The definative 80s movie

[Hzurr]

So this is something my brother and I have discussed multiple times: What is the ultimate 80s movie? One of those movies that, blatant or not, you can point to and say "This is an 80s movie" and everyone will agree regardless of Hmm...words are not my friend at the moment, so I'm having a bit of trouble describing exactly what I mean.

My current top 2 are:

Back to the Future
Ferris Beuller's Day Off

I can't tell you exactly what it is about them, but they just seem to ooze...80sness.

[thegurullamen]

That they do. Add The Breakfast Club to that list.

[Irenaeus]

I would say Top Gun is a strong contender, and Karate Kid.

[JabberwockySupafly]

Any John Hughes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hughes_(film_director)#Director) movie is pretty much a quintessential 80's film. I mean look at everything he worked on in the 80's. Most of it was really solid and still watchable if you're an 80's kid.


Also, another great (and in many peoiples' opinions, quintessential) 80's movie is Better Off Dead with John Cusack, written & directed by Savage Steve Holland. That always kind of surprised me in a good way, that the creater of my favourite cartoon (Eek! The Cat) also basically made one of my favourite movies. Generally the two mediums for me tend be to be mutually exclusive because my taste in Live Action is quite different from Animated.

[Telonius]

My money's on The Breakfast Club.

Other iconic 80s movies:

The Goonies
Earth Girls are Easy
Revenge of the Nerds
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Ghostbusters
Gremlins
Labyrinth
The Last Starfighter
Police Academy
Spaceballs
St. Elmo's Fire
Stand By Me
Teen Wolf
The Terminator
Tron
WarGames
Wall Street
Willow
Young Einstein

[sun_tzu]

Star Wars?

[thegurullamen]

Star Wars is 70's, even if it did end in the 80's.

Short Circuit

And nearly anything else with Steve Gutenberg for that matter. And maybe Jeff Goldblum, too.

[sun_tzu]

Also...Indiana Jones, Transformers: The Movie, Karate Kid...

[Oregano]

I'd like to say Flash Gordon and Highlander although they're more cult classics.

[Tirian]

My first thought on seeing the thread title was Ferris Bueller's Day Off, so consider yourself seconded.

Other good off-the-top-of-my head finalists:


Risky Business
Romancing the Stone
Tootsie

and your choice of the late Roger Moore Bond movies, maybe For Your Eyes Only.

[thegurullamen]

maybe For Your Eyes Only.

Scratch that. Dalton's License to Kill. Cheesy music, douchebeards, wooden paneled cars, rehashed drug syndicate story line, big hairdos and Wayne Newton. You can't top the Newt for 80'sness.

[Tirian]

Scratch that. Dalton's License to Kill. Cheesy music, douchebeards, wooden paneled cars, rehashed drug syndicate story line, big hairdos and Wayne Newton. You can't top the Newt for 80'sness.

In my heart, I still want people to remember the 80's fondly. Can we compromise on View to a Kill? That suffered from Grace Jones and Tanya Roberts without having to put up with watching Dalton. Ooh, and Duran Duran did the theme, so that clinches it!

[RTGoodman]

Those are all good, but here's another - Beverly Hills Cop. I swear, just listen to the theme song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dASqLXiuomY&feature=related) if you don't think it's one of the definitive '80s movies. Eddie Murphy's other '80s movies (Trading Places, Coming to America) all work, too.

[Jack Squat]

All these are good, and help to prove that you can't really pick one movie that stands out and says "Look at Me! I'm the 80's"

That being said, I'll toss in my 2 cp and say if I had to choose one, it'd probably be either Breakfast Club or Big Trouble in Little China.

[Yulian]

You are all wrong.

The Last Dragon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_last_dragon

1985 (right in the middle!)

Martial arts!
Pop music!
Bruce Lee references!
Vanity!
Gerry curls!
Ernie Reyes's motion picture debut!
An actress from The Cosby Show!
A DeBarge song!
A white Mr. T!
Lasers!
A TV Music show as a plot element!
The Glow!
And of course...

Am I the meanest?
Sho’Nuff!
Am I the prettiest?
Sho’Nuff!
Am I the baddest mo-fo, low-down, around this town?
Sho’Nuff!
Well, who am I?
Sho’Nuff!
Who am I?
Sho’Nuff!
I can’t hear you!
Sho’Nuff!
The Shogun of Harlem!

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g22/Craven542c/lastdragon3.jpg

- Yulian

[turkishproverb]

Ghostbusters, if you mean the best movie. If you mean most 80's, eh don't know don't care.

[Jorkens]

Raiders of the Lost Ark?

[snoopy13a]

The Princess Bride is my favorite movie of all time but outside of the scenes with Fred Savage, there isn't that much truly 80ish about it. So I'll vote for Ferris Bueller.

[Piedmon_Sama]

Glad that despite the (pretty impressive) lists given so far, I can be the first to mention Red Dawn (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087985/). Not to mention Red Heat (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095963/) (it's got Arnold and a Belushi brother--how 80's can you get?) Or The Hunt for Red October (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099810/).

