Here you’ll find a list of “Eighties” Films. Most of them were filmed during this decade but some are either set then or about that time period. We’ve tried to include something for everyone.
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3 Men and a Baby – Three handsome Manhattan bachelors find their dating and mating rituals irreparably damaged when an unexpected roommate–complete with crib, pacifier, and dirty diaper–shows up on their doorstep
Adventures in Babysitting – A babysitter and three kids leave the safe suburbs and head for the heart of the big city to rescue a frantic friend.
Airplane! – The passengers and crew of an airplane suffer every catastrophe in the book in this spoof of disaster movies.
Alf – In September 1986, a loveable alien named Alf crashed his spaceship into the home of the unsuspecting Tanner family. For the next four years, Alf elusively avoided houseguests, chased the cat, ate everything in sight, but the Tanners always loved Alf.
Back to the Future Parts I, II, III – In Back to the future (part 1), it’s the mid-80’s, and Marty McFly is your average 17-year-old slacker who happens to be friends with an inventor, Doc Brown. Doc’s latest invention is a time machine, that ends up transporting Marty back to 1955 where he must bring get his parents together so that he will exist when he gets back to his own time. In Back to the future II, Marty visits 2015 to straighten out the future of the McFly family, but Biff Tannen steals the time machine, and with it a book that allows his young self to amass a gambling fortune, which has significant consequences to the present. To correct the problems, Marty and Doc must return to 1955 to retrieve the book. In Back to the future III Marty must travel back to 1885 to rescue Doc so that the rest of the adventures can happen.
Batman – A young boy who witnesses his parents’ murder grows up to become Batman, a masked and emotionally disturbed vigilante who battles against an arch-criminal known as The Joker.
Beetlejuice – After Barbara and Adam Maitland are killed in a car crash, they find themselves trapped as ghosts in their beautiful New England farmhouse. Their peaceful ‘existence’ is disrupted when a yuppie family, the Deetz’s, buy their house. The Maitlands are too nice and harmless as ghosts and all their efforts to scare the Deetz’s away are unsuccessful. They decide to call to Beetlejuice, a people-exorcizing ghost, for help.
Better Off Dead – After his girlfriend ditches him for a boorish ski jock, Lane decides that suicide is the only answer. However, his increasingly inept attempts only bring him more agony and embarrassment.
Beverly Hills Cop – Axel Foley is a brash, street smart Detroit detective who follows the trail of a friend’s murderer to the posh surroundings of Beverly Hills. And before Axel gets his man, he gets up to his neck in an international network of smugglers and drug peddlers.
BIG – A 12-year-old boy’s wish comes true when he asks a mechanical carnival genie to make him ‘big’. He manages to land a job at a toy company where he experiences the complications of being an adult.
Big Trouble in Little China – Jack Burton is a big-talking, wisecracking trucker who goes beneath the streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown to battle an army of spirits when his friend’s fiancee is kidnapped.
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure – Screwball comedy about two high school students who face a difficult history exam. With the help of a time-traveling messenger they round up some historical heavyweights for their class project!
The Blues Brothers – Jake and Elwood Blues, two hoodlum brothers searching for redemption, set out to locate and reenlist the members of their defunct rhythm and blues band in order to raise some honest money.
Breakfast Club – Five teens from drastically different cliques spend a day in detention with each other, delving into each others’ true personalities.
Brewster’s Millions – Montgomery Brewster is a down-and-out baseball player who discovers that he is the only living relative of an eccentric multimillionaire. Monty stands to inherit $300 million, but only if he can spend $30 million in a single month without acquiring any assets. If he fails, it’s back to zero again.
The Burbs – A suspense-comedy in which Tom Hanks portrays a suburbanite whose plans for a peaceful vacation are disturbed by a creepy new family on the block.
Caddyshack – The greenskeeper is about to start World War III– against a gopher. Pompous Judge Smails plays to win but his nubile nieceLacey Underall wants to score her own way. Playboy Ty Webb shoots perfect golf by becoming the ball. And country club loudmouth Al Czervik just doubled a $20,000 bet on a 10-foot putt. Insanity. No. Caddyshack.
The Care Bears Movie – Way up high where the clouds and rainbows live, the Care Bears watch over the Earth and make sure everyone is kind and friendly to each other. So when they see an evil spirit trick a lonely young boy into helping make people mean, the huggable heroes jump into action! Together with the animals from the Forest of Feelings, the Care Bears come to the rescue!
Coming to America – Comedy about a wealthy, pampered African prince who comes to America in search of a bride. Accompanied by his closest companion, the prince quickly finds a new job, new friends and lots of trouble.
Die Hard – A team of terrorists has seized a building in L.A. and taken hostages. A New York cop, in town to spend Christmas with his estranged wife, is the only hope for the people held by the savage criminals.
E. T., The Extra-terrestrial – A ten-year-old boy befriends a creature from another planet that has been stranded on earth.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off – A high school student is determined to get a day off with his friends in Chicago by outwitting his principal.
Flashdance – Alex Owens, a fiercely determined and beautiful 18 year old woman who works as a welder by day and as a dancer at a local bar at night. Alex struggles to gain independence, finds love, and realize her dream–to dance at the Pittsburgh Conservatory of Dance.
Follow That Bird – Oscar, Bert, Ernie and Cookie Monster join Big Bird in a bighearted, cross-country adventure. A meddling social worker sends poor Big Bird off to live with a feathered foster family in Illinois. But try as he might, he doesn’t fit in and runs away to return to Sesame Street. Now his old friends need to find him before he runs ‘afowl’ of trouble en route.
Footloose – City-boy Ren McCormick revolts with his best friend and the minister’s daughter when he finds himself in an uptight Midwestern town where dancing has been banned.
Friday the 13th – Camp Crystal Lake has been closed for over twenty years due to several vicious and unsolved murders. New owners reopen the camp, only to have each counselor stalked by a violent killer. This 24-hour nightmare of blood unfolds into a film which is widely acclaimed for its horrifying and creative murder sequences.
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie – A teenage boy accidentally releases a gang of dirty and disgusting children from a magical trashcan and enlists their help in fighting off the school bullies.
Ghostbusters – Suit up for classic comedy! When kooky, spooky college profs Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler lose their University jobs, they decide to go freelance, de-haunting houses in a new ghost removal service.
The Golden Child – Murphy goes to the rescue of a child with mystical powers who has been abducted by an evil cult.
The Goonies – The film follows a group of misfit kids as they search for buried treasure in a subterranean cavern. Here they cross the path of lady criminal Mama Fratelli and her outlaw brood. Fortunately, the kids manage to befriend Fratelli’s hideously deformed (but soft-hearted) son, who comes to their rescue.
Gremlins – When a young bank teller inadvertently breaks the rules of Mogwai care, his new pet Gizmo multiplies into a bevy of mischievous brothers, who soon morph into malevolent scaly creatures.
Hot Tub Time Machine – When a group of middle-aged men travel to a ski resort seeking a temporary escape from their failed, miserable lives, a drunken accident in a hot tub sends them back to 1986, where they get a chance to relive a night from the past and possibly change their futures forever.
Ice Castles – Alex Winston is young, beautiful and talented. She comes from nowhere to become a figure skating superstar. She has to push herself, reinvent herself, and most painfully of all, leave her boyfriend behind. When a tragic fall leaves her blind, she needs someone to believe in her, to love her and convince her she has the strength to skate and dream again.
The Karate Kid – Daniel, a 17-year-old, fatherless teenager, arrives in Los Angeles from the East and faces the difficult task of making friends. He becomes the object of bullying by a gang of karate students when he strikes up a relationship with Ali, the gang leader’s ex-girlfriend. Daniel asks Miyagi, a master of martial arts, to help him learn karate. He soon faces his greatest enemy in a karate tournament where more than honor is at stake.
License to Drive – All the comic stops are pulled out in this high-octane comedy about a boy, his car and his date with disaster!
Little Monsters – A kid meets the monster under his bed and follows him to his world.
The Lost Boys – A young teen thinks his town of Santa Cruz is infested with vampires, and becomes convinced of it when his own brother starts turning into one.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil – When the affable host of an elegant Christmas party shoots a man to death, his friends discover secrets that make them less eager to help with his courtroom defense.
The Money Pit – Evicted from their Manhattan apartment, Walter and Anna buy what looks like the home of their dreams, only to find themselves with a bank-account-draining nightmare.
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation – Christmas is the perfect season for Clark Griswold and his family. Clark’s a disaster waiting to happen. You have to see it to believe it. There are 25,000 lights on the Griswold rooftop. An exploding turkey. And a house full of relatives.
National Lampoon’s Vacation – The Griswolds are going on vacation, trekking cross country in search of fun and recreation at Wally World.
The Neverending Story – The Nothing threatens to destroy Fantasia and its Child-Empress and a young warrior sets out to save them.
Nightmare on Elm Street – When her best friend Tina is brutally murdered, teenager Nancy suspects the killer isn’t Tina’s boyfriend but rather a much more horrifying figure from her dreams. Convinced that this vicious murderer is stalking her friends and killing them as they sleep, Nancy enters a desperate race against time to bring him out of her dream world and stop the bloodbath…before she falls asleep and becomes his next victim.
One Crazy Summer – Young people on Nantucket for the summer struggle with their parents’ expectations and fulfilling their own dreams.
Overboard – A super-rich and pretentious socialite winds up in the world of a struggling carpenter with four kids.
Popeye – Olive Oyl, Wimpy, Bluto and others join Popeye in his adventures in the harbor town of Sweethaven
Pretty in Pink – She’s a high school girl from the wrong side of town. He’s the wealthy heart-throb who asks her to the prom. But as fast as their romance builds, it’s threatened by the painful reality of peer pressure.
The Princess Bride – A kindly grandfather sits down with his grandson and reads him a bedtime story. As the grandfather reads the story, the action comes alive in a classic tale of love and adventure. The beautiful Buttercup is kidnapped and held against her will in order to marry the nasty Prince Humperdinck, while Westley (her childhood beau, now returned as the Dread Pirate Roberts) attempts to save her. Along the way he meets an accomplished swordsman and a giant, both of whom become his companions in his quest.
Private Benjamin – A pampered, spoiled upper-middle class widow joins the Army. The Army will never be the same.
Real Genius – When a group of crazy college geniuses put their heads together, their plan culminates in an incredible scheme that outsmarts the military and convinces the professor that it doesn’t pay to fool with real genius.
Red Dawn – When a town is invaded by foreign nationals and the security of the United States seems threatened, a group of high school students escape and wage warfare in defense of their parents, their friends and their country.
Revenge of the Nerds – Revenge of the nerds: Two freshman join the nerds in their battle against jocks using high-tech weapons only a nerd could dream of. Revenge of the nerds II: The nerds are off to Ft. Lauderdale for a national fraternity conference.
Rocky IV – Rocky faces his greatest challenge as he climbs into the ring against a savage Russian fighter, each determined to destroy the other.
Say Anything – A young man, recently graduated from high school, wants only one thing: a date with a fellow graduate. The catch is she’s beautiful, brilliant and headed to England to study, and all his friends and her father tell him she’s way out of his league. When they fall in love anyway, the result is a funny, poignant and joyous celebration of first love.
The Shining – When Jack Torrance moves into an isolated hotel to serve as the off-season caretaker, he brings along his wife and telepathic son. While Jack plans to write a novel, he soon finds himself distracted by mysterious occurences in the hotel that slowly drive him insane.
Shirley Valentine – An English housewife, bored with her life, goes on a vacation with a friend to Greece and finds that there’s more to life than just dishes and laundry when she has a fling with a handsome man.
Sixteen Candles – It’s Samantha Baker’s sweet sixteen and no one in her family remembers the important occasion. But wait…the day isn’t over yet!
St. Elmo’s Fire – Seven friends, recent college graduates, search for a place in the real world and face the issues of career and commitment. Against the backdrop of St. Elmo’s, their local hang-out, they save, betray and love each one another as only the closest of friends can.
Superman II – This epic takes up where Superman, the movie leaves off. Superman deals with a trio of villians whose powers rival Superman’s own.
Teen Wolf – Teen wolf: Scott Howard is a teenager who yearns to be more than just a nice, average guy and he gets his wish. From deep within his personality, the Teen Wolf emerges.
Tootsie – Michael Dorsey is an out-of-work actor who makes himself up as a woman to get a job. When his girlfriend, Sandy, fails an audition for a soap opera, Michael dresses up as “Dorothy Michaels” and lands the part. All goes well until “Dorothy” falls in love with beautiful co-star, Julie, and Julie’s father, Les, falls for “Dorothy.”
Top Gun – A daredevil Navy pilot striving to be the best at a Top Gun flight school doubts his abilities when his best friend is killed in training.
Trading Places – The lives of an upper class commodities broker and a homeless street hustler cross paths when they are unknowingly made part of an elaborate bet by two rich brothers.
Turner and Hooch – A compulsively neat detective’s tidy world goes to the dogs when he is forced to team up with a drooling slob of a junkyard dog named Hooch.
Uncle Buck – Uncle Buck, an idle good-natured bachelor, is left in charge of his nephew and nieces during a family crisis. While his carefree ways easily charm the younger relatives, he meets more than a little hostility from Tia, his rebellious teenage niece, and Chanice, his impatient girlfriend.
Valley Girl – Julie is, like, so over her preppy boyfriend, she dumps him on the escalator at the Galleria. And when she meets punker Randy, her eyes practically bug out because she thinks he’s sexy even though he makes her friends gag! But even if Randy’s ready to stop the world and melt with her, can Julie risk losing her friends and her super-popularity at school just to be with him?
Weekend at Bernies – Two employees uncover an embezzlement scheme in their company, and are rewarded with a weekend at their boss’s beach house, however, when they arrive, they find his corpse and then decide to pretend that he’s still alive.
Weird Science – Two nerdy best friends have the power to create the “perfect woman”. Like a computer-generated fairy godmother, the two use their creation to learn about the pleasures and pitfalls of adolescences.