1980’s Film History
Trends of the 70s Extend Into the 80s: The Introduction of 'High-Concept' Films
The decade of the 1980s tended to consolidate the gains made in the seventies rather than to initiate any
new trends equal to the large number of disaster movies, buddy movies, or "rogue cop" movies that
characterized the previous decade. Designed and packaged for mass audience appeal, few 80s films
became what could be called 'classics'.
The era was characterized by the introduction of 'high-concept' films - with cinematic plots that could be
easily characterized by one or two sentences (25 words or less) - and therefore easily marketable and
understandable. Producer Don Simpson (partnered with Jerry Bruckheimer) has been credited with the
creation of the high-concept picture (or modern Hollywood blockbuster), although its roots could be seen
in the late 70s (i.e., the prototypical Jaws (1975), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Star Wars (1977), Alien
(1979) - known in high-concept terms as "Jaws in Space").
Simpson was the first producer to understand and exploit the significance of MTV. His action-packed,
loud, flashy, simplistic, and tightly-structured films brought crowds to the multiplexes every summer. His
lowest common-denominator films reflected the MTV generation, such as in his debut film Flashdance
(1983) - with its pop soundtrack and iconic 'freeze-frame' ending. Other successes followed in the 80s:
Beverly Hills Cop (1984) with its 'fish-out-of-water' high concept, the sexy Thief of Hearts (1984), the
high-flying Top Gun (1986) - the epitome of Simpson's technique, and the stock-car racing film Days of
Thunder (1990) again with Tom Cruise. By the end of the 80s era as a result, most films were not
designed for 'thinking' adult audiences (such as Driving Miss Daisy (1989)), but were 'low-brow' for
dumbed-down teen audiences looking for sheer entertainment value or thrills (for example, Bill & Ted's
Excellent Adventure (1989), James Cameron's Aliens (1986), or Die Hard (1988)).
After the innovations of the 70s, films in the 80s were less experimental and original, but more formulaic,
although there was a burst of films eager to capitalize on new special effects (CGI) techniques - now
available. Predictions were grim for the industry - production costs were soaring while ticket prices were
declining. The average ticket price at the beginning of the decade was about $3, and over $4 by the end
of the decade, while the average film budget was over $18 million. However, fears of the demise of
Hollywood proved to be premature.
The Search for a Blockbuster:
The personal cinema of 70s auteur directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, William
Friedkin, Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg was now
superceded by the advent of the "blockbuster" phenomenon that they had created (with
The Godfather (1972) and Jaws (1975)). The industry continued to pander to the tastes
and desires of young people - one of the negative legacies of Star Wars (1977) of the
late 70s.
Steven Spielberg's and George Lucas' names have often been associated with the term
"blockbuster" - and their films inevitably continued to contribute to the trend during this
decade, such as The Empire Strikes Back (1980), the great and exhilarating escapistadventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Return of the Jedi (1983), and the
childhood fantasy hit E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) with a lovable stranded alien,
inspired by Peter Pan, the resurrection themes of Christianity, and with an anti-science bias. There were
others that were successful, such as Ghostbusters (1984), Romancing the Stone (1984), and Back to
the Future (1985), and their successive sequels.
Following this model, Hollywood continued to search, with demographic research and a "bottom line
mentality," for the one large "event film" that everyone (including international audiences) had to see (with
dazzling special effects technology, sophisticated sound tracks, mega-marketing budgets, and costly,
highly-paid stars). Most big-screen event movies, scheduled to be released at advantageous times (at
summer and Christmas-time) would take expensive fortunes to produce - but they promised potentially
lucrative payoffs. In retrospect, many of the blockbusters in the 80s, such as those mentioned above,
were well-constructed films with strong characters and plots not entirely built upon their special-effects.
Big Losers, Flops and Bombs: Turkeys of the 80s Decade
See extensive sub-section of site on "Greatest Box-Office Bombs, Disasters, and Flops".
There were a number of highly-touted films of the era that fared very poorly. Within a few years, it was
becoming clear that blockbusters would not always insure instant profits and success:
1.
Auteur Michael Cimino's and United Artists' incomprehensible, over-long epic
Western film Heaven's Gate (1980) about Wyoming's Johnson County wars
cost almost six times above-budget to produce (from $7.5 million to about $44
million). It was originally a 5-hour 25 minute version that was cut down to 219
minutes for its November, 1980 NYC premiere. The film was immediately pulled,
re-cut and then re-released five months later (after being shortened by 70
minutes) in 1981 - and still failed due to bad press. It stunned its studio by
becoming the biggest flop in film history at the time (US box-office was about
$1.5 million) - it lost at least $40 million. UA's corporate parent, Transamerica,
had to sell the studio to MGM for only $350 million as a result. [UA was
responsible for earlier hits Midnight Cowboy (1969), Annie Hall (1977) and the
James Bond films.]
Since then, the film has been synonymous for any film facing major financial disaster and for the
director-centric era of the 70s. Bank-rolled support for independent 'auteur' directors of the New
Wave of 70s directors (who controlled their own production costs with little studio oversight)
ended when this film's egotistical director (Best Director winner for The Deer Hunter (1978)) was
criticized as being self-indulgent, financially irresponsible and ego-driven. The end of the era also
arrived due to similar failures by other auteurs: Peter Bogdanovich with At Long Last Love
(1975), Martin Scorsese with New York, New York (1977) and even Steven Spielberg with 1941
(1979). [Martin Scorsese's planned film project Gangs of New York (2002) (with 10 Oscar
nominations, including Best Picture), first conceived in 1978, was shelved as a result, and
released many years after initial plans and screenplay completion.]
2.
MGM/UA's and Terence Young's Korean War epic Inchon (1981) with Laurence Olivier (as
General Douglas MacArthur) was produced by Rev. Sung Myung Moon and his Reunification
Church - it was an embarrassment that was quickly withdrawn, with a budget of about $50 million
and a US box-office of only $5 million.
3.
Hugh Hudson's (famous for the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire (1981)) miscalculated historical
epic of the American Revolution was WB's Revolution (1985), with star Al Pacino miscast as an
18th century New York fur trapper. It grossed only $359,000 on a budget of about $28 million.
The film's colossal failure curtailed Hudson's major directorial efforts until the big-budget I
Dreamed of Africa (2000) 15 years later, and Pacino wouldn't star in another film for four years
(until Sea of Love (1989)).
4.
John Huston's first and sole musical, Annie (1982), a dull, uninspired major flop (that barely
broke even) - inspired by the Broadway musical. The rights to the show were sold in 1978 for
$9.5 million, the highest amount ever at the time.
5.
Howard the Duck (1986), based on Steve Gerber's 70s Marvel Comics character (which went
out of print in 1981), and from executive producer George Lucas (and his screenwriting pal,
director Willard Huyck), was one of the worst and least successful big-budget films ever made.
Lucas hired Willard Hyuck and his wife Gloria Katz (the screenwriter for Lucas' film American
Graffiti (1973)) to write the big-screen version. This misguided Universal film domestically
grossed about $15 million on a budget of $30 million.
6.
The highly-anticipated Shanghai Surprise (1986), produced by Handmade
Films (headed by the Beatles' George Harrison), starred newlyweds: pop diva
singer Madonna and volatile actor Sean Penn. Lacking a coherent plot and
without any chemistry between the two leads in poorly-acted characterizations,
the overlong film failed miserably (with a box-office take of only $2.3 million with
a budget of $17 million) and was nicknamed "Flop Suey".
7.
Columbia Pictures' and writer/director Elaine May's Ishtar (1987), was a poor
imitation of the Hope/Crosby/Lamour "Road" pictures. It was a very expensive
comedy film ($55 million) with only a small box-office gross of about $14 million,
was a tremendous disaster and one of the worst films ever made according to
some reviewers - in spite of its stars Warren Beatty, Isabelle Adjani and Dustin
Hoffman (who won an Oscar the next year for Rain Man (1988)!).
8.
Writer/director Terry Gilliam's (of Monty Python fame) deeply-troubled but visually-captivating
fantasy production of The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen (1989) was a major failure, due
to production delays, legal issues, and on-location difficulties. Despite four Oscar nominations, it
had a US gross of only $8 million with a film budget of about $46 million.
Unexpected Successes:
Who would know or be able to predict that other films would be successful:
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Louis Malle's low-budget, overly-long My Dinner With Andre (1981) with fascinating dinner
conversation between actor/playwright Wallace Shawn and theater director Andre Gregory
Victor/Victoria (1982), set in 1930s Paris, in which Julie Andrews pretended to be a man -pretending to be a woman, something that confused James Garner
Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy (1982), a dark comedy about the search for stand-up
comic celebrity by Rupert Pupkin (Scorsese's favorite actor Robert DeNiro), self-proclaimed as
The "King of Comedy"; the film also featured an appearance by real-life comedian Jerry Lewis as
arrogant Jerry Langford -- Pupkin's talk-show host idol -- who was kidnapped and tied up (and
duct-taped) with assistance from his accomplice Masha (Sandra Bernhard) after Pupkin was
snubbed, so that he could take his spot on the show
Milos Forman's Best Picture-winning Amadeus (1984), a biopic (adapted by Peter Shaffer from
his own play) without big-name stars and about foul-mouthed genius Wolfgang Mozart (Tom
Hulce) and a rival composer named Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) vying for the favor of an
Austrian king
James Cameron's The Terminator (1984) was a story about Sarah Connor the unsuspecting future mother of John - the leader of a human rebellion
against the machines (which were exemplified by the brutal metallic cyborg
T-800 played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who journeyed back in time to
assassinate her); the intense and lean film established an action film genre
that extends to the present day
the musical comedy Little Shop of Horrors (1986), originally a Roger
Corman horror film in the 60s, about a florist shop that spawned a hungry
plant named Audrey II that consumed demented dentist Steve Martin as one
of its victims; its song "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space" was Oscar-nominated
Tim Burton's ambitious, hyped and over-marketed production of a dark-shaded Batman (1989) a Warners' mega-hit film promoted with lucrative merchandising that became the blockbuster hit
of the last year of the decade, with an over-the-top performance by Jack Nicholson as the
villainous Joker ("Where does he get those wonderful toys?") and comedian Michael Keaton in a
serious, dual role as the comic book hero - the dark avenger of Gotham City
Big Business Entertainment:
Film budgets skyrocketed due to special effects (expensive digital effects) and inflated salaries of namerecognition stars (and their agents). Big business increasingly took control of the movies and the way was
opened for the foreign (mostly Japanese) ownership of Hollywood properties. To save money, many more
films were being made in non-US locations by mid-decade.
A number of the studios were taken over by multi-national conglomerates as their entertainment divisions:
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United Artists (acquired in 1969 by airline tycoon Kirk Kerkorian and temporarily abandoned)
was bought and merged with MGM in 1981 to form MGM/UA; the company's film library was
bought out by media mogul Ted Turner in 1986 for his cable TV channel, Turner Broadcasting
System, Inc.; then, in 1990 MGM was purchased by Sony Entertainment of Japan - home to both
Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures (see below)
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20th (or Twentieth) Century Fox was taken over by oil tycoon Marvin Davis in 1981 and then
entered into a 50% shared ownership with Australian publisher Robert Murdoch in 1985,
becoming part of Fox, Inc. The film production unit was renamed simply Fox Film Corporation
in 1989, and by the end of the century became known simply as Fox
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Columbia Pictures was purchased by the Coca-Cola Company in 1982; (Tri-Star Pictures was
also created - a joint venture of Columbia Pictures, HBO, and CBS); Tri-Star Pictures bought
Loew's Theaters in 1986; British film producer David Puttnam briefly headed Columbia Pictures
for a few years beginning in 1986; the Sony Corporation of America purchased Columbia
Pictures Entertainment, Inc. and Tri-Star Pictures from Coca-Cola for $3.4 billion in 1989, renaming itself Sony Pictures Entertainment; in 1992, Sony Pictures Classics became an
autonomous company within Sony Pictures
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in 1966, Paramount became a wholly owned subsidiary of Gulf + Western Industries, Inc; in
1989, Gulf + Western was reconfigured and renamed Paramount Communications, Inc.; then in
1994, Paramount merged with Viacom International
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MCA/Universal (which had officially merged in 1962) became a powerful TV production
company, and started its organized studio tours - one of LA's most popular tourist attractions;
they were acquired by Matsushita Electrical Industrial, Co. in 1991; in June 1995, The Seagram
Company Ltd. (VO) purchased a majority equity in MCA from Matsushita; then in late 1996, MCA
Inc. was renamed Universal Studios, reclaiming its heritage as one of the industry’s oldest and
most prestigious movie studios
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Walt Disney Productions remained as one of the few studio-era survivors, with Michael Eisner
as chairman and CEO beginning in 1984; it set up Touchstone Pictures in 1984 to make feature
films that appealed to adult audiences; Buena Vista was Disney's distributor
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Warner Communications merged with Time, Inc. in 1989 to become Time-Warner, Inc., a
component of the media empire AOL-Time Warner
A few independent film companies, such as New Line Cinema and Miramax, began to make more
experimental and offbeat films to fill the gaps provided by the major studios.
Because costly film decisions were more in the hands of people making the financial decisions, not the
film makers, movies were made only if they could guarantee financial success, thereby pandering to a
few select, well-known star names attached to film titles without as much attention paid to intelligent
scripts. With this kind of pressure, the most popular film stars demanded higher salaries, up front, and
well as a percentage of the film's gross take, earning as much as $20 million. Budgets and actors salaries
skyrocketed out of control, and powerful agents for agencies such as Creative Artists Agency (CAA)
negotiated outrageous deals.
Notable 1980s Milestones:
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36 year old Sherry Lansing was named president of production at 20th Century Fox in 1980 - and
became the first female to hold this position and head a major studio (she resigned in 1982 to
become an independent producer)
Dawn Steel became VP for production at Paramount Studios in 1980, and then president of
Columbia Pictures in 1987
in the early 1980s, Sony’s superior video recording standard, termed Betamax, was overtaken by
VHS (Video Home System) developed by JVC, with a longer record time of 2 hours; in 1987,
when VHS commanded 95% market share, Sony finally began to abandon Betamax
in 1980, Pioneer began to market its videodisk (laserdisc) players, thereby widening the
availability of films for consumer viewing and purchase
child-teen star and cover model Brooke Shields was the most sought-after actress of the early
80s - projecting both innocence and sexuality
director Milos Forman's Ragtime (1981) was legendary actor James Cagney's first film - a
"comeback" - after 20 years of retirement
Ronald Reagan, a former President of the Screen Actor's Guild (from 1947-1952) and governor of
