15 Best Movies Of The 1980s, Ranked

The 1980s were a wild ride for film fans, with a wide variety of different genres represented at the box office. But in the wake of the success that movies like “Jaws” and “Star Wars” had in the late 1970s, there was an increased focus on the family-friendly blockbuster, which you’ll certainly see reflected in most “best of” lists for the decade. But just because the 1980s had more than their fair share of fun action-adventure films doesn’t mean that you won’t find plenty of classic dramas, terrifying horror films, and side-splitting comedies. 

From both the biggest names in the business (some of which are still prominent and working today) to more niche productions, these are the best of the best. We apologize beforehand if your faves aren’t here, but with only 15 slots, some tough decisions had to be made. Some films that just missed out, for example, include the Martinique-set coming-of-age drama “Sugar Cane Alley” and “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover,” starring Helen Mirren, David Thewlis, and Michael Gambon, and plenty of other beloved films. Although we mourn those left out, this list of the best movies of the 1980s is full of classics.

Remember what we said about family-friendly films reigning supreme? Well, ignore that for just one second, because “The Thing” is most definitely not for the kiddies. In fact, it’s probably one of the scariest sci-fi-tinged horror films we can think of. “The Thing,” directed by John Carpenter, takes place at a remote base in Antartica — an appropriately chilling location for a shape-shifting monster to emerge. Isolated for months on end, the inhabitants of the American base are already a little punchy by the start of the film. 

But the prospect of the Thing infecting each of them in turn, forcing them to distrust the precious few people they’re in contact with, makes “The Thing” even more terrifying. The memorable blood test scene speaks to how well Carpenter is able to build suspense. The assimilation effect of the Thing transforming into different creatures is nothing short of hair-raising, taking an already scary concept and making it absolutely unforgettable. Among the many excellent John Carpenter horror films, this stands out as one of the very best.

“This is Spinal Tap” is packed full of more memorable bits than any other comedy film of the 1980s. The comically small Stonehenge monument. The curse of the Spinal Tap drummers, all of whom die under mysterious circumstances. The amplifier that goes up to 11. All of this is to say nothing of the thousands of one-liners that slip under the radar, ensuring that viewers catch more and more upon repeated viewings. Starring Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer, “This is Spinal Tap” is one of the earliest and most influential mockumentaries, following the downfall of a rock band as they embark on an American tour that’s falling apart around their ears. 

Interviewed by Marty Di Bergi (Rob Reiner, who also directs), the members of Spinal Tap offer up a retrospective of their career, from their early days singing sunny 1960s pop to their entry into the world of hair metal. The fact that they are, deep down, surprisingly competent musicians counterbalances their ridiculousness — at one point, Nigel (Guest) plays a haunting little composition he’s written on the piano, only to announce its title: “Lick My Love Pump.”

Here’s the deal: We’ll include “Die Hard” on this list (honestly, it deserves to be there) if all of you agree to stop arguing about whether or not it counts as a Christmas movie. That seems fair to everyone.

The premise of “Die Hard” is simple: Off-duty cop John McClane (Bruce Willis in perhaps his most iconic role) travels to Los Angeles for the holidays, only to discover that his estranged wife is being held hostage by terrorists at her office Christmas party. Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman in his film debut, if you can believe that) and his goons have taken control of the Nakatomi Tower, and McClane is the only one who can stop them. 

As an action film, it’s endlessly inventive, allowing McClane to set profoundly satisfying traps for his enemies that establish him as one of the coolest movie heroes we’ve ever seen. “Die Hard” puts its foot on the gas from the word go, and never lets up throughout the entire production, leaving us breathless until the very end.

Toxic masculinity? Never heard of it. “Raging Bull” follows the personal and professional ups-and-downs of Jake LaMotta (played by Robert De Niro in one of the most shocking on-screen transformations of all time). In his prime, LaMotta is a middleweight boxing champion, the poster child of male virility. But that kind of strength and success can’t last forever, and while the part of “Raging Bull” that deals with LaMotta at the peak of his fame is enjoyable to watch, his slow descent to rock bottom is utterly spellbinding. 

Robert De Niro has been in a lot of great movies where the material is a huge part of their prestige, but “Raging Bull” lives and dies by his performance alone. He put his health and career on the line by fully committing to both versions of LaMotta, the athlete in peak physical condition and the broken-down has-been attempting stand-up at local clubs. Although “Raging Bull” ultimately lost out for Best Picture that year at the Academy Awards, De Niro took home Best Actor for his work as LaMotta, and “Raging Bull” is recognized as one of director Martin Scorsese’s best films.

Is it really an ’80s romantic comedy without one (or three) glaring red flags? Sure, the relationship between Donny (Nicolas Cage) and Loretta (Cher) is a little bit toxic, but the passion? Forget about it. As “Moonstruck” begins, Loretta is on the verge of marrying Johnny (Danny Aiello). He’s a nice enough guy, but it’s pretty clear that she’s not exactly head over hills for him. When she meets his chaotic brother Donny, however, the sparks start flying. 

