Wondering About the Top FIlms of the 1980's?

Yep -- It's that time again. Head on over to the wonderful Wonders in the Dark and submit your top 25 films of the 80's. The lists are sure to be eclectic and full of great DVD ideas. I always walk away from the wonderful lists submitted there in awe of how much there is out there I still have to see. My list comes after jump...

My top ten consists of some of the best films to come out of American cinema in the 80's, one of the best films by a cinematic god (Bergman), a documentary, and a flashy French thriller that has one of the best action scenes I have ever seen. However, after those ten films I struggled to fill out the rest of my list. Oh, the films are all great movies -- I hate quantifying years of cinema, after all any year that gets me to talk about the movies is a good year for me -- but my secondary 25 show that as an era the 80's were maybe the worst in cinematic history. There are a lot of films from around the world that I have to see from the 80's (evidenced by the sheer amount of action and horror films to round out the list), but I don't think that necessarily cheapens the skill that went into action films like The Road Warrior or Aliens...for their respective genres, they are masterfully executed films.

Anyway...here's my list:

1.) Raging Bull (Scorsese)
2.) Fanny and Alexander (Bergman)
3.) Blade Runner (Scott)
4.) Crimes and Misdemeanors (Allen)
5.) Blue Velvet (Lynch)
6.) Ran (Kurosawa)
7.) Thief (Mann)
8.) The Thin Blue Line (Morris)
9.) The Right Stuff (Kaufman)
10.) Diva (Beineix)
11.) Kagemusha (Kurosawa)
12.) Lost in America (A. Brooks)
13.) The Fly (Cronenberg)
14.) Witness (Weir)
15.) Stranger Than Paradise (Jarmusch)
16.) Dekalog (Kieslowski)
17.) Raising Arizona (Coen)
18.) Robocop (Verhoeven)
19.) Manhunter (Mann)
20.) Fitzcarraldo (Herzog)
21.) This is Spinal Tap (Reiner)
22.) House of Games (Mamet)
23.) Broadcast News (J. Brooks)
24.) The Killer (Woo)
25.) Once Upon a Time in America (Leone)

Here's the second 25:

26.) Hannah and Her Sisters (Allen)
27.) Body Heat (Kasdan)
28.) The Dead Zone (Cronenberg)
29.) Under the Volcano (Huston)
30.) The Last Temptation of Christ (Scorsese)
31.) Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg)
32.) Another Woman (Allen)
33.) Au revoir les enfants (Malle)
34.) Wings of Desire (Wenders)
35.) The Dead (Huston)
36.) Blood Simple (Coen)
37.) Stage Fright (Soavi)
38.) The King of Comedy (Scorsese)
39.) Matewan (Sayles)
40.) Opera (Argento)
41.) Do the Right Thing (Lee)
42.) American Gigolo (Schrader)
43.) Das Boot (Peterson)
44.) The Beyond (Fulci)
45.) Aliens (Cameron)
46.) A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven)
47.) Bull Durham (Shelton)
48.) The Company of Wolves (Jordan)
49.) The Terminator (Cameron)
50.) The Road Warrior (Miller)

Labels: Film, Film Lists, The Best Films of the 1980's, Wonders in the Dark