It Came From . . . 1984

“There’s one in every car.” – Repo Man

Who knew that all the actors were Chinese?  (All art via A.I.)

In 2024, you could go see Dune and Ghostbusters at the movies.  In 1984, you could go see Lynch’s Dune (meh, Harkonnens were too stupid), and the original Ghostbusters, certainly one of the finest comedies of all time – probably top 10, certainly top 20.

Was 1984 peak movie?  Maybe.  The following list is certainly an impressive one, and many, MANY of the ones I left off the list would be in the top three movies as far as quality in 2024.

The list is in no particular order.

Repo Man – A movie about an alien in the trunk of a car being driven around by the physicist who developed the neutron bomb.  In a weird twist, the movie was actually one of the favorites of the actual inventor of the neutron bomb.  The movie still holds up.  There’s one in every car.

This is Spinal Tap – Yes, Rob Reiner is a horrible idiot for whom Meathead would be an upgrade name, but in 1984 he put together a talented team of comedic actors who ad-libbed a very funny mocumentary.  This one really does go to 11.

Romancing The Stone – “Joan Wilder?  THE Joan Wilder?”  Novelist meets up with Indiana Jones-wannabe adventurer and is chased by Danny DeVito over a looted emerald.  Nowadays it would be misogynistic colonialists getting involved with colonialism and cultural appropriation.

Why is he holding the snake’s tail?????

The Bounty – I re-watched this last month.  A wonderful production shot in New Zealand which was my first exposure to the story.  “What, you mean this really happened?”  Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins chewing up the screen just like the two amazing actors they are.

Sixteen Candles – John Hughes started writing for National Lampoon in the 1970s.  He moved to film, and made about a zillion dollars.  Sixteen Candles was his first “teen” movie, and the first movie he directed, and featured a character named Long Duk Dong, who had the best line of the movie:  “No more yankee my wankee, Donger need food.”

That’s the way all the cool kids wear their cowboy boots when they turn 16.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom – The worst of the three Indiana Jones® movies.  If only they would have made more of them!  Imagine how good they might have been!  More misogyny and cultural appropriation at work, of course.  No time for love, Doctor Jones!

Police Academy – This movie was weirdly and amazingly successful.  It cost $4.5 million, made $149 million, so it worked out pretty well.  The first one really did have some funny moments, and didn’t let the plot get in the way of the humor.  This movie also taught me to check the podium before I give a speech.

If Bollywood had done Police Academy . . .

Ghostbusters – In many years, there would be no argument that Ghostbusters was the best film of the year.  In 1984, it might have been the best, but it has such stiff competition.  Ghostbusters had the perfect cast, the perfect script, and was released at the perfect time.

Top Secret! – Skeet Surfin’?  Your Skeetin’ Heart?  Yes, we all remember the surf ‘n’ shoot craze of the 1980s.  Good times.  “What fake dog poop?”

There’s so much going on in this one . . . .

The Karate Kid – Ralph Macchio seems to never age.  He’s 342 years old, but still looks like he’s in his twenties.  I still recall when I figured out that Daniel was the bad guy and am still on team Johnny.

Conan the Destroyer – Okay, a sequel.  But by far a better movie than the first one.  There was supposed to be a third, but that ended up being Kull, which was a pretty good 1990s movie with Sorbo.  Arnie was also starting to learn to an actor, rather than just being huge.

This one is actually kinda close . . .

Red Dawn – It’s Red Dawn.  Nothing more needs to be said.

C.H.U.D. – C.H.U.D. stands for “Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.  It’s a B-movie, and suffers from all of the things that B-movies are known for.  Except in this one case, there are actually a lot of good actors who somehow got talked into making this stupid movie.

Body Double – Brian DePalma having fun in a film-noir-ish thriller featuring Melanie Griffith before plastic surgery turned her face into an object that resembles a life preserver.  I saw this on HBO® was especially interested in one or two scenes . . .

The Terminator – It’s The Terminator.  Nothing more needs to be said.

If Chuck Norris’ hair was feathered like the wings of a majestic bird.  Oh, wait, it is!