He’s a butcher who’s made his missing hand, lost in a tragic meat slicer accident, basically his entire personality. Well, that and the fact that his fiancée left him after his injury. While Johnny is away tending to his ailing mother in Sicily, Loretta begins — against her better judgment — a relationship with Donny, as the two seem a perfect fit for one another. Cage, with his eccentric performance style, and Cher, with her electric on-screen energy, are have undeniable chemistry. Together, they make “Moonstruck” a swoony Italian melodrama like no other.

When you think of Akira Kurosawa’s first movies, it’s kind of incredible to realize that he was still directing — and at the top of his game, no less — during the 1980s. The famed Japanese director had always had a thing for taking Shakespearean text and adapting it to a different time and culture, as we saw with his “Macbeth” adaptation, the towering “Throne of Blood.” “Ran” is no exception. Despite being made at the tail end of his career, his version of “King Lear” proves that he didn’t lose a step as he approached retirement. 

Set in long-ago Japan, it follows a warlord near the end of his life who has to make the decision of who amongst his three sons to leave his kingdom to. (He chooses to split it between them — historically, not always a wise decision.) “Ran” is an epic production from start to finish, and Kurosawa earned his only Best Director nomination at the Academy Awards for his work in it. And deservedly so — it’s one of Kurosawa’s best.

No matter which version of “Blade Runner” you watch (Ridley Scott has this thing about releasing five dozen or so different cuts of his most famous films), it deserves to sit in the rarefied air of the best films of the 1980s. It stars Harrison Ford (who, fair warning, will also turn up a lot on this list) as Rick Deckard, a blade runner who is tasked with tracking down four replicants, nearly indistinguishable from ordinary humans, who have escaped from the space colony where they’ve been created to work. But along the way, it becomes harder and harder to tell who is the human and who is the replicant. 

The film’s creative vision of a futuristic Los Angeles is a sci-fi landmark, an oddly soulless dystopian cityscape that other films have copied, but few have matched. Ford’s performance as Deckard is a grounding force, while it’s the presence of replicants like the one played by Rutger Hauer who imbue the film with its emotional heights. You can put Hauer’s partially-improvised “tears in the rain” monologue up there with anything the sci-fi genre has ever produced.

“E.T.” isn’t just the Steven Spielberg movie that traumatized you when you were eight, forcing you to feel a bunch of feelings you maybe weren’t developmentally prepared for — it’s also a bona fide ’80s classic (and Jim Henson helped). It stars Henry Thomas in one of the best child performances of all time as Elliot, a young boy grappling with his parents’ divorce when he comes across a lost, extremely adorable alien life form known only as E.T. The two quickly develop a deep and intense bond, one that is threatened when the U.S. government catches wind of E.T.’s existence and wants to study (read: vivisect) him. 

As much as it’s an undeniably traumatic viewing experience — although made with kids in mind, it pushes them to the very limit of what they’re able to handle — it’s also triumphant and exhilarating to watch the friendship between Elliot and E.T. grow. And of course, there’s the iconic scene of Elliot’s bike with E.T. in the front basket, flying through the sky with the moon as a backdrop, accompanied by a stirring John Williams score. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

Now that we’ve had half a dozen or so subpar “Terminator” films, its easy to forget that the original was nigh-on perfect. Arnold Schwarzenegger (in a career-defining performance) plays the Terminator, a robot sent from the future to hunt down and kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). Why Sarah? Well, because she will eventually give birth to John Connor, a messiah figure in the battle between humans and robots that they’re particularly eager to wipe from existence. Enter Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), Connor’s right-hand man who has also been sent back in time, but to protect Sarah. (Did John Connor purposefully send Kyle back to impregnate his mother? Well, it’s hard to read this film any other way.)

But what makes “The Terminator” so successful, in addition to the quality of its three central performances, is how well it blends action, science fiction, a bit of horror, and even romance. It was succeeded by the equally impressive “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” with Edward Furlong as a preteen John Connor, and although the franchise declined after that, it takes nothing away from how solid the first film is.

Remember “City of Angels,” where Nicolas Cage played an angel who fell in love with Meg Ryan so hard that he gave up his immortality and became human just so that he could be with her? Meet “Wings of Desire,” the much better movie that inspired it. Directed by Wim Wenders, it stars Bruno Ganz as one of the many angels hovering over Berlin, listening in on the thoughts of the humans within the city and providing comfort to them along the way. But one day, he becomes transfixed by Marion (Solveig Dommartin), a young trapeze artist, who inspires him to shed his angelic status and experience life as a human. 

