50 Great Forgotten American Movies: 1980-1985
by JCarl01 | created - 01 Aug 2015 | updated - 02 Aug 2015 | PublicHere's an eclectic collection of 50 mostly-forgotten American movies released between 1980-1985. If you're looking for something on YouTube or Netflix, give some of these films a shot. I've purposely excluded box office hits and movies that have become cult classics.
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1. Hopscotch (1980)
R | 106 min | Adventure, Comedy
Grounded with a desk job by incompetent superiors, a clever CIA agent retires and writes a tell all memoir that will embarrass his bosses, prompting him to go on the run and elude them.
Director: Ronald Neame | Stars: Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Sam Waterston, Ned Beatty
Votes: 8,960
2. Kiss Me Goodbye (1982)
PG | 101 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
The ghost of a dead husband haunts his wife as she moves back to their house in NYC. She's about to marry an egyptologist there.
Director: Robert Mulligan | Stars: Sally Field, James Caan, Jeff Bridges, Paul Dooley
Votes: 2,436 | Gross: $15.78M
3. The Mirror Crack'd (1980)
PG | 105 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Miss Jane Marple comes to solve the mystery when a local woman is poisoned and a visiting movie star seems to have been the intended victim.
Director: Guy Hamilton | Stars: Angela Lansbury, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, Geraldine Chaplin
Votes: 9,441
4. How to Beat the High Cost of Living (1980)
PG | 105 min | Comedy, Crime
A caper comedy about three suburban housewives who, in order to beat inflation and subsidize their alimony checks, plot to steal $1 million from a large plastic ball which is displayed in a local shopping center.
Director: Robert Scheerer | Stars: Susan Saint James, Jane Curtin, Jessica Lange, Richard Benjamin
Votes: 1,997
5. Deathtrap (1982)
PG | 116 min | Comedy, Crime, Mystery
A Broadway playwright puts murder in his plan to take credit for a student's play.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon, Irene Worth
Votes: 15,451 | Gross: $19.28M
6. When Time Ran Out... (1980)
PG | 121 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
An active volcano threatens a south Pacific island resort and its guests as a power struggle ensues between the property's developer and a drilling foreman.
Director: James Goldstone | Stars: Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset, William Holden, Edward Albert
Votes: 3,204 | Gross: $1.70M
7. The Devil and Max Devlin (1981)
PG | 96 min | Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Max, a dead corrupt businessman, makes a Faustian pact with Satan's henchman to drive three people to Hell in exchange for longer life. Soon Max realizes that there still may be good in him.
Director: Steven Hilliard Stern | Stars: Elliott Gould, Bill Cosby, Susan Anspach, Adam Rich
Votes: 1,443 | Gross: $16.00M
8. The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981)
PG | 98 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
The sole surviving Texas Ranger (Klinton Spilsbury) of an ambush arranged by outlaw leader Major Bartholomew "Butch" Cavendish (Christopher Lloyd) returns to fight back as a great masked western hero, The Lone Ranger.
Director: William A. Fraker | Stars: Klinton Spilsbury, Michael Horse, Christopher Lloyd, Matt Clark
Votes: 2,524 | Gross: $12.62M
9. The Fan (1981)
R | 95 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
Douglas, a record salesman, is an obsessive fan of actress Sally Ross. When his letters are rejected, he strikes out at her and her loved ones.
Director: Ed Bianchi | Stars: Lauren Bacall, James Garner, Michael Biehn, Maureen Stapleton
Votes: 2,846
10. The Emerald Forest (1985)
R | 114 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
After the son of engineer Bill Markham is abducted by an aboriginal tribe on the edge of the rain forest, the engineer spends the next 10 years searching for him.
Director: John Boorman | Stars: Powers Boothe, Meg Foster, Yara Vaneau, William Rodriguez
Votes: 11,007 | Gross: $24.47M
11. My Favorite Year (1982)
PG | 92 min | Comedy, Drama
An aging, dissolute matinee idol is slated to appear on a live TV variety show in 1954, and a young comedy writer is tasked with the thankless job of keeping him ready and sober for the broadcast.
Director: Richard Benjamin | Stars: Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Jessica Harper, Joseph Bologna
Votes: 10,525 | Gross: $20.12M
12. The Competition (1980)
PG | 123 min | Drama, Romance, Music
Paul Dietrich, at almost 30 years old, is a fading piano prodigy. Heidi Schoonover is a talented young pianist with a promising future. When Paul hears of an upcoming competition that could make his career, he dedicates himself to winning.