California, became the first movie-star President of the US (the 40th) in 1981. His conservative
reign and hard-edged approach toward the Soviet Union was reflected in Hollywood's many
action-adventure films of the decade with aggressive, macho stars (Rocky, Rambo, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal, Clint Eastwood and others) - even his futuristic
anti-missile defense system co-opted the name of Lucas' 70s film Star Wars
George Lucas' THX sound system made its debut - the first movie to be shown in a THX-certified
auditorium was Return of the Jedi (1983) - see more below
during the making of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) in 1982, two child actors and Vic Morrow
were killed in a freak helicopter crash - as a result, greater precautions would be taken on
Hollywood sets
Walt Disney Productions and Westinghouse Broadcasting launched the cable network The
Disney Channel in April, 1983
in 1983, 20th Century Fox began to openly solicit deals to display brand names in its films
the American Movie Classics cable-TV channel started operations in 1984
in 1984, the Voyager Company introduced its Criterion Collection line of 'special edition,' highquality, feature-packed laserdiscs, often with state-of-the-art transfers, the CAV (full feature)
format, the full theatrical 'letter-box' format, special commentary tracks and supplemental
material, dual audio, interviews and annotated commentary by film-makers and scholars,
director's cuts, deleted scenes, storyboards and production designs, and other bonus features
(theatrical shorts or trailers, shooting scripts, posters, stills galleries, print booklets, out-takes,
dual versions of a film, and other extras, etc.) that have since become commonplace on DVDs by
the turn of the century
in 1985, Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute (established in 1980) took over the Utah/US Film
Festival and later renamed it the Sundance Film Festival (held annually in January) - "dedicated
to the support and development of emerging screenwriters and directors of vision, and to the
national and international exhibition of new, independent dramatic and documentary films"
The Dead (1987) was legendary director John Huston's last film, with top-billing given to his
daughter Anjelica Huston and a script co-written by his son Tony
the oldest performer to win the Best Actress Oscar was 81 year-old Jessica Tandy for Driving
Miss Daisy (1989)
New Technologies: Home Entertainment-Video, Cable TV, and Sound
Cable TV networks, direct broadcast satellites, and 1/2 inch videocassettes (in the VHS format) in the 80s
encouraged broader distribution of films. Sales and revenues from pre-sold theatrical features for
videocassette reproduction and cable TV distribution contributed increased percentages for studios'
earnings - sometimes outpacing box-office profits. [In an influential decision, the Supreme Court ruled in
the case of Universal v. Sony Betamax (1984) that home video-taping for personal use was not a
copyright infringement.]
Many studios entered the business of producing films for commercial TV networks,
and the release of their films for the home entertainment-video market became a
profitable rental-sales business. The pre-recorded video of Disney's Sleeping
Beauty (1959) brought sales of over a million copies when it was released in 1986.
And then to illustrate the burgeoning video industry over the next few years, 1988 sales of E.T.: The
Extra-Terrestrial (1982) surpassed 15 million!
Tri-Star Pictures Motion Picture Company, one of Hollywood's major producer/distributors, was created in
1983 as a joint venture of CBS Inc., Columbia Pictures, and Time-Life's premium cable service Home
Box Office (HBO) (founded in 1972). HBO and Showtime both functioned as producer/distributors in
their own right by directly financing films and entertainment specials for their own pay-television cable
stations. [In 1989, Time Inc. merged with Warner Communications, becoming the major media giant
Time-Warner.] The spread of access to cable television (and satellite broadcasts) threatened traditional
one-screen theatres and film attendance. On the other hand, multi-plex movie theatres with multiple
screens spread across the country during the 80s, while the number of drive-in theatres drastically
declined.
Multi-track Dolby stereo sound, the THX sound system (named after George Lucas'
first feature film), and Dolby SR ("spectral recording") (all designed to produce
higher quality sound, noise reduction, surround-sound and other special effects)
were introduced in the 70s and 80s, and advertised as a special feature for films
such as Amadeus (1984) and Aliens (1986). The first movie to be shown in a THXcertified auditorium was Return of the Jedi (1983). [In 1992, a new technology dubbed Dolby Digital was
introduced to movie-goers in Batman Returns (1992), and then DTS Digital Sound made its debut in
Jurassic Park (1993).]
'Colorization' of the Classics:
After Ted Turner purchased the vast library-inventory of classic MGM and UA films in
1986 and proposed colorization of the B/W films, there was a bitterly-fought debate over
the topic in mid-decade. Topper (1937) was the very first B/W feature film to be
released to the home video market in 1985 in a 'colorized' version, using computer
technology - a controversial modernizing technique at the time. Colorized ("computercolored" or "color-imaged") films began to be broadcast on television for the first time in
1985. When the classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947), converted by Color Systems
Technology (CST) for 20th Century Fox, aired in 1985, it became the highest rated nonnetwork movie in syndication.
Colorization became extremely controversial in the late 1980s, especially with regard to
"classic" monochrome films such as Citizen Kane (1941) (which ultimately was not
colorized). Other films to be colorized included King Kong (1933), Hughes' The Outlaw (1943), Laurel
and Hardy's Way Out West (1937), Room Service (1938), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca
(1942), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), many Shirley Temple films, It's a
Wonderful Life (1946) and more, were all colorized. By the mid-90s, colorization of films was no longer
an issue.
In another 'homage' to the classics, Fritz Lang's silent Metropolis (1927) was reincarnated and prepared
by Giorgio Morodor for theatrical re-release in 1984. This version was tinted and featured heavy-metal,
synthesizer music (from artists such as Freddie Mercury, Pat Benatar, Adam Ant, and Bonnie Tyler).
The Trend Toward Teenage Comedies
The trend for youth films began with a number of late 70s and early 80s films with young actors and
actresses. Some attributed the trend toward teenaged cinematic fare to the tremendous success of Star
Wars (1977) with youth audiences. The films were entertainment geared for teenagers and younger preteen audiences (both were becoming sizeable segments of movie theatre attendance). At the end of the
previous decade, Steve Tesich's Oscar-winning screenplay helped to highlight Peter Yates' oftoverlooked, youthful bicycle film Breaking Away (1979), about four boys (Dennis Christopher, Dennis
Quaid, Daniel Stern, and Jackie Earle Haley) and their frustrations/hopes in a recession-affected Midwest
college town - it was a portent of the times. Writer/director Barry Levinson's debut film Diner (1982) was a
bitter-sweet, rites-of-passage tale of six male buddies in their twenties growing up in late 50s Baltimore
and hanging out in the local diner Fells Point - with remarkably realistic dialogue scenes. [Levinson would
proceed in making other Baltimore-themed films in the same decade, including Tin Men (1987) and
Avalon (1990) - and later Liberty Heights (1999).]
Youth-Oriented (Yuppie) Films:
Female director Amy Heckerling's energetic, candid and unassumingly real Fast Times at
Ridgemont High (1982), her directorial debut feature film, was the quintessential teen
film of the 1980s. It included a number of stereotyped but realistic roles derived from
screenwriter Cameron Crowe's (a former Rolling Stone writer) undercover study-exposé
of L.A. high school life during a year at a San Diego HS:
[The film was also notable for being the American Graffiti (1973) and American Pie
(1999) of its decade, because it introduced so many new and future stars, including
Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates, Judge Reinhold, Sean Penn, Forest Whitaker, Eric
Stoltz, Nicolas Cage, and Anthony Edwards).]
Also, Francis Ford Coppola's two films of disaffected, angst-ridden youth in the early 80s were both
adapted from S.E. Hinton novels and starred Matt Dillon:
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The Outsiders (1983) - with the tagline: "They grew up on the outside of society. They weren't
looking for a fight. They were looking to belong" - about 1960s Oklahoma teens divided into two
gangs: the underprivileged greasers and elitist Socs (pronounced so-shes); with mostly unknown
actors who would later become stars -- Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell, and
Matt Dillon, and known for the catchphrase: "Let's do it for Johnny!"
Rumble Fish (1983) - about the love between two brothers: The Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke)
and kid brother gang leader Rusty James (Matt Dillon); made as an experimental art film in black
and white
New teen stars of this youth-obsessed cultural decade began to emerge, including Molly Ringwald, Matt
Dillon, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Eric Stoltz, Judd Nelson, Kiefer
Sutherland, Phoebe Cates, Charlie Sheen, Mary Stuart Masterson, Matthew Broderick, Jennifer Grey,
Lou Diamond Phillips, Sean Penn, Emilio Estevez, James Spader, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold,
and Rebecca DeMornay.
The Rise of the Brat Pack
Joel Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire (1985) - a soap-operish, teen version of The Big
Chill (1983) for the younger Yuppie generation with ensemble acting, was responsible
for giving the self-indulgent, self-absorbed, and socially-apathetic stars who portrayed seven Georgetown
graduates (up and coming yuppies) who hung out at a bar their detested nickname "The Brat Pack." Brat
Packers in this film included:
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Emilio Estevez
Ally Sheedy
Rob Lowe
Demi Moore
Andrew McCarthy
Judd Nelson
Mare Winningham
On and off screen, the stars wore designer clothes, drove the coolest sports cars, and projected a 'fast
lane' cynical attitude about life. Edward Zwick's About Last Night... (1986), an adaptation of David
Mamet's one-act play starred Rob Lowe and Demi Moore as a singles scene couple who had to confront
their real feelings after a one-night stand.
John Hughes' 'Teen' Films:
In the 1980s, the most consistent output, and the most watchable and solid films of the sub-genre of
youth-oriented teen comedies starring teenage characters (who were experiencing adolescent angst)
were from writer/director John Hughes. Hughes had first made himself known in the early 80s by cowriting National Lampoon's Vacation (1983) and scripting Mr. Mom (1983). He was responsible for a
number of comedic, "teen"-oriented coming-of-age or 'rites of passage' films directed toward a youth
audience, frequently emphasizing the tensions of the adolescent and post-adolescent years, the
problems of growing up, the high school years, aspects of peer pressure, teen parties, money, rebellion,
friendship, romantic relationships among teens, and family strains.
Hughes directed the following popular films, after signing a three-year, $30 million deal:
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Hughes' first directed film was the attractive and realistic Sixteen Candles
(1984) with Molly Ringwald as a sensitive teen turning sixteen and having a
horrible birthday, upstaged by her sister's wedding week.
Weird Science (1985) was a wacky comedy about two nerds who created the
Ultimate sexy woman (Kelly LeBrock) through their computer and ideas from the
Frankenstein (1931) film
the dialogue-rich, dark and provocative R-rated The Breakfast Club (1985) told
a story of five disparate, crudely-cliched high-school teens forced to be together
(a teen version of an encounter group) during a Saturday detention, and
struggling with issues of conformity and parental values; Emilio Estevez was the
jock, Ally Sheedy the off-beat weirdo (and "compulsive liar"), Judd Nelson the
delinquent, and Molly Ringwald the pretty socialite
the entertaining Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) defined a teenage rebel of the 80s - a risktaking, spirited high-school prankster and malingerer Ferris (Matthew Broderick), and his friend
(Mia Sara), who ditched school (and Principal Rooney) for a day in downtown Chicago; filled with
tips on how to fake a high fever, break into a computer system, and crash a parade
Hughes also produced and wrote the script for two other teen-oriented romances:
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director Howard Deutch's Pretty in Pink (1986) examined teenage cliques and class status, with
Molly Ringwald as an under-appreciated, lower-class girl facing growing pains and teenage angst
over her love for a rich kid (Andrew McCarthy)
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Some Kind of Wonderful (1987), about a teenaged boy's (Eric Stoltz) romantic attraction to teen
queen co-star Lea Thompson while ignoring his faithful, long-suffering, tom-boy companion and
true friend Mary Stuart Masterson
[A so-called "Molly Trilogy" of films included three Ringwald favorites: Sixteen Candles (1984), The
Breakfast Club (1985) and Pretty in Pink (1986).] Following his success with teen-angst romances,
Hughes' next films were the adult comedy Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), and the less-satisfying
adult-oriented She's Having a Baby (1988) with Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern as yuppie
newlyweds on the verge of parenthood. The film had an influence on the forthcoming entire sub-genre of
baby films. [Hughes would strike gold in the 90s with the commercial giant Home Alone (1990) and its
two sequels - Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) and Home Alone 3 (1997), and with kid-oriented
Dennis the Menace (1993) and the funny Baby's Day Out (1994).]
Other Teen-Oriented Films:
Paul Brickman's satirically funny Risky Business (1983) commented on the decade's materialistic greed
by portraying a conservative teen named Joel Goodson (Tom Cruise in an early starring role) - noted for
dancing in his underwear to "Old Time Rock & Roll" - who held an outrageous party in his house. And
director Susan Seidelman's successfully-marketed feminist screwball comedy Desperately Seeking
Susan (1985) starred Rosanna Arquette and pop singer Madonna (in her film debut). It was set in the hip,
80's New Wave culture of New York's Lower East Village SoHo, and helped popularize the chart-topping
song "Into the Groove." One of the best teen movies ever made was Rob Reiner's second feature film -the romantic comedy The Sure Thing (1985), with 17 year-old John Cusack (as Walter "Gib" Gibson)
searching for romance with beautiful, white-bikinied and California-tanned Nicollette Sheridan ("The Sure
Thing") while finding real love with prim student Alison Bradbury (Daphne Zuniga) on the roof-top by film's
end.
One of the best teen romance/comedies of the decade was Cameron Crowe's
directorial debut film Say Anything... (1989) with John Cusack (as underachieving,
trench-coated Lloyd Dobler) and Ione Skye (as beautiful valedictorian Diane Court) in
outstanding roles as high-school graduates and unlikely lovers - the film was most
noted for a boom-box blaring Peter Gabriel that he held above his head to serenade
his girlfriend. Paul Schrader's naturalistic, melodramatic Light of Day (1987) starred
Michael J. Fox and real-life rock star Joan Jett (in her debut film) as brother and sister
(in a dysfunctional family headed by Gena Rowlands), who played rock musicians in a
local Cleveland band named the Barbusters.
Other films examined disenfranchised, alienated and coming-of-age youth: Tim
Hunter's disturbing River's Edge (1986) with many future stars (Keanu Reeves,
Crispin Glover, etc.) - revolved around the aftermath of an atrocious teen murder of a suburban highschooler's girlfriend - all inspired/based on a 1981 murder case. Also, Rob Reiner's sentimental Stand By
Me (1986) was about the rites-of-passage of four small-town Maine boys (including River Phoenix, who
died of a drug overdose in 1993 at the age of 23) in the 1950s while looking for the corpse of a dead kid.
The horror/comedy The Lost Boys (1987) was a teen vampire film with a tagline appreciated by teens:
"Sleep all day. Party all night. Never grow old. Never die. It's fun to be a vampire." An offbeat, blackcomedy satire on competitive teen social popularity in a modern high school was found in the darkly funny
Heathers (1989) starring Winona Ryder (as Veronica) and Christian Slater (as JD). The film covered such
topics as teen suicide, murder, and school bombings.
James Bond Films:
Sequels featuring the 007 secret agent continued to thrive in the 80s:

