1984 in film.

Top ten box-office films of 1984:

1. Beverly Hills Cop
2. Ghostbusters
3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
4. Gremlins
5. The Karate Kid
6. Police Academy
7. Footloose
8. Romancing the Stone
9. Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
10. Splash

What are your top three films for 1984? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be:

1. Once Upon a Time in America
2. Paris, Texas
3. Repo Man

What are some of the forgotten gems from the year? What is overrated? What did you discover at a young age and what did you discover later?

YEARS IN FILM • forum.chorus.fm

 

It was a tossup between Repo Man and Spinal Tap, but I figure enough people will highlight the latter. Repo Man was a discovery when a literature teacher made a throwaway joke about how repo men are always intense. He was not that amused when I told him I watched the movie a week later.

 

A good year!
1. Blood Simple
2. Streetwise
3. Gremlins


Other good ones:
Stop Making Sense
Night of the Comet
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
Terminator
Nightmare on Elm Street
Paris, Texas
Spinal Tap
The Toxic Avenger

 

1. Nightmare on Elm Street
2. Threads
3. Once Upon a Time in America

Also a huge fan of The Neverending Story, Amadeus, Blood Simple, Gremlins, Paris, Texas, Love Streams, lots of really great stuff this year although like 83 it doesn't really have any all time favourites for me.

I went with Nightmare because I think it was one of the first things I watched that really got me into horror and I still love the concept and character. Threads is a super intense and dark movie, really well done.

 

Beverly Hills Cop being top grossing was... unexpected...

 

Ghostbusters was a close second but I do agree with you. I would have thought it was Indiana Jones but there was a lot of controversy around the violence.

 

I must also note I prefer the first Terminator film to the second. The horror elements are fantastic.

 

1. Paris, Texas
2. The Terminator
3. Blood Simple

Bill Duke's the Killing Floor is great, more people should seek out his directorial work. I do love Nightmare on Elm Street, This is Spinal Tap, Ghostbusters, and the Natural as well. I haven't made time for Once Upon a Time in America yet. But the top 3 are three of my all-time favorites, it'd be tough to crack them

 

1. Amadeus
2. The Terminator
3. Spinal Tap

 

1. Ghostbusters
2. Beverly Hills Cop
3. Starman

Others I really like:
The Muppets Take Manhattan
A Passage to India
Footloose
Stop Making Sense
The Natural
All of Me
Purple Rain
Birdy
The Terminator
Repo Man
This Is Spinal Tap
Amadeus
Streets of Fire
Once Upon a Time in America
Splash
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
The Killing Fields
Broadway Danny Rose
Gremlins
Top Secret!
The Karate Kid

Good ones
A Nightmare on Elm Street
The Cotton Club
Romancing the Stone
The Brother from Another Planet
Places in the Heart
A Soldier's Story
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Swing Shift
The Neverending Story
The Times of Harvey Milk
The Last Starfighter
Beat Street

Eh/fine:
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Sixteen Candles
Blame It on Rio

Not a fan:
The Bounty
Police Academy
The Woman in Red
Best Defense

 

1. Blood Simple
2. This is Spinal Tap
3. The Terminator

 

probably best of the 80s for me

 

Really good year overall.

1. This is Spinal Tap
2. Blood Simple
3. One Upon a Time in America

Honorable mentions to:

Paris, Texas
The Terminator
Gremlins
Ghostbusters
Nightmare on Elm Street

I keep forgetting to watch Repo Man, I need to do that. I've heard it's great.

 

1. Wheels on Meals
2. Blood Simple
3. Paris, Texas

Wheels on Meals is the absolute best of HK kung-fu comedy. Set in a curiously Cantonese speaking Barcelona, and featuring the big three of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung (who also directs) and Yuen Biao. A brilliant blend of silent comedy style gags, with ridiculous physical performances by all three. It's consistently funny, and consistently jaw dropping with it's stunt work. If you haven't seen any of these sort of films, this is the best place to start.

Blood Simple is the Coen's debut, that almost feels like a highlight reel of what they'd do afterwards, blending noir, westerns, farce, miscommunication and tragedy into one. It's also one of the few Director's Cuts that I know of that is shorter than the theatrically released version. Also worth a look as a curio, is Zhang Yimou's remake of it, a decade ago; A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop

Paris, Texas is Wenders' beautiful road movie, featuring a wonderful, poignant performance from Harry Dean Stanton, full of incredible shots of the desert as Stanton wandering in it. The scene where Stanton re-unites with his daughter through the one-way mirror is one of the best moments in all of cinema.

Some honourable mentions for me this year include The Temple of Doom, Spinal Tap, Full Moon in Paris, After the Rehearsal & 1984. A really strong top 3 this year, but I think there's a bigger gap between the third place and the honourable mentions than in previous years.

Maggie Cheung (who is without doubt one of my favourite actors) also made her debut in two pretty mediocre rom-coms this year, Prince Charming & Behind the Yellow Line - she would go on to be the best thing in basically any film she starred in, pretty soon.

 

Is Threads as bleak and hopeless as it’s reputation? I have a hard job psyching myself up to watch films if I know I’ll feel miserable afterwards.

 

This is another extremely stacked year which has at least nine films that could easily make my top three but here is the one-third of those I think just have an edge over the rest -

1. Once Upon a Time in America
2. The Terminator
3. 2010: The Year We Make Contact

Other favorites include; Ghostbusters, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Gremlins, Beverly Hills Cop, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, The Return of Godzilla, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Firestarter, and The Hit.

 

pretty much.

 

1. The Home and the World
2. Liberté la nuit
3. Paris, Texas

Another though year to narrow down. I watched Ray’s The Home and the World for a paper last year and I found it completely astonishing. An incredible display of formalism that truly amplifies its political-romantic conflicts. Every single shot left me in total awe. It’s not a film that gets discussed much, but for me it’s one of the decade’s highest masterpieces and the best of the 8 films I’ve seen from Ray.

Liberté la nuit is just an emotionally devastating film. Perhaps Garrel at his most raw. Paris, Texas speaks for itself at this point, but it was a major film for me when I was first digging through random Criterion releases.

Other great films to consider: Body Double (De Palma), Farewell to the Ark (Terayama), Love Unto Death (Resnais), Boy Meets Girl (Carax), Stranger than Paradise (Jarmusch), After the Rehearsal (Bergman), The Deserted City (Obayashi). Coppola’s The Cotton Club is great (or the encore version is at least, I haven’t seen the original theatrical cut). I hesitate to call it better than his obvious masterpieces from the 70s - it’s been a while since I’ve seen any of them - but it’s definitely a film I feel more outwardly enthusiastic about.

Saw this Ackerman short at the retrospective in 2019 and I loved it. One of the best examples of her largely unheralded talent as a comedic filmmaker.

 

1. Paris, Texas
2. Once Upon a Time in America
3. The Terminator

Paris, Texas is the stand out here for me in a solid year. Borderline perfect film, looks excellent, excellent acting and the story is told beautifully and builds to a really great scene and ending.
Some really good classic horror this year. And The Toxic Avenger, which kicked off quite a run for low budget B movies.

 

This is the first core F13 year. The one I’d recommend as maybe the quintessential “slasher” film

 

nsfw

 

Night of the Comet is very fun. Colors, music, main characters. All around a good time

OG Terminator is somehow underrated compared to the love the sequel gets

Streetwise seems to be overlooked here. Just added to Criterion, check it out!!!

 

1. Nightmare on Elm Street
2. Ghostbusters
3. Children of the Corn

 

Right now there is a tie for first place, another film 1 vote behind first place, and a fourth film just 2 votes behind. A very competitive year.