Director: Joel Oliansky | Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, Amy Irving, Lee Remick, Sam Wanamaker
Votes: 2,849 | Gross: $14.29M
13. Resurrection (1980)
PG | 103 min | Drama, Fantasy
A woman enters the afterlife briefly after a car crash that kills her husband. But she survives - and finds herself possessing strange powers.
Director: Daniel Petrie | Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Sam Shepard, Richard Farnsworth, Roberts Blossom
Votes: 3,421 | Gross: $3.91M
14. If You Could See What I Hear (1982)
PG | 103 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
A light comedy/love story based on the life of blind musician Tom Sullivan.
Director: Eric Till | Stars: Marc Singer, R.H. Thomson, Sarah Torgov, Shari Belafonte
Votes: 940 | Gross: $8.69M
15. Lost in America (1985)
R | 91 min | Comedy
A husband and wife in their 30s decide to quit their jobs, live as free spirits and cruise America in a Winnebago.
Director: Albert Brooks | Stars: Albert Brooks, Julie Hagerty, Sylvia Farrel, Tina Kincaid
Votes: 10,211 | Gross: $10.18M
16. Gilda Live (1980)
R | 96 min | Comedy
A filmed version of the Broadway show starring comedienne Gilda Radner, complete with the characters she made famous on the TV show Saturday Night Live (1975).
Directors: Mike Nichols, Lorne Michaels | Stars: Gilda Radner, Don Novello, Paul Shaffer, Nils Nichols
Votes: 867 | Gross: $2.26M
17. Hanky Panky (1982)
PG | 110 min | Action, Comedy, Crime
Completely innocent man, Michael Jordon, is drawn into a web of government secrets when a girl carrying a mysterious package gets into a taxi with him. When she's later murdered, Michael becomes the chief suspect and goes on the run.
Director: Sidney Poitier | Stars: Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, Kathleen Quinlan, Richard Widmark
Votes: 3,112 | Gross: $9.82M
18. Gloria (1980)
PG | 123 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
When a young boy's family is killed by the mob, their tough neighbor Gloria becomes his reluctant guardian. In possession of a book that the gangsters want, the pair go on the run in New York.
Director: John Cassavetes | Stars: Gena Rowlands, Buck Henry, Julie Carmen, Tony Knesich
Votes: 11,439
19. Venom (1981)
R | 92 min | Horror, Thriller
Terrorists in the process of kidnapping a child get trapped in a house with an extremely deadly snake.
Directors: Piers Haggard, Tobe Hooper | Stars: Klaus Kinski, Oliver Reed, Nicol Williamson, Sarah Miles
Votes: 3,227 | Gross: $5.23M
20. Tag: The Assassination Game (1982)
PG | 90 min | Action, Thriller
College assassination game turns deadly as someone starts playing for real.
Director: Nick Castle | Stars: Robert Carradine, Linda Hamilton, Kristine DeBell, Perry Lang
Votes: 998
21. The Challenge (1982)
R | 108 min | Action, Drama
A down-and-out American boxer becomes involved in a feud between two Japanese brothers.
Director: John Frankenheimer | Stars: Scott Glenn, Toshirô Mifune, Donna Kei Benz, Atsuo Nakamura
Votes: 2,672 | Gross: $3.53M
22. High Road to China (1983)
PG | 105 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
During WW1, an alcoholic American biplane pilot is hired by the spoiled daughter of an industrialist to find her father who disappeared in Asia.
Director: Brian G. Hutton | Stars: Tom Selleck, Bess Armstrong, Jack Weston, Wilford Brimley
Votes: 6,006 | Gross: $28.40M
23. The Sender (1982)
R | 91 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A disturbed telepathic man is unable to fully control his ability to transmit his dreams and visions into the minds of the people around him, or even influence reality. A female therapist tries to help him, but his mother gets in the way.
Director: Roger Christian | Stars: Kathryn Harrold, Zeljko Ivanek, Shirley Knight, Paul Freeman
Votes: 2,212 | Gross: $1.05M
24. Split Image (1982)
R | 110 min | Drama, Romance
An uprooted young man is lured into an unnamed religious sect by a beautiful girl. Every moment with the group brings him more and more under the control of the cult's leader.
Director: Ted Kotcheff | Stars: Michael O'Keefe, Karen Allen, Peter Fonda, James Woods
Votes: 1,129 | Gross: $0.26M
25. Max Dugan Returns (1983)
PG | 98 min | Comedy, Drama
An English teacher and struggling single mother's life is disrupted when her long-lost father, who abandoned her as a child, returns with some shady money in the hope of spending some time with her and the grandson he's never met.
