Films of the ’80s

At TIFF 2007, I caught Les Bons Debarras (Francis Mankiewicz, 1980), which screened in the Canadian Open Vault program. Regularly included on short lists of the greatest Canadian films, it’s about a precocious adolescent girl and her single mother surviving in a small town in Quebec. Steve Gravestock has written about the film in Cinema Scope, and Girish mentioned it in his post on Quebecois Cinema.

While watching Les Bons Debarras, I was struck by how familiar it felt. I was eight when the film was released — near enough to the age of Manon (Charlotte Laurier) that I was able immediately to recognize that particular era of childhood, even if her experience of it is so much different from my own. Much of the credit for the film goes to its cinematographer, Michel Brault, who is best remembered for being a father of cinema verite and for his collaborations with Jean Rouch. We often associate naturalistic styles of narrative filmmaking with the ’60s and ’70s, and it’s obviously experienced a great revival in the last decade-and-a-half, but in the ’80s a film like Les Bons Debarras was something of an anomaly. I remember thinking at the time that I wanted to find others like it. I was reminded of that again last week while browsing through this “Best Films of the 80s” discussion at The Auteurs.

Thanks to the fine folks at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?, I was able to pull out the most critically acclaimed films of the decade and order them by overall rank (download pdf). Not too many surprises near the top. A lot of Scorsese, Kubrick, Lynch, and Spielberg. Among the films I’m eager to revisit or, in most cases, to see for the first time:

  • Once Upon a Time in America
  • Local Hero
  • The King of Comedy
  • The Dead
  • Love Streams
  • Reds
  • The Verdict
  • American Gigolo
  • Bad Timing

Any other gems hidden among the wreckage of so many blockbusters? What are the other great, lost films of the ’80s?


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20 responses to “Films of the ’80s”

  1. a_filmsnob

    Hmm…I don’t see John Sayles on this list. What about MATEWAN? And perhaps I missed it, but Claire Denis’ CHOCOLAT deserves a spot.

  2. Gordon

    some suggestions:

    Speaking Parts
    Family Viewing
    Dust in the Wind
    My Summer at Grandpa's
    Ballad of Narayama
    Das Boot
    Ghosts of the Civil Dead
    The Horse Thief
    The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
    Clockwise
    La belle captive
    Drugstore Cowboy
    Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
    Matador
    To Live and Die in L.A.
    Withnail & I
    Diva
    Suburbia

  3. bulb

    Since you’ve got Local Hero there, two “related” films:

    Same director, set in Scotland
    Gregory’s Girl (Bill Forsyth, 1981)

    and

    Burt Lancaster and arguably Sarandon’s post Rocky Horror breakout role
    Atlantic City (Louis Malle, 1980)

    For Sayles you might also consider his Big Chillprecursor
    The Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980)

    Some Interesting British Stuff
    The Draughtman’s Contract (Peter Greenaway, 1983)

    The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1980)

    Florida flavor with great soundtrack and The Feelies incognito
    Something Wild (Jonathan Demme, 1986)
    Tallahassee standing in for several states (catch the giveaway Seminole logo outside Mom and Dad’s

    If you like Noir and either Steve Martin or Carl Reiner, give Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid a chance (1984)

    Diva (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1981)

  4. Ryland Walker Knight

    Funny you don’t see _Sans Soleil_ on that list.

    Over at this sister blog, I have this list up —
    Love Streams (1984)
    Sans Soleil (1983)
    Manhunter (1986)
    The Sacrifice (1986)
    The Terrorizer (1986)
    My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
    Raising Arizona (1987)
    Nostalghia (1983)
    L’argent (1983)
    White Dog (1982)
    Fanny and Alexander (1982)

  5. Gordon

    Have to add Housekeeping, which I watched again recently and is Forsyth’s masterpiece.

  6. Phil Nugent

    “Melvin and Howard”, “Stop Making Sense”, “Something Wild”, “Haiti–Dreams of Democracy”, and, if you can find it, the original director’s cut of “Swing Shift”: in America, the ’80s belonged to Jonathan Demme if they belonged to anybody.

  7. Michael

    Spirit of Eden.

    It’s not a movie, but don’t forget it anyway.

  8. Flickhead

    Cutter’s Way

    Union City

    Miracle Mile

  9. Dan Sallitt

    I second the nomination of Housekeeping – a great film.

    Here’s my comprehensive take on the 80s.

  10. Darren

    The internet is a wonderful place. Thanks for the recommendations, everyone.

    From time to time I begin to think of myself as a die-hard cinephile. And then I see a list of films like Dan’s, only about a third of which I’ve even heard of, and am reminded again of just how deep the film vaults go.

  11. Bob Turnbull

    Don’t think I saw these on anyone else’s lists (Dan’s might have had some of them…):

    Airplane (1980)
    The Changeling (1980)
    Blood Wedding (1981)
    Coup De Torchon (1981)
    Vernon, Florida (1982)
    A Christmas Story (1983)
    Koyaanisqatsi (1983)
    Bill Cosby: Himself (1983)
    Carmen (1983)
    Blood Simple (1984)
    The Times Of Harvey Milk (1984)
    The Funeral (1984)
    Ran (1985)
    Tampopo (1985)
    Vagabond (1985)
    Laputa: Castle In The Sky (1986)
    Jean De Florette/Manon Of The Spring (1986)
    Shadows In Paradise (1986)
    Gothic (1986)
    Sherman’s March (1986)
    Cobra Verde (1987)
    Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987)
    Grave Of The Fireflies (1988)
    The Thin Blue Line (1988)
    The Vanishing (1988)
    Ariel (1988)
    For All Mankind (1989)
    Violent Cop (1989)

  12. Film Snob

    And don’t forget those wonderful neo-cold war movies RED DAWN and WAR GAMES!

  13. tpfkazrs

    Hey Darren,

    Off-topic, but do you know any really good movies (not in English) that deal with class issues, even remotely?

  14. bulb

    For Tpfkazrs

    a few extremely obvious contenders

    Renoir’s La Règl du Jeu (The Rules of the Game)
    Di Sicca Ladri di Bicicletta (The Bicycle Thief or properly Bicycle Thieves)
    Eisenstein Potemkin or October
    Kurosawa Yojimbo or Throne of Blood for a non-Western persepctive

    That’s just hitting famously classic non-English movies that are readily available
    If you want a kind of French matewan, you could examine Berri’s 1993 version of Zola’s Germinal, about a coalminer’s strike in Northwestern France.

  15. tpfkazrs

    Those do sound great bulb. Do you know of any more recent films perhaps?

  16. bulb

    My Access to foreign films currently is curtailed but I guess

    Garrone Gomorrah (2008) Italian film about mafia in Naples slums
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/oct/13/gomorrah-mafia-italy-arrests
    Mierelles Cidade de Deus (City of God) Life in Rio’s favelas (especially for the contrast between these hilltop interior slums and the edenic beach scenes down at Copa).

    I know there’s a recent (last five or six years) French film set at a country house that does the Upstairs Downstairs thing a la Altman’s Gosford Park but the title eludes me. Cast primarily women if memory serves.

  17. Darren

    tpfkazrs, I guess it all depends on how you define “class issues.”

    The first film that came to mind is Peter Watkins’ La Commune (Paris, 1871), which is a really interesting essay-narrative hybrid. Agnes Varda’s The Gleaners and I is also a fantastic essay on class (in a roundabout way).

    If you’re looking for recent narrative films, I’d think nearly anything by Pedro Costa, the Dardenne brothers (especially La Promesse) and Laurent Cantet (especially Time Out and Vers la sud) would fit the bill.

  18. tpfkazrs

    Thanks bulb and Darren for your suggestions.

  19. The Hunting of the Snark

    Repo Man and Straight to Hell.

  20. Jaime

    Darren – not sure if you're still checking comments for this post, but in 2010 I began a list of essential films, and I think I was able to account for almost all of the must-see films of the 1980s. (And, as of this morning, I've catalogued 2009 through 1974.) I've deliberately avoided listing "obvious classics," so if you're looking for great films and you're already aware of the IMDb, the AFI, the Oscar winners, etc., it's a good place to start. Check it out!