What films epitomize the 1980s best?

[Robbie C.]

9 hours ago, RedDragon86 said:

Film's of the past especially in the 70's, 80's and 90's will never be bettered, directors today can only dream of making classics like The Terminator & Back To The Future.

I think the film industry went pear shaped 00's onwards. 

Maybe the major studios did, but there have been some very good movies...things like End of Watch, the first John Wick, and so on. They tend to be lower-budget, which is key to me. You can't rely on CGI then and have to have decent writers and actors to make it work. The big studios got lazy because they can.

People also only tend to remember the good movies from particular time periods. The '80s cranked out more than its share of duds and stinkers. Plus there's something else that didn't exist in the '80s - Cable TV. Good writers don't bother with movies now; they get something on HBO, FX in its early days, and now Netflix. They have more control and can explore more in even a short series than they ever could on the big screen.

[RedDragon86]

1 hour ago, Robbie C. said:

Maybe the major studios did, but there have been some very good movies...things like End of Watch, the first John Wick, and so on. They tend to be lower-budget, which is key to me. You can't rely on CGI then and have to have decent writers and actors to make it work. The big studios got lazy because they can.

People also only tend to remember the good movies from particular time periods. The '80s cranked out more than its share of duds and stinkers. Plus there's something else that didn't exist in the '80s - Cable TV. Good writers don't bother with movies now; they get something on HBO, FX in its early days, and now Netflix. They have more control and can explore more in even a short series than they ever could on the big screen.

The old ones are the best, that expression holds a lot of weight. Everything now is so PC and money driven, occasionally you will get a very good film like "John Wick" or slightly further back "There Will Be Blood" but its few and far between.

In the 70s 0r 80s we were spoilt.

Edited June 23, 2020 by RedDragon86

[Robbie C.]

2 hours ago, RedDragon86 said:

The old ones are the best, that expression holds a lot of weight. Everything now is so PC and money driven, occasionally you will get a very good film like "John Wick" or slightly further back "There Will Be Blood" but its few and far between.

In the 70s 0r 80s we were spoilt.

I think you're confusing the good movies from those eras (and good movies are like good books - they transcend the time they were done) with the rest. There was a lot of crap produced in the '70s and '80s. Just like there is now. The Blacksploitation movies from the '70s are a good example. They might have provided the impetus for Undercover Brother (and given us the Shaft theme) but most of them were garbage. The same can be said of many of the horror franchises that arose in the '80s. And then there was the output of Golan-Globus, the American Ninja franchise, and so on.

Good movies are good movies. No one decade has any kind of deadlock on them. And for every good movie any decade produces you can count on a swarm of copycats and straight-out garbage. And like I said before, quite a bit of the quality writing is going to the small screen now. You simply didn't have that in the '70s or '80s.

[RedDragon86]

9 hours ago, Robbie C. said:

I think you're confusing the good movies from those eras (and good movies are like good books - they transcend the time they were done) with the rest. There was a lot of crap produced in the '70s and '80s. Just like there is now. The Blacksploitation movies from the '70s are a good example. They might have provided the impetus for Undercover Brother (and given us the Shaft theme) but most of them were garbage. The same can be said of many of the horror franchises that arose in the '80s. And then there was the output of Golan-Globus, the American Ninja franchise, and so on.

Good movies are good movies. No one decade has any kind of deadlock on them. And for every good movie any decade produces you can count on a swarm of copycats and straight-out garbage. And like I said before, quite a bit of the quality writing is going to the small screen now. You simply didn't have that in the '70s or '80s.

Yeah but look at the film-makers back then compared to now and actors like De Niro, Brando and Pacino.

We had Scorsese, Spielberg, Scott, Friedkin, Leone, Mann, Alan Parker, Peckinpah, Donner, and Cameron just as example's all relatively young in their prime. I cannot even really name the new and up incoming directors now.

[pahonu]

There’s something to be said for the films of the 70’s, and I think it’s not just a matter of taste.  Film historians often rank that decade as one of the best ever along with the 30’s.  The decade marked the emergence of the auteur filmmaker after the final collapse of the studio system in Hollywood.  It also resulted from the rise of graduate film programs in the 60’s and the loosening of social restrictions on acceptable content.

Other pressures on the film industry forced it to adapt and change.  This included television’s growing popularity particularly the arrival of color in the late 60’s.  Most don’t realize that there were still Academy Awards for both color and black and white cinematography in the 60’s.  
 

All of these things led to an incredible variety of subjects being funded and the “vision” of individual directors being fully expressed in the final product.  The 70’s saw studio funded films of all types but being created in a new way not fully in their control.   It ultimately led to an unbelievable variety of excellent films.  I won’t go into titles, but as I stated at the start, film historians praise the decade’s variety.
 

The decade started before the concept of the summer blockbuster existed, though Jaws would change all that.  Much of this creativity continued into the 80’s, but gradually, finding the next blockbuster became the main focus of studio dollars.  We see the culmination of that in today’s film industry.  I think that’s what many people lament.

 

Some here have rightly pointed out that much of the best filmmaking today is being done for television.  I completely agree.  These cable and now streaming films seem to be the most creative outlet in the industry.  It may be a different path to the audience than in previous decades, but if it produces interesting, original material, then I welcome it.

[Vincent Hanna]

I feel like CGI kinda ruined movies. Instead of it being a tool that opened up endless possibilities, we got these weird animated live action hybrid movies where you can tell the actors are on a soundstage covered in green screen. There's like some incongruence between the limitation of the actors on the set and the freedom of the characters in the movie.

Then you watch the French Connection or something filmed in the real world and it looks as innovative now as it did almost 50 years ago. Lucas' Star Wars prequels look obsolete only 15 years later. The Avengers movies are not going to age well either.