For Your Eyes Only (1981) - the 12th official James Bond film, starring Roger Moore (in his best
Bond film appearance) as James Bond; also with Carole Bouquet, Lynn-Holly Johnson and
Cassandra Harris (Mrs. Pierce Brosnan) as the 'Bond Girls', and Julian Glover as the villain,
Kristatos; directed by John Glen (his first Bond film)

Octopussy (1983) - the 13th Bond sequel, also with Roger Moore, and with Maud Adams (as
Octopussy) and Kristina Wayborn as the 'Bond Girls', and Louis Jourdan as the villain, Kamal;
directed by John Glen
[Maud Adams was the only 'Bond Girl' to appear in two Bond films (both Roger Moore films) as
different characters: her other film was as Andrea Anders in The Man With the Golden Gun
(1974)]
[The main title song for Octopussy (1983), All Time High (sung by Rita Coolidge), was the only
Bond title song -- with lyrics -- that didn't mention the film's title in its lyrics, until Casino Royale
(2006) with its theme song You Know My Name (written and performed by Chris Cornell). The
theme songs for Dr. No (1962) and On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) were instrumental,
therefore they had no mention of the titles in their lyrics]

Never Say Never Again (1983) - not considered one of the official Bond films; considered a
remake of Thunderball; with Sean Connery triumphantly returning as James Bond after a twelve
year absence; with Klaus Maria Brandauer as the villainous Largo, and 'Bond Girls' Barbara
Carrera and Kim Basinger; directed by Irvin Kershner

A View to A Kill (1985) - the 14th in the series with Roger Moore as Bond, also with Tanya
Roberts as the 'Bond Girl' and Christopher Walken as the villain (Max Zorin), with Grace Jones as
henchwoman May Day. Also starring Fiona Fullerton, Patrick Macnee and Alison Doody. This
was Roger Moore's last appearance as Bond, his seventh appearance; directed by John Glen

The Living Daylights (1987), the 15th official Bond film in the 25th year of the series; actionpacked with the first appearance of Timothy Dalton as Bond (the agent's fourth incarnation); also
Maryam D'Abo as the 'Bond Girl' and Joe Don Baker as the villain, Brad Whitaker; directed by
John Glen

License to Kill (1989) (aka Licence to Kill in the UK) - the 16th official Bond film, again with
Dalton (his 2nd and final appearance), and Carey Lowell and Talisa Soto as the 'Bond Girls', and
Robert Davi as the villain, Sanchez; directed by John Glen (his fifth Bond film)
[NOTE: It would be 6 more years until the next installment (the 17th), GoldenEye (1995), marked
by the first appearance of Pierce Brosnan as the British super-agent]
Endless Sequels: The Beginning of a Trend
Throughout cinematic history, there has been a tradition of re-doing films in series or installments with
familiar, recurring sets of performers and plot routines), such as the repeated appearance of Charlie
Chaplin's "Little Tramp" character in numerous films, serials such as The Perils of Pauline (1914) with a
returning heroine, the Universal horror film recycles (i.e., Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, etc.), The
Thin Man (1934) mysteries, the many James Bond and Tarzan films, and Mickey Rooney's Andy Hardy
movies, to name just a few.
Before 1980, there were very few sequels - maybe two or three each year. Beginning in
the early 80s (and from then on), however, a mind-staggering, steady stream of
mindless, crude sequels were produced each year, usually inferior to their originals with some notable exceptions. Remakes and sequels, with the 'same story, different title'
principle, were designed to defray the monetary risks of Hollywood film-making. Most
often, these sequels were hastily-made, inferior knockoffs made by lesser film-makers
and without key cast members (wisely reluctant to reappear) from the original. Predictably, the repetitive
carbon copies usually resulted in dwindling box-office returns.
John Carpenter's highly-successful, low-budget slasher Halloween (1978) sparked a revival of horror
films in the 80s and forever since. Other film-makers attempted to cash in on its success at the box-office
with similar story-lines. A large percentage of the films in the 80s (and later) were nightmarish slasher
films (e.g., the Evil Dead series, the very successful Friday the 13th franchise and series, and A
Nightmare on Elm Street films (the first one by director Wes Craven) with a new villain - the terrifying
burn victim Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) with knives on his fingers who appeared in bad dreams as a
child molester). [There was also a 44-episode TV anthology in the late 80s and early 90s of Freddy
Krueger films made-for-TV films, including Freddy's Nightmares: Dreams That Kill (1990) and
Freddy's Nightmares: Freddy's Tricks and Treats (1990)]
Halloween Films
Friday the 13th Films
Nightmare on Elm Street
Films
Halloween (1978)
also
Halloween: 25th Anniversary SE
(2003)
Friday the 13th (1980)
A Nightmare on Elm
Street (1984)
Halloween II (1981)
Friday the 13th, Part 2 (1981)
A Nightmare on Elm
Street 2: Freddy's
Revenge (1985)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
(1982)
Friday the 13th, Part 3 (1982)
A Nightmare on Elm
Street 3: Dream
Warriors (1987)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Friday the 13th, The Final
Myers (1988)
Chapter (1984)
A Nightmare on Elm
Street 4: The Dream
Master (1988)
Halloween 5: The Revenge of
Michael Myers (1989)
Friday the 13th, Part V: A New
Beginning (1985)
A Nightmare on Elm
Street 5: The Dream
Child (1989)
Halloween: The Curse of Michael
Myers (1995)
Friday the 13th, Part VI: Jason
Lives (1986)
Freddy's Dead: The
Final Nightmare (1991)
Halloween H20 (1998)
Friday the 13th, Part VII: The
New Blood (1988)
Wes Craven's New
Nightmare (1994)
Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
Friday the 13th, Part VIII:
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
Halloween (2007)
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final
Friday (1993)
Halloween: 25 Years of Terror
(2006) (documentary)
Jason X (2002)
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
More Sequels: (continued)
There were many more sequels that were rip-offs, spin-offs, and derivatives of
previously-successful films, such as:







Staying Alive (1983) (written and directed by Rocky (1976) star Sylvester
Stallone), a rip-off sequel to Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Sudden Impact (1983), the fourth screen adventure of "Dirty Harry"
Callahan (Clint Eastwood), followed by The Dead Pool (1988)
48 Hrs. (1982), and Another 48 Hrs. (1990), another cop/buddy team pair
of films, pairing cop Nick Nolte with convict-hustler Eddie Murphy
Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo (1984), the sequel to Breakin' (1984) (aka
Breakdance: The Movie), both break-dance films - a street-dancing craze in the mid-80s
The Color of Money (1986), Martin Scorsese's sequel to The Hustler (1961), with Tom Cruise,
and Paul Newman reprising one of his best screen performances as a pool player - and winning
an Oscar (his first after seven tries)
Teen Wolf Too (1987), with the producer's son (Jason Bateman) in the lead role, a sequel to the
original Teen Wolf (1985) that featured Michael J. Fox in the lead role as a teenaged werewolf
Predator (1987), and Predator 2 (1990); and Alien vs. Predator (2004)
80s Films and Sequels with Action Heroes:
The 80s, the decade of no-nonsense politics of Ronald Reagan, were littered with muscle-bound action
heroes, firing grenades and oversized guns, and spouting quotable one-liners. Major testosterone-heavy
films (and their sequels) starred:










Sylvester Stallone (the Rambo and Rocky films)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (the Terminator films, and other sword/sorcery and action films)
Harrison Ford (the Indiana Jones films)
Chuck Norris (the Missing in Action films)
Bruce Willis (the Die Hard films)
Mel Gibson (the Lethal Weapon films)
Clint Eastwood and Eddie Murphy (in various cop films)
Dolph Lundgren (in Rocky IV)
Jean-Claude Van Damme (in various films such as No Retreat, No Surrender (1986),
Bloodsport (1988), Black Eagle (1988), Cyborg (1989), and Kickboxer (1989))
Kurt Russell (in Escape From New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Big Trouble in Little China
(1986), and Tango & Cash (1989))
The two most prominent action heroes were Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Rambo Films
Rocky Films
Arnold Films
First Blood
(1982), d. Ted
Kotcheff
Rocky (1976)
Rambo First
Blood, Part II
Rocky II (1979) The
Terminator
Conan the
Barbarian
(1982)
and
Conan the
Destroyer
(1984)
Chuck Norris
Films
Die Hard Films
Lethal
Weapon
Films
Missing in
Action (1984)
Die Hard
(1988)
Lethal
Weapon
(1987)
Missing in
Action 2: The
Die Hard 2:
Die Harder
Lethal
Weapon 2
(1985)
(1984)
Beginning
(1985)
and
Terminator 2:
Judgment Day
(1991)
(1990)
(1989)
Rambo III
(1988)
Rocky III
(1982)
(made Mr. T a
star and "Eye of
the Tiger" a hit
song)
Commando
(1985)
and
Red Sonja
(1985)
Braddock:
Missing in
Action 3
(1988)
Die Hard With
a Vengeance
(1995)
Lethal
Weapon 3
(1992)
Rambo (2008)
Rocky IV
(1985)
Raw Deal
(1986)
The Delta
Force (1986)
Live Free or
Die Hard
(2007)
Lethal
Weapon 4
(1998)
Rocky V
(1990)
and
Rocky Balboa
(2006)
The Running
Man (1987)
and
Predator
(1987)
also
Total Recall
(1990)
Delta Force 2:
Operation
Stranglehold
(1990)
Alien Films - see The Alien Quadrilogy
Alien (1979), d. Ridley Scott
Aliens (1886) d. James Cameron - a thrilling, full-speed action/sci-fi
film with Sigourney Weaver reprising her strong female role as action
heroine Warrant Officer Ripley - 57 years later
Alien 3 (1992) d. David Fincher
Alien Resurrection (1997) d. Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Alien vs. Predator (2004) d. Paul S. Anderson
Road Warrior
Films
Beverly Hills
Cop Films
Superman
Films
Robocop Films
(futuristic cop
thrillers)
Raiders Films
Back to the
Future Films
Mad Max
(1979)
d. George
Miller (AUS)
Beverly Hills
Cop (1984)
Superman:
The Movie
(1978)
Robocop
(1987)
Raiders of the
Lost Ark
(1981)
Back to the
Future
(1985)
The Road
Warrior (1981)
a superior,
postapocalyptic,
sci-fi sequel
with Mel
Gibson
Beverly Hills
Cop II (1987)
Superman II
(1981)
Robocop 2
(1990)
Indiana Jones
and the
Temple of
Doom (1984)
Back to the
Future Part II
(1989)
Mad Max
Beverly Hills
Beyond
Cop III (1994)
Thunderdome
(1985) an imaginative
film with Gibson
facing evil ruler
Auntie (Tina
Turner) in
Bartertown
Superman III
(1983)
Robocop 3
(1992)
Indiana Jones
and The Last
Crusade
(1989)
Superman IV:
The Quest for
Peace (1987)
Robocop:
Prime
Directives
(2001) a 4-part
miniseries on
Canada's
Space cable
network
Indiana Jones
and the
Kingdom of
the Crystal
Skull (2008)
Back to the
Future Part
III (1990)
in a western
setting
Superman
Returns (2006)
The rest of the sequels in the 80s (and stretching on) were endless vulgar, teen-oriented imitators, sci-fi
features, family-oriented films, some miscellaneous horror films and comedies of various sorts. In most
cases, the sequel (or endless sequels) was a lesser work than the original(s):












The Karate Kid (1984) - about a gardener (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita) who taught a boy (Ralph
Macchio) the ancient martial art of self-defense, followed by The Karate Kid Part II (1986) (set in
Japan), The Karate Kid Part III (1989), and The Next Karate Kid (1994), in which Macchio was
replaced by a young, future Oscar winner Hilary Swank as an orphaned 17-year old, who needed
training provided by Morita
beginning 23 years after the original, the sequels: Psycho II (1983), Psycho III (1986), Psycho
IV: The Beginning (1990)
16 years after Kubrick's masterpiece, director Peter Hyams' 2010 (1984)
Peter Faiman's "Crocodile" Dundee II (1988), a follow-up film that reversed the settings of the
original (New York City and the Australian outback); also Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles
(2001)
National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985),
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), and Vegas Vacation (1997), with Chevy
Chase as impossible dad Clark Griswold
Stir Crazy (1980) brought together the two stars of Silver Streak (1976), Richard Pryor and
Gene Wilder
Arthur 2: On the Rocks (1988), a dismal sequel to Arthur (1981), a film about a rich, happy,
carefree alcoholic with butler John Gielgud (a Best Supporting Actor winner)
Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)
Grease 2 (1982)
Ghostbusters (1984), followed by an inferior Ghostbusters II (1989)
Children of the Corn (1984), and numerous sequels in the 90s: Children of the Corn II: The
Final Sacrifice (1992), Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1994), Children of the Corn
IV: The Gathering (1996), Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998), Children of the
Corn 666: Isaac's Return (1999), and Children of the Corn: Revelation (2001)
Batman (1989) - a reprise of the character from the popular, campy mid-60s TV series and its
accompanying full-length feature film Batman (1966) with Adam West and Burt Ward; its own










sequels were Batman Returns (1992), the animated Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993),
Batman Forever (1995), Batman: Batman & Robin (1997), Batman Begins (2005) and The
Dark Knight (2008) - see The Batman Film Series
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III:
The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Star Trek V: The Final
Frontier (1989), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), Star Trek Generations
(1994), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), Star Trek: Insurrection (1998), and Star Trek:
Nemesis (2002); after the original TV series of 1966, there were also four TV series of weekly
shows since 1987: Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993),
Star Trek: Voyager (1995), and Star Trek: Enterprise (2001)
Police Academy (1984), Police Academy 2 (1985), Police Academy 3: Back in Training
(1986), Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol (1987), Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami
Beach (1988) and Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (1989)
the abysmal Caddyshack II (1988)
Tobe Hooper's supernatural ghost story in suburbia Poltergeist (1982) with a corpse-filled
swimming pool finale, and Carol Anne's (Heather Rourke) memorable: "They're here", followed by
Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) and Poltergeist III (1988)
Any Which Way You Can (1980) - Clint Eastwood's sequel to Every Which Way But Loose
(1978)
Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983) and Jaws - The Revenge (1987)
Gremlins (1984), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
Look Who's Talking (1989), Look Who's Talking, Too (1990), and Look Who's Talking Now
(1993)
Three Men and a Baby (1987), and Three Men and a Little Lady (1990)
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) and sequels: Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992), and Honey,
We Shrunk Ourselves (1996)
The Most Successful Sequels and Films from Lucas and Spielberg:
The sci-fi films and sequels of George Lucas after Star Wars (1977), with Lucas as producer, were
Eighties blockbusters: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (the second in six planned installments of the
original Star Wars saga) and Return of the Jedi (1983). The later film introduced Lucasfilms' THX sound
system in theatres. Without the sequels, ancillary product sales and further
merchandising would dry up.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was a fast-paced, full-of-stunts (the gigantic boulder
roll, for example, in the exciting opening) tribute to the serials of the 30s and 40s in
Saturday matinees with its tale of the search for the Ark of the Covenant involving
sadistic Nazis, a duplicitous Frenchman, snakes, an exciting chase sequence, the
blinding-zapping climax, and a spunky love interest (Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood)
for the bull-whipping, fedora-wearing lead character (Harrison Ford). After Raiders,
Steven Spielberg completed his trilogy of the Raiders' explorer-adventurer-archaeologist
hero with two more films in the 80s:


the inferior Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), a film that inspired the creation in
mid 1984 of a new ratings category between PG and R (the new rating of PG-13 - meaning some
material inappropriate for children under 13, unless accompanied by adult/parent), was due to an
intense torture scene of a crazed Hindu priest ripping out a beating heart from a human sacrifice
victim
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), a film of a quest to find the Holy Grail that better
captured the appeal of the original, and propelled Harrison Ford to even greater stardom while
featuring co-star Sean Connery (as his father)
Spielberg's sentimental, crowd-pleasing story E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (1982), about a
loveable, homeless, and stranded alien creature from outer space that was befriended
and adopted by a lonely young boy, was a major blockbuster in the summer of 1982,
popularizing the catch-phrase: "ET phone home." The endearing science-fiction fantasy
surpassed Star Wars (1977) (and previously Spielberg's own Jaws (1975)) as the
highest-grossing film.
[A more intelligent and grown-up version of E.T. crossed with Close Encounters of the
Third Kind was John Carpenter's sci-fi fantasy and romantic melodrama Starman (1984)
with Jeff Bridges as the alien visitor (in an Oscar-nominated role - the only one for a
Carpenter film to date!) landing in Wisconsin. He visited Karen Allen in the likeness of her recentlydeceased husband. The film, whose title was taken from a 1972 David Bowie hit, also featured a
recognizable and emotionally-moving score by Jack Nitzsche, and brought about a mid-1980s ABC-TV
series spinoff starring Robert Hays.]
Steven Spielberg then departed from his usual special-effects productions and turned to his first 'serious'
adult dramas:


an adaptation of Alice Walker's best-selling novel The Color Purple (1985) received eleven
Academy Award nominations but was left empty-handed; it starred Oprah Winfrey as Sofia,
Whoopi Goldberg as Celie, and Danny Glover as an abusive husband
Empire of the Sun (1987), a second attempt at a unique blockbuster, was about a young boy's
experiences (based on J.G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel) in a WWII Japanese
concentration camp in China
Spielberg also served as producer for a number of films: Barry Levinson's Indiana Jones
type adventure The Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) with virtuoso special effects
sequences created by Lucas' computer animators (Pixar), and the fantasy-comedy
"Back to the Future" trilogy (with Robert Zemeckis as director). The first film in the
enormously-successful film series was Back to the Future (1985), an inventive timetravel comedy starring Michael J. Fox as teenaged Marty McFly who cruised back to
1955 in a DeLorean with mad scientist-inventor Dr. Brown (Christopher Lloyd) and
confronted intriguing 'what if' Oedipal questions regarding his parents (Lea Thompson
and Crispin Glover).
An Indiana Jones-type adventure film Romancing the Stone (1984), also by director
Robert Zemeckis, tried to capitalize on the decade's most popular films by taking a
romantic fiction writer (Kathleen Turner) into an exciting, non-stop escapade in Colombia with a soldier-offortune (Michael Douglas). [The film also was the breakout film for Danny DeVito, who would later be a
lead actor in Ruthless People (1986) and later would debut-direct Throw Momma From the Train
(1987).] It was followed by the similar sequel, the romantic adventure comedy The Jewel of the Nile
(1985). Although not the third film in the series, DeVito (as director), Turner, and Douglas were re-teamed
in the failed black comedy The War of the Roses (1989).
Horror and humor were combined in Spielberg's teen-oriented productions:


director Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist (1982) was about a 5 year-old girl (Heather
O'Rourke) who unleashed the spirits through the TV set ("They're here") and
was kidnapped by unfriendly spirits, and a suburban house built over an old
Indian burial ground
Joe Dante's anarchic comedy Gremlins (1984) was about furry, loveable
mogwai creatures in a Capra-esque small-town setting that mutated after being
dowsed with water (or after being fed after midnight) into murderous gremlins - a
reversal of Spielberg's own E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982); the subversive

