Well, you voted, and then you waited for the results. You dug deep into your memories of 1988 in Film, as others desperately flocked to Letterboxd and Wikipedia. You assessed the merits of how times have changed and those films that have held water all these years.
You asked yourself: Should I vote for Killer Klowns from Outer Space? I’m Gonna Git You Sucka? Earth Girls Are Easy? Moonwalker? If you did, tough luck, none of those made the cut. How many of you included the likes of Gorillas in the Mist, Mystic Pizza, Willow or, of course, Twins, in your lists? Because those were outside the Top 50 too. You might also be horrified to not see The Blob, Maniac Cop or Child’s Play anywhere in the results.
Personally, and I say this from a bitterless, good place, I almost refused to pursue this venture when I saw films like The Bear, Jane B. by Agnès V. and A World Apart sitting outside the half century of 1988. But we can’t win them all. Just ask those in Bloodsport or Red Heat. You’ll be glad to hear that Tom Cruise is in the list though – but not for Cocktail, sorry. Michelle Pfeiffer is there too – but not Tequila Sunrise. Academy Award Best Actress winner Jodie Foster in The Accused? Nope.
So before we feel we’re Running on Empty and get way too Frantic, what exactly did you vote for? Let’s find out…
Choose a magazine cover to get started with films 50 – 41
50. Tucker: The Man and His Dream
Francis Ford Coppola conceived of his motor industry entrepreneurial tale around the time he was embroiled in The Godfather double bill of the early 1970s. Tucker: The Man and His Dream was not actually revved and ready to go until 1988, on the eve of the filmmaker’s third and final mafia family saga.
Even with the likes of Marlon Brando and Burt Reynolds cited for the lead character of lifelong-car-fanatic-come-engineer Preston Tucker over the years, the eventual casting of Jeff Bridges was the smoothest choice. Bridges, renowned for his freewheeling swagger, encapsulated the ambition and charm of Tucker, as well as fitting the mould of Coppola’s stylish blend of comedy and drama.
A pioneer of various revolutionary safety implements including seatbelts and pop-out windshields, Tucker’s “car of the future” echoes the more recent “way of the future” in 2004’s The Aviator. Not only would the Scorsese flick make a perfect double bill with his filmmaker buddy’s Tucker, but Coppola cast Dean Stockwell as the ubiquitous Howard Hughes in 1988. The familiar faces of Martin Landau, Joan Allen, Elias Koteas, Christian Slater – among others – also feature. – – – Robin Write
49. Talk Radio
Talk Radio, based on a stageplay by Eric Bogosian, also stars Bogosian in the leading role of radio shock jock Barry Champlain. In February of this year, conservative talk radio pioneer Rush Limbaugh died, perhaps as strong a signal as any that the era of the raging shock jock had closed. Yet so much about Oliver Stone and Bogosian’s film feels timely. The tagline, “The Last Neighborhood in America,” could very easily be used to market a social media app.
Protagonist Barry Champlain, with his unorthodox views and combative style, resembles nothing more than the modern phenomenon of the twitter troll. Or, perhaps if we’re being more charitable, a podcaster. Robert Richardson’s camerawork is memorably claustrophobic. The studio – which the audience, like Champlain, rarely leaves – is both confining and lived in. The movie’s most sensational asset is star and co-writer Bogosian, expanding a character he created for a one man show into a fully tragic figure. Perhaps of Stone’s ‘80s output, this is the film most deserving of reappraisal. – – – John Connelly
48. Eight Men Out
It was a baseball movie about the 1919 Chicago White Sox, but not Field of Dreams. It also featured Charlie Sheen, but not Major League. John Sayle’s Eight Men Out is an underseen and underappreciated baseball film. It tells the story of the infamous “Black Sox Scandal”, in which the team purposefully lost the 1919 World Series to win gambling money that far exceeded their regular salaries.
The detail Mr. Sayles used here was vital: How disgruntled the players were, how they made deals, and how they played on the field to follow up on the bribe. It was basically walking us through the team’s actions, clearly portraying how guilty they were. “Say it ain’t so, Joe”, is the lasting line from this film. The kids looking up to the ballplayers, almost as deities, contrasts with the real life situations faced by the men, who needed to make a living.
This film features wonderful performances by John Cusack, Gordon Clapp, Michael Rooker, David Strathairn, and the late great John Mahoney. I mentioned earlier that Charlie Sheen is in this, but it’s odd to think that he isn’t featured as much as you’d think. Eight Men Out, aside from being a movie about baseball, really is a history lesson. It’s a picture of the times, specifically more than 100 years ago, of how differently sports were managed then. It would be hard to fathom now seeing professional athletes needing an offseason job to take care of their families, as they did then. – – – Christian Fuentes
47. Powaqqatsi
That eternally flowing music from the maestro Philip Glass may be synonymous with the increasingly dubious Truman Burbank of his paranoid reality. But one of the all-time great music anthems was indelibly used some tens years prior in Godfrey Reggio’s extraordinary Powaqqatsi. A visual document on the real world of sorts, and a follow up to the equally blistering Koyaanisqatsi from 1982, Powaqqatsi is an unrivalled account of the unfathomable transformative life before us.
With an astute, perpetually beautiful emphasis on the Third World, Powaqqatsi affords us the luxury of exploring the way of life amidst the dirt, the mud, the rocks. And in that, the celebration of the relationship between people and the land. Somehow bringing us closer to the varying aspects of the modern world, lest we forget. The tossing of homegrown seed or the religious jives form a powerful significance to parallel the hustle-bustle of city life where the sun still rises and the water still falls. – – – Robin Write
46. High Hopes
Surprisingly only his second feature film, High Hopes in its title and its worn down tone, offers a blueprint for British filmmaker Mike Leigh’s legacy. In a filmography that has not even reached twenty pictures, Leigh has woven one of the largest impressions in British cinema’s patchwork of the last five decades. Partly explaining the huge gap in his CV from the debut Bleak Moments in 1971 to the TV-aired Meantime in 1983, is Leigh’s insistence of allowing performer-driven process over an actual physical screenplay.
High Hopes is set during Thatcher’s England and the trailing working-class society. The central characters of Cyril (Phil Davis) and Shirley (Ruth Sheen), although patterned alongside many of Leigh’s detached strays, offer refreshingly encouraging points of view. Provisional support in Leigh’s bleak and witty cultural perspectives is offered by the elderly mother (Edna Doré) and sister (Lesley Manville). – – – Robin Write
45. Wàngjiǎo Kǎmén / As Tears Go By
Wong Kar-Wai’s directorial debut stars Andy Lau as Wah, a middle-grade Triad enforcer who struggles to keep his plucky subordinate Fly (Jacky Cheung) in line. In the first of her many collaborations with Wong, a luminescent Maggie Cheung appears as Wah’s ‘cousin’ Ngor, who is sprung upon him when she travels to Hong Kong for medical reasons and then vies for both his attention and affections.