Director: Herbert Ross | Stars: Jason Robards, Marsha Mason, Donald Sutherland, Matthew Broderick
Votes: 3,971 | Gross: $17.61M
26. To Be or Not to Be (1983)
PG | 107 min | Comedy, Drama, War
At the onset of WW2, a Polish actor's family and the Polish Resistance help the troupe of a theatre escape Poland and the invading Nazis.
Director: Alan Johnson | Stars: Mel Brooks, Anne Bancroft, Ronny Graham, Estelle Reiner
Votes: 12,038 | Gross: $13.03M
27. Brainstorm (1983)
PG | 106 min | Sci-Fi, Thriller
Researchers develop a system where they can jump into people's minds. But when people involved bring their personal problems into the equation, it becomes dangerous - perhaps deadly.
Director: Douglas Trumbull | Stars: Christopher Walken, Natalie Wood, Louise Fletcher, Cliff Robertson
Votes: 13,130 | Gross: $8.90M
28. Eddie and the Cruisers (1983)
PG | 95 min | Drama, Music, Mystery
A television newswoman picks up the story of a 1960s rock band whose long-lost leader Eddie Wilson may still be alive, while searching for the missing tapes of the band's never-released album.
Director: Martin Davidson | Stars: Tom Berenger, Michael Paré, Joe Pantoliano, Matthew Laurance
Votes: 8,472 | Gross: $4.79M
29. Condorman (1981)
PG | 90 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
Cartoonist Woody becomes the superhero he draws. Using his gadgets he helps a Soviet spy defect to the West.
Director: Charles Jarrott | Stars: Michael Crawford, Oliver Reed, Barbara Carrera, James Hampton
Votes: 5,409
30. Trenchcoat (1983)
PG | 91 min | Comedy, Mystery, Thriller
An aspiring mystery writer becomes accidently embroiled in an international plot during a two-week stay in Malta.
Director: Michael Tuchner | Stars: Margot Kidder, Robert Hays, David Suchet, Gila von Weitershausen
Votes: 553 | Gross: $4.30M
31. Stick (1985)
R | 109 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Released from prison, Stick meets up with a friend and joins him on a job delivering a bag. His friend gets killed in the setup. Stick gets away and is ready to forget all and see his daughter, but they won't forget.
Director: Burt Reynolds | Stars: Burt Reynolds, Candice Bergen, George Segal, Charles Durning
Votes: 2,310 | Gross: $8.49M
32. The Keep (1983)
R | 96 min | Drama, Fantasy, Horror
Nazis are forced to turn to a Jewish historian for help in battling the ancient demon they have inadvertently freed from its prison.
Director: Michael Mann | Stars: Scott Glenn, Ian McKellen, Alberta Watson, Jürgen Prochnow
Votes: 14,316 | Gross: $3.76M
33. Terror in the Aisles (1984)
R | 84 min | Documentary, Drama, Horror
"Terror in the Aisles" is a compilation of scenes from many science fiction, crime drama and horror movies of the 1930s through 1980s.
Director: Andrew J. Kuehn | Stars: Donald Pleasence, Nancy Allen, Fred Asparagus, Lainie Cooke
Votes: 2,319 | Gross: $10.00M
34. Streets of Fire (1984)
PG | 93 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A mercenary is hired to rescue his ex-girlfriend, a singer who has been kidnapped by a motorcycle gang.
Director: Walter Hill | Stars: Michael Paré, Diane Lane, Rick Moranis, Amy Madigan
Votes: 24,264 | Gross: $8.09M
35. Flashpoint (1984)
R | 93 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Two U.S. border patrolmen find a buried 20+ year old jeep in the desert with a skeleton, rifle and $800,000. They keep the money. Suddenly, the FBI shows a lot of interest in the car.
Director: William Tannen | Stars: Kris Kristofferson, Treat Williams, Rip Torn, Kevin Conway
Votes: 3,170 | Gross: $3.85M
36. Electric Dreams (1984)
PG | 95 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
An artificially intelligent PC and his human owner find themselves in a romantic rivalry over a woman.
Director: Steve Barron | Stars: Lenny von Dohlen, Virginia Madsen, Maxwell Caulfield, Bud Cort
Votes: 10,026 | Gross: $2.19M
37. Looker (1981)
PG | 93 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Three of four models, who had plastic surgery done by Larry after a computed list, are dead. Neither the cops nor Larry believe they're suicides. Larry investigates and stays with the fourth model. Who's behind the lists and murders?
