There was no better decade for sci-fi cinema than the 1980s. It was the sweet spot when special effects had gotten good enough to tell a wider array of stories but not quite to the point where special effects became such a priority that the story itself had become, by comparison, less special. At least to those behind the movies. With the ’80s, though, everything was in place, and quite often it showed. The following movies are just as wonderful now as they must have been for those who bought a ticket on opening day. Their narratives hold up, sometimes being even more poignant now than they were at the time of release, and their practical effects still look as real as can be.
With these movies, there’s a better than good chance people will still be watching them in another 40 years, provided the globe’s still spinning. They are just perfection, through and through.
5) Back to the Future
Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future is one of the best trilogies of all time, but it’s really mostly the first movie that locks down that title. The other two are solid, but it was part one that captured lightning in a bottle. The other two just realized the lightning had been caught and decided to hold onto it for a while, even if it was losing its spark over time.
First off, the Zemeckis/Steven Spielberg ’80s touch is an undeniable asset. It always was to movies of this decade. It’s also a movie that benefits from universally note-perfect casting, even beyond the amazing dynamic of Marty McFly and Doc Brown. Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F. Wilson, they’re all extraordinary. Then there’s the mixture of a light, bubbly tone with the high stakes of a young man trying to ensure his own existence. There isn’t a false note in the orchestra.
4) Blade Runner
Blade Runner was one of three movies on this list released in June of 1982, making it undoubtedly the best month for sci-fi movies in cinema history. However, like its fellow June 25th movie, it did not do particularly well at the box office. But, also like the movie that nabbed the number one spot here, it has been retrospectively reappraised as one of the decade’s most important films, regardless of genre.
And it is. In just a few moments we are enveloped in a breathtaking world of luminous billboards and flying cars, haunting scores and feelings of isolation even though the city is packed to the gills. And, by film’s end, we’re forced to question just what makes a human a human, and if an android can end up adopting those traits in a way that is, well, organic.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is the number one movie that every human being should see when they’re young. It’s beautiful, funny, captivating, and occasionally heartbreaking as an adult, but it just holds the feeling of wonder that has extra oomph as a child.
But, again, because all of its assets are put to use so sublimely, it’s a movie that never stops being good. It has a wonderful score, performances that feel less like acting and more like people being people, and a practical effects marvel at the core. It is, simply put, magic.
2) Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
The original Star Wars movie set the world on fire, no doubt about it. And, frankly, there’s a mighty strong argument to be made that it is perfect.
And that’s what makes it tough to say that Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back beats it at its own game. It, too, is perfect, but can perfection be beaten? As it turns out, yes. Its propensity for expert world-building, its more serious tone, the improvement in performances, the added depth of character, it all works incredibly well. This is the ultimate in terms of trilogy middle chapters, building off what worked in part one while raising the stakes and setting the stage for an intense part three.
1) The Thing
When John Carpenter’s The Thing hit theaters towards the end of June 1982, it was immediately torn apart by critics and trounced by fellow Universal alien movie E.T. But time has been extremely kind to the movie, and now it’s rightly heralded as what it is: one of the 1980s’ scariest movies and a proud displayer of sci-fi horror cinema‘s best practical effects ever.
The pacing couldn’t be any better. We get just enough time to know the characters so that, when they are eviscerated by this thing, we’re taken aback. It’s also so tightly written that, even if you’ve seen the movie a dozen times, you can’t one hundred percent pinpoint just who has been assimilated when. It’s the definitive Cold War paranoia movie and arguably the best film of Carpenter’s career. If not, it’s tied for first with Halloween.
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