Wong’s debut film is perhaps his least distinctive, with its most obvious influences being Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets and the earlier works of the New Wave – particularly those of Wong’s mentor, Patrick Tam. Nevertheless, while the aestheticization of gangster violence in Hong Kong cinema didn’t originate with As Tears Go By, it was here that it reached near-perfection.
Every frame remains fresh, vibrant, and neon, with romance and action seamlessly flowing together with a shared dynamism. It reaches its emotional peak with the most iconic kiss in Hong Kong cinema, filmed with Wong’s step-printing technique that slows down the visuals yet imparts them with breathless energy. Fittingly, the scene is underscored by a Cantonese cover of “Take My Breath Away” – it certainly had that effect on me and audiences at the time, who made it Wong’s highest-grossing film domestically until The Grandmaster. – – – Calvin MacKinnon
44. The Land Before Time
The Land Before Time kicked off a long-running series of 14 films, all with varying degrees of success, but director Don Bluth’s original 1988 film remains one of the best and most memorable animated movies of the 1980s, and a staple for many 90s kids’ childhoods. Set in prehistoric times, herbivorous “longneck” dinosaur Littlefoot (voiced by Gabriel Damon) and triceratops, or “three-horn,” Cera (Candace Hutson) find themselves on their own after an earthquake kills Littlefoot’s mother (Helen Shaver) and separates the young ones from the rest of their herd. Teaming up with new friends Ducky (Judith Barsi) and Petrie (Will Ryan), they set out to follow Littlefoot’s mother’s advice and find a haven known as the Great Valley, encountering dangerous situations like bad weather and T-Rex attacks on the way.
The Land Before Time boasts an occasionally uneven tone, veering from overly cutesy for the adults to a bit too scary for the kids, even though extensive cuts were made to make the film less dark. But its messaging rings loud and clear. Almost immediately setting up a conflict between the different species (as Cera’s father states, “three-horns don’t play with longnecks”), the remainder of the film sets out to dismantle these prejudices and promote a message of acceptance. The characters are loveable, thanks both to an energetic voice cast (plus narration by Pat Hingle) and the artists who designed them, and even when some of the middle drags, the tear-jerking opening and closing scenes bring it all together. – – – Katie Carter
43. Miracle Mile
Steve DeJarnatt’s sublime genre-hopper sets out as a quirky romcom before morphing into a tense, race against the clock thriller as a nuclear nightmare grows ever closer – or does it? Musician Anthony Edwards turns up spectacularly late to his date with waitress Mare Winningham at the diner where she works and answers a ringing payphone outside to discover the caller is claiming to be a soldier in a missile silo which has just fired upon Russia.
Superb performances from the entire cast bolster the escalating, nerve shredding tension and the climax is terrifying and devastating in its unique and surreal way. The diner scenes have the feel of a great one-act ensemble play and the brilliantly atmospheric Tangerine Dream score is a character in itself, switching between dreamy and heart-pounding as the screenplay piles on the peril. Even as the timer nears zero, with no tangible evidence that anyone is under threat, is it all just a massive hoax and has our hero unwittingly triggered mass panic in Los Angeles? A peculiar, heartfelt gem of a movie with a genuine gut punch of an ending that left me sitting in a cinema unable to speak or get out of my seat. – – – Darren Gaskell
42. The Accidental Tourist
This heartwarming charmer succeeded in capturing the hearts of audiences in 1988. It reproduced the unique tone of Anne Tyler’s beloved novel and brought quirky, immensely likeable characters to life. William Hurt was on hand to portray the emotionally repressed, anti-social Macon Leary. We watch as this man processes the grief he feels as a result of his son’s death, while also falling in love with a spirited dog walker.
It is one of those curious comedies that manages to provide a serious meditation on the pain of letting go of people that you love, in spite of including light-hearted moments. It blends passionate romance, hard-hitting domestic drama and whimsical comedy. That delicate balance is achieved with a wit and grace that was rare in big studio dramas of the 1980s.
The film doesn’t trade on gratuitous sexual content, children getting gunned down or the idea of men behaving badly. The Accidental Tourist is content to focus on delicate emotions and relationship conflicts that can’t be resolved with one big argument. It understands that the rhythms of life are more complicated than the contrived plot beats found in most daytime soap operas. We would be very lucky indeed if Hollywood chose to produce a romantic drama with this level of sophistication in the 21st century. For now we’ll just have to fall back on the charms of The Accidental Tourist. – – – Zita Short
41. Chocolat
One of the greatest living filmmakers, Claire Denis, explores her youth in French Africa for her feature debut, Chocolat, the first of many films exploring her anti-colonialist perspective. Set in Cameroon, the story follows France (Mireille Perrier), a white woman who dwells on her childhood memories of her friendship with Protée (Isaach De Bankolé), her family’s Black servant, known as “the boy.” France attempts to reconcile her experiences and feelings for Protée, yet she cannot, so she punishes herself psychologically and physically for being part of colonialism. Still, her torment is but a small measure of what Protée experienced under colonial repression.
Denis considers the connections between African natives and European women under colonialism, reframing traditional subjectivity and questioning the masculine cinematic gaze in her distinct, ponderous style. Denis’ hypnotic portrait of memory, desire, and unresolved conflicts transgresses patriarchal modes of representation with a poetically rendered masterpiece. Through entrenched symbolism, Chocolat resolves that there can be no closure between the colonizer and colonized. Denis would return to these themes later in Beau Travail (1999) and White Material (2009).- – – Brian Eggert
Click on a magazine cover for numbers 40 – 31
40. Na srebrnym globie / On the Silver Globe
On the Silver Globe is the kind of film that leaves a stain as well as making a mark – and rightfully so. After all, it is only two thirds there. Literally. Check out the production history for more on that. What remains terrorises, memorises, perplexes, as well as stopping your subconscious and your actual conscious in its tracks. It is not the sort of film that will be your friend for life. But if you chose to take up arms against it then that’s on you.
It peels back the veneers of respectability and even civilisation, ultimately as the director said it was the saddest story he knew. The lack of a complete set of film elements lead the filmmaker to insert a series of contemporary Poland. Giving On the Silver Globe an out of time and a never really there quality. And please understand not at the same time that, these two things are slightly out of phase with each other. Almost like laser beams in a vacuum. The ending breaks the heart, but also elevates the human mind – you wonder how an individual could accomplish so much. – – – Stephen Shakesby
39. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, directed by Frank Oz, remains one of the decade’s finest comic motion pictures. Of course, glasses raised and clinked to the undeniable chemistry between the film’s hustling leads, Steve Martin and Michael Caine. That’s not all, though. The breakthrough turn from actress Glenne Headly was integral to the frolics on the French Riviera. The trio provide one cunning set-piece after the next, so that even the more predictable moments work well enough in that knowing what’s around the corner only makes the characters’ reaction to these madcap antics even funnier.
