Greatest Year of Summer Movies: 1980s Edition

[Shifty]

Top Grossing Films Of Each Year
The Empire Strikes Back
Raiders of the Lost Ark
E.T.
Return of the Jedi
Ghostbusters
Back to the Future
Top Gun
Beverly Hills Cop II
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Batman

Below are the top grossing summer films of the 1980s, so which year had the best roster of films? Also, what are some of your favourite memories from those summers?

1980

Spoiler

1 The Empire Strikes Back
2 Airplane!
3 Smokey and the Bandit II
4 The Blue Lagoon
5 The Blues Brothers
6 Urban Cowboy
7 The Shining
8 Cheech & Chong's Next Movie
9 Caddyshack
10 Friday the 13th
11 Brubaker
12 Dressed to Kill
13 Lady and the Tramp (Re-issue)
14 The Elephant Man
15 Bronco Billy
16 Raging Bull
17 Xanadu
18 My Bodyguard
19 Fame
20 The Octagon
21 Honeysuckle Rose
22 Herbie Goes Bananas
23 Rough Cut Par.
24 The Final Countdown
25 The Hunter
26 The Long Riders
27 The Island
28 Prom Night
29 The Nude Bomb
30 Wholly Moses
31 Mary Poppins (re-issue)
32 Used Cars

1981

Spoiler

1 Raiders of the Lost Ark
2 Superman II
3 Arthur
4 Stripes
5 The Cannonball Run
6 For Your Eyes Only
7 The Four Seasons
8 Clash of the Titans
9 The Fox and the Hound
10 Tarzan, the Ape Man
11 History of the World, Part I
12 Bustin' Loose
13 The Great Muppet Caper
14 Endless Love
15 An American Werewolf in London
16 Private Lessons
17 Escape from New York
18 Body Heat
19 Friday the 13th Part 2
20 Under the Rainbow
21 Eye of the Needle
22 Take This Job and Shove It

1982

Spoiler

1 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
2 An Officer and a Gentleman
3 Rocky III
4 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
5 Poltergeist
6 The Best Little ****ehouse in Texas
7 Annie
8 Firefox
9 Conan the Barbarian
10 Friday the 13th Part III
11 Tron
12 Young Doctors in Love
13 The World According to Garp
14 Blade Runner
15 Fast Times at Ridgemont High
16 The Road Warrior
17 Bambi (re-issue)
18 Pink Floyd: The Wall
19 Raiders of the Lost Ark (re-issue)
20 Things Are Tough All Over
21 Night Shift
22 Six Pack
23 The Thing
24 Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid
25 Zapped!
26 Star Wars (re-issue)
27 Grease 2
28 The Secret of NIMH

1983

Spoiler

1 Return of the Jedi
2 Trading Places
3 WarGames
4 Octopussy
5 Staying Alive
6 Mr. Mom
7 Risky Business
8 National Lampoon's Vacation
9 Superman III
10 Jaws 3-D
11 Blue Thunder
12 Psycho II
13 Porky's II: The Next Day
14 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Re-issue)
15 Twilight Zone: The Movie
16 Easy Money
17 Class
18 Cujo
19 Breathless
20 Krull
21 Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone
22 Cheech & Chong Still Smokin'
23 Private School
24 The Survivors
25 Stroker Ace
26 Deathstalker
27 Zelig
28 Hercules
29 Doctor Detroit
30 The Man with Two Brains
31 Strange Brew

1984

Spoiler

1 Ghostbusters
2 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
3 Gremlins
4 The Karate Kid
5 Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
6 Purple Rain
7 Tightrope
8 The Natural
9 Revenge of the Nerds
10 Breakin'
11 Bachelor Party
12 Red Dawn
13 Conan the Destroyer
14 The Last Starfighter
15 Cannonball Run II
16 The Muppets Take Manhattan
17 The Woman in Red
18 Sixteen Candles
19 The Jungle Book (re-issue)
20 Rhinestone
21 Top Secret!
22 The Neverending Story

1985

Spoiler

1 Back to the Future
2 Rambo: First Blood Part II
3 Cocoon
4 The Goonies
5 Fletch
6 A View to a Kill
7 European Vacation
8 Pale Rider
9 Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
10 Brewster's Millions
11 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (Re-issue)
12 St. Elmo's Fire
13 Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
14 Teen Wolf
15 Silverado
16 Prizzi's Honor
17 Fright Night
18 Summer Rental
19 The Emerald Forest
20 Weird Science
21 The Black Cauldron
22 Code of Silence
23 Volunteers
24 Year of the Dragon
25 Kiss of the Spider Woman
26 Return of the Living Dead
27 Follow That Bird

1986

Spoiler

1 Top Gun
2 The Karate Kid Part II
3 Back to School
4 Aliens
5 Ruthless People
6 Ferris Bueller's Day Off
7 Stand by Me
8 Legal Eagles
9 Cobra
10 Poltergeist II: The Other Side
11 Short Circuit
12 The Fly
13 About Last Night....
14 Running Scared
15 Nothing in Common
16 The Great Mouse Detective
17 Heartburn
18 Friday the 13th Part VI
19 Flight of the Navigator
20 Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling
21 Howard the Duck
22 Raw Deal
23 Armed and Dangerous
24 Psycho III
25 Sweet Liberty
26 One Crazy Summer
27 Extremities
28 Labyrinth
29 Club Paradise
30 Big Trouble in Little China

