tommyp007

Top Gun

riotinmyskull

BETTER OFF DEAD summarizes everything i loved about the 80's

FRwL

This is definitely the most definitive 80s movie, because the whole point of this movie was excess and the American dream which WAS the decade essentially, it started the neon-lit art style (the art director's name was Scarfiotti no joke!) everything being intentionally heightened and over the top, by a Hitchcockian director.

Cardsfan111

I almost posted this earlier but figured it would be tough to endorse since much of the film doesn't even take place in the 1980s.

DeputyDave

Would you like to play a game?

cranberries fan

Oh come on this is best thing ever! from the 80's I mean Part-Man Part-Machine All Cop!

JMLEWIS1

I'm going with St Elmo's Fire...seems to capture the style, the excess, the angst, the coming of age, etc...

Tom Creo

My vote goes to either Beverly Hills Cop or Manhunter.

Groucho

My vote: Back to the Future

Solid Snake

.....horrible picture. This is much better:

Rockmjd23

I agree with Commando. Wargames is definitely one too. It has the 80's teen thing mixed with the cold war paranoia mixed with computers.

EdTheRipper

If I had to pick one movie to showcase the 80s it would be either Fast Times at Ridgemont High or The Breakfast Club depending on my mood that day.

Giles

The Howling

UAIOE

I would have said this, but it is missing one key "80's element".....it does not contain either Cory Feldman or Cory Haim.

Which, if that criteria were to be used, then "License to Drive" should be the ultimate 80's movie. But it can't, because it does not include Molly Ringwald

DVD Josh

Do you know the street value of this mountain?

FantasticVSDoom

Some great picks but for me it comes down to either The Karate Kid or The Breakfast Club...

Sean O'Hara

Isn't this a bannable offense?

TheNightFlier

The Breakfast Club

Sylvia7

If you're looking for a movie that has the Brat Pack and the two Corys, then I think you're out of luck!

Another reason "The Breakfast Club" is a quintessential '80s flick is - not only is set in the 1980s (unlike, say, most of "Back To The Future"), but it also features characters that most anyone could have related to at the time.

Even in '80s adult culture, society was more-or-less split along lines similar to those depicted in the film. In high school and out, there were all sorts of pampered princesses (or Queens); jocks/ sports nuts; brainiac nerds/ computer scientists, (or math whizzes/ stock market heroes); outsider tough guys and gals. And we've all encountered negative authority figures - either a power-hungry principal or boss - who's tried to put us in "our" place when their own lives are out-of-control. We are or were - or know or have known - all of these people. Or least we know people with some elements of the personalities portrayed in the film.

The "TBC" also featured an antagonistic dynamic between teens and adults in media that was extremely popular in the 1980s. Like many other films from the period, it showed the two groups at odds (i.e the generation gap), and it portrayed the young people as the most sensible, thoughtful and rational people in the movie. This sort of disrespect for adults - their depiction as angry, impulsive morons vs. shrewd and down-to-earth teens - is a hallmark of '80s youth films.

Another interesting point is that the movie also encouraged young people to think critically about their lot in life - and not to just accept what they were told about how life should be. This, in itself, is a departure from earlier teen films that usually showed stereotypical behavior or silly, mindless misadventures.

Back in the 1950s, teens in films were generally portrayed as the "good kids" or the "bad kids" with very little in between. In the 1960s and 1970s, rebellious youth appeared more often on the screen, but they were almost always one-dimensional. In the 1980s teen culture was an important focus of films, but "TBC" departed from the typical portrayal by showing them as multi-dimensional beings - beyond the stereotype - and showed the characters practicing critical, independent thinking. This was somewhat new in films and a sign of the times.

It didn't have the two Corys, but "The Breakfast Club" was still a slice of '80s life, teen culture, and media trends all wrapped up in one movie. It reflected a lot about the '80s and it changed a lot about how youth are portrayed in pictures.

Libby

Ferris Bueller! and all those other coming of age films.

riotinmyskull

why? his statement is fact.

UAIOE

Time for a Breakfast Club/License to Drive mash-up!

I think the characters are still ones that one can relate to today. But I think that is because the movie has a teenage "truth" to it. It isn't so much an "80's movie" its a teen movie that was/is set in the 1980's.

And BttF isn't an 80's movie. Everything before the time travel might lead to think it was going to turn into one, but it doesn't.

Paul1957

Another vote for Robocop.

DieselsDen

"Shall we play a game?"

I think a crappier movie like HEAVENLY KID is more quintessentially 80's. The music montage, bad blonde versus sweet brunette, teen angst, newcomer actors (who never really went anywhere afterwards) paired with older ones (Richard Mulligan), predictable plot, anonymous direction and sitcom-like style is what the youth-oriented 80s films were all about.

Hiro11

Valley Girl
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