The themes that define “Wings of Desire,” profound isolation and the invisible division between two groups of people occupying the same space but existing in two very different worlds, makes the film a perfect microcosm of Berlin in the midst of the Cold War. In a city broken in two by the Berlin Wall, displacing its citizens even as they stay in the very same spot, “Wings of Desires” summons a spirit of intense loneliness that spoke to not only Germans, but viewers around the world.

Before the prequels and sequels and endless Disney+ TV series came out, “Star Wars” fans had just three films to watch, and they devoted a lot of their time debating which of the trilogy was the best. The most common answer is “The Empire Strikes Back,” the second film in the series and arguably the most emotionally mature of the bunch. After the events of the first film, where Luke successfully destroys the Death Star and Han officially joins Leia in the Rebellion, the trio are separated as Luke goes off in search of Yoda, a Jedi Master who can continue his training.

Where “Star Wars: A New Hope” ends with exhilarating victory and all of our heroes receiving celebratory medals, the greatest strength of “Empire Strikes Back” is that it’s not afraid to capitalize on its status as the second in a planned trilogy and leave us in a much darker place. Luke has battled Darth Vader and learned the dark secret of his parentage, Han has been frozen in carbonite and sent as a prisoner to Jabba the Hutt, and although they live to fight another day, it’s hard to call it a victory for our heroes. 

Just as Rosie Perez’s memorable dance number at the beginning of “Do the Right Thing” makes a bold statement about the film, so too does “Do the Right Thing” establish the tenor of Spike Lee’s career. Vibrant and fearless, her frenetic dance is a reclamation of public space, and that’s exactly what “Do the Right Thing” is about. Amidst a stifling hot summer day in Brooklyn, tensions begin to rise in each of the different demographics within the community, all jockeying for space, visibility, the right to exist. Inevitably, conflict breaks out between Sal (Danny Aiello), who owns a pizzeria in a predominantly Black community, and the locals who patronize his restaurant, leading to a devastating conclusion.

Who owns Brooklyn? Is it the people who live there — who have lived there for generations — or the business owners who clearly have a stake in the community, but don’t actually live there? The gentrifiers? The immigrants? “Do the Right Thing” paints a prescient portrait of America and explores racial tensions within this one specific neighborhood while also showcasing how groups of people — some more disenfranchised than others — fight to be heard and seen.

The cultural impact of “Back to the Future” can hardly be overstated. When teenager Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels back to the 1950s in his best friend Doc Brown’s (Christopher Lloyd) time machine, he must recruit the younger version of Brown to help him find a way back to the ’80s. And to make matters worse, he has to set right his parents’ marriage along the way, after accidentally interrupting their meet-cute and catching his horny teenage mother’s eye instead. (We know, that was a very upsetting sentence.)

Inventive, well-paced, and led by a charismatic performance from Fox (although we’d pay a frankly irresponsible amount of money to see a cut of the film from when Eric Stoltz was still in the lead role), “Back to the Future” immediately cemented itself as a cinematic wonder that’s just plain fun to watch. In its wake, we got two sequels, and despite some nitpicking, especially over “Back to the Future Part III,” it’s one of the most consistent film trilogies we can think of.

Harrison Ford may be best known to a lot of viewers as Han Solo, but he vastly preferred Indiana Jones, and the pure sense of joy he brings to the role of the archeology professor/part-time treasurer hunter shows. Inspired by the action adventure serials of the 1930s — which George Lucas and Steven Spielberg would have watched on television as children — “Raiders of the Lost Ark” stars Ford as Indiana Jones as he’s sent on a mission to retrieve the legendary Ark of the Covenant, before Hitler can get his hands on it. There are few pleasures more simple in life than watching Indiana Jones punch Nazis in the face.

“Raiders of the Lost Ark” was an instant success, and it was followed in quick succession by “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” (Which of these films is your favorite says a lot about you, but we won’t elaborate on what exactly it says.) Although the franchise has been weakened in recent years with two additional sequels that failed to live up to the quality of the originals, nothing can take away the pure joy and excitement of watching Indy on one of his many adventures.

To begin with, “The Elephant Man” is responsible for the Academy Awards even having a Best Makeup category, despite having a rough start, so you’re welcome, Terrible Biopics of Physically Distinctive Historical Figures that Otherwise Wouldn’t Get an Oscar Nod. But it’s hard to overstate the impact of seeing John Hurt as John Merrick, with the physical deformities of the character allowing him to completely disappear in the role. In Victorian England, Merrick is taken from a freak show to a London hospital by Dr. Frederick Treves (Anthony Hopkins), who is deeply moved by the plight of the so-called Elephant Man. 

To his surprise, he learns that Merrick is kind, thoughtful, and deeply intelligent,making his situation all the more tragic, because he fully understands how he has been treated by the rest of the world. Based on the 1977 play by Bernard Pomerance, as well as the real-life story of Joseph Merrick, “The Elephant Man” underscores how humanity can be cruel and empathetic in almost equal measure.