1984 Is Still One of the Best Years for Movies

1984 isn’t just the name of a great book by George Orwell. It was also a year when many significant events happened in the country, albeit good and bad. Ronald Reagan was re-elected in November, Steve Jobs launched the Macintosh, and the Cold War was still sorting out its effect on worldwide events. The AIDS epidemic was a dormant monster, and Van Halen dominated the airwaves with a career-shifting album. In terms of pop culture, America was conservative enough to be afraid of changes, and everything ran on structure, regardless of nature and medium. Like in the rest of the 1980s, pop culture was being established under a veil of restriction, conservative values, and the solidity of the American dream.

In terms of movies, 1984 was also an important year. Not because the same regular blockbusters were being released, but because it was the first year since 1979 that neither George Lucas nor Steven Spielberg had the top-grossing film in America (but yes, they did worldwide). Suddenly, a new genre was in town, and tickets sold that year surpassed expectations ($4 billion for the first time in history). Not only that, but home video was gaining traction as the medium where movies could capitalize on the legacy they built. Hollywood kept getting more robust, and popular culture was conformed mainly by commercial and popular films, which made 1984 one of the best years for blockbusters.

It’s often said that 1982 was the most important year for movies because of films like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Rocky III, Poltergeist, and the reissue of 1980s The Empire Strikes Back. However, 1984 also had a solid series of releases that made it even more critical than 1982 regarding the commercial value of whole genres like horror, comedy, and fantasy. Let’s jump back in time and see how “The Year of the Minivan” is also one of the best of the 1980s.

The Horror Genre Was Huge in 1984

There’s no doubt that 1980s horror is an artistic movement on its own. Many franchises were created in this decade, and the icons of the genre mainly belong to the decade where studios experimented and home media took a life of its own. Even lesser-known studios capitalized on the video boom, and some stayed in this mini-universe of microbudgets and B-movies that became the precursors of horror fandom. The Friday the 13th franchise showed up in 1980 and paved the way for a horror subgenre that would permanently be attached to ’80s pop culture: slasher films.

In 1984, Wes Craven made an essential film for all horror enthusiasts. A Nightmare on Elm Street, produced by Robert Shaye, told the story of teens being tormented in Springwood, the epitome of white American suburbia. The monster was a man who only existed in their dreams. A ghoul by the name of Freddy Krueger, who had a glove with sharp blades, attacked teenagers in their nightmares and killed them in our realm. Needless to say, it was the successful movie responsible for the birth of New Line Cinema, a famous studio that produced Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings franchise.

Gremlins was Joe Dante’s contribution to the weird world of comedy for families with more than a pinch of horror. Produced by Steven Spielberg, the film depicted a small town being invaded by creatures indulging in mayhem. The film perfectly mixed a family adventure with raunchy humor that was barely acceptable for younger audiences. Dante got away with making the riskiest film of the year, but it would become a classic soon after.

Some Comedy Classics Released in 1984

In 1984, Rob Reiner released the great mockumentary film This is Spinal Tap. In the movie, filmmaker Marty Di Bergi goes on the road to document the rise and fall of the English heavy metal band Spinal Tap. The film reveals the absurdity of rockers’ glamorous lives in the 1980s, their colliding personalities, and their idiotic demands. The film was met with critical acclaim and continued to find success after it was released on home video.

Top Secret! was a film by Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker, who felt they had to capitalize on their success after Airplane! The result was a parody film that made fun of war films and musicals starring Elvis Presley, and every joke was worth rewatching over and over. Though people seemed to like it, it was considered a flop at the box office. However, it kept a comedy subgenre alive until the collective known as ZAZ came back and made The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

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However, the year’s most important comedy was, by far, Beverly Hills Cop. The film tells the story of a detective from Detroit who goes to Beverly Hills to investigate the death of his best friend. Axel Foley, played by Eddie Murphy in one of his best roles, goes to Los Angeles and uncovers a conspiracy that’ll make him regret messing with the wrong people. Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, Beverly Hills Cop was the highest-grossing film of 1984.

Directed by Harold Ramis, Ghostbusters mixed horror and comedy in a clever script that audiences didn’t know if it was for grown-ups or teenagers. Nevertheless, the film seemed to appeal to everyone in 1984, as it became the second highest-grossing film of that year and went on to turn an idea by Dan Aykroyd into a huge franchise that’s still alive to this day.