Missing in Action – This film helped Chuck Norris on his way towards mainstream success, and he certainly was invincible in it.

Beverly Hills Cop – Eddie Murphy was everywhere in 1984.  I re-watched this movie a month ago, and Murphy was pretty funny in it, but it (sort of) had the quality of a made-for-television movie.  Which was okay, it certainly wasn’t intended to be anything other than a buddy-cop comedy.  With a little lemon twist.  (I make it myself).

2010 – This is a direct sequel to 2001:  A Space Odessey.  I re-watched this one sometime this year (while blogging).  It answers the questions from 2001, and ends the series nicely.  It is a window on another time, since (list most science fiction of time) it presupposes that the Soviet Union still exists.  It’s (still) full of stars.

Wow.  This one is actually pretty good.

Dune – David Lynch reportedly is a pretty cool guy, but I asked the Internet if he ever read the book Dune.  The Internet said “yes”, which surprised me a little bit.  Were there good parts of this movie?  Sure.  The worst parts were the stupid “weirding” devices and the cartoonishly evil Harkonnens.  But we all know, the spice must flow.

1984 – Based on Orwell’s book.  It was dark and depressing, but well cast.  Orwellian has become overused, but I think we needed to go through our Brave New World phase to get to 1984.  Not sure you could make this movie today.

Runaway – A weird little “near future” film where Tom Selleck is the cop and Gene Simmons is the bad guy.  As an actor, Gene is an okay bass player.  The film was, though, enjoyable.

Okay, who’s the clown in the corner?

Johnny Dangerously – It’s not a great comedy, and probably isn’t in the top 100 of all time.  But I’d be a farging isehal if I didn’t put it on the list.  Michael Keaton was really good, and the fact that Keaton spends time doing drama movies should make us all sad.

There is only one remake on this list.  There are only three sequels on this list.  Studios took chances, and weren’t focused on franchises or (overly) the GloboLeft Narrative and the result?  Crazy success.  It was Morning in America, and Reagan was amazingly popular.

Was this America at its peak?  No, probably America in autumn, when the harvest started, which is why all of the sequels started.  It’s much harder to create new things than to just keep pumping profits off of the old.  Seven of these movies spawned sequels, not including the ones that were already sequels.

These films compared to today?  An embarrassment of riches.

Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

50 thoughts on “It Came From . . . 1984”

  3. ‘This is Spinal Tap’

    A sensitive, beautiful film documenting kind-hearted, deeply spiritual rockers. My favorite follows…

      1. ‘You know what I want
        Or maybe you don’t
        Do I have to come right out
        And tell you everything!’

        Golly. Still gives me shivers, to this day.

  4. Re: Melanie Griffiths

    1) Everything that was wrong with Hollywood (and probably still is) in this Wikipedia quote: “14-year-old Griffith met actor Don Johnson, then 22.[10] The two began dating”

    2) Interesting (to me) how prevalent Hollywood is in our lives. I know of Melanie Griffiths. She was a part of the popular scene when I was growing up. Who didn’t. But then I browsed through a list of her movies while reading this and discovered that I’d only ever seen maybe three of them: Something Wild, The Milagro Beanfield War, and Pacific Heights. I would have assumed that she’d been in multiple wildly popular movies but apparently not.

    Re: Movies: Loved Johnny Dangerously and it holds up quite well. Not much else to add. All those movies were worth watching.

    1. She peaked in Working Girl, then spent the rest of her career as a flaming meteor headed for impact.

      She should have retired in 1989, and never looked back.

    1. All in two words. Perfect. Same as Jack Burton. “Aren’t you gonna kiss her, Jack?” Jack: “Nope.”

  6. Temple of Doom may be a horrible movie, but Kate Capshaw is truly hot and worth a watch.

  7. “There’s one in every car.”

    Sage advice from Harry Dean to Emelio. Do thery still sell those crappy fir tree rear view mirror hangers?

    Yes, films were starting to decline in quality; we might see 1 or 2 annually. One local cineplex always has an old classic. Last year, we watched “Casablanca”. The other flick we took in was the delightful “Cocaine Bear”.

