Beloved movies from the 1980s that still hold up today

The joke-a-second spoof format was essentially invented by the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker with the uproarious “Airplane!,” and, in terms of gag hit-to-miss ratio, it’s never been topped. There are some topical ‘80s jokes that might sail over the heads of younger viewers, but bits like Ted Striker’s “Casablanca” flashback abruptly turning into a “Saturday Night Fever” parody will always hit the bullseye. The film gave dramatic actor Leslie Nielsen a second career as a comedic lead that stretched well into his seventies.

“Mom! Dad! Don’t touch it! It’s evil!” An imaginative young lad escapes his drab reality to join a motley crew of little people in search of treasure. This time traveling adventure from Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam is a visually inventive jaunt through history and mythology, dropping in on the likes of Agamemnon, Napoleon and a hilariously self-satisfied Robin Hood played by an uncredited John Cleese. Its childlike sense of wonder will never fail to captivate.

John Hughes was the king of the 1980s teen comedy, but those films are proving more problematic with each passing year. Meanwhile, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” Hughes’s first grown-up comedy, has become an unimpeachable holiday classic. This tale of mismatched travel companions trying to get home to Chicago in the middle of a snowstorm has it all. Steve Martin and John Candy have never been funnier, and the finale never fails to stimulate the tear ducts.

Horror movies nearly went extinct by the end of the 1980s thanks to Hollywood’s obsession with slasher films, but for a brief period in the early part of the decade, great filmmakers were able to convince the studios to let them take costly, R-rated risks. John Landis’s “An American Werewolf in London” was both a gruesome, groundbreaking showcase for creature f/x wizard Rick Baker, and a uniquely Jewish take on “The Wolf Man.” The scares and laughs still work, but it’s the inescapable tragedy of the tale that keeps it resonating thirty-six years later.

It goes without saying that Steven Spielberg’s 1982 masterpiece has stood the test of time, but what makes it truly special is its lack of a big-screen sequel. Spielberg isn’t shy about franchising his hits (he’s made four Indiana Jones movies), but he correctly recognizes that “E.T.” touched audiences’ hearts in a way that few movies ever have. Sometimes, it’s best to leave perfection alone, especially when it continues to earn new fans from generation to generation.

A visual marvel upon its 1988 release, Robert Zemeckis’s Toontown noir now has a charming handmade quality to it. Twenty-nine years later, the main attraction is still seeing animated characters from every studio (particularly Warner Bros and Disney) interact for the first time. Repeat viewings are a must if only to catch all of the toon cameos, but the real reward is watching Bob Hoskins give the performance of a lifetime interacting with a cast that largely wasn’t there on set.

Director John G. Avildsen went back to the stand-up-and-cheer formula that won him an Oscar for “Rocky,” and wound up with the big sleeper hit of 1984. This is one of the most ‘80s movies you’ll ever see, and that time capsule quality is part of what makes it so enjoyable today. But Pat Morita as the wise Mr. Miyagi remains the film’s secret weapon; his deliberate mentoring of Ralph Macchio’s bullied Daniel LaRussa builds to a hugely satisfying finale.

It’s hardly inconceivable that, more than thirty years after its initial theatrical release, “The Princess Bride” is still enrapturing young women and men with its self-aware, yet wholly sincere spin on fairy tales and high adventure. Cary Elwes’s dashing good looks will never go out of style. William Goldman adapted his own book, and, with the steady direction of Rob Reiner, effortlessly pulls off a deceptively tricky tonal balancing act. Its perfect mix of swooning romance and quippy comedy makes it an ideal date movie.

This cross-dressing comedy about a frustrated actor (Dustin Hoffman) who poses as a woman to land a steady gig sounds like the kind of movie that wouldn’t play particularly well today, but Hoffman and director Sydney Pollack handle the material with great sensitivity. When the film isn’t knocking you dead with one classic comedic set piece after another, it’s making sharp (and sadly still-relevant) observations about showbiz sexism.

The film that made Tom Hanks a star is still a first-rate romantic comedy about a man and the mermaid (Daryl Hannah) who saved his life as a kid and again as a heartbroken adult. It’s a literal fish-out-of-water tale featuring ace gag writing from Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, and scene stealing supporting turns from then rising SCTV stars John Candy (as Hanks’s lovably boorish brother) and Eugene Levy (as a crazy marine biologist hellbent on capturing Hannah).

It’s not by design that Rob Reiner has three films on this list; the man just had an unbelievably great run in the 1980s when it came to making timeless, heartfelt classics. Based on Stephen King’s novella “The Body,” “Stand By Me” is a universal tale of adolescent friendship and the ever-encroaching notion of death. It’s funny, frightening and, at the end of this impromptu adventure, heartbreaking when we learn what became of these four best friends.

Eddie Murphy’s meteoric rise from television star to, for a time, the most bankable movie star in Hollywood resulted in a string of enduring comedy classics. “48 Hrs.” invented the modern buddy-cop formula, “Beverly Hills Cop” was a pop culture phenomenon, and “Coming to America” gave Murphy his first multi-character showcase. But “Trading Places” ranks as the best work of his early prime, particularly for its razor-sharp satirical take on class, racism and Wall Street greed.

The greatest teen sex comedy of the 1980s skewers capitalism and aspirational Yuppiedom while allowing you the pleasure of watching Tom Cruise become a superstar in real time. The film perfectly exploits the ultimate high school kid fantasy (folks are out of town for the week), pays it off early (hey there, Rebecca De Mornay) and then gets Cruise in a whole heap of trouble with a killer pimp named Guido. There are youthful hijinks aplenty, but the Tangerine Dream score gives it a sexy, slightly dangerous vibe.

Baseball movies were considered box office poison until this randy minor-league charmer came along in 1988. Kevin Costner had become a movie star thanks to “The Untouchables” and “No Way Out" a year earlier, but the role of journeyman catcher Crash Davis fit him like a worn-in mitt (his sexual chemistry with Susan Sarandon could launch a space shuttle). Tim Robbins’s young phenom pitcher, Nuke LaLoosh is one of cinema’s most memorable meatheads.

Joe Dante’s 1984 smash starts off as a cute cautionary comedy featuring an adorable mogwai named “Gizmo” before ramping up into a full-blown consumerist Christmas nightmare. There are three rules to caring for a mogwai: no bright lights, don’t get them wet and never feed them after midnight. All three rules are broken in the first half-hour, introducing us to mogwai’s malevolent, post-midnight-snack form: the gremlin. Gizmo’s off-the-charts cuteness and Dante’s Looney Tunes-inspired visual humor makes this an anti-Christmas classic.

Paul Reubens’s ultra-dork character rocketed to big-screen stardom in 1985 thanks to Tim Burton’s infectiously silly kitsch parade. The movie was a coming out party for both star and filmmaker, but only the latter would go on to sustained success. Reubens’s legal troubles and PR snafus are well documented, but viewed in a vacuum, the movie is every bit as lovable and novel as the day it was released.

W.P. Kinsella’s “Shoeless Joe” was a gently surreal novel about an Iowa farmer flattening his cornfield to build a baseball field as vaguely ordered by a disembodied voice. If he builds it, he believes the disgraced Chicago White Sox outfielder Joe Jackson will come back to play ball. Writer-director Phil Alden Robinson saw a tale of father-son reconciliation in Kinsella’s book, and crafted a beautiful male weepie.

This hilarious, largely improvised parody of a struggling, critically reviled heavy metal band was not a hit when released theatrically in 1984, but it quickly acquired a cult following, and now, thirty-three years later, everyone knows what “these go to eleven” means. Rock/pop stars haven’t gotten any humbler or less aloof over the years, so every joke in the movie still rings true.

A massive box office bomb in 1986, John Carpenter’s offbeat homage to Hong Kong martial arts flicks and Saturday morning serials gradually found a devoted fanbase on home video. The dynamic between Kurt Russell and Dennis Dun is a clever inversion on the buddy formula; Russell’s blustery Jack Burton is a terribly inept hero who’s constantly being rescued by the capable, short-statured Dun. When it comes to action, laughs and fantastical lunacy, movies just don’t get more entertaining than “Big Trouble in Little China.”

Steve Martin places a whimsical spin on “Cyrano de Bergerac” as the long-nosed fireman C.D. Bales. The object of his affection is Roxanne Kowalski (Daryl Hannah), but she’s fallen for C.D.’s hunky new charge, Chris (Rick Rossovich). The spectacular supporting cast and picturesque Pacific Northwest setting lend the movie a friendly vibe; aside from the jerk who makes fun of C.D.’s nose, you’d gladly have a beer with everyone in this eccentric small town.

Yes, the vampire movie co-starring the Coreys (Haim and Feldman) holds up just fine, thank you! Joel Schumacher slathers on peak MTV style, and the soundtrack blares hits from 1980s favorites INXS, Echo & the Bunnyman and Foreigner front man Lou Gramm. The title references Peter Pan’s Neverland compatriots, and these rock-star looking bloodsuckers (led by Kiefer Sutherland) appear to be having the time of their lives until those goshdarn Coreys start driving stakes through their undead hearts.

Even if the Cleveland Indians do something completely unrealistic like win the World Series, this David S. Ward comedy about a bunch of misfits going from worst to first will work just fine. Charlie Sheen gets the flashy role as the fireball-hurling “Wild Thing” Ricky Vaughn, but the ensemble is full of great character actors bringing flesh-and-blood authenticity to what must’ve read like caricatures on the page. The MVP: James Gammon as the profane, but indefatigably optimistic manager Lou Brown.

This big-budget remake of 1951’s “The Thing from Another World” was a critical and commercial failure that nearly ended John Carpenter’s career. Thirty-five years later, it is an unassailable horror classic. Sure, some of the technology is humorously out-of-date (most notably Kurt Russell’s computer chess machine), but the working class paranoia and simmering racial animosity are more than relevant today.

The journalistic era depicted in James L. Brooks’s classic dramedy is as ancient as a hand-cranked Model T, but it does capture the moment where television news began its style-over-substance free fall. Brooks’s anger is obvious, but he’s far too skilled a writer to make this a binary conflict. William Hurt’s telegenic anchor may be evil incarnate to Albert Brooks’s hyper-intelligent reporter, but he’s as human as the rest of the characters. Holly Hunter is the brilliant producer who finds herself drawn to Hurt even though he represents everything she despises.

This zany Rodney Dangerfield comedy did a Triple Lindy into our hearts in 1986, and while it’s supremely dated, Rodney’s zingers will still be gut-busters centuries from now. Like “Caddyshack,” “Back to School” steers Dangerfield away from his “no respect” persona, positioning him as a fun loving millionaire who loves to throw his money around and have a grand time. He butts heads with a business professor who loathes Dangerfield for his business and, when he steals Sally Kellerman from him, romantic success.