film famously included Phoebe Cates' monologue about how the sacred cows of Santa Claus and
Christmas were ruined for her, and was partly responsible for the institution of the PG-13 rating;
the film's sequel was Dante's Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
the poorly-received, kid-oriented adventure by director Richard Donner entitled The Goonies
(1985) was about a group of kids who searched for treasure with One-Eyed Willie's treasure map
Cross-Over TV Comedy Show Stars:
In the late 70s and early 80s, many budding comedians, including John Belushi, Bill
Murray, Joan Rivers, Chris Farley, Robert Klein, Peter Boyle, Alan Arkin, Fred Willard,
James Belushi, Shelley Long, and Martin Short, first appeared as sketch comedians in a
Chicago troupe comedy theater named Second City. Its offshoot in Toronto, Canada
featured Rick Moranis, Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Martin Short, Mike
Myers, and John Candy, among others. Many of them used Second City as a career
springboard, and would go on to become well-known TV comedians and movie stars.
NBC TV's live late-night show Saturday Night Live, which debuted in October of 1975,
also provided its first cast of 'Not Ready for Prime Time Players" including Chevy Chase,
Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, and Jane Curtin.
Cross-over film appearances of these improvisational, comedic stars now on sketch-based TV shows
swelled in this decade. Two major stars, John Belushi (who appeared in National Lampoon's Animal
House (1978)) and Dan Aykroyd starred as recently-released Joliet prison inmates turned bandleader
brothers Elwood and Jake (from their recurring sketches on the small screen) in director John Landis' The
Blues Brothers (1980). [A few years later, a helicopter accident on the film set of Landis' Twilight Zone The Movie (1983) (based upon Rod Serling's classic sci-fi TV show), killed actor Vic Morrow (veteran
actor, star of TV's Combat!, and father of actress Jennifer Jason Leigh) and two Vietnamese child actors.
Landis was indicted with three counts of involuntary manslaughter, but finally acquitted during the ninemonth trial that began in September 1986.]
21 year old comedian Eddie Murphy, another regular on Saturday Night Live, was emerging as a major
star and box-office moneymaker with his first film, portraying convicted prisoner Reggie Hammond (and
mismatched with Nick Nolte) in director Walter Hill's excellent cops-and-robbers action buddy film 48 Hrs.
(1982). He also appeared in John Landis' Trading Places (1983) in which a rich man (Dan Aykroyd)
traded places with a poor man (Murphy) as part of a dollar bet between the Duke brothers. His most
successful appearances were in the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy as street-wise, fast-talking Detroit cop Axel
Foley, in fish-out-of-water tales:



Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)
Beverly Hills Cop III (1994)
[In the late 80s, Murphy departed from his Beverly Hills Cop action-crime drama/comedy series, trying
something different with The Golden Child (1986) and Coming to America (1988), a film about a
pampered African prince (from the fictitious monarchic state of Zamunda) who journeyed to New York
City to find a bride/queen - a story-line reminiscent of many 40s-era comedies. Paula Abdul was the film's
choreographer - a little-known fact. Comedian and writer Art Buchwald accused the film's producers at
Paramount of plagiarism (the film's plot resembled his film treatment 'King for a Day'), and won a sizeable
court judgment in 1995.]
Ivan Reitman (known for the irreverent National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and Meatballs
(1979) with Bill Murray in his first lead role as a goof-off summer camp counselor) directed Stripes
(1981). In the film, Murray starred as a reluctant enlistee in the US Army (along with overweight John
Candy as Ox and Judge Reinhold as stoned Elmo) who suddenly ran afoul of Sgt. Hulka (Warren Oates)
- in a male version of Private Benjamin (1980). (The storyline in Private Benjamin (1980), with TV
regular Goldie Hawn from Laugh-in playing a spoiled, self-obsessed Jewish princess who was widowed
on her wedding night and then joined the Army, was reminiscent of the "This is the Army" comedies in the
40s and 50s.)
Murray also appeared in Harold Ramis' directorial debut film -- the popular anarchic
comedy Caddyshack (1980) (with Chevy Chase in his second lead role after
appearing with Goldie Hawn in Foul Play (1978)) as deranged golf-course
groundskeeper Carl Spackler at the Bushwood Country Club, who tried to blow up a
mischevious gopher enemy - an animatronic gopher named Chuck E. Rodent.
Reitman also directed the immensely popular sci-fi comedy film Ghostbusters (1984),
with a screenplay by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, and stars including Aykroyd,
Murray, Ramis, and Rick Moranis. Moranis was well-known for his appearances in the
series of Honey films, including Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) and 90s sequels:
Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992), and Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves (1996).
TV comedian Steve Martin (known for his "happy feet," rabbit ears, and arrow through
the head on The Smothers Brothers Show and other variety shows) appeared in his
first major film at the end of the previous decade, in Carl Reiner's The Jerk (1979).
After Pennies from Heaven (1981), he also appeared in a few films that paid homage
to classic Hollywood genres, including Carl Reiner's mock Dead Men Don't Wear
Plaid (1982) with Martin as detective Rigby Reardon mingling with footage from
classic 40s noirs and other film stars, and the spoof of 50s mad-scientist films The
Man With Two Brains (1983). This was followed by Carl Reiner's well-acted All of Me
(1984) in which he shared a body and split personality with Lily Tomlin. Next was Fred
Schepisi's update of the Cyrano de Bergerac romantic legend Roxanne (1987), and
then he co-starred with John Candy (as a shower-ring salesman) in John Hughes' slapstick, screwball
road film Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) about a nightmarish journey at Thanksgiving time.
Great (and Less than Great) Comedies of the 80s:
Director Ron Howard's Night Shift (1982) was set in a morgue, with a cast including a young Shannen
Doherty and Kevin Costner, Michael Keaton (in his first film and known for saying: "Is this a great country
or what?"), Henry Winkler as the night-shift clerk, and Shelley Long as a hooker. Steve Martin starred as
crazed neurosurgeon Dr. Hfuhruhurr who was in love with a disembodied brain in a jar (voice of Sissy
Spacek) while trying to romance gold-digging Kathleen Turner. It was Martin's third film with director Carl
Reiner, after The Jerk (1979) and the film-noir parody Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
(1982).
Ghostbusters (1984), the costly horror comedy with a Saturday Night Live cast - a mix of
National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind
(1977) - told about a parapsychologist team of crazy professors that investigated and
fought against paranormal (special-effects) phenomena (with its catch-phrase: "Who ya
gonna call?"). It starred Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Bill Murray (taking the place of
John Belushi after his tragic death due to a drug overdose at age 33 in March, 1982). It
was one of the biggest hits of the decade, noted for its conclusive battle against a giant
marshmallow man. Its success led to a horrible sequel in 1989, a hit single record, a
cartoon series, and various other merchandise emblazoned with the familiar "NO
GHOSTS" symbol.
Other crass comedies with zany, slapstick, TV-like skits parodied earlier films. The joke
and pun-filled Airplane! (1980), from the trio of Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams, was
inspired by the serious melodrama Airport (1970) and aggressively spoofed (like Mel
Brooks had done earlier) the entire disaster film genre of the 70s with fast-paced jokes ("Don't call me
Shirley"), sight gags, and sexual double entendres.
Abrahams and the Zuckers, the creators of Airplane! did not contribute to the sequel Airplane 2: The
Sequel (1982), but they spoofed Elvis, 60's beach films and more in Top Secret! (1984). They
resurrected their short-lived TV series Police Squad and brought Leslie Nielsen to the screen - perfect in
the role as the deadpan, bumbling LA detective Lt. Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun: From the Files of
Police Squad! (1988). [The trio were also responsible for Hot Shots! (1991), a parody of Only Angels
Have Wings (1939) and Top Gun (1986) with emerging star Tom Cruise.]
In the cloak-and-dagger comedy Hopscotch (1980), Walter Matthau played a disgruntled CIA agent
taken off the field and given a desk job, who took revenge by hooking up with lover/ex-agent Glenda
Jackson in Europe, writing his tell-all memoirs and circulating them to all the rival agencies. TV comedian
Jackie Gleason reprised his role as frustrated southern Sheriff Buford T. Justice in the hit sequel Smokey
and the Bandit II (1980). The Cannonball Run (1981) was about a group of eccentrics who raced crosscountry across America, including Jackie Chan (in one of his first US film roles) as a kung-fu Subaru
driver. Tim Burton's surrealistic Beetlejuice (1988), a take-off of the "Topper" series of 30s and 40s films,
featured Michael Keaton as the evil, grotesque phantom Betelgeuse, and Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin
as ghosts who wished to exorcise their home of humans haunting it.
There were many soul-transference films in the late 80s - the best was the endearing comedy-fantasy Big
(1988) with Tom Hanks' deft, believable performance as 13-year old David Moscow in the body of a 35year old "big person" after using a magical carnival wishing machine. Coppola's poignant time-travel film
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) starred Kathleen Turner as a 43 year old in the body of a high school
senior.
The average US film of the 1980s seemed to be aimed at unthinking, moronic teenagers, as evidenced
by crude slapstick teen comedies:
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Police Academy (1984) (and its many sequels)
the various National Lampoon films (1983, 1985, and 1989), beginning with Vacation (1983) with the always-clumsy and dim-brained Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) taking his family crosscountry in a gigantic pea-green "Family Truckster" station wagon with a hiccupping engine to
Wally World theme park - with all of their arduous misadventures
the "stupid humor" of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) featured two shabby and
unbrainy lead characters/dudes - Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves (in a breakthrough role) who
traveled through time to pass their history class test. Their stupidity was demonstrated when they
were offered the Iron Maiden by their medieval Evil Duke captor - they reacted with "Excellent!"
without realizing that it was a torture execution machine and not a rock band ("Bogus!")
it was followed by Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991) - a parody of the Terminator films (with
two evil robot-twins) and Back to the Future films, and a parody-sendup of both Bergman's The
Seventh Seal (1957) with its Reaper Dude, and Powell/Pressburger's Stairway to Heaven/A
Matter of Life and Death (1946); it's simple philosophy was: "Be Excellent to Each Other"
Acerbic, vulgar, stand-up "I get no respect" comedian Rodney Dangerfield appeared in a string of
comedies including Caddyshack (1980), Easy Money (1983), and Back to School (1986). The
controversial Disney release, Roger Donaldson's Cocktail (1988) presented Tom Cruise in an early role
as Brian Flanagan, an ex-GI and flamboyant juggling bartender with a carefree attitude.
Encouragingly, other comedies showed more intelligence:
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Ron Howard's outrageous hit comedy about a mermaid (Darryl Hannah) who fell for Tom Hanks
(who had graduated from TV's Bosom Buddies), Splash (1984) - this was Touchstone's first
production
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Working Girl (1988)
the contemporary romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally... (1989) from director Rob Reiner
(son of director Carl Reiner) was famous for its tagline question: "Can two friends sleep together
and still love each other in the morning?"
Nine to 5 (1980) - a successful screwball comedy with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton
(in her acting debut) as three secretaries who took revenge on their boss
This is Spinal Tap (1984) - director Rob Reiner's debut feature film -- a brilliantly-clever fictional
documentary (or mockumentary) about an on-the-road heavy-metal British rock group on a
comeback tour (with their new album Smell The Glove) -- their amplifier could be turned up to 11,
and as a group they became lost on their way to the stage for a performance
director Richard Benjamin's comedy The Money Pit (1986), with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long
as two homeowners who suffered financial distress after purchasing a suburban fixer-upper in
New York
the wonderful fantasy The Princess Bride (1987)
Sydney Pollack's romantic comedy Tootsie (1982) starred Dustin Hoffman in a
tour-de-force performance as unemployed actor Michael Dorsey, alias daytime
soap star "Dorothy Michaels," who was forced to cross-dress in drag to find work it was an engaging, original, hilarious drag comedy with other stars Jessica
Lange, Geena Davis and Bill Murray
another role-reversal comedy, Mr. Mom (1983) starred Michael Keaton as the
out-of-work house-husband
Paul Mazursky's Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), a remake of Renoir's
Bondu Saved by Drowning (1932), was Disney/Touchstone's first R-rated
feature; it brought a return to stardom for Bette Midler, and also starred Richard
Dreyfuss and Nick Nolte
two appealing and emerging stars, Bette Midler and Danny De Vito, appeared in the comedy,
crime-caper classic Ruthless People (1986)
Pee-wee Herman's (Paul Reubens) big-screen film debut in Tim Burton's first film as director - the
weirdly-funny and original Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985) - with the guileless hero's
determined search for his stolen bicycle (with rocket launchers and an ejector seat) in the
basement of the Alamo! His next film was the off-beat sequel Big Top Pee-Wee (1988) with the
zany comic character falling in love with a beautiful Italian circus acrobat (Valeria Golina)
Parenthood Comedies:
The gender-role comedy Mr. Mom (1983) starred Michael Keaton and Teri Garr as a
couple who reversed their domestic roles - he wore a gas mask to change diapers and
she got a job and saved the Tuna account. More challenges of parenthood were
presented in two hilarious, but light-weight comedies: director Amy Heckerling's Look
Who's Talking (1989) with unmarried single mother Kirstie Alley choosing taxi-driver
John Travolta as the perfect father/baby-sitter for her baby (Bruce Willis provided the
humorous "off-screen" voice and impressions of the child Mikey all the way from
conception to age one); and director Ron Howard's heart-warming, thoughtful
Parenthood (1989) with Steve Martin and Mary Steenburgen as model, middle-class
parents in the middle of a four-generational family. Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek fame
directed the romantic comedy Three Men and a Baby (1987), with 'foster parents' trio Tom Selleck,
Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson (an architect, a cartoonist, and an actor) as middle-aged, eligible
bachelor-roommates with a infant girl on their hands - it was a re-make of the French hit Three Men and a
Cradle (1985). Its poorly received sequel was Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), directed by Emile
Ardolino.
Animations and Kids' Comedies:
The ground-breaking, escapist TRON (1982) from writer/director Steven Lisberger used
cutting-edge computer graphics combined with live action (featuring human stars Jeff
Bridges and David Warner) in a tale set within a gladiatorial computer game. Technical
breakthroughs were also accomplished in Robert Zemeckis' innovative Who Framed
Roger Rabbit (1988) - the most expensive film of the 80s decade at $70 million. It
seamlessly blended animated cartoon characters (superstar Roger and his wife Jessica
voiced by Kathleen Turner) and live action in a hard-boiled, 1940s-style Hollywood murder
mystery featuring Bob Hoskins as noir detective Eddie Valiant.
Disney Studios returned to its old-fashioned film values with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
(1989), an inventive, special-effects comedy about a father/scientist (Rick Moranis) who
accidentally reduced four children to ant-size proportions with his molecular reducer.
Harry and the Hendersons (1987), about the first abominable snowman (or Bigfoot)
brought to suburbia by a vacationing family in the Pacific Northwest, was turned into a
TV sitcom in the early 90s.
Disney also scored with one of its old-fashioned musical animations that appealed to
both children and adults. Its 28th feature-length cartoon The Little Mermaid (1989)
heralded a new generation of successful animations, with its classic tale by Hans
Christian Andersen featuring characters Ursula, Ariel, and Sebastian.
Box-Office Stars of the Decade:
The greatest box-office star early in the decade was Sylvester Stallone, who
commanded $12 million a film in mid-decade. Stallone was replaced by superstar Eddie
Murphy (on the strength of Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and its sequels). [The other major
African-American star of the 1980s was Whoopi Goldberg, who appeared in Spielberg's
The Color People (1985), Jumpin' Jack Flash (1987), Clara's Heart (1988), and
Ghost (1990) (for which she won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
And then Murphy in turn was replaced by Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger, who
catapulted to action-film fame in director James Cameron's sci-fi romantic thriller The
Terminator (1984) - in which Arnold as a futuristic, invincible cyborg returned to Los
Angeles to murder a strong heroine (Linda Hamilton) whose offspring would ultimately lead a rebel revolt.
[Schwarzenegger's first popular feature film was the sword-and-sorcery epic Conan the Barbarian
(1982), and subsequent machismo films after The Terminator further exaggerated his bulk and bravura:
Mark Lester's Commando (1985) and Walter Hill's Red Heat (1988).]
Bruce Willis, star of TV's hit show Moonlighting, finally succeeded as a believable, lone, smart action-hero
in director John McTiernan's super-charged action blockbuster Die Hard (1988), playing off-duty lone cop
John McClane caught in a dangerous situation with terrorists (led by Alan Rickman) in an L.A. Century
City high-rise.
Clint Eastwood continued to be popular as both actor and director, playing the familiar Dirty Harry (1971)
in 70s-80s sequels:
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Magnum Force (1973)
The Enforcer (1976)
Sudden Impact (1983)
The Dead Pool (1988)
Eastwood also played other western heroes in High Plains Drifter (1973), The Outlaw Josey Wales
(1976), Bronco Billy (1980), and Pale Rider (1985). And in 1986, the popular star/director was elected
mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea in Northern California.
Furthermore, Burt Reynolds, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, John Travolta, Sally Field,
Sissy Spacek, Barbra Streisand, Harrison Ford, Alan Alda, Bo Derek, Richard Gere, Paul Newman, Tom
Cruise, Michael J. Fox, Chuck Norris, Paul Hogan, Bette Midler, Kathleen Turner, Glenn Close, Tom
Hanks, and Tom Selleck were also successful stars in the 80s. There were also a number of comedians
who appeared in lists of top stars, including: Steve Martin, Dudley Moore, Goldie Hawn, Bill Murray,
Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Rodney Dangerfield, Danny DeVito, and Robin Williams. Cher, Prince, and
Dolly Parton were cross-over singing stars.
Other 80s Notables:
Reprising the success of the earlier buddy-cop films 48 Hrs. (1982) and Beverly Hills Cop (1984) with
bankable star Eddie Murphy, Australian actor Mel Gibson was propelled into stardom in Richard Donner's
fast-paced, box-office champ Lethal Weapon (1987). The over-the-top action film highlighted the
chemistry of the mis-matched, buddy-team of suicidal cop Riggs (Mel Gibson from the Mad Max films)
and conventional, laid-back, by-the-book methodical partner Murtaugh (Danny Glover) - and led to many