Well, you can get a pattern. Just look for Russians and "Red" in the title and you are probably in the 80's.

[JabberwockySupafly]

You are all wrong.

The Last Dragon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_last_dragon

1985 (right in the middle!)

Martial arts!
Pop music!
Bruce Lee references!
Vanity!
Gerry curls!
Ernie Reyes's motion picture debut!
An actress from The Cosby Show!
A DeBarge song!
A white Mr. T!
Lasers!
A TV Music show as a plot element!
The Glow!
And of course...

Am I the meanest?
Sho’Nuff!
Am I the prettiest?
Sho’Nuff!
Am I the baddest mo-fo, low-down, around this town?
Sho’Nuff!
Well, who am I?
Sho’Nuff!
Who am I?
Sho’Nuff!
I can’t hear you!
Sho’Nuff!
The Shogun of Harlem!

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g22/Craven542c/lastdragon3.jpg

- Yulian


Yulian, once again, like a deranged jazzercise instructor, you have opened an old wound I had forgotten.

Just a joke, I used to love The Last Dragon, and now have to amend my vote. I agree, it's probably the most 80's movie anyone will ever see. On a side-note, they're remaking it, with Sam L. playing Sho'Nuff... donno if I like this, the late Julius Carry (http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Carry) will be hard to outdo. I mean, the man played Lord Bowler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Brisco_County,_Jr.#Lord_Bowler), for Bruce's sake!

[Hzurr]

Well, you can get a pattern. Just look for Russians and "Red" in the title and you are probably in the 80's.

Heh...this makes me think of Rocky 4, where Rocky beats communism by punching it.

(Also, a side note for those of you who are going to be watching Rocky 3: The key to Rocky 3 is remembering that Mr. T doesn't know he's in a movie. It makes it much more enjoyable)

[Avilan the Grey]

Heh...this makes me think of Rocky 4, where Rocky beats communism by punching it.

He beats Communism by being BEATEN by it. Repeatedly. :smallbiggrin:


Anyway:
As said above, any John Hughes movie and Better off dead
Stand by me
Beverly Hills Cops I and II
Working Girl (not because it is particularly good, but because it is so... late 80ies)

[Jerthanis]

How about Commando (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088944/), as a quitessential 80s Action movie. Not best 80s action movie... most typical without sucking.

[RTGoodman]

Working Girl (not because it is particularly good, but because it is so... late 80ies)

I don't know why, but that reminded me - Dirty Dancing. I've never been forced to watch the whole thing, but I've seen enough to know that I think it probably would have TANKED if it had been made at any other time.

[Avilan the Grey]

I don't know why, but that reminded me - Dirty Dancing. I've never been forced to watch the whole thing, but I've seen enough to know that I think it probably would have TANKED if it had been made at any other time.

Very true.

And then we have all the bazillion "Girls in small bikinis or less" movies (usually "college" movies). Not that I mind, I just don't bother listing them.

[Ebonsword]

There have definitely been some good ones mentioned here.

Allow me to add Big Trouble in Little China and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the 8th Dimension.

[valadil]

The Terminator


That's my choice. Other movies look a little old and out of place. But this one is distinctively 80s with the synthy music and the big hair.

[KillianHawkeye]

The Blues Brothers

Die Hard

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (AKA Star Trek meets the '80s)

Weird Science

Batman

[Jack Squat]

Weird Science

Eh, it was better as a TV show.

[Oregano]

Eh, it was better as a TV show.

Completely agree, it may help I saw the series first though.

[bosssmiley]

"War Games", "Predator" or "Raiders of the Lost Ark".

Every other film of the decade is nothing but an also-ran when compared to their greatness. :smallamused:

"Breakfast Club"? Too rooted in the American High School experience to be 'definitive' in any way. *And* it entirely lacks melting Nazis, alien hunters or any trace of fearful moralising on the futility of the Cold War. Hell! "Breakfast Club" doesn't even have Kurt Russell in it!

[DomaDoma]

Here's hoping Watchmen counts! I mean, it won't have been made in the '80s, but it had better scream '80s at nuclear-blast volume.

[Tirian]

Here's hoping Watchmen counts! I mean, it won't have been made in the '80s, but it had better scream '80s at nuclear-blast volume.

No, that will still be a movie from this era. It's like Grease, Stand By Me, and Back to the Future: movies that tried to remember the 50's but is still indelibly imprinted with 80's morality. Watchmen will look nothing like Batman (1989) or the Superman franchise (1978, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1987).

[Zeta Kai]

The fact that no one has mentioned the movie Roadhouse means that the 80's-fu is still weak here...

[Mrs. Bait]

Some of my favs (to name just a few):

Back to the Future
Gremlins
Short Circuit
Sixteen Candles
Some Kind of Wonderful
The Legend of Billie Jean
Explorers
The Goonies
Ghostbusters
The Karate Kid
Terminator
Indiana Jones + The Last Crusade
Batman (Michael Keaton -1989)
Beetlejuice


But if I had to name a "definitive" 80's movie, I'd say The Breakfast Club hands down.:smallsmile: