Top 25 Films of the 1980s

25. Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch, 1984)
Jarmusch is amazing at how he makes the mundane surreal. This is one weird and crazy and lazy journey on the road with the slacker losers. It is funny and touching  and strangely poetic.

24. Sans Soleil (Chris Marker, 1983)
A Documentary with some fascinating narration about a world traveler. It is journey through human thought, memory, and experience. This is one of the  greatest documentaries of all time.

23. Summer (Eric Rohmer, 1986)
There is something about Eric Rohmer’s films that always get me. They are so simplistic and unspectacular that it almost feels too real, but through that you find real emotion from real people. He has written and directed some of the most profoundly understated love stories of the last 30 to 40 years and this is one of them.

22. Platoon (Oliver Stone, 1986)
The classic Vietnam war story about a young soldier facing some tough questions as he encounters the horrors of war. Dafoe is excellent as usual and it’s interesting to look back now and watch Forest Whitaker in this one after his recent success with the Last King of Scotland.

21. Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen, 1989)
If this isn’t Allen’s best film it is at least in the top 3. It’s masterpiece of comedy and of drama. Very similar to his recent, and also very good Match Point, but back in 1989 this was an original and clever film.

20.  Come and See (Elem Klimov, 1985)
Another war movie, this one, WW II. This is an awesome character study on as young boy thrown into a crazy war as he slowly begins to go crazy. This is a tough one to watch but is so starkly real that you begin to feel terro right along side the characters.

19. L’Argent (Robert Bresson, 1983)
Bresson’s films kinda grow on you, they linger on in your consciousness and you think about them for a long while after seeing them. L’Argent is a tragic story of an innocent man turned into a criminal and a murderer through a series of unbelievable circumstances. This is real, gritty, and thought-provoking.

18. The Singing Detective (Jon Amiel, 1986)
This TV Miniseries, although not technically a movie, is one of the greatest pieces of epic filmmaking over the last 20 years. 415 minutes of drama, music, mystery, and intrigue. You can’t really describe this, it is so unique and unlike anything I have ever seen. It’s contemplative, sincere, and beautiful.

17. Santa Sangre (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1989)
This may very well be the best true horror film I’ve ever seen. If you anything about Jodorowsky, you know that this is bizarre, freaky, and unusual. I’ve never seen horror be so beautiful and poetic, and yeah, that sounds weird even to me.

16. Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985)
Yet another documentary! This is probably the one documentary that will stay with me for longer than anything I’ve ever seen. Are you ready? This is a 9 ½ hour long film consisting entirely of interviews of Nazi concentration camp survivors. This is some of the most important historical footage that I’ve ever seen, and it really rattles you.

15. Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terrence Davies, 1988)
Pure drama. This is a sad sentimental film based on a true story. It’s a heartbreaking memoir of people lost that uses music in some of the best ways I’ve ever seen.

14. Blue Velvet (David Lynch ,1986)
Admittedly this is vulgar, dirty, and gruesome, I mean its David Lynch. But that also means it’s about surreal, strange, and visual as it gets. I first saw it in college when I was more liberal in my choice of movies, but  although it’s an incredible film, because of it’s content I won’t ever watch it again, and can’t recommend you watch it either. The story does actually has a powerful parallel to our sin nature and hypocrisy though. A startling discovery leads to a nasty underworld of crime right in their own back yard. It will leave your head spinning and asking, what just happened? I love it.

13. Fitzcarraldo (Werner Herzog, 1982)
Not only is this an absolutely astonishing film, the story of how it was made is equally unbelievable. This isn’t Herzog’s best, but without a doubt it is his most ambitious. They actually carried the freakin’ cruise ship over an island! Man this is one awesome movie. And Klaus Kinski is the most intense actor I have ever ever ever seen.

12. Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
Mind Trip movies are either brilliant or annoying. This one is brilliant. Maybe it’s due to Gilliam and having De Niro at the top of his game in the mid 80s. Gilliam creates an entirely new and unique world. The future will never look like this but it’s awesome to watch.

11. The Sacrifice (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986)
This has more spirituality and philosophy packed in it than all the Hollywood movies this year put together. Tarkovsky films his movies at an unapologetically slow pace which leaves you sitting there soaking up everything that is happening. What an awesome meditation on war, prayer, and ultimately a beautiful sacrifice.

10. Cinema Paradiso (Giuseppe Tornatore, 1988)
Not many films are emotionally involving as this. This is one of the films that makes you laugh, cry, and stand up to applaud. At it’s core is a celebration of life, love, and the movies. I love this one and I’ll sure I’ll watch be watching it a few more times.

9. The Killer (John Woo, 1989)
This movies just oozes coolness and style. It revolutionized Asian action cinema and was one of the catalyst of the Asian extreme genre that is so big now. It is over the top violent and the action is ridiculously unreal, but it is so fast past and fun you can’t resist.

8. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
This is the perfect example that whatever Kubrick touched turned to gold. He tries his hand at horror and ends up making one of the all time best and enduring horror films. Nicholson is terrifying and the mansion couldn’t have been filmed any creepier.

7. Nostalghia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983)
This film transcends time and even space. It’s a contemplative and introspective and heavily symbolic. I’ll never forget a scene at the end of the movie where the main character is trying to carry a lit candle about 30 across a empty pool. Walking very very slowly, it keeps getting blown out by the wind. So he walks back, lights it and starts again. This goes on for like 10 minutes. It sounds unbearable, but something about was mesmerizing.

6. Kagemusha (Akira Kurosawa, 1980)
This is a great example of Kurosawa’s mastery. It is funny and tragic. A King dies and a thief that looks like him is hired to stand in for him so they wouldn’t appear weak in the midst of war and tribulations. The thief quickly finds out, being a king during war is tough business.

5. Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)
This film hypnotizes you as you follow an angels searching to be human again. Filled with beautiful scenery and a sensual romance that transcends our world. It makes you aware of your surroundings and feel apart of this world in which we live and yet at the same time long for the something more that it is out there. A beautiful meditation on earthly life.

4. Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
This may be Kurosawa’s most visually stunning and beautiful film. I remember the first time I saw this and the castle battle scene is so amazing and powerful that your jaw will drop. This is the best cinematography in any Kurosawa film. Yet again he adapts a Shakespeare into a samurai epic. This is King Lear and this story has never been better or more accessible. It is a testament to war and despair, showing that the human nature is not happiness and perfection. Therefore this film leads into its tragedy, but it’s wonderful art and great viewing.

3. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
The most shafted film of all time by the academy. I still shudder to think that Ordinary People beat this out for best picture. Raging Bull is a Scorsese’s greatest and most brave masterpiece. It is based on the life of boxer Jake La Motta with De Niro as La Motta. And he puts in one of the best performances of all time as this frustrated and self-destructive boxer dealing with his inner turmoil. When you watch the comparison between the two in the two disc special edition it is uncanny the way De Niro finds La Motta’s persona and style of boxing. He literally becomes the boxer. His physical transformation in the end of the film is the second most impressive of all time after Bale in the Machinist. Pesci also gives his best performance as Jake’s brother who only wants the best for him but seems to always get in the way. La Motta’s wife is played by Cathy Moriarty who is beautiful and superb. This film probably has the best editing I’ve ever seen and the fights are some of the best cinematography ever put on film. This film is physical, emotional and powerful. The final scene is profound and sad. Raging Bull is an awesome ride.

2. Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
Fanny and Alexander is the definitive extravagant epic piece. I say extravagant, but only because of the sets and costumes which are marvelous and colorful and some of the best ever designed for film. But extravagant is a misleading word. This film, although originally a TV miniseries and very long, is quite a small and simple film. It is the story of a family through the eyes of the children. Never before has Bergman given so much attention to the children in his films and as much as he seems to grasp the interactions between adults, his sense of the world through children’s eyes is truly a vision. This film shines so bright and is such an honest and joyous one. It gets better with every scene and with every viewing. Make sure you see the TV version as it captures all that Bergman wanted to tell.

1. The Decalogue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1987)
Once again I may be breaking to rules to include this ten hour epic as one film but hey, it’s gotta be considered that way. Although it is comprised of ten separate nearly one hour films you would be doing yourself a great disservice to only see some of them. This is film that defines pretty much what cinema is all about. Kieslowski went above and beyond any of his prior genius when he filmed the Decalogue. Each story is so simple and ordinary yet is shown in such an important and respectful way. As always he uses some incredible music and cinematography to really capture an incredible mood that weaves its way through every story. There are certainly stories that stick out as the best, I think of Decalogue 2 immediately. The final scene is one of the most powerful I’ve seen in any film. The Decalogue is just a masterful achievement that still just blows me away. If you care for film and see it as a form of art, then this is essential viewing. I wish more people would see this.