sequels in future years. An American Werewolf in London (1981) told of a backpacker (David
Naughton) who was attacked one night on the English moors, resulting in his transformation into a hairy
werewolf during full moons.
And perennial favorite Meryl Streep won her second Oscar with Alan Pakula's Sophie's Choice (1982),
adapted from William Stryon's novel. Streep played a Holocaust-surviving Polish mother named Sophie
Zawistowski, who faced a horrendous choice in a Nazi concentration camp (Auschwitz), in a story told in
flashback. Robert Duvall won his only Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of heavy-drinking, down-and-out
country singer Mac Sledge who found redemption later in his life in director Bruce Beresford's Tender
Mercies (1983), with an Oscar-winning Horton Foote screenplay.
Writer-director Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987) starred Best Actor-winning Michael
Douglas as a ruthless, amoral, money-worshipping, greedy company trader in a megavillain role as Gordon Gekko. The film paralleled the decade's excessiveness, its 'getrich' narcissism ("Greed is good") and the real-life insider scandals of the Reagan-era
80s. [Ironically, the film was released in early December - just after the major Stock
Market Crash of October 19, 1987.]
Jack Nicholson portrayed a slowly-deranged axe-killer and caretaker of a remote hotel
in Stanley Kubrick's haunted hotel horror film The Shining (1980). [It would be another
seven years until Kubrick's next film, Full Metal Jacket (1987).] Another Stephen King
adaptation was the low-budget occult horror film Children of the Corn (1984) in which a small
midwestern town (without adults) was the scary setting for children who worshipped something out in the
fields. And finally, Cujo (1983) - another horror film based upon a Stephen King novel, was about a St.
Bernard dog that caught rabies after being bitten by a bat, and kept Donna Trenton (Dee Wallace Stone)
and her son Tad (Danny Pintauro) helplessly trapped in their car for hours.
Traditional Films and Modern-Day Dramas:
Some of the films of the era seemed traditional and conservative reflecting the times,
rather than being radical and innovative. Writer/director Lawrence Kasdan's landmark
"coming-of-middle-age" film The Big Chill (1983), chronicled the reunion of a group of
eight friends (ex-college radicals) during a funeral for friend Alex (Kevin Costner as the
corpse - unseen and edited out of the film). They comprised a "Big Chill generation" who
grew up in the 60s (Kevin Kline, Tom Berenger, William Hurt, Glenn Close, Jeff
Goldblum, Jobeth Williams, Mary Kay Place, and Meg Tilly). Kasdan's film marked the aging of the 'babyboomer' generation (now growing into yuppies).
Romance was back in fashion in Norman Jewison's Italian-American romance/comedy Moonstruck
(1987) with a widowed Loretta (Best Actress-winning Cher) finding love with the baker brother (Nicolas
Cage) of her fiancee. Barry Levinson's entertaining, old-fashioned The Natural (1984) about a gifted
baseball player, and Phil Alden Robinson's idealistically-uplifting fantasy classic Field of Dreams (1989) also about baseball - with one of Kevin Costner's finest roles, reminded one of Frank Capra's films.
On Golden Pond (1981) (the first film that starred both Jane and father Henry Fonda and
the first film pairing of Henry Fonda and Katharine Hepburn) earned two major Academy
Awards - it was Hepburn's fourth Oscar award (a record) and ailing Henry Fonda's first,
shortly before his death. The film was about a visit of estranged daughter Chelsea (Jane
Fonda) with her aging parents. Director Ron Howard's sci-fi fantasy Cocoon (1985) told of
a group of seniors in a Florida retirement home who were rejuvenated by an alien
treatment in a "fountain of youth." Jessica Tandy starred as aging Jewish widow Mrs.
Wertham with a tolerant black chauffeur (Morgan Freeman) in the South in Bruce
Beresford's Driving Miss Daisy (1989), notable for winning both Best Picture and Best
Actress.
Actor Robert Redford directed his first (and best) film in an auspicious debut, the
powerfully-human drama (with Mary Tyler Moore, Donald Sutherland and Timothy
Hutton) about a dysfunctional, mis-communicating suburban Chicago WASP family after
the death of a young son, Ordinary People (1980) - a film that won Best Director, Best
Supporting Actor and Best Picture Academy Awards, among others. Alan Alda marked
his directorial debut with The Four Seasons (1981), a story about marriage and
friendship between three middle-aged couples who always went on vacation during
different seasons. Australian film-maker Peter Weir directed Robin Williams as an
unorthodox prep school English teacher who urged his students to 'seize the day' in
Dead Poets Society (1989).
An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) was a traditional romantic drama about the son of a
career sailor (Richard Gere) who attempted to better himself by training at Naval Aviation
Officer Candidate School, and who was eventually lifted up by love with townie Debra
Winger. Barry Levinson directed the award-winning, road-trip drama Rain Man (1988)
with Dustin Hoffman as autistic idiot savant Raymond - the older brother of self-centered,
manipulative hustler Charlie (Tom Cruise), who were reunited together after their father's
death. Writer/producer James Brooks also directed Broadcast News (1987) - a behindthe-scenes look at contemporary TV journalism and journalistic integrity through three
characters: a dumb but handsome newscaster (William Hurt), smart but awkward newswriter and reporter
(Albert Brooks), and over-achieving, high-strung network news producer (Holly Hunter) - all of whom, plus
the director (for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay), received Academy Award nominations.
David Lynch directed the melancholy The Elephant Man (1980) about Victorian England's John Merrick a grotesquely-deformed and alienated man (John Hurt) afflicted by a disease ("I am not an animal") that
was treated by doctor Anthony Hopkins. Edgar Rice Burrough's most famous novel was revisited in
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), starring Christopher Lambert as the title
character raised by apes in 1880s Africa. Oscar-less Harrison Ford received a rare nomination for his
performance in Peter Weir's crime drama Witness (1985) as John Book - a cop in hiding in Amish
country while assisting a young boy who witnessed a murder in a train station restroom.
80s Melodramas and 'Chick Flick' Tearjerkers:
The decade was also characterized by 'weepies' - highly-emotional, treacle-soaked films with strong
content that appealed to female audiences, and often revolved around terminal illness. One of the most
successful examples was director/writer James Brooks' first feature film - the bittersweet, Best Picturewinning melodrama Terms of Endearment (1983), based on the novel by Larry McMurtry. The multiple
Oscar-wining film told about three decades in the troubled lives of widowed mother Aurora Greenaway
(Shirley MacLaine) and her daughter Emma (Debra Winger), ending with a teary hospital sequence. It
also starred Jack Nicholson as ex-astronaut and Aurora's next-door neighbor Garrett Breedlove engaged
in a torrid affair with her. [It was followed by the sequel The Evening Star (1996) with Shirley MacLaine
and Jack Nicholson reprising their roles.] Others included:
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Garry Marshall's hit Beaches (1988), with Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey as lifelong friends
and jealous rivals, as well as polarized opposites: free-spirited CC Bloom (Midler) - a flamboyant,
vivacious theatre actress and singer from a poor Jewish Brooklyn background, and Hillary Essex
(Hershey) - a repressed WASP debutante and San Francisco lawyer; highlights included Midler's
performances of "Otto Titsling" and the hit "Wind Beneath My Wings." (Not long after, Midler
would appear in another quintessential melodrama by director Mark Rydell titled For the Boys
(1991), that allowed her to show off her vocal talents in an Oscar-nominated role as Dixie
Leonard - a WWII 'Martha Raye-type' entertainer, co-starring James Caan)
click-flick director Herbert Ross' most successful film, a Louisiana-based melodrama based on
Robert Harling's stage play, Steel Magnolias (1989), with Truvy's Beauty Parlor in Louisiana as
the film's setting; it featured a star-studded cast of gossipy Southern belles: Dolly Parton (as
Truvy), customers Sally Field and Shirley MacLaine, the afflicted Julia Roberts (the film's sole
Oscar nominee), Daryl Hannah and Olympia Dukakis, and a few minor male characters
Mike Nichols' Postcards From the Edge (1990), based on Carrie Fisher's semi-autobiographical
best-selling novel about drug addiction and love/hate mother-daughter rivalry (between herself
and mother Debbie Reynolds), starring Meryl Streep and Shirley MacLaine
Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), based on the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop
Cafe by actress-turned-author Fannie Flagg, about the lives of four women, with Kathy Bates,
Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Mary-Louise Parker
Woody Allen:
Excellent, low-budget, character-driven films were made, in spite of Hollywood's
morbid interest in moneymakers or sequels, including Woody Allen's semiautobiographical Stardust Memories (1980), his version of Shakespeare's A
Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982) that was loosely based on Ingmar
Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), Zelig (1983) (with the pioneering
sleight-of-hand technique of seamlessly wedding historical, black and white newsreel
footage with the live-action sequences - something imitated years later in Robert
Zemeckis' Forrest Gump (1994)), a send-up of gangster films and screwball
comedies with Broadway Danny Rose (1984), The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985),
and then two of Allen's best films since Annie Hall (1977):
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Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), an adult drama about relationships among Manhattanite sisters
(Mia Farrow as Hannah, Barbara Hershey as Lee, and Dianne Wiest as Holly) - Allen's most
financially-successful film
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), a treatise on trust and guilt
In-between these films were his nostalgic, WWII-era comedy Radio Days (1987), inspired by Fellini's
Amarcord (1973), (with Original Screenplay and Art Direction nominations), and two dramas: September
(1987) and an Ingmar Bergman homage titled Another Woman (1988). In the 80s, Allen also directed
one of the segments ("Oedipus Wrecks") in the 3-part anthology of New York Stories (1989), co-directed
by Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.
Martin Scorsese's Films:
Raging Bull (1980) was voted by American film critics at the end of the era as the best
film of the decade and an abrupt turn-about from the triumphant Rocky (1976) of a few
years earlier. Robert De Niro gained a record amount of weight (about 60 pounds) in
order to accurately portray the beleaguered, machismo middle-weight boxer Jake LaMotta
who had to battle 'Sugar Ray' Robinson and his brother Joey (Joe Pesci). Scorsese's The
Last Temptation of Christ (1988) (from screenwriter Paul Schrader who had adapted
Nikos Kazantzakis' novel and had provided scripts for other Scorsese films - Taxi Driver
(1976) and Raging Bull (1980)) was controversial and considered blasphemous by
fundamentalists for its human portrayal of the Christ figure (played by Willem Dafoe). The
violence of vigilante cab driver Travis Bickle in Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) was echoed
in the shooting of President Reagan by a Jodie Foster-obsessed John Hinckley, Jr. in late
March, 1981.
Science-Fiction Films:
The cult science-fiction classic from Ridley Scott, the futuristic, visually-bleak, filmnoirish Blade Runner (1982) with a Vangelis soundtrack, set in a squalid 2019 Los
Angeles (in an amazing opening sequence viewing the cityscape), was based on Philip
K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sleep?. It unexpectedly grew in stature,
popularity and acclaim over time as the decade advanced, but was originally pulled from
theatres after an unsuccessful opening. Controversy arose over the voice-over of star
Harrison Ford as the downbeat, called-out-of-retirement blade-runner Rick Deckard, and
over the studio-appended 'happy' ending - both of which were excised in the Director's
Cut released in 1991, that also restored a unicorn dream sequence.
Alex Cox's quirky and bizarre Repo Man (1983) delivered an unpredictable story about
the repossession racket with a sci-fi twist.
John Carpenter's modern-day The Thing (1982) was set at the South Pole in an
Antarctic research station that was threatened by a shape-shifting alien "thing" (with
great special effects) -- it was a remake of uncredited director Howard Hawks' The Thing From Another
World (1951), set at the North Pole. Paul Verhoeven's breakthrough film, Robocop (1987), starred Peter
Weller as a police officer of the future after being killed in action in crime-ridden Detroit and being brought
back by cyborg technology.
In addition to Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future
films, the computerized visual effects of Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic dazzled in James Cameron's
underwater alien adventure epic The Abyss (1989) - the spectacular 'sea tentacle' morphing effects
would later be used to greater effect in Cameron's own megahit Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).
Films with Revolutionary Visual Effects and Set Design: in 1982
See this site's extensive section on Visual and Special Effects Film Milestones -- Seven films
revolutionized film set design and visual effects, and have become some of the most influential films in
recent film history (mostly within the science-fiction film genre):
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TRON (1982) - a pioneering film in computer graphics
Blade Runner (1982) - the model for all futuristic tech-noir dystopias with bleak, night-time
cityscapes (i.e., Batman (1989), Strange Days (1995), Dark City (1998))
The Dark Crystal (1982) - an influential fantasy adventure masterpiece featuring Jim Henson's
Muppets
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) - Spielberg's classic alien visitation film
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Pink Floyd the Wall (1982) - an expressionistic musical, the first feature-length music video (or
"MTV" film before MTV's popularity surged)
The Road Warrior (1982, US release) - the prototypical, post-apocalyptic action film and sci-fi
western set in Australia, and starring Mel Gibson
Poltergeist (1982) - a seminal supernatural thriller with a possessed young child
The Resurgent Wave of British Cinema:
Hugh Hudson's dark horse Best Picture winner Chariots of Fire (1981) opened the decade with slowmotion footraces under the credits and a Vangelis piano score. It starred Ben Cross as a Jewish athlete
and Ian Charleson as a Christian Scottish athlete who competed in the 1924 Paris Olympics. During the
victory speech of the film's Best Original Screenplay-winning writer, Colin Welland proclaimed "The British
are coming!" The British film was victorious over Warren Beatty's three hour Communism epic Reds
(1981) (with twelve Oscar nominations - four of which were for Beatty as producer, director, co-writer, and
star, and with three wins), the story of the dawn of communist society told by American writer John Reed
(Beatty) in 'Ten Days That Shook the World'. The romantic comedy Educating Rita (1983), starring
Michael Caine as a cynical English literature lecturer and Julie Walters as one of his older working-class
students, used Britain's Open University as its backdrop. In My Left Foot (1989), Daniel Day-Lewis won
an Oscar for his portrayal of Irish writer/artist Christy Brown who suffered from cerebral
palsy.
The following year, British director Richard Attenborough's epic Gandhi (1982), with Ben
Kingsley in the title role as the 20th century pacifist leader, also succeeded by taking top
honors (eight Academy Awards). Director John MacKenzie's modern-day crime film The
British director David Lean returned to the screen after an absence of fourteen years with
his last film, the ponderous A Passage to India (1984) based on E.M. Forster's 1924
novel. There was further controversy over the British 'invasion' when British producer
David Puttnam was made the head of Columbia Pictures in 1986 - his reign was shortlived and lasted only one year. One of the best British films of the decade was
writer/director Bruce Robinson's popular character drama/comedy titled Withnail & I
(1987) about two destitute, boozing and unemployable actors: eccentric Withnail (Richard E. Grant) and
the younger Marwood (Paul McGann), who reside for the weekend in the British countryside circa 1969
with Withnail's wealthy, corpulent, homosexual "Uncle Monty" (Richard Griffiths).
Director Stephen Frears (with a script by Hanif Kureishi) launched his diverse film career with My
Beautiful Laundrette (1985), set in the multi-racial world of young London and starring Daniel DayLewis. Roland Joffe's The Killing Fields (1984), an indictment of the war through an account of the
Communist Khymer Rouge faction's brutal devastation of Cambodia after the fall of Pnomh Penh in 1975,
explored the end of American involvement in SE Asia.
Merchant-Ivory Films and Other British/Foreign Productions:
The Merchant-Ivory team of American-born director James Ivory, Indian-born
producer Ismail Merchant, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer-Jhabvala generated
sophisticated, nostalgic, intelligent, and lush costume dramas beginning in the mid80s:
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a luminous and engaging E.M. Forster adaptation titled A Room With a
View (1986) took multiple Oscar nominations and starred china-faced beauty
Helena Bonham Carter and Daniel Day-Lewis in a story that began in Italy
and ended in England
Maurice (1987)
Howard's End (1991)
The Remains of the Day (1993)
Following the imaginative, Monty Pythonesque Time Bandits (1981), Terry Gilliam also
directed the Orwellian Brazil (1985) - about futuristic life in an oppressive bureaucracy
and the valiant attempts of a mild-mannered worker to rectify the bleak system. He also
mixed fantasy and special effects in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988).
And the off-beat, witty hit comedy A Fish Called Wanda (1988), funded by MGM, was
cleverly scripted by British star John Cleese (from Monty Python), directed by Ealing
Studios veteran Charles Crichton, and featured stars (Kevin Kline, John Cleese, Jamie
Lee Curtis) from both sides of the Atlantic. It was a tale of a gang of scheming diamond
thieves who ended up accidentally flattening Yorkshire terriers.
The biggest international box-office hit of 1986 was Australia's surprise 'sleeper' comedy
film "Crocodile" Dundee (1986) with Paul Hogan (known to American viewers as a spokesman for
Austrialian tourism commercials) as the scriptwriter and in the title role as the rugged outback adventurer
- at home in Bush Country and able to survive in the alien streets of New York with transvestites and
street gangs. The film was the first foreign film that had the biggest annual US box-office gross to date.
Screen Biographies and Fact-Based Films:
The biopic made a comeback in films such as Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), with Best
Actress-winning Sissy Spacek as the rags-to-riches country singer superstar Loretta Lynn
who made it from Kentucky to Nashville, Mike Nichols' Silkwood (1984) - a fact-based
story about 28-year old Oklahoma plutonium plant worker and union activist
'whistleblower' Karen Silkwood (Meryl Streep), and Robert Benton's memorable Places in
the Heart (1984) about a Depression-Era young widow Edna Spalding (Sally Field) with
two young children.
British director Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom (1987) was set in the 1970s South
Africa in a story featuring Kevin Kline as a white liberal newspaper editor, and Denzel
Washington as outspoken murdered hero Steve Biko. Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning
(1988), the story of the investigation of the 1964 murder of three civil rights activists, provoked
controversy over its dramatic propagandist message regarding racism. Oliver Stone's Talk Radio (1988),
a brutal satire on the media, provided inflammatory white supremacist views through the confrontational
voice of a provocative talk-show host (Eric Bogosian) that was based upon a real-life Denver radio
personality (Alan Berg) who was gunned down in 1984.
Epics in the 80s:
Large-scale, Best Picture contenders included Warren Beatty's big-budget epic Reds
(1981) about radical American journalist John Reed (played by Beatty) during the
Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and Bernard Bertolucci's engrossing and colorful The
Last Emperor (1987) with nine Academy Awards, about the life of the last emperor of
China - Pu Yi from childhood in the Forbidden City to his Emperor-ship and then to his
lowly status as a gardener in Mao's China. It was remarkable that Bertolucci was
allowed to film inside the Forbidden City. In the same year, but without a Best Picture
nod, Steven Spielberg's epic-scale Asian-centered Empire of the Sun (1987), with six
Academy Awards nominations (and no wins), prefigured the director's later, even more
highly-acclaimed epic-war-related films in the next decade: Schindler's List (1993) and
Saving Private Ryan (1998).
Milos Forman's Amadeus (1984), adapted from Peter Shaffer's play, was about the legendary (foulmouthed and silly) musical genius Wolfgang Mozart (Tom Hulce) and the plotting of his second-rate,
intensely-jealous and bitter competitor Antonio Salieri (Murray Abraham). Richard Attenborough's major,
epic-style British film - the screen biography of the Indian spiritual and political leader Gandhi (1982) was
a major award winner due to Ben Kingsley's outstanding performance in the lead role. Italian film director
Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America (1984) was a monumental 220-minute mobster saga,
surveying the life of Jewish hood Noodles (Robert DeNiro) over a period of three decades (from the 30s
to the 60s), mostly told in flashback.
Writer/director Philip Kaufman's epic screen tribute to the early years of the heroic US
Mercury astronaut space program (and the first seven astronauts in the 1960s space
program) The Right Stuff (1983) was a box-office failure, yet it received eight Oscar
nominations (and won four). It was based on Tom Wolfe's best-selling book about the
space race after the Russians launched Sputnik, highlighting the era of Chuck Yeager
(Sam Shepard) breaking the sound barrier in the late 40s through the orbiting of the Earth
in the early 60s by John Glenn (Ed Harris). The old-style, sweeping epic of the 50s and
60s made a comeback in the form of the grand-scale travelogue/romance Out of Africa
(1985) based on the life and works of Danish writer Isak Dinesen (Meryl Streep).
War Films of the 80s:
In the Reagan era, Hollywood finally allowed Americans to come to terms with the
Vietnam War and its aftermath in a combination of films employing a successful
formula - a stoic, gung-ho action hero: Sylvester Stallone starred in director George
Cosmatos' Rambo: First Blood, Part II (1985) - part of a series of pro-American,
revisionist Vietnam films. In this comic-strip-like action film, Stallone was showcased
as a larger-than-life, ex-Green Beret macho commando/hero John Rambo saving
American MIA POWs being held in Vietnamese prison camps. [The first film in the
series was First Blood (1982), about traumatized war veteran Rambo who went
berserk and became a killing machine using his guerrilla training after being
mistreated and unfairly arrested in a small town by the sheriff (Brian Dennehy). Two
more sequels followed: director Peter MacDonald's Rambo III (1988), and then cowriter, director, and actor Stallone reprised the role many years later for Rambo (2008).]
After a series of martial arts films in the 70s, low-budget action hero Chuck Norris appeared in a Ramboinspired Missing in Action (1984) as a Vietnam vet who returned to SE Asia to rescue more American
POWs. Actor/director Clint Eastwood's Heartbreak Ridge (1986) displayed an aging ex-Vietnam gunnery
sergeant as the leader of an inexperienced US Marine Reconnaissance Platoon in Grenada.
Other films displayed more critical perspectives on war in general, on the Vietnam War, and on other
dramatic political upheavals in the world:
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director Peter Weir's historical anti-war film Gallipoli (1981, Aus.) told about the futile campaign
of Anzac recruits (two sprinters Archy (Mark Lee) and Frank (Mel Gibson)) against the Turks in
1915 - ending with a haunting freeze-frame on the Anzac battlefield at Gallipoli
Wolfgang Petersen's historically-accurate and claustrophobic Das Boot (1981, W. Germ), a
terrifying war drama about a German U-boat in the North Atlantic during WWII; it became one of
the most successful foreign-language films ever (with six Oscar nominations!)
Costa-Gavras' Missing (1982) dealt with the search for a missing journalist during Pinochet's rule
in Chile in 1973
Roger Spottiswoode's Under Fire (1983) portrayed the chaotic, corrupt regime of Somoza in
Nicaragua in 1979
Peter Weir's last Australian production The Year of Living Dangerously (1983) presented a
intriguing picture of strife-ridden, pre-revolutionary Indonesia in 1965 just prior to Sukarno's fall
director Roland Joffe's The Killing Fields (1984) visualized the horrors of war (during Pol Pot's
regime, especially in the scene of a muddy pit filled with bones) in a story of the friendship
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between NY Times reporter Sydney Schanberg (Sam Waterston) and his Cambodian aide Dith
Pran (Haing S. Ngor) who became separated during the Khmer Rouge bloodbath
Oliver Stone's Salvador (1986) criticized US involvement in war-torn El Salvador
in the early 80s
writer/director Oliver Stone's first major film (the first film in his so-called 'Vietnam
Trilogy') was the realistic 'Nam film Platoon (1986) - about a young recruit's
(Charlie Sheen) plunge into the bloody, horrifying Vietnam combat as the member
of a divided platoon, personalized as a conflict between "bad" Sergeant Barnes
(Tom Berenger) and "good" Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe); the film eventually
grossed $138 million and won four Oscars (including Best Director and Best
Picture), and easily lived up to its tagline: "The first casualty of war is innocence"
Born on the Fourth of July (1989) presented the screen biography of paralyzed,
wheelchair-bound Vietnam vet and anti-war activist hero Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise)
Stanley Kubrick's first film after seven years was the unforgettable and provocative picture Full
Metal Jacket (1987) - filmed on a set that re-created Vietnam in East London; uniquely, it
depicted urban rather than jungle combat in Vietnam
the fact-based war epic Glory (1989), set in an entirely different era and with an even-handed
attitude toward the issue of war, dramatized the combat heroics of the all-black 54th Regiment of
the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in the bloody Civil War
Other Films with Military Themes:
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Taylor Hackford's pro-militaristic, adult-style melodramatic romance An Officer and a
Gentleman (1982) featured an award-winning song "Up Where We Belong" and starred Debra
Winger and Richard Gere in the lead roles as paper-mill worker and aspiring Navy jet pilot
respectively
the serious, surprise hit Taps (1981) included early performances of Tom Cruise, Timothy Hutton
and Sean Penn as American military academy cadets participating in a revolt
Tony Scott's ultra-positive, macho Top Gun (1986) with ear-shattering,
competitive acrobatic flying sequences, a rock soundtrack (from
Simpson/Bruckheimer) and award-winning hit song by Berlin "Take My Breath
Away," and mega-star Tom Cruise as Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell - a crack,
fighter pilot trainee at the US Navy's Fighter Weapons School at San Diego;
noted for the line: "I feel the need - the need for speed"
sci-fi combat allegorizing the Vietnam war experience in John McTiernan's
Predator (1987) with Arnold Schwarzenegger leading a commando unit to kill a
chameleon-like, camouflaged alien creature in the jungles of Central America
director John Badham's comedy/drama WarGames (1983) starred a young
Matthew Broderick as high-school computer whiz David Lightman who accidentally broke into an
air-defense, missile-base supercomputer at NORAD and nearly started World War III with a
Defense Department game called "Global Thermonuclear Warfare"
high-energy, improvisational comic Robin Williams starred in Barry Levinson's fact-based, mainstream success Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) as iconoclastic, anti-establishment,
unconventional 60s disc jockey Adrian Cronauer from Saigon's Armed Forces Radio
Dance-Musical Films:
Although the much-publicized Annie (1982) by renowned director John Huston failed, other nontraditional dance musicals flourished:
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Staying Alive (1983), written and directed by Sylvester Stallone, starred John Travolta (in his
10th film) as an aspiring Broadway dancer (six years after Saturday Night Fever (1977));
although successful at the box-office, it contributed to the downfall of Travolta's career for the rest
of the decade
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Adrian Lyne's slick Flashdance (1983) was the immensely popular, highly kinetic,
music-video style film - with an Oscar-winning title song by Irene Cara. It featured
19 year-old Jennifer Beals in her first starring role as Alex - a day welder in
Pittsburgh and night dancer in a men's club who aspired to successfully audition
for ballet school. [The film almost singlehandedly inspired off-the-shoulder,
oversized torn sweatshirts, legwarmers, the aerobics exercise class craze of the
80s, and the skillful art of removing one's bra from under one's shirt; it also
introduced two newcomers, writer Joe Eszterhas and producer Jerry Bruckheimer
(who went on to produce Beverly Hills Cop (1984) and Top Gun (1986), among
other films)]
Footloose (1984) with John Lithgow as a strict minister and Kevin Bacon as the illegal dancer in
town featured Kenny Loggins' hit single of the title song
Singer Prince (his first starring film) played "The Kid" in the feature-length music video Purple
Rain (1984), and succeeded in having the #1 movie, album, and single simultaneously
the teen-oriented dance/romance Dirty Dancing (1987) about a young girl named Baby (Jennifer
Grey, Joel's daughter) finding sexual awakening with Patrick Swayze in the early 60s through wild
dancing at a Catskills vacation resort
Western-style Saturday Night Fever film, James Bridges' Urban Cowboy (1980) featured
Houston honky-tonks, mechanical bull-riding in bars, blue-collar cowboys, and country music
dancing (including the Cotton-Eyed Joe) - and popular young stars John Travolta and Debra
Winger
Spike Lee:
Black movie-making emerged in a stronger state in the mid-80s, with films from
independent film writer-director-star Spike Lee:
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his modest debut was with the hip romantic comedy She's Gotta Have It
(1986), about a liberated, sexually-voracious Brooklyn woman named Nola
Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns) and her three boyfriends; the film was reportedly
made in about two weeks with over-drawn credit cards budgeted at about
$175,000
School Daze (1988) told about factions in an African-American Southern
college
Do the Right Thing (1989) - a thought-provoking, controversial, crackling, prefiguring study of
racism in America that was seen in the explosive conflict and relations between Italian- and
African-Americans, Koreans and white law-enforcement in a Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood
block during a stifling hot summer day. (The film was bolstered with Public Enemy songs on the
soundtrack)
John Sayles:
Writer/director/actor John Sayles first won acclaim for the low-budget Return of the
Secaucus 7 (1980) about a weekend reunion of college friends (a precursor of The Big
Chill (1983)) and then directed the independent The Brother From Another Planet
(1984), an E.T-like urban fable about a black space alien-fugitive pursued in Harlem by
white bounty hunters. His historical drama Matewan (1987) told the true-life story of
exploited 1920s coal miners in Matewan West Virginia, and Passion Fish (1992) was a
more intimate character study of the physical and spiritual healing of a paralyzed soap
opera star in her Louisiana bayou hometown.
Female Producers/Directors:
One notable milestone in the 1980s and early 1990s was that women producers and
directors were beginning to emerge within the male-dominated film industry:
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Penny Marshall - Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986) (debut film as director), Big (1988) (director),
Awakenings (1990) (director/producer)
Barbra Streisand - The Main Event (1979) (actor/producer), Yentl (1983)
(actor/producer/director/screenwriter), Nuts (1987) (actor/producer), The Prince of Tides (1991)
(actor/producer/director)
Amy Heckerling - Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) (director), Johnny Dangerously
(1984) (director), National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) (director), Look Who's
Talking (1989) (director/screenwriter)
Jane Campion - Sweetie (1989) (director/screenwriter), An Angel At My Table (1990) (director),
The Piano (1993) (director/screenwriter)
Susan Seidelman - Smithereens (1982) (director/producer/screenwriter), Desperately Seeking
Susan (1985) (director), Making Mr. Right (1987) (director/producer), Cookie (1989)
(producer/director), She-Devil (producer/director)
Brian De Palma:
In the 80s, De Palma was also credited with many sensational, Hitchcock-like thrillers:
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Dressed to Kill (1980) (paralleling Psycho (1960) and its shower scene)
Blow Out (1981), a Hitchcockian type film that paid homage to Antonioni's
Blow-Up (1966) and Coppola's The Conversation (1974)
the X-rated (then revised to R) Scarface (1983) with "Godfather" actor Al
Pacino as Tony Montana - a violent update of Howard Hawks' gangster classic
Scarface (1932), soaked with blood and cocaine powder in a story of
"Scarface's" rise from Cuban emigre-dishwasher to Miami drug lord, along with
icy blonde wife Elvira (Michelle Pfeiffer)
the daring thriller Body Double (1984) (similar to the voyeuristic Rear Window
(1954) and obsessive Vertigo (1958)) with infamous drill-murder, featured a
memorable, pseudo 'music video' of "Relax" from one-hit group Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
Revival of Film Noir with Neo-Noir Films:
Dark, shadowy scenes, deadly females, and menacing circumstances were brought
back in modern, revisionistic film noirs in this decade. Lawrence Kasdan's first film was
the steamy, modern-day Floridian, 40's style film noir Body Heat (1981) (with Kathleen
Turner in a screen debut) - based upon the plot-lines of Double Indemnity (1944) with
William Hurt as the lawyer duped by a rich, gorgeous trophy wife.