    It’s best line ? “Your beaver needs dusting”.

    1. All our cars have one. I showed The Boy and Pugsley Repo Man and the next day . . . there was one in every car.

  8. John, I know the movie 1984 wasn’t actually made in 1984, but you might consider a future article where you get AI’s take on all of they dystopian films like Animal Farm, 1984, etc.. Would love to see how AI portrays Big Brother (self portrait maybe???).

  9. Anyone that doubts that things simply were better in the 1980s need only look at this list to be convinced. Seeing these films on the big screen, often at the mall when you could go there and not be assaulted or shot by vibrant diversity, with a young lady that actually dressed like a woman and wasn’t covered in tats? Nothing really could compare.

      1. It was plenty sweet in 1954 too lemme tellya. Little Eden and no metaphor. What gifts God lavished on the U.S.! Even knowing what an evil thing she always was, at heart. No nation ever was so blessed.

        Shows His fidelity to His people. ‘Course there were more of them around back then. But those golden decades also had something to do with Annunciation of the Parousia. They weren’t just for our jollies. Nor merely for laying-in preparedness PEZ supplies.

  10. Great list! Gremlins was a lot of fun. The Last Starfighter too. I also liked Starman and Greystoke, the legend of Tarzan.

  11. Holy cow. There were more great movies released in 1984 than have been made on streaming services in the last 10 yrs combined. Amazing how far we’ve fallen. Any idea what killed this prolific creativity???
    A couple of gems that I didn’t see mentioned that I always liked were Night of the Comet and Blame it on Rio. Both very funny and a bit twisted and in the library of films that I rewatch from time to time. And of course there’s Bachelor Party.

    1. Any sci-fi buff like me that watched Ice Pirates in 1984 (along with Buckaroo, and Runaway, and Iceman, and The Time Traveler – with BOTH Keir Dullea and Adrienne Barbeau, together at last! – and all the more obvious ones I won’t bother to mention because we all know how great they were) also saw Night of the Comet. After also being the female lead in 1984’s The Last Starfighter, Catherine Mary Stewart cemented her place in my heart at the time, at least until Lea Thompson came along shortly thereafter.

      Jeez, that was peak movie time.

    2. First time I saw Blame it on Rio was on video.

      What killed it? Maybe these movies. Hollywood wants sure things, so why make glorious losers when you can just make a Ghostbusters II, which will at least make some money?

    3. ‘Any idea what killed this prolific creativity??’

      Sure. Woke and feminism, originating out of D.C. intel and moneyed-elite foundations, killed it. That and the hordes of wokesters and fembots that gladly raged along and took over the job slots. I watched it go down.

      Replace males with females and voila, no more prolific creativity. Rockit psyence!

  12. I would like to agree that we reached peak movie in 1984, but “Brazil” came out in 1985, so I must disagree.

    Frankly, after 1983’s “The Right Stuff” (arguably the best movie I’ve ever seen), Hollywood could have closed their doors and shuttered their windows, but like many old farts (note: this clause is autobiographical) they had a couple surprises left in their rotting carcass.

    1. Also, I must say the Coen Brothers have done their part to keep the quality movies coming, starting with, in 1984, Blood Simple.
      My favorites:
      • Raising Arizona, 1987
      • Big Lebowski, 1998
      • Fargo, 1996
      • No Country For Old Men, 2007
      • O Brother, Where Art Thou (a movie which I can probably quote from end to end), 2000

      1. Blood Simple was AWESOME. When I saw the initial setup scene I swear I thought the hidden secret was gomna be cannibal BBQ. “I’ll give him the message”. Best Coen Bros of all.

      2. I haven’t seen Blood Simple. I guess I’ll give it a watch. (I’ve seen and like the rest, of which I find Big Lebowski the weakest)

      3. Coenheads are outstanding. Same for Tarantino. Ain’t good lookin but sure can movie.

        Nobody really understood Hateful Eight and folks undervalued it, partly because the set is so static after the intro, and so (purposely) claustrophobic.

