The 1980's marked a dramatic shift in the film industry. Jaws and Star Wars showed the economic value of tentpole films while the New Hollywood directors showed the financial uncertainty of auteur-driven films with Coppola's One From the Heart, Scorsese's New York, New York, and perhaps most infamously, Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate. Of the ten winners so far, which is your favorite and why? We will extend this to one week to get a range of responses.
A lot of great films here, but Raging Bull towers above all. DeNiro gives one of the best acting performances ever seen.
Do the Right Thing Raging Bull Blue Velvet Robocop Raiders of the Lost Ark Die Hard Blade Runner Haven’t seen Come and See, Videodrome, or Once Upon a Time in America. Glaring omissions. It was really tough to pick between 1 and 2, they’re both masterpieces, and even my next 3 were tough to put in an order. But Do the Right Thing is such an incisive and radically intelligent film that I can’t help but appreciate it on a different level than most other films I’ve seen, let alone 80s films.
Come and See Blade Runner Blue Velvet Do the Right Thing Die Hard Videodrome Once Upon a Time in America Raging Bull Robocop Raiders of the Lost Ark All great films. Come and See is one of my top 10 of all time though, very few films affect me that strongly.
There's a few I still need to see but unless my list looks like SpyKi's, I doubt Raging Bull will get beat
I love Raging Bull but I do think I need to see it again. I've only watched it once and that was years ago.
1. Raging Bull 2. Blue Velvet 3. Blade Runner 4. Come and See 5. Do the Right Thing 6. Robocop 7. Once Upon a Time in America 8. Videodrome 9. Raiders of the Lost Ark 10. Doing my taxes 11. Die Hard
Less I've seen here than on the 60s and 70s winners. I haven't seen Once Upon a Time in America or Come and See, they're both on my list to get around to, but have been put off by the four hour run time and the traumatic reputation they have respectively. I have seen Die Hard and Robocop, but not in probably 15 years or more, and I couldn't tell you anything about them, other than the most vague plot points. I'm not in a particular hurry to re-watch either. Of the rest, Raging Bull might well be my favourite film of the 80s, so it was a fairly easy choice. As a rough ranking of those that are left, I think I'd do... 1. Raging Bull 2. Do The Right Thing 3. Raiders of the Lost Ark 4. Blue Velvet 5. Videodrome 6. Blade Runner Hard to really compare though, especially between films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Blue Velvet that are operating on completely different planes.
1. Raging Bull 2. Do the Right Thing 3. Blade Runner 4. Blue Velvet 5. Robocop 6. Raiders of the Lost Ark 7. Videodrome 8. Die Hard 9. Once Upon a Time in America Haven't seen Come and See - sounds like I need to fix that asap.
1. Blade Runner 2. Do the Right Thing 3. Raging Bull 4. Raiders of the Lost Ark 5. Die Hard 6. Robocop 7. Blue Velvet 8. Once Upon a Time in America haven't seen videodrome or come and see yet
Out of the ones I have seen, this how I rank the winners of this decade - Die Hard Raiders of the Lost Ark Once Upon a Time in America Robocop Blade Runner Do the Right Thing Blue Velvet Videodrome
1. Come and See 2. Raging Bull 3. Blue Velvet 4. Do the Right Thing 5. Robocop 6. Die Hard 7. Videodrome 8. Blade Runner 9. Raiders Haven't seen Once Upon a Time
For an alternate list of great stuff to check out from the 80s, here's my top 10 martial arts movies from Hong Kong in the 80s. 1. Wheels on Meals 2. Encounters of the Spooky Kind 3. Police Story 4. Project A 5. Dragons Forever 6. Mr Vampire 7. Righting Wrongs (Alternate Title: Above The Law) 8. Magnificent Warriors 9. Winners & Sinners 10. Holy Flame of the Martial World A great time for high adrenaline carnage meeting phenomenally impressive stunt work and individual physical performers. Almost all of these blend the action with comedy, so they're a really fun watch, unlike some of the Shaws' Studio stuff the decade before, which could be a bit po-faced and serious, while watching something patently ludicrous. It's a (relatively) tiny little film scene, so the same faces pop up again and again, and really tight choreography and stunt crews formed, which wouldn't happen in a bigger environment or industry. I highly recommend anything on this list - these sort of films have been a relatively recent discovery for me, wouldn't have seen any of them until about five years ago, but they're so joyful and a delight to watch.
Objectively this is probably Come and See but I went with Blade Runner. My personal pick is probably Ran
Blue Velvet (I think this is the only one from my lists) Videodrome Do The Right Thing Raging Bull Blade Runner Robocop Raiders of the Lost Ark Die Hard Haven’t seen Once Upon a Time In America and Come and See (for pretty much the same reasons George listed, they’ve long been on my watchlist). I’m sure they would both be in the upper half of the list though. It’s really cool that Cronenberg broke through on one of these, would be surprised if that happens again.
If objectively it’s Come and See and your favorite is Ran how did you end up going with Blade Runner? Not trying to be sarcastic or anything Im genuinely curious.
With 32 percent of the vote, Martin Scorsese's masterpiece about the animalistic nature of Jake LaMotta is the Chorus.fm Film of the 1980's.