Jean Snow [.net]

Like it’s 1985

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by

Jean Snow
in

So I started the year by watching 30 movies from 1985, over a period of a month and a half. Why? Good question. It sorta happened by accident.

During one of the first days of January, I watched The Goonies with my wife (she had never seen it), and not only did we have a really fun time watching it, but it got us talking about how movies of that era felt so different — with Goonies specifically, it’s the innocence of the kids (which you see depicted in Stranger Things) and the silly adventure. After noticing that it came out in 1985, I was curious and so checked out Box Office Mojo’s list of movies from that year, which got me thinking that it would be fun to revisit a bunch of them, most of them films I hadn’t watched since back then.

There was no method to my madness, I just picked stuff I was in the mood to watch — not necessarily the top grossing movies of the year, but most of them were. I also didn’t really know how many I’d end up watching, but the more I watched, the more I enjoyed this cultural time warp back to 1985, and so I just kept going until I got to 30, which I felt was a good number to stop at. I could have still watched more — I was planning on also watching American Ninja, Missing in Action 2, Out of Africa, and even Cat’s Eye, as well as a few more — but thought it would be good to move on to other things. I did keep track of all the movies I watched in my Debaser diary, and so you’ll find the full alphabetical list below (or just click on my “1985” tag).

  1. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
  2. Back to the Future
  3. Brazil
  4. Brewster’s Millions
  5. Clue
  6. Commando
  7. Fletch
  8. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
  9. Fright Night
  10. Invasion U.S.A.
  11. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
  12. National Lampoon’s European Vacation
  13. Phenomena
  14. Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment
  15. Pray for Death
  16. Rambo: First Blood Part II
  17. Ran
  18. Red Sonja
  19. Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
  20. Rocky IV
  21. Spies Like Us
  22. St. Elmo’s Fire
  23. Teen Wolf
  24. The Black Cauldron
  25. The Breakfast Club
  26. The Goonies
  27. The Jewel of the Nile
  28. Weird Science
  29. Witness
  30. Young Sherlock Holmes