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The decade of the 1980s in film involved many
significant films.
Contents
1 Events
2 Top Grossing Films
3 Trends
4 List of films: #
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z.
Events
The 1980s saw the continued rise of the blockbuster, an increased
amount of nudity
in film and the increasing emphasis in the American industry on
film franchises, especially in the science fiction, horror, and action genres. Much of the reliance on
these effect-driven blockbusters was due in part to the Star Wars films at the
advent of this decade and the new cinematic effects it helped to
pioneer.
The teen comedy sub-genre saw its popularity rise during this
decade.
The PG-13
rating was introduced in 1984, to accommodate movies that straddled
the line between PG and R.
Top grossing
films
The following are the 10 top-grossing films of the decade:
- E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial (1982), $435 million
- Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983), $309
million
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980),
$290 million
- Batman (1989),
$251 million
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1981), $245 million
- Ghostbusters (1984), $238
million
- Beverly Hills Cop (1984), $234
million
- Back to the Future (1985), $210
million
- Indiana Jones and the
Last Crusade (1989), $197 million
- Indiana Jones and the
Temple of Doom (1984), $179 million
In the list, where revenues are equal numbers, the newer films
are listed lower, due to inflation making the dollar-amount lower
compared to earlier years.
Trends
The films of the 1980s covered many genres, with hybrids
crossing between multiple genres. The trend strengthened towards
creating ever-larger blockbuster films, which
earned more in their opening weeks than any previous film, due in
part to staging releases when audiences had little else to
choose.
- blockbusters - The decade started by
continuing the blockbuster boom of the
mid-'70s. The
sequel to 1977's
Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back opened in May
of 1980 becoming
the highest-grossing film of the year. The film is considered among
the best of films of the decade (it being the highest rated '80s
film on IMDb).
It was followed by Return of the Jedi (1983) finishing the
trio. It perfectly set the euphoric fanastical tone of many of the
similar films to come. Superman II was released in Europe and
Australia in late 1980 but not distributed in the United States
until June 1981. Though now seen as campier over the original 1978 Superman,
Superman II was received with a positive reaction. From
the success of The Empire Strikes Back, creator George Lucas teamed
up with director Steven Spielberg to create one of the
most iconic characters in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark
starring Harrison
Ford, who had also co-starred in The Empire Strikes
Back. The story about an archaeologist and adventurer, Indiana Jones
(Ford), hired by the U.S. government to go on a quest for the
mystical lost Ark of the Covenant, created waves of interest in old
1930s style cliffhanger serials. It became the highest grossing
film of 1981, leading to sequels all in the top-10 films of the
decade. In 1982, Spielberg directed his family, fairy-tale
science-fiction blockbuster E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial, which shattered all records, earning
40% more than any Star-Wars film, and double or triple the renevue
of 46 of the top 50 films.
- westerns - A stylish form of western
was evolving, with films such as Silverado (1985).
- horror - Creativity from 1970s horror films extended
toward the early part of the '80s, except having more gore, with
many successful '80s horror films having numerous sequels. Stanley Kubrick
directed his horror film The Shining (1980). The
creative and gory The Evil Dead (1981) with its
secluded atmosphere is seen by many as one of the best in its genre
leading to its inevitable sequel Evil Dead II in 1987.
Halloween director John Carpenter's The
Thing (1982) shocked audiences in its effects, as did David
Cronenberg's graphic and gory Scanners (1982). Sequels to Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th
(1980), and A Nightmare on Elm
Street (1984) were the popular face of horror films in the
1980s, a trend reviled by most critics. David Cronenberg's remake of The
Fly was released a few weeks before the James Cameron film
Aliens.
Stuart Gordon's
Re-Animator
(1985), Dan
O'Bannon's The Return of the Living
Dead, and Lloyd Kaufman's The Toxic
Avenger (all 1985), soon followed. And films such as Ghostbusters, Joe Dante's Gremlins, (both 1984,) and Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988)
started a trend for horror comedies.
- comedies - The #5,
#11 and #13 top films of the 1980s
were comedy films: Ghostbusters (1984), which out-sold
all the Indiana
Jones films, Tootsie (1982) and Three Men
and a Baby (1987). The disaster films of the previous decade
were spoofed in the gag comedy Airplane!, paving the way for more of
the same including its 1982 sequel Airplane II: The
Sequel, Top
Secret! (1984) and the Naked Gun films.
Popular comedy stars in the '80s included Leslie Nielsen, John Candy, Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray, Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. Many had come to prominence on
the American TV series Saturday Night Live, including
Bill Murray, Steve Martin and Chevy Chase. Eddie Murphy made a
success of comedy-action films including 48 Hrs. (1982) and the
Beverly
Hills Cop series (1984–1993). Also in the top-50 films
were the romantic comedies Crocodile
Dundee (1986), Crocodile Dundee
II (1988) and Arthur (1981).
- sequels - Also notable were the
Police
Academy series of broad comedies, produced between 1984
and 1993. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a trend emerged toward
the release of sequels based on previously successful productions.
Among the sequels were Trail of the Pink
Panther, The Great Muppet Caper, and
Porky's II: The Next Day.
- action-films - In the seventies,
action films usually focused on maverick police officers, however,
the action film did not become a dominant form in Hollywood until
the '80s, when it was popularized by actors such as Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris and Bruce Willis.
Stallone continued the Rocky series and starred in 82's First Blood about
a returning Vietnam
War veteran fighting a small town sheriff and its sequel Rambo
II. Vietnam War films grew in popularity in the '80s, from
being a film subject which was still seen as a taboo in the '70s.
Movies like Platoon and Stanley
Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket made the war a
subject. Chuck
Norris starred in the Missing in Action trilogy
(1984, 1985, 1988)
about a Vietnam veteran going back to rescue POWs. Schwarzenegger starred in
The
Terminator (1984), Commando (1986), and Predator
(1987). The 1988 film Die
Hard was particularly influential on the development of
the genre in the subsequent decade. In the movie, Bruce Willis plays a
New York City police detective who inadvertently becomes embroiled
in a terrorist take-over of a Los Angeles
office block.
- James Bond - The James Bond film series
entered its third decade in 1981 with Roger Moore starring in the more realistic
For Your Eyes Only after
the outlandish excess of Moonraker in 1979. The decade saw
the beginning of a new era for Bond since the previous decade's
directors originally directed a 1960s Bond, the new director brought to
the series, John Glen,
criticized for a less stylistic and more "workman" style of
direction, directed all the EON Bond films from 1981 to 1989.
Moonraker was the last for regular Bernard Lee who portrayed Bond's boss M. For the
eighties Bonds, a collection of numerous MI6 superiors would brief Bond on his
missions. 1983 was
a significant year for the series as a non-EON Bond was released,
Never Say Never Again,
directed by The Empire Strikes Back director Irvin Kershner
with Sean Connery
returning to the role for the last time since 1971's Diamonds
are Forever; it was competing with the next EON film Octopussy at the
box-office with media dubbing the situation 'The Battle of the
Bonds'. Even lesser known in the same year was one-time Bond George Lazenby
appearing in the TV-reunion movie The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.
as a Bond-like character "JB". A View to a Kill (1985) was the
last for Roger Moore before Timothy Dalton was chosen as the new
Bond in 1987's The Living Daylights and
lastly in 1989's
Licence to
Kill.
List of
films
Contents: Top · 0–9 A B
C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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