Best Movies of the 80s

by Portable Press

Travel back in time to the most bodacious movie decade ever!

Don't miss this trip through the movies that defined the ’80s era. Packed with photos and memorabilia of Hollywood stars, this collection of classic cinema blockbusters offers summaries, release dates, trivia, and fun facts on each motion picture. We'll cover the invention of massive-budget action films, the Brat Pack, and even popular foreign flicks of the day. Nobody puts this book in the corner—you’ll be donning your Ray-Bans and immersing yourself in gnarly nostalgia from the neon-colored 1980s in no time!

Genres: Nonfiction

176 pages, Paperback

Published November 6, 2018

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three points to start off this review: 1.) I feel the title is incorrect. This probably should have been titled "The Most Influential Movies of the 80s." A number of the movies covered in this book would not be considered the "best" of the decade by both critics and fans. 2.) This book is completely subjective, of course. If you asked any person who lived through the 80s what the best movies of the decade were, you would be hard pressed to find anyone producing the same list of movies. Movies are personal for some many, so they may consider a movie the "best" because it has sentimental value to them while being an absolute crap piece of cinema. 3.) There are a few errors which is why I didn't give this book 5 stars. For example, Christopher Daniel Barnes voiced Prince Eric in "The Little Mermaid." The author has someone else, and the family in "The Lost Boys" moves to the seaside town of Santa Carla not Santa Clara.

With that being said, I had a really fun time reading this book. I'm a child of the 80s, so I'm a little biased as I do consider many of the films discussed here just truly awesome pieces of cinema history and they are the reasons I love movies so much. My childhood was "The Empire Strikes Back," "The Goonies," "The Lost Boys," "Aliens," "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," and so many more. The author Helen O'Hara recaps the 50 different films she feels are the most influential. She also goes into a little bit of detail why she chose them and what effect they had on box office, culture, and the movie business. She also isn't afraid to point areas where some of these films may not have aged well in terms of subject matter or the handling of other topics.

The author also includes other 80s films one should seek out, and it's some of those that I wish had been discussed in more detail. A great example of that would be "Footloose." She further adds her favorite songs, musical moments, and foreign films from this decade. There's a lot of information and facts in this 171 page book, but it's a fun time that brought back a lot of memories for me.

[Ruth York · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having grown up in the 80's, which in many ways, in my opinion, was one of the best decades, of course, I had to check out this book. I was a bit put out at first, because in the opening, the editor somewhat puts down the movie Highlander, one of my favorites. Really???? However, I realize, it's not for everyone. I liked learning a bit of the inside information on some of my favorites. Some of those mentioned, I've never seen (and don't really care to), but others I'd never even heard of. And some of those sound pretty good. If you remember the 80's like me and/or are a movie fan, this might be something fun and light to check out.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun fluffy read about 80’s movies, which I absolutely love! This is one person’s opinion so obviously there were movies missing that I adore, but the 50 movies chosen were good and almost all of them I have seen. I added a few more movies to my watch list, but I really enjoyed the fun synopsis about each movie along with other random information scattered throughout.