And in its throwaway twists and turbulent turns, the film doesn’t con its audience as a reminder of the comic intellect they enjoyed decades earlier. Even as a remake of the 1964 film Bedtime Story, with David Niven, Marlon Brando and Shirley Jones, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels stood on its own feet – back in the late 1980s, when perhaps audiences were wilting from the influx of desperate comedies. And the less said about 2019’s The Hustle with Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson the better. – – – Robin Write
38. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Terry Gilliam’s 1988 film is infamous for its’ disastrous production, release, and reception. It established Gilliam’s reputation as a gonzo genius perpetually tilting at windmills. The irony is that the film is one of Gilliam’s best.
Munchausen is set on a Wednesday during the Age of Reason in a town besieged by the Ottoman Empire. Sally Salt (Sarah Polley) is there with her father’s theatre troupe who are performing a play about the famous Baron Munchausen. The real Baron (John Neville) arrives and regales the townsfolk with his tall tales before setting off in search of old allies to help him lift the siege. Fact and fiction blur as the audience is never quite certain if we’re still in one of the Baron’s stories.
This is the third in what Gilliam calls his “Trilogy of Imagination”. The first two entries, Time Bandits and Brazil are rightfully hailed as classics. However, Munchausen is Gilliam at his fantastical best. The film is filled with beautiful sets designed by Dante Ferretti and gorgeously shot by Giuseppe Rotunno. Michael Kamen’s score is a delightful combination of melancholy and magic.
Each character is memorable but the relationship between Sally and the Baron is the true heart of the tale. She wants to believe in the vanished world the Baron represents. And the Baron desperately wants to feel that this world mattered. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a paean to the power of storytelling. Especially when the story being told is ridiculous and absurd. – – – Daniel Marchant
37. Camille Claudel
This lavishly mounted biopic served as a showcase for the talents of French diva Isabelle Adjani. She had been typecast as a wild-eyed, strong willed eccentric for many years, and Camille Claudel allowed her to display her range. She does portray a mad tortured genius but she also gets the opportunity to explore the artistic process of a sculptor. As the title would suggest, she plays the infamous French sculptor Camille Claudel.
The film traces Claudel’s rise from relative obscurity to nationwide fame as a bright young talent. Her tumultuous relationship with Auguste Rodin, played by Gérard Depardieu, complicates matters and she begins to resent the fact that his fame and influence eclipses her own. She begins to question whether she is truly talented and this makes it more difficult for her to hold onto her sanity.
It initially suggests that it will be unconventional and challenging, even though the film slips a little into clichéd territory. Some will be reminded of the awards bait that Meryl Streep tends to appear in and, unsurprisingly, Adjani did earn an Academy Award nomination for her efforts. Her performance almost overshadows everything that surrounds her. This might have functioned better as a one woman show on Broadway, than it does as a feature film. – – – Zita Short
36. Distant Voices, Still Lives
Few films capture the distinct feel of thumbing through an old family photo album, but Terence Davies’ masterpiece Distant Voices, Still Lives brings the past to aching life. Coated in a beautiful sepia-like filter, Davies’ film walks through the lives of a working-class family in 1940s and ‘50s Liverpool, exploring shared experiences of domestic trauma through the hazy gauze of memory. Carefully employing period-specific popular music, Davies’ weaves sound and image into a tableaux of nostalgia, simultaneously reveling in the pleasures of the past while exploring the cruelty of days gone by.
A film that defies narrative convention with incredible ease, Distant Voices, Still Lives splits its narrative into two parts filmed separately, further heightening the disconnect between the past and the present. Davies’ film is simultaneously specific to its creator while also remaining painfully universal, an impressionistic portrait of a family struggling to live with an uncomfortable past. – – – Cameron Wolff
35. Une Affaire de Femmes / Story of Women
Story of Women is a 1988 French language drama film by director Claude Chabrol, starring Isabelle Huppert and François Cluzet. It is based on the real life of Marie-Louise Giraud who was guillotined in July of 1943 for having performed 27 abortions in occupied France during World War II. Isabelle Huppert gives an astounding performance with her portrayal of Marie-Louise throughout the film, which has surprisingly feminist undertones for its time. It tackles topics of women’s rights, the effects of war and social class; these topics, of which, are confronted with thought and care.
This film, which was ahead of its time, is phenomenally directed, written and acted, and serves as an important character study in the history of war as well as women’s history and rights. Story of Women tells an otherwise untold tale of war, and shines a light on the struggles of those who suffered often silently during a dark period in history, lest they be forgotten. – – – Anna Miller
34. Coming to America
In a decade packed to the gills with classic comedies that are still being praised today, Coming to America stands above the vast majority of them. A hair more sophisticated than the raunchy offerings of the 80s, Coming to America offers one of the best looks at a younger generation coming into their own and challenging the mindset of the older, more established generation.
Eddie Murphy, playing to his strengths as a comedian, offers up one of the best performances of his career as Akeem, playing equal parts royal, exuberant, bashful, and clueless. Arsenio Hall as faithful sidekick Semmi gets less to work with, but still turns in gold as the pair delight in playing multiple roles throughout the film. The story of Prince Akeem, future ruler of fictional country Zamunda, and his faithful companion Semmi’s journey to America to find a bride is a simple, straightforward plot designed to give Murphy and Hall a chance to flex their chops. Not wanting to be beholden to tradition, Akeem’s desire to marry for love instead of tradition are the heart of the matter, with screenwriters David Sheffield and Barry Blaustein managing to find genuine moments of tenderness amid the zany adventures of the fish-out-of-water African pair.
A strong main cast aided by equally strong supporting characters makes for some of the most memorable comedic performances to grace the screen. Murphy’s innocent earnestness, a hilarious screenplay, and director John Landis’ masterful use of timing combine to make Coming to America a timeless gem that serves as both a great coming-of-age story and a love letter to one of the best cities in the world. – – – Darryl Mansel
33. Working Girl
Working Girl takes on the template of a classic Cinderella story, as working-class Tess McGill tries to make it in the big city as an administrative assistant. She is angered when her employer steals one of her ideas and chooses to adopt her employer’s identity in order to carry out a business deal on her own. In the process, she seduces Jack Trainer, who happened to be dating her employer, and achieves success in a male-oriented field. It’s nothing new and its efforts to comment on sexism within the workplace come across as ham-fisted.
It is irritatingly innocuous and unwilling to interrogate the motivations of its protagonist. McGill never comes across as the plucky, hardworking heroine that she is supposed to be. For this story to properly function, she would have needed to possess more of an edge. Melanie Griffith seems tranquillised for long passages of the film and never makes much of an impression in a role that was clearly intended to make her a star. With such a blank slate at the centre of a movie, it makes it difficult to invest in McGill’s journey.
This lauded romantic comedy achieved the rare distinction of receiving a Best Picture Oscar nomination. In an era in which the genre was in dire straits, this must have seemed like hot stuff. Mike Nichols’s direction is typically polished and efficient and the script is able to suggest that the film is about something more than an ambitious blonde moving up the social ladder. – – – Zita Short
32. Drowning by Numbers
1988’s Drowning By Numbers is the perfect distillation of everything Peter Greenaway, with gorgeous music, swathes of intricate tableaus, and a web of complex observations on passion, gender, and oppression. Taking place in a microcosm for our society governed by masculine power structures, it tells the story of three women all named Cissie Colpitts who take their fate into their own hands, and decide to drown their husbands.
Continuing the auteur’s obsession with water (evidenced in films such as The Sea In Their Blood and Death in the Seine amongst others) as power, control, and a manifestation of desire, the Cissies regain independence from the gluttony, demands, and adulterous behaviour that restrains and disregards them. Finding a newfound freedom in lukewarm baths and tumultuous waves – in the murders committed there is a restoration of power to the weak, a regaining of what was taken. The youngest Cissie for example, a swimmer, struggles with the expectation that she will sacrifice her body (and olympic success) to bear her husband’s child, and so it is in her domain, the practice pool, where she forces her husband to symbolically submit. Each woman manipulates the water to express her frustration with a world that forces them into place, and it acts both as cleansing and a warning. – – – Nathan H
31. Salaam Bombay!
Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair is primarily known for her culture-centered, matured rom-coms, so her acclaimed drama on the lives of street children in Bombay would typically be an outlier. However, rather than sinking into an exploitation of poverty within class divide, there’s something more lively found, particularly in the life of a boy named Krishna. Narrative darkness is contrasted with the piercing sunlight that lights the streets, pleasures of childhood then twisted into an exploration of the labors of youth within a corrupted system. Krishna begins left behind by the circus his mother has sent him to work for, and like a later parade, we see what is celebration for others used to disrupt the lives of these street children behind them.
Salaam Bombay! a tough, yet rich film, and it’s the humanity of these children (Shafiq Syed as Krishna, and Chinda Sharma as Sola Saal, a young girl whose been sold into a brothel) and their raw performances that sell it. International Academy Award contenders outside the Western World tend to be chosen by a Hollywood audience of wannabe do-gooders, who fixate upon these films that show the intensity of systematic suffering, and perhaps Nair’s film is a prime example. But for all its painful stories of children caught in prostitution, poverty, and the drug trade far too young, she is able to create something more human than pity. – – – Sarah Williams
Click a magazine cover for films 30 – 21
30. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
First they parodied just about every film genre under the sun with The Kentucky Fried Movie. Then they poked fun at the glut of disaster films with Airplane! And then they spoofed Elvis Presley musicals and Cold War spy thrillers in Top Secret! Now Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker take aim at ’50s/’60s cop shows with their most straightforward send-up yet. Actually, it’s a big-screen reworking of their short-lived TV classic Police Squad!, but never mind: the jokes fly just as fast and furious as their previous outings, with running gags that keep getting funnier the longer they go on. (My favorite: the Looney Tunes-esque bodily harm that keeps coming to O.J. Simpson’s character, a gag that’s even more gratifying 30 years after the fact.)
Leslie Nielsen, who proved himself an A-plus deadpan comedian in Airplane!, perfects that persona here as Lt. Frank Drebin, the most dim-witted police detective since Inspector Clouseau, and it’s a blast watching him bumble his way through a romance with Priscilla Presley AND foil the dastardly plans of Ricardo Montalban through no effort of his own. It’s the ZAZ formula perfected, too, silly and crass and 100% sincere in its efforts to make us laugh. – – – D.W. Lundberg
29. Married to the Mob
This Michelle Pfeiffer vehicle does not contain the fizz and excitement that can be found in other 1980s romantic comedies. Married to the Mob wants you to seriously invest in the redemption arc of a mob wife who wants to step away from her old life and re-invent herself as a clever career woman. Naturally, Pfeiffer plays the former mob wife and is frequently called upon to widen those legendary eyes as her character’s husband is murdered and she begins to fear for her life. Perhaps Jonathan Demme and company couldn’t really decide what tone the film was supposed to take on, and the film that tries to do too many things at once.
It is a more mediocre effort from a director who would go on to attract great acclaim for his work on films like Rachel Getting Married. He does succeed in letting the luminous Pfeiffer do her thing, and she comes close to rescuing a couple of scenes, even though she has to deliver dialogue that never quite crackles in the way that it should. Yes, it’s watchable, but that shouldn’t be enough. – – – Zita Short
28. Heathers
Rebellious teens use murder to get back at their high school’s popular clique in this wicked black comedy directed by Michael Lehmann and written by Daniel Waters. Tired of her friends’ – all named Heather – cruel behavior toward her school’s more unpopular students, Veronica (Winona Ryder) teams up with intriguing new student J.D. (Christian Slater) to get revenge, but becomes increasingly disturbed by his behavior when it becomes clear that he is intentionally killing teens and staging their deaths as suicides.
Heathers may sometimes feel dated in its very 80s aesthetic, but over 30 years after its release, its dismantling of the typical teen movie tropes feels as fresh and relevant as ever. And Ryder and Slater (along with a supporting cast that includes the likes of Shannon Doherty) turn in memorably sardonic early-career performances. The film’s occasionally flippant portrayal of teen suicide doesn’t always sit well when viewed through a contemporary lens, but its use of violence to dissect high school social hierarchies and the extremes some will go to to fit in makes it a memorable cult entry in a genre that’s become riddled with clichés. – – – Katie Carter
27. Scrooged
Scrooged isn’t pretending to be something it’s not. An 80s-ified twist on the immortal Dickens tale, this version doesn’t feature miserly Ebenezer humbugging his way through the cold streets of London. Rather, Scrooged features a loathsome Frank Cross (imbued with a near-Jokerish level of unfeeling sociopathy by a game Bill Murray), a newly-promoted television executive eager to fill his channel with depraved weirdness, including a horrifically dark upcoming Christmas special. Hungry to make a name for himself and callously bending the network to his will, Frank doesn’t care how many underlings he needs to fire or lives he needs to ruin to get everyone on board with his vision.
Inevitably, his long-dead boss who he idolized for being properly and cruelly capitalistic visits Frank a la Jacob Marley and sets him on the path to becoming a reasonably decent human being. Frank is whisked to and fro along his personal timeline by the three classic Christmas Ghosts – this time in the guise of a cigar-chomping Brooklyn taxi driver, a hilariously violent pixie, and a gigantic mute skeleton with a television for a face – as he sees how he was shaped by ignoring the love given to him in his youth and the dreadful effect that his lack of love for others in the present day could potentially have on multiple lives in the future. Truly a must-see modern Christmas classic and one you can’t miss. In the words of Frank’s terrifyingly beloved commercial: your life might just depend on it. – – – Gabriel Ruzin
26. Dom za vešanje / Time of the Gypsies
Though Emir Kusturica’s fever-dream coming-of-age story focuses primarily on men and masculinity, it is bookended by women’s anger. Time of the Gypsies opens on a bride berating her drunken husband for ruining their wedding day and closes on an equally enraged newly-wed. In between, the young hero, Perham (Davor Dujmovic), journeys from his village in Yugoslavia to the busy streets of Milan and Rome as he attempts to steal enough money to marry his sweetheart back home, Azra (Sinolicka Trpkova).