        But the film is incisive about current America, it’s spiritual and cultural warfare, both the battlegrounds and the personages at contention. The ending is perhaps the most beautiful thing I have seen since I read that Dworkin died.

  13. The entire 1980s were Peak Cinema. 1984 was but one example.
    A few other unmentioned 1984 gems, in no particular order:

    Better Tom Selleck movie, by far, than Runaway: Lassiter.
    Proof that Opie was one helluva great director: Splash.
    Just plain stupid fun: Tank
    That R. Lee Ermey guy is destined for bigger things: Purple Hearts.
    Classic movie way ahead of its time: Streets Of Fire.
    Better sci-fi flick than the mediocre Star Trek flick that year: The Last Starfighter.
    Best spy flick of the year: Cloak and Dagger.
    Worst special FX and Best use of John Bigboote as a character name: The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension.
    Best Conspiracy Movie of the Year: Flashpoint.
    Pinto from Animal House can act, and he’s good: Amadeus.
    Hey, this Denzel kid may be going places: A Soldier’s Story.
    Another better sci-fi flick than the mediocre Star Trek flick that year: Starman.
    Probably the best version of this story on film (which is saying something): A Christmas Carol.

    1984 was a year when Hollywood released 161 major movies, and you could go to the movies nearly every week, and see something well worth watching. Sometimes multiple choices deserved your time.
    And ticket prices were under $5.
    Currently, I’m lucky and ecstatic if I find one or two decent flicks all year.
    The dual combination of sequelmania + chickenshit producers afraid to gamble on a low-budget flop, and the Woketardation Virus, is killing the dominant American art form. It’s like AIDS times cancer, and from an art perspective it’s like watching France burning the Louvre, or Italy bulldozing the Vatican.

    1. Although in fairness, we still complained that we were paying $4 for the tickets and thought we were getting robbed :-). But agreed, everything in your list is better than 99% of what is on Netflix. I can’t even name one movie at the theaters right now because every release is so woke and repetitive.

      Is this wokeness affecting movie producers everywhere? Or just Hollywood? I’ve heard some of the Korean producers are making some interesting stuff, but every time I try to watch one, it still feels like a Godzilla movie.

      1. Check out Angel Studios.
        Disney (and Fox, Paramount, and Sony, IIRC) simultaneously sued them for creating a content filter that axed things beyond PG from movies and TV. And it was wildly successful, which threatened the Big Studios’ ability to poison kids’ minds. Can’t be having any of that, right?

        So when they lost that (in an L.A. industry-town stacked court) in retaliation they formed their own studio, and are currently cranking out seasons of The Chosen (four so far, with three selling out at WallyWorld), and last year’s counter-Hollywood hit Sound Of Freedom.

        With more content to come. Disney has to be soiling themselves. Which would only make their underpants and their recent content match.

        If you haven’t watched their first efforts, you should correct that deficiency.

        Produced in Utah, crowd-funded and approved, and shot in Texas should be a clue that Hollyweird’s days are numbered if they don’t straighten up and fly right.

        For the short story on the brothers behind this, check out Mike Rowe’s latest The Way I Heard It:

  14. “Conan the Destroyer – Okay, a sequel. But by far a better movie than the first one.”

    What?! Sheer insanity. The first 30 minutes has to be one of the best expositions of all time. 30 minutes, and everything Conan does for the rest of the movie makes perfect sense. Also, great advice about women, theology, and life by the commie commander in Red Dawn:

    https://youtu.be/GVx4LafsvSU?t=147

    1. Okay, okay, I agree on the first 30 minutes. But the plot and acting after that were, well, meh. And I had read EVERY Conan novel before that. But CTD? Arnie was learning to act, and, Olivia d’Abo.

  15. Say what you want about Temple of Doom, but Kate Capshaw and her cleavage are worth the watch.

    2. That movie(“Iiiiinnnddyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!! – Kate Capshaw, every line in Temple Of Dung)ended her movie career (which is too bad; she had actual acting chops, as you can see if you watch Ridley Scott’s Black Rain).

      But she got a husband out of the deal, so all’s well that ends well. 😉

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