14 Great 80s Movies That Deserve to Be Rediscovered

The Principal

1987 · Action, Drama · 1h 50m

A one-man rescue mission at the most dangerous high school in the city.

Exiled to the worst school in town

James Belushi plays Rick Latimer, a teacher sent to the city's most dangerous high school as a punishment posting. Louis Gossett Jr. is the head of security who actually knows how to survive inside the building, and he brings a real weariness to the role, like a man who's watched a dozen well-meaning outsiders come and go already. Latimer is in over his head in a building falling apart faster than one man can fix. Belushi liked the character enough to bring Latimer back the following year in a completely unrelated film, a strange bit of continuity nobody asked for.

A straight-up 80s school action movie

The film works when Belushi lets Latimer look out of his depth, then slowly figure out how to handle a school where nobody wants to make his job easy. It has plenty of rough edges, but Belushi gives it enough energy to keep you watching. It isn't trying to be a deep look at American education. Go in expecting an 80s school action movie and there's a lot of fun to be had: it's one of the most entertaining of the decade.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 16 Oct 2026

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St. Elmo’s Fire

1985 · Drama, Romance · 1h 44m

This is the movie that gave the world the term Brat Pack.

The film that named the Brat Pack

St. Elmo's Fire accidentally created the term Brat Pack after a journalist covering its press junket coined the phrase, and it stuck to the cast for decades. Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Andrew McCarthy play recent college graduates figuring out that adulthood, unlike college, comes with no script. Director Joel Schumacher lets them make seriously bad decisions and never softens what makes them so unlikable.

Critics hated it. Audiences didn't.

Demi Moore had to finish rehab before filming even started, and one studio executive reportedly called the ensemble the most loathsome group of characters he'd ever read. When New York magazine's David Denby reviewed it in 1985, he called Schumacher brutally untalented and dismissed the characters and their problems. Audiences saw something the reviews missed. John Parr's Man in Motion hit number one the same year critics were tearing the film apart, and the nickname coined for these six outlasted every review written about the movie.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 16 Oct 2026

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Three Fugitives

1989 · Comedy, Crime · 1h 32m

Disney bought the remake rights before the French original had even finished filming.

Taken hostage by a first-time robber

Nick Nolte plays a reformed bank robber taken hostage during a botched robbery by Martin Short's desperate first-time criminal, and the two end up on the run together whether Nolte wants that partnership or not. The opening robbery is hilarious, with Short completely out of his depth and Nolte looking like he can't believe any of this is happening. James Earl Jones plays the cop trying to pin the whole mess on Nolte, while young Sarah Rowland Doroff plays Short's daughter, the one thing keeping both men from going their separate ways.

Savaged by critics, number one anyway

Nearly every review that year savaged it, and it still opened at number one at the box office for Disney. Variety put the problem plainly: Nolte, never a comic natural, grumbles his way through while Short does most of the heavy lifting. It's an American remake of a French hit by the same director, Francis Veber. Audiences were split down the middle, but Disney still counted it among its hits that year, and Nolte and Short make an unlikely pairing that's surprisingly hard to resist.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 16 Oct 2026

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Lock Up

1989 · Action, Crime, Drama · 1h 55m

Three Razzie nominations didn't stop audiences from embracing it.

A model prisoner and a warden with a grudge

Sylvester Stallone plays a model prisoner transferred to a maximum-security prison run by Donald Sutherland's warden, who has a personal grudge against him. Sutherland makes a cold and nasty warden, Tom Sizemore plays one of the film's more memorable inmates, and John Amos is the tough captain of the guards. The punishment this guy endures is brutal.

Laughed at then, worth revisiting now

The Los Angeles Times said Stallone's performance was so unbelievable it invited laughs the movie never intended, and several critics dismissed it as a routine action drama. Stallone later admitted it wasn't made with enough maturity to leave the mark he wanted. It isn't one of his most remembered films, but the brutal prison action and the sheer punishment he takes make it a movie that's absolutely worth revisiting.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 16 Oct 2026

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Gleaming the Cube

1989 · Action, Crime, Thriller · 1h 45m

It made less than $3 million and still became one of skate culture's defining films.

A skater investigates his brother's death

Christian Slater plays a skater investigating his adopted brother's death, using his board to move through a plot everyone around him takes far more seriously than he does. There's a desperate energy running through it that separates a skating movie from a story about skating. Director Graeme Clifford builds Garden Grove like a real community rather than a backdrop, and the film shows the tension between the suburban skate scene and the Vietnamese American community: two worlds sharing the same streets without really understanding each other.

Made with real skaters

Z-Boys legend Stacy Peralta was the film's skating technical adviser, scouting pools, hills and street setups by helicopter. Real skaters filled out the cast, including a young Tony Hawk in a small role, while Rodney Mullen doubled for Slater, and the skating has an authenticity most films in the genre never matched. It flopped in theaters, but cable reruns and VHS copies kept it circulating through skate communities for years, and pros like Stevie Williams have named it as the reason they picked up a board. Today it feels like a snapshot of skateboarding just before the mainstream absorbed it.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 16 Oct 2026

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Youngblood

1986 · Drama, Sports · 1h 45m

Keanu Reeves played goalie in high school, where they called him The Wall.

Talent alone doesn't survive

Rob Lowe stars as a hotheaded rookie trying to make his mark in junior hockey, learning that talent alone doesn't survive a league built on intimidation. Patrick Swayze plays his mentor and roommate, and a teenage Keanu Reeves turns up in his second film role as Heaver, one of the team's goalies. It's a small part, but he shares the ice with real hockey players, including NHL player Peter Zezel in an uncredited role.

Built by hockey people

Director Peter Markle was a former minor pro and international hockey player, and consultant Eric Nesterenko brought 20 years of NHL experience and a Stanley Cup to the shoot. Lowe has said he hated learning to skate, joking that you're exhausted before you've finished putting the equipment on. Roger Ebert called it another run through the same old underdog formula, but opening-night audiences gave it an A-minus CinemaScore. With Lowe and Swayze at the center and Reeves in his early days, it's a great little hockey movie with far more going for it than its setup suggests.

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Best of the Best

1989 · Action, Drama, Sports · 1h 33m

It's still UFC legend Chuck Liddell's favorite martial arts film.

Team USA takes on South Korea

Phillip Rhee co-wrote and starred alongside Eric Roberts in this underdog story of an American taekwondo team facing South Korea. James Earl Jones anchors the production, treating every training sequence like high art. The crew chased raw authenticity, shooting on location across Los Angeles and Seoul for three grueling months.

Panned by critics, kept alive by fans

Critics trashed it, and Leonard Maltin famously dismissed it as a waste of a strong cast in search of a real script. That grounded grit built a big cult following anyway, spawning sequels and earning fresh respect in the Cobra Kai era. Pure heart makes it a VHS brawler that still packs a punch.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 17 Oct 2026

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Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

1988 · Comedy, Horror · 1h 30m

Vincent Price turned down the villain role written specifically for him.

A haunted inheritance

Cassandra Peterson plays Elvira, inheriting a haunted mansion from her great-aunt Morgana, while her sinister great-uncle Vincent is played by W. Morgan Sheppard after Vincent Price turned the part down. A young Brad Pitt auditioned for the male lead, and Peterson has said she passed on him because Elvira would have spent the movie ignoring her love interest just to stare at how handsome he was. Even the film's dog needed daily upkeep, since Peterson insisted on non-permanent vegetable dye for its coloring.

Sunk by a bankruptcy, saved by fans

Distributor New World Pictures went bankrupt during the theatrical release, cutting a planned rollout of nearly 3,000 screens to just 627. That crushed the box office before word of mouth had a chance to build, leaving the film with barely any chance to find an audience. Peterson's Elvira outlived every problem the studio handed her, and the film went on to become a cult classic.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 17 Oct 2026

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Big Business

1988 · Comedy · 1h 34m

Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin each play twins switched at birth.

Two sets of twins, one hotel

Big Business throws Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin into the absurd situation of playing two sets of twins accidentally switched at birth, then brings all four women into the same New York hotel. Midler plays the spoiled corporate heiress and the loudmouth from a tiny West Virginia town, while Tomlin handles the other two halves. Jim Abrahams, one of the men behind Airplane!, directs with the comic timing you'd expect, packing the hotel scenes with near misses, mistaken identities and characters wandering into places they shouldn't.

Funnier than it has any right to be

Seeing each actress play opposite herself could have been a mess, but both make the switch between characters look easy. The twin effects are surprisingly convincing for 1988, using a computerized camera system and optical effects so Midler and Tomlin can share scenes with their own doubles. Midler is hilarious as the rich half, playing her like a woman who's been waiting years for permission to be that awful. It's much funnier than a film about two sets of twins has any right to be.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 17 Oct 2026

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The Dream Team

1989 · Comedy · 1h 53m

Christopher Lloyd's patient believes he's the doctor.

Four patients loose in New York

The Dream Team sends four psychiatric patients loose on New York City after their doctor is beaten unconscious for witnessing a murder, leaving four men with no clue what's happening and a gang of killers looking for them. Michael Keaton, Christopher Lloyd, Peter Boyle and Stephen Furst play the patients, suddenly left to fend for themselves with nobody around to keep them out of trouble. Keaton is the group's natural leader, trying to keep everyone together while the police and the people behind the murder close in.

A great cast with room to play

Lloyd's character believes he's a doctor, and that delusion becomes a huge part of the fun once their real doctor is out of the picture. The cast gets room to make these men feel like people rather than running jokes, and the best moments come when the four of them wander New York with absolutely no idea what they're doing. It later inspired unofficial remakes overseas, including one in India. A great cast, a ridiculous setup and plenty of laughs make it an 80s comedy that deserves to be remembered.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 17 Oct 2026

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Permanent Record

1988 · Drama · 1h 24m

Joe Strummer of the Clash composed the score.

The teen drama studios were scared to make

Roger Ebert called Permanent Record one of the best films of its year. It tackled teen life and death head-on in a decade when studio dramas were too scared to go near the subject. Alan Boyce plays a talented, popular teenager whose sudden death leaves his best friend, played by Keanu Reeves, trying to understand a choice that made no outward sense to anyone around him.

Praised, then forgotten

Joe Strummer composed the score, and Reeves himself played rhythm guitar on part of the soundtrack, a detail that rarely comes up when people talk about his early career. Ebert praised every performance as perfectly matched to material most studios wouldn't have touched. That sits oddly next to how little attention the film got: it took close to $1 million domestically, with distributors too nervous to promote it heavily. Shot on location in Portland and along the Oregon coast, it's a well-made film that never found its moment, which is a shame, because it deserves the praise it gets.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 17 Oct 2026

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Atlantic City

1980 · Crime, Drama, Romance · 1h 44m

Only two casinos were open when filming started.

Shot while the city was being rebuilt

Atlantic City is the best film ever set in Atlantic City, and Louis Malle shot it while the place was being torn down and rebuilt around him. Only two casinos were open when filming started, and a third opened partway through. Burt Lancaster, in his mid-60s, plays a numbers runner living off stories about a gangster past that probably never happened. Susan Sarandon is the oyster bar waitress who lives across from him, and he watches through the window as she rubs lemon juice on her arms to get rid of the smell from work.

Lancaster at his very best

Lancaster spent 40 years playing men who could handle themselves, and here he plays one who only pretends he can, right up until the night he has to prove it. His performance carries the film, gives it its warmth and makes this one of his very best. It shared the Golden Lion at Venice with the next film on this list.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 17 Oct 2026

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Gloria

1980 · Crime, Drama, Thriller · 1h 57m

Gena Rowlands worked out Gloria's walk before she worried about the lines.

A reluctant protector

Gena Rowlands plays a mob boss's former girlfriend who gets stuck protecting the young son of a murdered mob accountant, whose ledger the mob desperately wants back. She wanted you to know from the second you saw her that she could handle herself on those streets, and you see it almost immediately. John Cassavetes wrote the script simply to sell it, and only agreed to direct after Columbia bought it and wanted him behind the camera with Rowlands attached. He shot inside the abandoned Concourse Plaza Hotel in the Bronx, and the decay you see on screen was already there.

She never softens, and that's the point

Gloria doesn't suddenly become a different person because she's protecting this kid. She complains about him, tells him to his face that she doesn't like children, and still puts herself in the line of fire when the mob comes looking. It shared the Golden Lion at the 1980 Venice festival with Atlantic City. John Adames, who played Phil, won the first-ever Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor, which feels harsh for an eight-year-old, and he never acted in another film. Rowlands was nominated for Best Actress and lost to Sissy Spacek for Coal Miner's Daughter. She never won a competitive Oscar, one of the Academy's worst calls.

Where to watch (US)

Checked 17 Oct 2026

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