It begins as a farcical depiction of pastoral life with shades of magic realism and fantasy, but Time of the Gypsies also offers a chaotic, visceral parody of American gangster films, particularly Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. The genre shifts are seamlessly executed and reflect Perham’s struggle to establish his own identity through imitation. His grandmother’s favorite child, and the only to have inherited her supernatural abilities, Perham is torn between his close connection to the women in his life and pressure to emulate the wealthy and successful men of the village.
A recurring theme is the precariousness of shelter, perhaps best demonstrated in a scene in which a house swings in the air after being literally ripped from its foundations; Time of the Gypsies suggests the cycle of poverty and trauma the characters experience is inextricably linked to patriarchal structures. In the end, houses, and the men who build them, are insubstantial, prone to failure and destruction. It is the women, and their rage, that remain. – – – Shannon Page
25. Another Woman
This Woody Allen classic united two of the most talented actresses of the 1980s. Both Gena Rowlands and Mia Farrow were on top form in 1988 and they acquitted themselves nicely in this thoughtful drama. Rowlands portrays Marion, a disgruntled philosophy professor who is struggling to write her latest book. She is rocked to the core when she begins listening in on the therapy sessions carried out in a neighbouring apartment. Comments made by Hope, played by Farrow, remind Marion that she is deeply unhappy with certain aspects of her personal life. She resolves to make serious changes to her life and reconsiders whether she even wants to be married.
Allen clearly borrowed from Ingmar Bergman in establishing the tone and confessional nature of the story, but Another Woman seems less rigidly theatrical than one of Bergman’s efforts. Some of the monologues do verge on self indulgence and it might come close to being overly satisfied with its own achievements. If you are allergic to Bergman’s self seriousness, this might have you running for the hills. If you can put up with the pretentiousness of the whole affair, you will be rewarded with terrific writing and powerhouse performances. – – – Zita Short
24. Bull Durham
Ron Shelton’s Bull Durham is a movie about the love of baseball. Shelton, a former minor league baseball player himself, shows how much he loves the game of baseball and every aspect about it. He loves the dirt, the field, the homeruns, and the strikeouts. He loves the players and their interactions, showing us authentic scenes where players discuss superstitions, slumps, and wedding gifts. He loves the coaches and their methods, and he loves the fans, the announcers, the mascots, and everyone who supports the game. Shelton’s love for the game is all over the screen, which gives Bull Durham a realness that no other baseball movie has.
Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins, and Susan Sarandon are perfectly cast, and all give excellent performances. Shelton’s script is smart, sweet, and hilarious and gives us phenomenal insight into the grittiness of the minor league baseball system and the emotional ups and downs these players face. The Star is Born plot and the love triangle at the center of the film are captivating, well-developed, and keep you invested in the movie and the characters when the exciting baseball action is at a pause. Bull Durham is not only a top-tier baseball movie, but one of the finest sports movies ever made. – – – Kevin Wozniak
23. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Unbearable Lightness of Being was directed by Philip Kaufman and stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Juliette Binoche and Lena Olin. It is set in Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring and Soviet invasion of 1968 and is based on the Milan Kundera novel. Against the backdrop of political turmoil, a love triangle plays out. It’s the kind of romantic, sexy, grown-up film starring three beautiful people that we rarely see the likes of anymore.
The central trio all give extraordinary performances, but unsurprisingly, Binoche is the emotional heart of the film. Five years later, she would give a similarly emotionally raw performance in Three Colours: Blue. While the Three Colours Trilogy is still regularly held up as the masterpiece it is, The Unbearable Lightness of Being is barely ever mentioned today. If you’ve not seen it, I strongly urge you to discover its erotic pleasures. – – – Fiona Underhill
22. They Live
“I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick-ass, and I’m all out of bubblegum!” Quotable dialogue, iconic alien designs, and a punch-up that lasts over 10 minutes, They Live has it all! Like most post-Halloween Carpenter films, this gritty sci-fi action flick initially received a somewhat mixed reception only to gain popularity thanks in no small part to the rise of home video. Over the years the highly quotable film has attained cult-classic status and has become something of a rallying cry for political groups the world over (many of which unfortunately miss Carpenter’s original intent).
And it is perhaps the director’s most overt social commentary, laying devastating criticism at consumer culture and the power that rampant capitalism has wrought in a Reagan-era world (which, let’s face it, has barely changed). Unfortunately, They Live cannot keep its razor-sharp edge as the narrative grounds to a halt in the final third in which the budget wears thin and the story lumbers to an inevitable, although refreshingly hopeful, conclusion.
They Live remains the most important of Carpenter’s second-tier films, in the company of other ‘just shy from greatness’ efforts as Christine, In The Mouth of Madness and The Fog. And though the film may shuffle over the finish line, the legacy of They Live has more than proved its overall worth. – – – Gareth Green
21. Krótki film o miłości / A Short Film About Love
Twice lifting a segment from his masterful Dekalog series of the same year, Krzysztof Kieślowski was undoubtedly the most celebrated and busiest filmmaker in 1988. A Short Film About Love transferred Dekalog: Six to feature length film, where a lonesome young Tomek (Olaf Lubaszenko) takes to peeping at his older neighbour Magda (Grażyna Szapolowska) in an apartment across the way.
The voyeurism is hardly a horror show, but more an education on the lore of love, for both Tomek and Magda. Written by Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz, Love depicts the ultimate emotion with a true sense of yearning and intrigue, as well as the reactionary suffering and burden that it may spawn. Perhaps encapsulated as Tomek’s telescope serves as the eyes to the mundane chores of Magda, rather than her sexual frolics. – – – Robin Write
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20. Big
Nowadays, Big has become a punchline of sorts. The plot hinges around the idea that adult businesswoman Susan Lawrence would choose to have a sexual relationship with her suspiciously childlike, innocent colleague. She’s not aware of the fact that he’s actually a twelve-year-old boy who was magically granted the ability to inhabit the body of an adult man. The dodgy plot mechanics do cause occasional discomfort, but the film provides a fresh take on a story that could have been played for easy laughs. The script is surprisingly sharp and has a lot to say about sexual politics in the yuppie environment.
It wouldn’t work without the electrifying chemistry generated by Tom Hanks and Elizabeth Perkins. They play a couple with a believable romantic connection, but also manage to develop multi-faceted, sympathetic characters who capture our interest as individuals, even before they get together. This is the rare 1980s children’s film that still holds up today. It remains just as entertaining as it was in 1988, and serves as a timely reminder of director Penny Marshall’s ability to make us laugh and cry in equal measure. – – – Zita Short
19. The Thin Blue Line
When a Philip Glass score connects with the film it’s accompanying, few things are as mesmerizing to experience. His minimalist motifs for Errol Morris’s third feature film are haunting as the director dissects the shooting of a Dallas police officer with on-camera interviews of the person sentenced to death row for the crime, a man (16 at the time of the shooting) he happened to meet that day, and police, witnesses and lawyers involved with the case, as well as re-enactments of the crime, and other moments.
