The 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 4
Xanadu Valley Girl St Elmo’s Fire
It’s “Back to the Future”. Even though most of it was set in the 50’s.
Repo man 1984 (Henry Dean Stanton & Emilio Estavez’ most iconic movie)
Suburbia 1983 (most punk bands in a movie, ever, at the time?)
And there’s Top Secret (1984), Val Kilmer’s first movie, made by the Airplane! ZAZ team.
To add on starwars and indiana jones, the goonies might be a good third place IMO.
Rocky 4? That’s just nonsense.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Obviously.
Honorable mention to Back to the Future. Also, where’s Goonies?
Rocky IV was my immediate thought before opening the thread. Not one but two training montages. Cold War tensions. High tech training machines. It’s the best
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.
Please don’t disturb my friend, he is dead tired.
John, I’m not going to shoot you between the eyes! I’m going to shoot you between the balls!
Lacking Short Circuit (86) and Real Genius (85), two of the most iconic 80s scifi films. They just don’t make them casually bigoted like those anymore!
The Breakfast Club. I always find it weird when people say it’s not realistic. That’s how teens were back then!
…how do people say it’s not realistic?..
Using words, i assume.
Weird Science 1985
I skimmed his video, but don’t recall him giving any mention to weird science. I think it’s a solid contender. Very 80s.
But by the metrics he decided to whimsically select on what makes up the 80’s, it didn’t have enough montages or Russians or wealth/business stuff to get a high mark.
While I agree that Rocky 4 is extremely 80’s, I disagree with his 80"s metrics.
I would argue that Goonies had a decent bit of it. It really scratches my nostalgia itch not just for the movie itself, but for things from my childhood. That springy workout thing, kids on bikes, the cars, etc. all just do it for me.
Breakfast Club also came to mind, but I haven’t seen it in long enough to know for sure if it ticks the boxes.
I definitely agree with Flashdance being up there and Rocky.
The Karate Kid should make the list.
Fully concur. Not only is it still a great movie, but it was very popular, and finished what Bruce Lee started, popularizing Eastern martial arts in the United States.
No North Shore or Lambada? No Roadhouse?!?
Roadhouse was covered in the video.
