Top 20 Films of the 1980s

by donald-505-201619 | created - 30 May 2013 | updated - 10 Mar 2014 | Public

Of the ones i've seen.

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1. Blue Velvet (1986)

R | 120 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

75 Metascore

The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.

Director: David Lynch | Stars: Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern

Votes: 215,661 | Gross: $8.55M

2. The Decalogue (1989–1990)

TV-MA | 572 min | Drama

100 Metascore

Ten television drama films, each one based on one of the Ten Commandments.

Stars: Artur Barcis, Olgierd Lukaszewicz, Olaf Lubaszenko, Aleksander Bardini

Votes: 27,865 | Gross: $0.10M

3. Paris, Texas (1984)

R | 145 min | Drama

81 Metascore

Travis Henderson, an aimless drifter who has been missing for four years, wanders out of the desert and must reconnect with society, himself, his life, and his family.

Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, Dean Stockwell, Sam Berry

Votes: 118,866 | Gross: $2.18M

4. Blade Runner (1982)

R | 117 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi

84 Metascore

A blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.

Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos

Votes: 822,945 | Gross: $32.87M

5. The Sacrifice (1986)

PG | 149 min | Drama

At the dawn of World War III, a man searches for a way to restore peace to the world and finds he must give something in return.

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood, Allan Edwall, Guðrún Gísladóttir

Votes: 30,973 | Gross: $0.30M

6. Fanny and Alexander (1982)

R | 188 min | Drama

100 Metascore

Two young Swedish children in the 1900s experience the many comedies and tragedies of their lively and affectionate theatrical family, the Ekdahls.

Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Bertil Guve, Pernilla Allwin, Kristina Adolphson, Börje Ahlstedt

Votes: 67,482 | Gross: $4.97M

7. Wings of Desire (1987)

PG-13 | 128 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance

79 Metascore

An angel tires of his purely ethereal life of merely overseeing the human activity of Berlin's residents, and longs for the tangible joys of physical existence when he falls in love with a mortal.

Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois

Votes: 76,990 | Gross: $3.33M

8. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)

R | 229 min | Crime, Drama

75 Metascore

A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan 35 years later, where he must once again confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.

Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams

Votes: 377,639 | Gross: $5.32M

9. The Shining (1980)

R | 146 min | Drama, Horror

68 Metascore

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.

Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers

Votes: 1,106,415 | Gross: $44.02M

10. Raging Bull (1980)

R | 129 min | Biography, Drama, Sport

90 Metascore

The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it.

Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent

Votes: 380,154 | Gross: $23.38M

11. No End (1985)

Not Rated | 107 min | Drama, Romance

The wife of the recently deceased lawyer tries to cope with grief after his loss and to keep his last case going in court.

Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski | Stars: Grazyna Szapolowska, Maria Pakulnis, Aleksander Bardini, Jerzy Radziwilowicz

Votes: 5,704

12. Ran (1985)

R | 160 min | Action, Drama, War

97 Metascore

In Medieval Japan, an elderly warlord retires, handing over his empire to his three sons. However, he vastly underestimates how the new-found power will corrupt them and cause them to turn on each other...and him.

Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryû

Votes: 136,166 | Gross: $4.14M

13. Nostalghia (1983)

Not Rated | 125 min | Drama

74 Metascore

A Russian poet and his interpreter travel to Italy researching the life of an 18th-century composer, and instead meet a ruminative madman who tells the poet how the world may be saved.

Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Oleg Yankovskiy, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano, Patrizia Terreno

Votes: 30,056 | Gross: $0.01M

14. The Elephant Man (1980)

PG | 124 min | Biography, Drama

78 Metascore

A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of kindness, intelligence and sophistication.

Director: David Lynch | Stars: Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft, John Gielgud

Votes: 258,408

15. Aliens (1986)

R | 137 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

84 Metascore

Decades after surviving the Nostromo incident, Ellen Ripley is sent out to re-establish contact with a terraforming colony but finds herself battling the Alien Queen and her offspring.

Director: James Cameron | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser

Votes: 762,876 | Gross: $85.16M

16. Full Metal Jacket (1987)

R | 116 min | Drama, War

78 Metascore

A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.

Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio, Adam Baldwin

Votes: 790,258 | Gross: $46.36M

17. Damnation (1988)

120 min | Crime, Drama, Romance

A lonely barfly falls in love with a married bar singer.

Director: Béla Tarr | Stars: Miklós Székely B., Vali Kerekes, Gyula Pauer, György Cserhalmi

Votes: 6,764

18. Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)

R | 100 min | Drama

86 Metascore

A sexually repressed woman's husband is having an affair with her sister. The arrival of a visitor with a rather unusual fetish changes everything.

Director: Steven Soderbergh | Stars: James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, Laura San Giacomo

Votes: 59,438 | Gross: $24.74M

19. Where Is the Friend's House? (1987)

Not Rated | 83 min | Drama, Family

Eight-year-old Ahmed has mistakenly taken his friend Mohammad's notebook. He wants to return it, or else his friend will be expelled from school. The boy determinedly sets out to find Mohammad's home in the neighbouring village.

Director: Abbas Kiarostami | Stars: Babek Ahmed Poor, Ahmed Ahmed Poor, Khodabakhsh Defaei, Iran Outari

Votes: 18,691

20. My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

G | 86 min | Animation, Comedy, Family

86 Metascore

When two girls move to the country to be near their ailing mother, they have adventures with the wondrous forest spirits who live nearby.

Director: Hayao Miyazaki | Stars: Hitoshi Takagi, Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto, Shigesato Itoi

Votes: 380,132 | Gross: $1.11M



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