For Morris, the re-enactments are not just about achieving a dramatic effect, but in showing us different perspectives on the crime, and the unreliability of memory; the result is comparable to his clear inspiration, Kurosawa’s Rashomon. Of course, the film is most famous for how it changed the lives of Randall Adams, the man found guilty of the crime, and David Harris, the man Adams met when he needed help, because of revelations in this film’s remarkable final half an hour, and Harris’s words to Morris in his final phone conversation with him in 1986. After defining his interests of stories on the outskirts of society with Gates of Heaven and Vernon, Florida, The Thin Blue Line shows him a master of exploring bigger ideas. – – – Brian Skutle
18. Mississippi Burning
In Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning, Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe star as mismatched FBI agents investigating the disappearance of three civil rights activists in small-town Mississippi. As they investigate, they run afoul of the corrupt local law enforcement and each other while trying to find the truth.
Parker plays fast and loose with the historical facts and uses the narrative to let his performers take big swings. Hackman’s repressed fury matches the film’s chaotic tone, while Dafoe and Frances McDormand play the straight-laced and moral centers of the film. Other character actors like Brad Dourif, Michael Rooker, Pruitt Taylor Vince and Stephen Tobolowsky add flavor to the festivities.
The real problem is the point-of-view. Despite taking place in the segregated Deep South, all the characters are white and the issue of civil rights is never viewed through an African American lens. The good guys are white, the bad guys are white. Any conflict is due to moral ambiguity and not about the actual civil rights issues. In a historical light, the film becomes problematic. As a pure exercise in entertainment, the actors turn Mississippi Burning into a success. – – – Benjamin Miller
17. Spoorloos / The Vanishing
How far will you go for your answers? That is the question at the black heart of George Sluizer’s The Vanishing. This ominous thriller follows Rex, a heartbroken and desperate man who after the disappearance of his beloved partner Saskia, is consumed by obsession in his quest to discover exactly what happened to her. Although Gene Bervoets excels as the understandably heartbroken and desperately panicked Rex, it is the performance of Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu as the mysteriously chilling Raymond, a disturbing man who claims to have knowledge of the Saskia’s fate, that lingers. He entices us down the rabbit hole with the promise of terrible enlightenment and so we follow Rex into darkness.
Unlike the toothless American remake to follow, The Vanishing’s denouement provides Rex his answers in a way that has haunted audiences for decades. Based on the story The Golden Egg by author Tim Krabbe (who also wrote the screenplay), the world presented here is one in which answers and obsessions come with a cost, one that is not fair but must be paid nonetheless. Many filmmakers since have attempted to capture the sweaty nerve-shredding dread and horror of The Vanishing (the rather good Kurt Russell vehicle Breakdown springs to mind), but few have packed the same incredible punch. Those in search of happy endings would do best to look elsewhere. – – – Gareth Green
16. Midnight Run
After reducing us to nervous puddles of sweat in Raging Bull and The Untouchables, Robert De Niro set his sights on comedy for this buddy comedy par excellence, proving that he could be every bit as charismatic and funny as he could be intimidating and scary. He’s matched perfectly by Charles Grodin, whose hangdog sardonic-ness constantly/ hilariously pushes De Niro’s coiled exterior to the brink.
Yet they’re both at the mercy of a screenplay (by George Gallo) that’s a marvel of economy, doling out the characters’ backstories one layer at a time until they they feel like fleshed-out human beings, while also making grander statements about the mistakes we’re destined to repeat until we break free of our nastier habits. A late scene set a fractured family home is startling for the way it voices this theme and makes it all matter. Martin Brest’s direction is astoundingly self-assured, and Danny Elfman’s jazzy-snazzy score is so atypical of his signature style that it’s a shame he’d never try anything so eclectic again. – – – D.W. Lundberg
15. Rain Man
Rain Man is a film that oozes with a mid to late 80s feeling and aesthetic. The audience is first resented with all-American pretty boy Charlie Babbitt, a struggling and frustrated entrepreneurial type who agonises over his collectibles business and nothing else. Emotionally stunted and perpetually angry, he collides with what seems to be his polar opposite, Raymond Babbitt, a quiet and expressive who also happens to be his long-lost brother. The two meet after Charlie seeks to hunt down his half of their late father’s will, and after finding out he’s family takes him inadvertently on a chaotic road trip across the Midwest, learning of his brother’s autistics ticks, traits and charms as he goes.
The character development of Charlie is the real striking point of the film, from unfeeling yuppie with a disdain for his brother and those like him, to a conscientious yet flawed individual who is just desperate to get to know his brother, Tom Cruise’s performance shines through. While panged by conservative and outdated attitudes to disability and learning difficulties, it can’t help but be charming and engrossing, as we watch two men re-connect after so many lost years. – – – George Walker
14. Τοπίο στην ομίχλη / Landscape in the Mist
Young Voula (Tania Palaiologou) and her little brother Alexandros (Michalis Zeke) appear to be on an important quest for family unity. Seeking out their supposed father far off in Germany, the two children head off on their clandestine trip where other adults they meet may mislead them or have them not knowing what to believe.
Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos has a distinct, overwhelming habit of channeling Greek history and its modern culture through his films. This is no different, again utilising music and architecture to frame these kinfolk amidst the turmoils and the unknown of Greek civilisation. Eleni Karaindrou’s seering, romantic oboe enhances the traditional values of the picture while both bewitching and comforting its audience. – – – Robin Write
13. Dangerous Liaisons
It was a sensation in London’s West End with Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan as the leads, but in the move to a Hollywood production the bigger stars got their chance. John Malkovich, a bitterly intelligent actor, is somewhat miscast as Valmont, a viscount who treats women like toys to be broken and discarded. His diabolical counterpart is Glenn Close, astonishing as the Marquise de Merteuil, happily widowed and out for revenge on a society uninterested in her intelligence because she’s a woman. They bet on whether Valmont will be able to seduce the religious Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer, at the peak of her beauty). If he can prove in writing he has done so, the Marquise will sleep with him at last.
A wicked web of cruelty, betrayal, innocence destroyed, and love poisoned in the cradle is war as fought by women, most often against other women, but most coldly against men. Director Stephen Frears paints a beautiful canvas on location in northern France – Stuart Craig’s production design and James Acheson’s costumes rightfully won Oscars – and then sensibly stands back, allowing the actors to chew the scenery whole. Writer Christopher Hampton, who adapted his play and then this screenplay based on the 1782 French novel, and who also won the Oscar for Best Adapted screenplay, knows how to strike the cutting blow with words. Powered by the Marquise’s keen delight in causing harm to others and Close’s quicksilver manipulations of others, the story moves like a runaway train, smashing everything in its path.