1987

Spoiler

1 Beverly Hills Cop II
2 The Untouchables
3 Stakeout
4 The Witches of Eastwick
5 Dirty Dancing
6 Predator
7 Dragnet
8 La Bamba
9 Robocop
10 The Living Daylights
11 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Re-issue)
12 Full Metal Jacket
13 Roxanne
14 Spaceballs
15 Summer School
16 No Way Out
17 Adventures in Babysitting
18 The Lost Boys
19 Can't Buy Me Love
20 Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise
21 Harry and the Hendersons
22 Innerspace
23 Ernest Goes to Camp
24 Benji the Hunted
25 Jaws IV: The Revenge
26 The Believers
27 The Big Easy
28 Born in East L.A.
29 Masters of the Universe
30 Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
31 Ishtar

1988

Spoiler

1 Who Framed Roger Rabbit
2 Coming to America
3 Big
4 Crocodile Dundee II
5 Die Hard
6 Cocktail
7 A Fish Called Wanda
8 Willow
9 Rambo III
10 Bull Durham
11 A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
12 Young Guns
13 The Great Outdoors
14 Big Business
15 Bambi (Re-issue)
16 Midnight Run
17 The Dead Pool
18 Red Heat
19 Betrayed
20 Funny Farm
21 License to Drive
22 Short Circuit 2
23 Married to the Mob
24 The Presidio
25 Tucker: The Man and His Dream
26 Friday the 13th Part VII
27 Crossing Delancey
28 Big Top Pee-Wee
29 Arthur 2: On the Rocks
30 Poltergeist III
31 Caddyshack II

1989

Spoiler

1 Batman
2 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
3 Lethal Weapon 2
4 Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
5 Ghostbusters II
6 Parenthood
7 Dead Poets Society
8 When Harry Met Sally...
9 Turner & Hooch
10 Uncle Buck
11 The Abyss
12 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
13 See No Evil, Hear No Evil
14 The Karate Kid Part III
15 License to Kill
16 Weekend at Bernie's
17 Road House
18 Peter Pan (Re-issue)
19 Do the Right Thing
20 sex, lies and videotape
21 A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
22 Lock Up
23 Casualties of War
24 No Holds Barred
25 Friday the 13th Part VIII
26 Great Balls of Fire!
27 Pink Cadillac

 

[R3M3D1]

1989.

Batman, Ghostbusters 2 and Indy 3.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

For me it was 1982. ET, The Road Warrior, Conan the Barbarian, Rocky III, Tron, Blade Runner, Wrath of Kahn, etc. It was a huge year. I wish we would get a summer like that these days.

 

[3rdstone]

Great idea for a thread!

I can't say which year would be "best" here, I guess the B.O. figures from each year have to take care of that. There are zillions of great classics in these year lists I watched either on cinema or rented on VHS just afterwards.

But personally, by pure nostalgia I have to say my favourite year must be 1981. And that's just because I watched my first 15 rated movie (in Sweden 15 is considered "adult age" when it comes to movies). Me and a friend managed to get in on Escape From New York, although we were 14 yo.

We tried the same trick in late 1979 with Alien, but the ticket lady thought my friend looked to young. He was quite short back then, and looked kinda childish. A couple of years later he went like 10 cm taller than me..

 

[danoyse]

1985. The movie theater in my town had Back to the Future and The Goonies playing at the same time. Good times...

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

1982 for the win.

 

[baerrtt]

1982 for me as well. Probably the only year to date where the blockbusters that didn't perform to box office standards (BLADE RUNNER, THE THING and TRON) proved more influential than the ones that did.

Plus a top two, ET and AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, that rank amongst the best and most unlikeliest successful blockbusters we've ever seen. The first movie, small in scale, boils down to a story about a dysfunctional family and a boy's loneliness. The second often seen as a chick flick because of the oft parodied happy ending is for most of it's duration a tougher, franker (the kind of sex scenes you would find in an indie like SHAME nowadays) and darker film than ppl remember...a film where one of the main characters commits suicide.

 

[Roose Bolton]

Gotta go with 1982. Some of best films of all time were released then, Blade Runner pretty much redefined Sci-fi films for years to come and Tron was a huge leap forward for special effects. You had Road Warrior which was a landmark for Australian cinema, you had The Thing, which is arguably John Carpenter's masterpiece,
The Speilberg pantheon of great movies grew with E.T., he also help bring about one of the best horror films of all time with Poltergeist.
Also you had one of my all time favorite films Conan the Barbarian, which to this today is still ranked with the greats of the Fantasy genre.
So yeah 82 all the way.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Ah, The Road Warrior. The movie that made Mel Gibson a star, before all the racism.

I miss when I could watch Lethal Weapon 2 and not see Mel Gibson as a hypocrite.

 

[The Morningstar]

Hmmm i'm torn between 82 and 86.

82 had The Thing, Blade Runner and The Road Warrior.

But then 86 had Aliens, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and mutha****ing Big Trouble in Little China.

Like i said, hmmmm...

 

[flickchick85]

1982 all the way. E.T., Wrath of Kahn, Blade Runner, The Road Warrior, Poltergeist, The Thing. What an amazing summer for genre entertainment.

Honorable mention to 1989, though, possibly due to sentimental attachment as that was the year I started seeing movies in the theater.

 

[El Hombre Gato]

1985. Just for the quantity of classics and pop culture favorites.