The 1980s were pretty much the Golden Age of teen cinema, as far as I’m concerned. They were able to perfectly capture all of our hormonal angst and package it in a way that still holds up to repeated viewings decades later. But for some reason, I always hear the same few movies mentioned over and over again. Pretty in Pink. Say Anything. The Breakfast Club. St Elmos Fire. Sixteen Candles.
Those films are great and all, but there’s so many other movies from that period that are deserving of our attention. The movies on this list might not be the most obscure films of the 80s, but they’re ones that I feel have been given the proverbial shaft in terms of widespread recognition.
Some are better known than others, but they’re all awesome films that have earned the right to have their names mentioned alongside the greats.
10. Weird Science
There’s no other way to say this: Weird Science is a ridiculously goofy movie. You’ve got two nerds who are picked on by pretty much everyone, including Chet, the older brother from hell, played by Bill Paxton of all people. Then one dark and stormy night, they decide to use their super special computer skills to create the perfect woman. But it only works if they both have bras on their heads. You know…for science.
So anyway, enter Kelly LeBrock. Pretty much one of the hottest women who has ever lived. She takes the boys through a crash course in not being gigantic losers, and helps them get a little self-confidence so that their lives don’t suck quite so much. Anthony Michael Hall in this movie is about ten seconds away from doing that weird thing where he gained like 40 pounds of muscle and stopped being a nerd, so enjoy it while it lasts.
9. The Manhattan Project
Alright, so your enjoyment of this film is probably predicated on your ability to believe that a teenager can build a functioning atomic bomb in his garage, handling radioactive material without melting his face off. But once you get past that, The Manhattan Project is actually a good bit of fun. Christopher Collet is credible as Paul Stephens, a teen genius who discovers a top secret government lab messing around with uranium in his town.
With the help of his aspiring journalist girlfriend played by a young Cynthia Nixon, he steals materials so that he can build his own bomb to expose them at a national science fair. So far, so plausible. You’ve also got John Lithgow as a somewhat shady yet oddly sympathetic scientist who’s got a thing for Paul’s mom. And if you watch the whole movie and don’t blink too frequently, you might even catch a glimpse of Robert Sean Leonard in his film debut.
8. Can’t Buy Me Love
Remember back when Patrick Dempsey was a scrawny little nerd who was so lame that he had to resort to paying a cheerleader $1000 to pretend to be his girlfriend? Don’t feel bad, most people don’t. But before he grew into his looks and became McDreamy on Grey’s Anatomy, he starred in the underappreciated 80s classic Can’t Buy Me Love. He personifies the wistful geek who just wants to not be invisible for once in his life.
But in my opinion, the film is made by the appearance of a young Seth Green, who plays Dempsey’s fantastically obnoxious prepubescent brother. For my money, this film is the gold standard of the geek-to-chic movie trope. Word to the wise, though: this film does feature some of the most heinous 80s fashion I’ve ever seen in my life. So don’t say I didn’t warn you.
7. My Bodyguard
It’s no secret that the 80s were plagued with a greater than average number of high school bullies, who seemed to have no other goal in life but to terrify and humiliate the weaker kids. These movies send the message that you should stand your ground and fight back. But is that the way we would deal with it in the real world as adults? Hell no! If someone is beating us up or stealing from us, we hire someone to deal with it for us. Get a third party involved.
That’s what makes The Bodyguard so fantastically unique. This young teen is tired of getting his ass kicked all the time, so he hires a young Adam Baldwin to follow him around and intimidate people. Genius! In the history of teen movies, how has no one ever thought of that before?
6. My Best Friend Is A Vampire
There were a slew of teen vampire movies during the 80s that all came out within a couple years of each other — Fright Night, Once Bitten, and My Best Friend is a Vampire. While they’re all a bit silly and undeniably camp, the latter is the one with the most heart. It stars Robert Sean Leonard as a teen delivery boy who, upon being bitten by (of course) a sexy female vampire, has to come to terms with his new identity as a creature of the night.
There’s a playful spin on the traditional vampire mythos, where the affliction is treated more like a harmless lifestyle choice than anything else. He even gets a handbook to teach him the ropes of being a vampire. The nerd in me wants to compare his vampire handbook with the Slayer handbook from Buffy, but that’s another story.
5. 18 Again!
Of the cornucopia of body swapping movies that inexplicably came out in 1988/89, I consider this to be the one that does the most with the trope. David is a shy college student who is constantly picked on by his fraternity brothers and can’t get a date to save his life. Jack is his octogenarian grandfather (played by everyone’s favorite lecherous old man, George Burns – who must have been pushing 200 by this point).
