“I don’t mean what is the best 80’s movie, or the most popular 80’s movie, but what is the movie that most encapsulates everything about the decade. I’m talking the aesthetics, the politics, the cultural trends, developments in the film industry, the music. I’m talking about a movie that could not exist in any other decade. Something that you could hand to someone who’s never seen a movie and say this is the 1980s embodied in one film.”
The top 10 contenders, in alphabetical order.
- Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo 1984
- Flashdance 1983
- Invasion 1985 Chuck Norrissssss
- Purple Rain 1984
- Rocky IV 1985
- Scarface 1983
- The Secret of My Success 1987
- Staying Alive 1983
- Thrashin’ 1986
- Top Gun 1986
Winner
Rocky IV
For me it was Indiana Jones or Star Wars … as a kid in the 80s, these two movies completely occupied our imaginations for most of the decade.
Honourable mention for me is … Commando … with Schwarzenegger … (every time we had a game pretending for war or shooting each other with toy guns, I did or someone in our group would mimic the suit up scene getting ready for battle)
I re-watched Commando last year. Forgettable except for that scene which I remembered almost exactly from the first time I saw it.
Forgettable?
There are so many fun scenes in Commando.
Bennett: “John, I’m not going to shoot you between the eyes! I’m going to shoot you between the balls!”
Stick around.
Let of some steam, Bennet.
If Matrix was here, he’d laugh too.
Remember when I said I was gonna kill you last? I lied.