We are not so far away from this time when the only power women had was in their ability to manipulate the men in their families. The original novel was one of the first to be written as an exchange of letters, and it was ripe for adaptation, because its most crucial action remains in its words. Watching people in gorgeous clothes and ridiculous wigs, sitting on expensive furniture in beautiful rooms, and casually devastating each other through brutal insults delivered with a cool smile is absolutely mesmerising. Very few movies are this knowing about emotional brutality, the entanglements of desire and power, and the endless interest of private indiscretions becoming public gossip. The Marquise’s complete collapse at the end, as she shatters a mirror while screaming at her maids, could have been camp if the emotional price had not been so openly and thoroughly paid. – – – Sarah Manvel
12. Krótki film o zabijaniu / A Short Film About Killing
If this were not a film by the magnificent Krzysztof Kieślowski, A Short Film About Killing may well be a mere film about that fatal act itself. The adaptation of his own Dekalog: Five allows us to witness the Polish filmmaker in full chance-meeting form. As the three main characters, taxi driver Waldemar (Jan Tesarz), seemingly aimless Jacek (Mirosław Baka) and a young lawyer Piotr (Krzysztof Globisz) all are theoretically exposed to killing.
Killing is anything but an actual murderous rampage, but like A Short Film About Love (and other of Kieślowski’s work), it serves as a learning venture of those compelled by law and a rather bleak Poland, not to mention the impact of grief. The gritty lens filters used by cinematographer Slawomir Idziak enhance the weary world around those somewhat sombre souls. The film won the Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Prize at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. – – – Robin Write
11. A Fish Called Wanda
British comedy can be an acquired taste. For some, the humor is too dry. Others don’t get it. When such an attempt is made to make the humor more accessible, it is hit or miss. Yet, when it works, it really works, as is the case with A Fish Called Wanda. Wanda and Otto are part of a heist team to steal diamonds from a bank, posing as siblings. After the heist, George the ringleader, hides the diamonds and his partner, Ken, hide the key. Wanda and Otto rat out George but are unable to steal the loot without the key.
Wanda has a plan to seduce George’s lawyer, Archie Leach, thinking that he has knowledge of the loot. Leach is stuck in a loveless marriage and deals with a spoiled daughter. The more Leach sees Wanda, the more he falls in love with her. Otto’s jealousy mucks up Wanda’s attempts to get the vital information. Some of the film’s funniest sequences involve Ken trying to kill the prosecution’s witness.
John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Kevin Kline work together with sharp precision. Cleese plays the upper-class Brit with restraint, contrasting Kline as Otto, the ugly American. Curtis is charming as the love interest for Leach. Michael Palin manages to juggle the delicate nature some may have to Ken’s stutter. If you’re familiar with the comedy offerings of Britain, chances are you’ve seen A Fish Called Wanda. If not, then this film is a solid place to start. – – – Mackenzie Lambert
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10. Dead Ringers
One of legendary horror director David Cronenberg’s most iconic films, Dead Ringers is an uncomfortable and unforgiving deep-dive into the filmmaker’s career-long obsessions, from extreme co-dependency and paranoia to his trademark body horror. Exploring the complex and dysfunctional relationship between twin gynaecologists, Cronenberg’s film allows actor Jeremy Irons to delve into a challenging dual role, playing the twins as effective opposites to each other. The twins take advantage of their gynecological practice, seducing their patients and passing the women between each other with little remorse.
The film walks tricky lines between consent and bodily autonomy with unsettling paranoia and terror. Imagery of medical equipment become menacing, the steel tools for torture and bodily violation, especially when placed next to the film’s iconic imagery of Irons draped in an all-encompassing red robe. Dead Ringers marked a major leap forward in the career of Cronenberg, a next step into even more unsettling territory for the controversial filmmaker behind films like The Brood, Videodrome, and The Fly. Today, the film is a precise psychological thriller, a still discomfiting character study of two men using their power to victimize the women they supposedly serve. – – – Cameron Wolff
9. Beetlejuice
So much more than three repeated words, Beetlejuice represented a movement for anyone feeling like they don’t fit in. Stuffed with wonderful actors who bring a crazy world alive, from Winona Ryder to Catherine O’Hara and Geena Davis, Tim Burton’s film let them sharpen their comedy chops. The film’s undeniable star, Michael Keaton, lights up the screen as cinema’s scummiest poltergeist. Burton turned an original screenplay into a hilarious comedy of very adult sensibility.
The plot is barmy. Happily married hotties Barbara and Adam have a huge second home. After a driving accident they suffer strange memory loss, until they find the Handbook for the Recently Deceased in their attic and realise they’re dead, ghosts trapped in the house. Which is sold to snooty Charles and Delia, who drag along their gothically-dressed daughter, Lydia. Then Beetlegeuse, self-proclaimed bio-exorcist, shows up with a monochrome suit and super uncomfortable manner, showing Barbara and Adam that the afterlife is a bureaucratic hellhole. Yet Lydia can see the ghosts and they become friends.
Betelgeuse cannot be trusted, Barbara and Adam are nearly exorcised, and Lydia almost marries Betelgeuse until a well-timed sandworm saves the day. Everyone agrees to cohabit and Betelgeuse gets stuck in the worst version of hell – a never-ending waiting room queue. Beetlegeuse is a problematic anti-hero whose crassness would now be seen as downright perversion. Yet his inappropriate humour blended with Lydia’s desire to be different and still deserve love, prove that, besides inspiring a thousand Halloween costumes, everyone deserves to feel valued. – – – Sarah Louise Dean
8. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Robert Zemeckis’s masterpiece (yeah, I said it) is that rare beast of a movie: a technological marvel that gives just as much weight to storytelling and characterizations as it does to its ground-breaking special effects. I could name a few Zemeckis films where this isn’t the case, but here, working with animation legend Richard Williams and a script by Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman (from a book by Gary K. Wolf), Zemeckis is able to revel in the madcap comedy that defined his earlier movies as well as the eye-popping innovations that dominated his later ones.
It’s a special thrill watching pros like Bob Hoskins and Christopher Lloyd mingle seamlessly with Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse, just as it’s a thrill watching Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse mingle with each other (that EP Steven Spielberg was able to wrangle characters from Disney, Warner Bros, Fleischer Studios, and King Features Syndicate INTO THE SAME FRAME is nothing short of a miracle), all in service of a murder-mystery plot that would make Dashiell Hammett proud. – – – D.W. Lundberg
7. Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios / Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Imbued with ecstatic color and bold style, Pedro Almodovar perfects his early farcical style of filmmaking with the international hit Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. A steady accumulation of fast-paced comedic incidents, the film follows Pepa (a never-better Carmen Maura) as she tracks down the ex-lover who abandoned her with no explanation, charting the increasingly absurd events of her heartbroken search for answers.