After a car accident, Jack becomes 18 and David is trapped in the comatose body of an 80 year old man. Someone got the sucky end of the deal. After sowing his wild oats for a little while (and who wouldn’t?), Jack resolves to improve David’s life – by making him popular and getting him a girlfriend. This is a noble enterprise indeed.
Most other body swap films have a tendency to be a little pat in their conclusions. (“Wow, being an adult sure is harder than I thought! There’s like, responsibilities and stuff!” “Gee, I’m a soulless workaholic who needs to pull the stick out of my ass!”) What elevates this above the others is that it doesn’t offer easy answers. Jack does change his grandson’s life for the better, but he also has a chance to see the mistakes he’s made in life and the effect they’ve had on his family. These revelations from an 80 year old who is so near the end of his life gives the film an added poignancy.
4. Hiding Out
In hindsight, I think a big part of the reason that Hiding Out wasn’t that successful was because it couldn’t decide what kind of movie it wanted to be. It’s part traditional 80s teen comedy, part crime thriller. Essentially, the film revolves around a yuppie stock market guy who ends up on the run from some criminal types who want to kill him so that he can’t testify against them in court. So he poses as a student at his cousin’s high school.
Putting aside the fact that the main romantic interest is 17, while Jon Cryer in the lead role is supposed to be at least 10 years older than her, it’s actually a pretty cute film. A year after Pretty in Pink, Jon Cryer proves that he can carry a film, playing the role of an adult forced back into their high school years with wit and charm. And it’s never a bad idea to have Keith Coogan as your sidekick — if recent studies can be relied upon, he increases the quality of any 80s film by at least 15%.
3. Gregory’s Girl
Forget for a second that Gregory’s Girl was made on about the same budget as Manos: The Hands of Fate (that is to say about 5 quid, a packet of gum, and a paperclip). It’s a sweet, simple story about a teenager’s first love, and all of its little bumps and quirks are what make it so delightfully charming. The use of less experienced actors actually works in the film’s favor, giving it a sense of awkwardness that matches perfectly with the subject matter and is endearingly realistic. After all, what’s more awkward than a hopelessly besotted teenager?
If you do watch this movie, however, a quick word of warning. Make sure you have the version that’s got the original Glaswegian accents, rather than the dubbed version, featuring more gentle accents that some might consider easier to digest. It’s just not the same with those thick accents.
2. Some Kind Of Wonderful
To be fair, this is a relatively popular and well-regarded film. But in my opinion, it should be mentioned in the same breath as Sixteen Candles or Pretty in Pink, and it never seems to get that amount of credit. Eric Stoltz is great in this film, even though for the life of me I don’t understand why all the girls weren’t in love with him because OMG he’s adorable.
I think in a lot of ways, this is what Pretty in Pink should have been. I always felt that Molly Ringwald should have ended up with Duckie, and that tacked on ending was such a cop-out. This movie has a great, satisfying ending. I appreciate that it isn’t just another nerd gets the girl story. Eric Stoltz never really plays the role like a geek, he’s just sort of an outcast from the wrong side of the tracks, and as a result comes off as a lot more relatable and realistic than if they had stuck with the 80s nerd stereotype. Although WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING ERIC STOLTZ SPENDING ALL YOUR COLLEGE MONEY ON EXPENSIVE JEWELRY FOR A GIRL WHO IS SO OBVIOUSLY ONLY DATING YOU BECAUSE YOU WERE IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME I AM TOTALLY WITH YOUR DAD ON THIS ONE YOU ARE AN IDIOT.
1. Better Off Dead
It’s possible that this film isn’t better remembered because its collective viewership has chosen to block it out of their minds. Even John Cusack has gone on record slagging off both the film and its director, Savage Steve Holland. But I cherish every minute of it. I love how it creates this slightly surreal universe for its main character to live in. Not Un Chien Andalou surreal, but just where everything is a little bit…off. Like…the hamburgers at the fast food restaurant might not spontaneously start singing Van Halen. But then again, they might.
The whole film plays out like the twisted, slightly perverse twin brother of Say Anything. How can you hate on a movie where a determined paperboy rides a bike down a ski slope to collect a late fee, Japanese brothers who learned English from Howard Cosell will drag race you at every red light, and John Cusack earnestly delivers the line, “Gee, I’m real sorry your mom blew up, Ricky”?
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