There are plenty of great movies from the ’80s that are still very famous today: The Terminator, the final two entries to the original Star Wars trilogy, Do the Right Thing, Die Hard, Predator, etc. Then there are movies that are still as acclaimed as ever but maybe aren’t very well known to the public, such as the Best Picture-winner Amadeus or Claude Lanzmann‘s landmark Holocaust documentary Shoah. Comedic powerhouse The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad had a relatively niche but loyal-enough audience to merit a reboot last year, and Martin Scorsese‘s The King of Comedy probably got some revival of attention after Joker borrowed from it so heavily.
But then there are ’80s movies that most people don’t remember, or only have a vague idea of where they heard of them. Those obsessed with movies, always hungry for something new to watch, tend to not only find the most famous movies but also the lesser-known gems that the great filmmakers made. Most of the list below belongs to that category. Sometimes they appeared right before or after their magnum opus; sometimes they belong to a completely different era. Though they’re overshadowed today, many of these were critically (a few even commercially) successful in the ’80s. Some of them may be movies you never got around to watching, and some may seem a bit too odd. Yet they’re among the greatest achievements of the decade, and it would be useless to rank them by their artistic merit.
‘My Dinner with Andre’ (1981)
My Dinner with Andre is a movie whose summary isn’t the most appealing in the world: two guys (played by Wallace Shawn and André Gregory) have dinner together in New York City, and they talk. Is this the most commercially viable premise in the world? Not even close, and yet there is something so immersive about the way this movie is made. It’s important to note that the dinner is bookended by Wallace thinking about Andre.
At first, he thinks about the man he’s about to have dinner with, which makes us anticipate Andre’s arrival and create an idea of him that is sure to be subverted once we meet him. Then, after this extremely strange series of anecdotes and philosophical debates has concluded, he gets a ride home and basks in everything we just heard. With such great performances and perceptive writing, the audience can’t help but do the same.
‘The Verdict’ (1982)
Sidney Lumet‘s most famous movies are 12 Angry Men, Serpico, Network, and Dog Day Afternoon. Most of these were in the ’70s, but he wasn’t done making greats when the ’80s came around. Case in point: 1982’s The Verdict. Paul Newman plays a lawyer named Frank who has hit rock bottom. He spends his days drinking, playing pinball at a local bar, and ambulance chasing to find clients.
A chance at redemption comes in the form of a case against a Catholic hospital whose significant mistake left a woman comatose. Frank almost takes the money initially offered, but the tragedy of his clients’ story moves him so that he decides to take the hospital to court. What ensues is an extremely tense and moving underdog story that takes its time and provides us with one of Newman’s best performances. In short, this should be as well-known as A Few Good Men or To Kill a Mockingbird.
‘Betrayal’ (1983)
Based on a Harold Pinter play and directed by David Jones, Betrayal stars Jeremy Irons, Patricia Hodge, and Ben Kingsley in a secret love triangle that’s told in reverse-chronological order. While most cookie-cutter romantic comedies go for plots that start with characters who are down on their luck and gradually work their way up to a happy ending, this film tells us right away that things don’t work out and then makes us even sadder by delving deeper into why.
Maybe not a first-date movie, and the extremely unusual structure definitely makes it less appealing to a mass audience. However, for those who are willing to trace through these three characters’ relationships, they find a profound meditation on love and fidelity that’s well directed and brilliantly acted. There aren’t many reverse-chronological movies out there, but this early example helped set the bar for what they can accomplish.
‘Two Friends’ (1986)
Okay, one more reverse-chronological movie. It’s called Two Friends, and this time it’s directed by a very young Jane Campion. Released a few years after the previous entry, Campion’s heart-rending debut follows two young women who have grown apart after attending different schools. They used to be inseparable, a dynamic we’ll eventually see as we press further backwards into their friendship.
Which means that, even when we see them happy together, we won’t be able to help but view these cheerier times through the lens of what’s to come. Don’t worry about getting a headache; the film’s plot isn’t complicated enough for that to be an issue, and it’s even shorter than Betrayal. From the beginning of her career, Campion was agile enough a storyteller to make even this tale told backwards easy to follow. It’s beautiful, and it deserves as much (if not more) love than her later works.
‘The Dresser’ (1983)
There are straight-up Shakespeare adaptations, and then there are movies that are absolutely obsessed with and fundamentally built upon Shakespeare. Hamnet would be a recent example of the latter, and a good one at that. Another, much older one would be Peter Yates‘ The Dresser (based on Ronald Harwood‘s play)—but it’s nothing like Hamnet. This doesn’t take place in Shakespeare’s time, and yet the members of this theater group are practically drowning in his words.
