These Go To Eleven: The 10 Best Films Of The Eighties

Join us in our decade-based film retrospective, as we delve backwards all the way from 2009 to 1910. Most decade-based best movie lists grant you a whooping 50-100 entries, which makes perfect sense given all the years you have to take into consideration. But what if you were defining a decade in just ten films? Which movies would you recommend to somebody who might only watch a handful from a given decade? This week, we look back at the Eighties.

T.J. Barnard

Published: Nov 28, 2012 10:52 am

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6. Back To The Future (1985) (Dir. Robert Zemeckis)

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The plot for Robert Zemeckis’ time-travel/high school movie amalgamation sounds ridiculous on paper, and yet the director managed to craft one of the most purely entertaining and genuinely likable movies ever made from its premise. Marty McFly, played with overwhelming affability by Michael J. Fox, finds himself transported back to 1955 by means of a time-travelling DeLorean. The movie zings thanks to a hilarious, self-referencing script, and the genius idea that forces Marty to hang out with his parents as teenagers. The heart of the movie, however, is in the relationship between Marty and Christopher Lloyd’s erratic Doc Brown, one of cinema’s best (and most unlikely) double acts. Not a moment is wasted, nor is there a single scene that steers the movie off-course. How exactly the messy premise emerged as perfectly as it did remains a mystery, but Zemeckis’ deserves maximum credit for getting the tone just right.

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T.J. Barnard