signatures.

Just curious, those of you who’ve seen the film or have read the script, who do you identify more with, Andre or Wally?

I was really baked when I saw it in college - I identified with the dinner.