Matt Wilson wrote:the '80s (a terrible decade indeed)
It's only terrible if you don't know where to look. The only way you can make a blanket judgement on a whole decade is if you focus narrowly on one aspect of world cinema production, e.g. Hollywood. You could say the 80s were a bad time for mainstream Hollywood, but they weren't bad at all for Hong Kong cinema or for Europe. And even Hollywood had some striking moments.
This is a list I posted to my website a while ago of the films from the 80s that interest me the most for whatever reason:
Airplane (1980)
Altered States (1980)
Bad Timing (1980)
Breaker Morant (1980)
The Club (1980)
Demon Lover Diary (1980)
The Elephant Man (1980)
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Encounters of the Spooky Kind (1980)
The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)
The Long Good Friday (1980)
Lucifer Rising (1980)
Popeye (1980)
The Shining (1980)
The Stunt Man (1980)
The Sword (1980)
Das Boot (1981)
Coup de Torchon (1981)
Diva (1981)
Excalibur (1981)
Time Bandits (1981)
The Atomic Cafe (1982)
Cafe Flesh (1982)
The Dead and the Deadly (1982)
E.T. (1982)
Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
The Thing (1982)
The Final Combat (1983)
Project A (1983)
The Right Stuff (1983)
Trading Places (1983)
Ghostbusters (1984)
Once Upon A Time In America (1984)
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (1984)
This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
Come and See (1985)
Insignificance (1985)
Ran (1985)
Re-Animator (1985)
What Happened To Kerouac? (1985)
A Better Tomorrow (1986)
Crocodile Dundee (1986)
Eastern Condors (1986)
The Hitcher (1986)
Jean de Florette (1986)
Manon des Sources (1986)
The Name of the Rose (1986)
Peking Opera Blues (1986)
The Armour of God (1987)
Bad Taste (1987)
A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)
Good Morning Vietnam (1987)
Hellraiser (1987)
Lethal Weapon (1987)
Project A part II (1987)
Wings of Desire (1987)
The Bear (1988)
Beetlejuice (1988)
Die Hard (1988)
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
The Naked Gun (1988)
The Thin Blue Line (1988)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Young Einstein (1988)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
Batman (1989)
The Killer (1989)