For instance, its leader (played by an astounding Albert Finney and only called “Sir”) is about to play King Lear for the 227th time. And, like the tragic king, this old man is losing his mind. He can’t even remember the first line of a play he ought to know like the back of his own hand. Helping him the entire time is his extremely worried confidante Norman (Tom Courtenay, also remarkable), who is also his dresser. A simple summary may sound like it was just Oscar bait, but the film still holds up today.
‘Secret Honor’ (1984)
There have been many movies about Richard Nixon, but none quite like Robert Altman‘s Secret Honor. Played by a sensational Phillip Baker Hall, a drunk Nixon records himself in his private study years after Watergate and rants for an hour and a half. While it’s easy to realize this is based on a one-man play, the film is crafted so well that it doesn’t fall into any of the pitfalls of stagnancy and detachment that so many other adaptations do.
Sometimes the camera follows Nixon, sometimes we watch him on his private monitors. Occasionally refilling his glass, the disgraced ex-President keeps interrupting himself—veering off on tangents and returning to trails of thought we forgot he was on—to the point where this feels inches away from being a Samuel Beckett play. Likewise, sometimes Nixon utters things that make you go, “What, what did he say?” This portrayal is full of endless regrets, fictional explanations of massive mid-20th century controversies, and bitter waves of pride that crash ashore. For fans of ambitious character studies and politics, Secret Honor proves poetic, bleak, and fascinating.
‘Trial on the Road’ (1986)
Director Aleksei German finished his WWII drama Trial on the Road in 1971, yet the Soviet powers that be didn’t allow him to release this work until 1985. We soon see why: it takes an aggressively anti-war stance. A Russian man who joined the German forces lets himself get captured by Russian soldiers, but his loyalty to the Russians is questioned anyway. This black and white masterpiece is a gritty, realistic depiction of war in the snow.
German’s later films forgo coherent narratives and dialogue, but this earlier piece demonstrates that he was just as formidable in this more conventional form as anyone. You cannot look away from anything, such as the closeup of a man wiping blood from his nose. Or when we see soldiers through the lens of a rifle. Soon after, one solider briefly stares straight into the camera as he’s shot to death, falling forward out of frame. The final shootout is the typical heroic climax, yet that just makes it more arresting.
‘Farewell’ (1983)
Come and See ranks among the greatest war films of all time, but Elem Klimov‘s lesser-known precursor to it is on the same level of execution. Based on the novel by Valentin Rasputin, Farewell is about a Soviet village that’s going to be flooded and destroyed by the introduction of a dam. Klimov’s wife, Larisha Shepitko, was actually directing this at first, but she tragically passed away in a car accident during filming. So he had to finish it.
There is so much unnerving, ominous imagery between humankind and nature that it’s hard to know which ones to even include here: a woman staring out from the shelter of an uprooted tree; a community swim at dusk getting interrupted by a raging fire; a reckless man trying to ram a tree down with a tractor. There is such a powerful sense of community that it’s more than just sad to watch everyone leave—it’s haunting. The eye for photography is undeniable, as should be this film’s standing in cinema history.
‘Toute une nuit’ (1982)
Every single shot in Chantal Akerman‘s Toute une nuit gorgeously captures this Belgian city. Everything indoors and outdoors is steeped in black and blue as we see formative fragments of various citizens’ evenings. All dressed up, a woman nervously calls a man, hears him answer, hangs up, says aloud that she loves him, and leaves her apartment. In a dimly lit bar, a man and woman go from sitting without making eye contact to dancing in an otherwise empty establishment.
The reasons why this film isn’t popular are simple: there’s no plot, and its characters are fleeting. This is the encapsulation of a mood: a collective desire to socialize, to romance, to live. Some people act on it, some don’t. These moments are so simple, yet this pull towards life juxtaposes the melancholy silence that hangs over. Thus, every inner-conflict feels both deeply intimate and universal. It’s awe-inspiring to watch people take a change and venture out into the heavy, quiet darkness to see what—or whom—they will find.
‘Running on Empty’ (1988)
Running on Empty is another one of Sidney Lumet‘s masterpieces that you don’t typically hear about. Mom (Christine Lahti) and Dad (Judd Hirsch) blew up a university lab in 1971 to protest the Vietnam War, and they’ve been on the run ever since. Playing the elder son who’s sick of moving and changing his identity every six months, River Phoenix earned an Oscar nod for one of the best performances of the ’80s. Soon the family stops in a place that’s perfect for him: a mentor, a girl, the world of music. It’s all there, waiting for him.
We immediately sense the inevitable: he’ll have to choose between leaving all this or his family behind. It’s heartbreaking to watch this kid and his parents struggle with the contradiction of what he needs and what they can give him. But every character is very well-developed, with their own moments to shine. As always, Lumet doesn’t use flashy editing or thrilling music. Evocative wide shots, the sounds of the environment, and terrific acting are all we need. There isn’t enough space to describe Running on Empty, though—just watch it.