Featuring staples of Almodovar’s career, the film is a perfect marriage between the filmmaker’s early comedies and his later dramatic films, finding him deftly employing comedy with the eye of a skilled filmmaker. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown catapulted Almodovar to international film stardom, and signaled a major step forward for Spanish cinema’s recognition in the international film community. Still extremely popular, the film continues to inspire other works, including a Broadway musical adaptation. Without the success of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Almodovar would never have stepped into the cinematic limelight he currently occupies in the eyes of cinephiles the world over. – – – Cameron Wolff
6. The Last Temptation of Christ
In exploring the humanity of Jesus, Martin Scorsese (and, by extension, author Nikos Kazastzakis in his novel) give us a Lord and Savior who is filled with uncertainty about his purpose in life – it’s no wonder Christians were up in arms over the film. By exploring this self-doubt, however, Scorsese gives us the most identifiable interpretation of Jesus cinema has ever delivered. The most audacious thing Scorsese does in this film isn’t showing Jesus having sex with Mary Magdalene, but to show His divinity as a process to be gone through rather than a given from the first moment we see him on screen.
It’s something he would come back to with the Dalai Lama in Kundun, and the Jesuit priests in Silence – religious leaders whom must first be certain of their own faith and conviction in the face of adversity in order to best lead their flock in finding theirs. With Michael Ballhaus’s cinematography and Peter Gabriel’s score, you would not imagine that this film cost far less than Scorsese’s later epics; the authenticity of Scorsese’s vision feels fully realized, and continues to make this spiritual journey feel alive, and something inspiring if one is willing to take the leap of faith with his film. – – – Brian Skutle
5. Akira
A blend of dystopian science fiction, cyberpunk, and body horror, Akira has stood the test of time as one of Japan’s most influential animes. Based off the titular manga by Katsuhiro Otomo, Akira tells the tale of Tetsuo and Kaneda, gang members who navigate the world of Neo-Tokyo’s corrupt government, terriorists, and rival gangs. What starts as crime story quickly gives way to an intricately detailed science fiction world filled with people who possess psychic abilities and the shady organization that attempts to control them.
Ultimately a tale of loneliness, neglect, control, and societal outcasts finding a measure of solace in each other’s presence, Akria‘s impact has held sway over pop culture for decades, from the oft-homaged bike slide to Kanye West’s rip off of a scene in his “Stronger” music video. Slick animation, smartly directed by Otomo, with a bonkers off-the-rails third act that leans full into dysmorphia and transcendence have ensured that Akira will continue to be a factor that shapes and influences Japanese culture for years to come. – – – Darryl Mansel
4. Hotaru no Haka / Grave of the Fireflies
Already inevitably doomed for financial failure upon its initial double bill release adjacent to Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbor Totoro, Isao Takahata’s devastating anti-war film Grave of the Fireflies is commendable not only for its mature subject matter, but rather for its integral thematics on survival and the pursuit for independence amidst a time of financial and sociological ruin. Utilizing the animation form as a meta-textual tool to create a pastiche that quite literally destroys the overactive drawn-to-life childhood imagination featured in other Ghibli productions, Takahata’s animated saga of war-torn adolescence is depressingly simple in practice, and overwhelming in execution.
Not only is Grave of the Fireflies one of the most emotional films ever made, but it’s also one of the most empathetic. Through the form and subversion of the animation medium, Takahata has created a uniquely integral piece towards the pantheon of timely animated features. Treating the original text not as some sort of needless hand-drawn fable, but rather as an integral and urgent tool to tell a timely story of lost childhood and post-mortem harmony. – – – David Cuevas
3. Nuovo Cinema Paradiso / Cinema Paradiso
Written and directed with romantic, wide-eyed childhood memories, Giuseppe Tornatore crafted the classic Italian film Cinema Paradiso saluting so much of what we all desire. The love for cinema, those feelings of human companionship and unforgettable guardianship all take centre stage. The small village of Giancaldo in Sicily is the place where dreams are (kind of) made, for the young boy Salvatore at least, as he befriends what will be a lifelong impression with the local cinema’s projectionist, Alfredo.
Whether the 1950s or the 1980s, Cinema Paradiso weathers the storms of political, religious or familial obstacles, finding a kind of universal truth at its adoring core. The score by Ennio Morricone is as timeless as ever, of course. And the mischievous, nostalgic way in which Tornatore executes his tale clearly comes from a place of love. Sentimental, sure, but Cinema Paradiso has spilling handfuls of what we cherish about film and the beauty in the lives we live. – – – Robin Write
2. Die Hard
Is it a Christmas movie? Who cares. The one thing we can all agree on is the fact that Die Hard is one of the quintessential templates for action movies. At a time where shiny muscles and little character development was king atop the hill, Die Hard gave audiences a different sort of hero: John McClane, a regular everyman fighting to save both the hostages of Nakatomi Plaza and his marriage.
Directed by John McTiernan, Die Hard became the blueprint for action movies set in one location (see: Executive Decision, Under Seige, etc) featuring a lone maverick systematically working his way through the bad guys. What Die Hard accomplished that the others lacked is the time spent on developing McClane not just as an action hero but as a relatable man of the people, not without his own demons that he works through while dispatching random henchmen. His bond with police deputy Al Powell (Reginal Vel Johnson’s greatest role) is the heart of the film, while the cat-and-mouse game played between McClane and villain Hans Gruber is a combination of masterful writing, acting, and directing.
Alan Rickman’s Gruber is still solidly terrifying, a template in its own right of European sophistication, while Bruce Willis’ McClane exudes terror and helplessness in stark contrast to the stoic nature of the heroes of other franchises. What results is a delicious stew of plot, pacing, and performance, giving us one of the best action movies of all time. – – – Darryl Mansel
1. Tonari no Totoro / My Neighbor Totoro
At its most basic level, My Neighbour Totoro is a story about family, discovery, and the joys of nature. Yet, beyond its painterly style lies a far richer and complex examination of childhood comprehension, rounded out with Shintoism and magic realism.
Sisters Satsuki and Mei help father Tatsuo move to a new house nestled in a Camphor Forest, to be nearer their mother Yasuko, who’s in hospital suffering from an unknown ailment. While exploring the garden, toddler Mei spies a small unknown, translucent creature with a taste for acorns. The creature leads her to Totoro, a huge furry woodland spirit who delights in the trees and Mother Nature’s power. The two innocents form a bond, but Satsuki – sceptical, as Mei’s de facto carer – has never seen Totoro, and begins to doubt their existence. Slowly Totoro and Mei’s worlds merge: the sisters take the bus to school, Totoro prefers to travel by Catbus, the girls dance around planted seedbeds, Totoro shows them the view from the treetops. When Yasuko doesn’t return from hospital as expected, Mei is upset and confused, and runs away.
Luckily, Totoro is there to reassure both sisters that everything will be okay. There has never been a film that better distils the wonder of youth, all via hand-painted cells lovingly rendered by director Hayao Miyasaki and team. My Neigbour Totoro spins a unique tale capturing purity and emotion that transcends form and genre. Within its deceptive simplicity lies one of the greatest movies ever made. – – – Sarah Louise Dean