Director: Michael Crichton | Stars: Albert Finney, James Coburn, Susan Dey, Leigh Taylor-Young
Votes: 6,192 | Gross: $3.28M
38. DEFCON-4 (1985)
R | 88 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Two men and a woman circle the globe in a satellite armed with a nuclear device. The third world war breaks out, and a few months later the satellite crashes. They survive the crash but one... See full summary »
Directors: Paul Donovan, Digby Cook, Tony Randel | Stars: Lenore Zann, Maury Chaykin, Kate Lynch, Kevin King
Votes: 2,244 | Gross: $1.06M
39. Murphy's Romance (1985)
PG-13 | 107 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Emma moves to a ranch with her son after a divorce and befriends the older Murphy, but things turn complicated when her ex shows up.
Director: Martin Ritt | Stars: Sally Field, James Garner, Brian Kerwin, Corey Haim
Votes: 7,063 | Gross: $30.76M
40. One Magic Christmas (1985)
G | 89 min | Family, Fantasy
An angel must show a mother the true meaning of Christmas. It's not just presents and materialistic things, but the people she cares about too.
Director: Phillip Borsos | Stars: Mary Steenburgen, Gary Basaraba, Harry Dean Stanton, Arthur Hill
Votes: 4,454 | Gross: $13.68M
41. Runaway Train (I) (1985)
R | 111 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Two escaped convicts and a female railway worker find themselves trapped on a speeding train with no brakes and nobody driving.
Director: Andrey Konchalovskiy | Stars: Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay, Kyle T. Heffner
Votes: 33,030 | Gross: $7.94M
42. The Trip to Bountiful (1985)
PG | 108 min | Drama
In 1940s Texas, an elderly woman is determined to visit her childhood home one last time.
Director: Peter Masterson | Stars: Geraldine Page, John Heard, Carlin Glynn, Richard Bradford
Votes: 5,300 | Gross: $7.47M
43. Rustlers' Rhapsody (1985)
PG | 88 min | Comedy, Western
The Wild West goes wacko when the Greatest Fast-Drawin', Fancy-Dressin', Silver-Spurred, Geetar Playin', Singing Cowboy movie matinee idol Rex O'Herlihan hits the saddle in this cockeyed, affectionate send-up of the '40s B-movie Western.
Director: Hugh Wilson | Stars: Tom Berenger, G.W. Bailey, Marilu Henner, Andy Griffith
Votes: 2,563 | Gross: $6.09M
44. The Legend of Billie Jean (1985)
PG-13 | 96 min | Action, Drama
A Texas teenager cuts her hair short and becomes an outlaw martyr with her brother and friends.
Director: Matthew Robbins | Stars: Helen Slater, Christian Slater, Keith Gordon, Richard Bradford
Votes: 11,670 | Gross: $3.10M
45. Maxie (1985)
PG | 98 min | Comedy, Fantasy
A 1920s flapper who haunts her old house possesses a reserved housewife who just moved in. However, she cannot leave before she receives her massive audition for a Hollywood studio.
Director: Paul Aaron | Stars: Glenn Close, Mandy Patinkin, Ruth Gordon, Barnard Hughes
Votes: 1,178 | Gross: $2.56M
46. Fandango (1985)
PG | 91 min | Comedy, Drama
Five college buddies from the University of Texas circa 1971 embark on a final road trip odyssey across the Mexican border before facing up to uncertain futures, in Vietnam and otherwise.
Director: Kevin Reynolds | Stars: Kevin Costner, Judd Nelson, Sam Robards, Chuck Bush
Votes: 8,743 | Gross: $0.09M
47. Mass Appeal (1984)
PG | 99 min | Drama
A popular Connecticut priest shields a seminary rebel from the wrath of a stern monsignor.
Director: Glenn Jordan | Stars: Jack Lemmon, Zeljko Ivanek, Charles Durning, Louise Latham
Votes: 1,127 | Gross: $1.95M
48. Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1980)
PG | 97 min | Drama, Western
In 19th-century Oklahoma, two teen girls who love stories about outlaws are on a quest to meet and join up with them. They find a shadow of a former gang and, although disappointed, still try to help them escape from a vigorous Marshal.
Director: Lamont Johnson | Stars: Scott Glenn, Redmond Gleeson, William Russ, Kenny Call
Votes: 945 | Gross: $0.53M
49. Falcon's Gold (1982 TV Movie)
R | 96 min | Adventure
An archaeologist travels to Mexico to investigate rumors of the discovery of the ancient statue of a fertility goddess.
Director: Bob Schulz | Stars: John Marley, Simon MacCorkindale, Stevie Vallance, Blanca Guerra
Votes: 100
50. Escape from DS-3 (1981)
90 min | Crime, Sci-Fi
Framed for a serious crime, a man attempts to escape from a maximum security satellite prison...
Directors: Robert Emenegger, Allan Sandler | Stars: Jackson Bostwick, Cameron Mitchell Jr., David Chandler, Howard Dayton
Votes: 116
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