1984 Was Also a Great Year for Adventure, Fantasy, and Action Films

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was Spielberg’s sequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Though the film has gone through a revisionist process in which people now seem to look at it through a more critical eye, upon release, it was an extremely successful adventure starring Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, the professor, and adventurer. In the film, Jones finds himself in a castle where people worship a deity and evil villains steal a village’s energy rocks. Yeah, the plot isn’t entirely logical, but in the Jones-verse, logic is overrated.

John G. Avildsen returned to sports drama territory after making Rocky, and he made The Karate Kid. In the film, an underdog in Los Angeles is forced to fight back against bullies, learns karate, and then participates in a tournament where he is unfortunately injured before ultimately earning the win. The film sparked a huge martial arts franchise that’s still alive today, thanks to a Netflix revival.

A co-production between West Germany and the United States, The NeverEnding Story became the most expensive film produced outside America and the Soviet Union. The fantasy film, directed by Wolfgang Petersen and adapted from the novel by Michael Ende, tells the story of Bastian, a small child who starts reading a book and becomes so engaged that he starts having some kind of effect on the story. Though it was followed by a far less successful sequel, this is still one of the best fantasy films ever made for children.

The same year, James Cameron released The Terminator, a fantastic 1980s sci-fi action film in which a robot from the future went back in time to kill the mother of John Connor, Sarah. John is the leader of the resistance in the future when humans have to rebel against the machines. Fortunately, John was able to send back a man to defend Sarah against the most lethal android ever seen on screen. The film became the blueprint of a genre blend that perfectly melted action and horror in a blast that blew up the box office, and, to this day, it’s still hailed by critics.

The Last Starfighter took audiences on a journey following a teenager, Alex, who’s quite the expert in an arcade video game. There’s nothing else left to do in the small town, so Alex maintains the highest score. The creator of the game decides to meet him, and Alex complies, but as it turns out, he’s transported to another dimension in which the world inside the arcade machine is actually a reality, and he becomes a warrior for the alien race. It’s one of the first films in cinematic history to use CGI images.

1984 Featured Plenty of Other Hit Films and Some Box Office Bombs

Nevertheless, it wasn’t only films of these genres that made 1984 an excellent year for cinema. The same year that Freddy Krueger, Gizmo, and Miyagi showed up on the large screen, so did other heroes and villains. The female edition of Superman, Supergirl, was released to commercial failure. The Helen Slater-led film was supposed to take place in the same universe as the franchise led by Christopher Reeve, but it failed to capture the essence of the DC superhero. It was one of the biggest box-office bombs of that year, making just over $14 million on a $35 million budget.

David Lynch released his version of Dune and entered a sci-fi universe that wouldn’t be revisited until decades later by Denis Villeneuve. It was also a box-office bomb, but it gained a cult following among fans who understood this wasn’t purely a Lynchian joint nor a sci-fi epic. In the same vein, John Carpenter made Starman, the romantic fantasy about an alien falling in love with a woman. The film, which gave Jeff Bridges a nomination at the Academy Awards, wasn’t as well received by audiences, and Carpenter would never try making such a sober film afterward.

An edited image of Oscar Isaac as Leto Atreides and Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides at a meeting in Dune

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Musicals did better than others in 1984. Prince starred in the musical behemoth Purple Rain and blurted out a music and fashion statement that’s still regarded as a notable ’80s piece today. It won an Academy Award and made over $70 million at the box office against a $7 million budget. Other “musicals” included the great teen dance film Footloose, starring Kevin Bacon as the young man who uses dancing to change a whole town, and the action epic Streets of Fire, the rock & roll fable by Walter Hill, which wasn’t as well-received by audiences, but it was a gritty musical whose legacy can still be seen in other films.

Finally, large-scale dramas like Amadeus, The Natural, The Killing Fields, and Once Upon a Time in America were extremely important in making 1984 a big year for auteur films that shook the Academy and gained awards the following year. They weren’t exactly commercial mammoths that broke the box office, but in a year when genre films dominated the industry, different approaches made 1984 a singular point of the decade.