Here at Watch With Us, we love the ’80s.
With the recent premiere of Stranger Things‘ final season, we’ve got the best of the ’80s on the brain.
Watch With Us wants to celebrate some of the decade’s cinema offerings by highlighting five particularly rewarding movies that we feel are worth checking out a second time.
Our picks include two underrated Martin Scorsese flicks, Brian De Palma’s commercial failure Body Double and the emotionally devastating Paris, Texas.
Read on for the full list and see whether you agree with what we chose!
5. ‘Body Double’ (1984)
Struggling actor Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) gets dumped by his girlfriend but finally manages to catch a break: house-sitting a gorgeous mansion in the Hollywood Hills. While there, he peers through the home’s telescope and swears he witnesses a woman in a nearby home getting murdered. In his search for the truth, Scully ends up guided through the seedy underworld of the LA porn industry alongside porn actress Holly Body (Melanie Griffith).
A salacious take on Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (with further inspiration from Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Dial M for Murder), Brian De Palma’s Body Double performed poorly at the box office and was controversial among critics. However, its reputation has grown more favorable over the years, generating a bona fide cult following. With its maximalist aesthetics and subversive meta-commentary, some now consider Body Double one of the best films of the 1980s.
4. ‘The King of Comedy’ (1982)
Wannabe comedian Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) is an egocentric loser who spends his time hosting an imaginary talk show in his mother’s basement. Rupert wants nothing more than to be noticed by his idol, legendary talk show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis), and goes to increasingly unhinged lengths to get close to Langford. When stalking him doesn’t work, Pupkin resorts to the next best thing — kidnapping him.
Misunderstood by audiences when it came out in 1982, The King of Comedy has slowly grown to be viewed as one of Martin Scorsese’s very best. Cringe-inducing, relentless and discomforting to watch, the movie is led by a wholly unlikable character whom Scorsese nevertheless masterfully forces his audience to align with. Easily one of De Niro’s greatest performances (and a direct inspiration for Joker, in which De Niro also appears), The King of Comedy is an upsetting look at celebrity obsession and media culture.
3. ‘Paris, Texas’ (1984)
A man named Travis Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton) emerges from the desert with no idea where or who he is, but eventually manages to contact his brother (Dean Stockwell), who picks him up. Travis has been missing for four years, and the reunion with his brother, as well as his own son (Hunter Carson), is disquieting. Ultimately, Travis must come face-to-face with the wife (Nastassja Kinski) he left behind, as he attempts to put the pieces of his broken life back together.
German director Wim Wenders’ poetic neo-Western is a slow-burn that packs a spiritual punch, tackling themes like heartache, melancholy and grief with a gentle power. The movie’s impact is furthered by stunning aesthetic visuals from cinematographer Robby Müller and all-timer performances from Stanton and Kinski. Paris, Texas requires a little bit of patience, but its emotional rewards are profound and enduring.
2. ‘After Hours’ (1985)
Office worker Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) finishes his day by going for coffee at a diner, where he meets the beautiful and enigmatic Marcy (Rosanna Arquette). Bonding with her over literature, Marcy invites Paul over to her apartment, and it is on his way there that the hapless man’s night quickly devolves into utter chaos. After losing all his cash while taking a cab to Marcy’s place, Paul is suddenly trapped downtown and desperate to make it back home, finding himself in increasingly surreal and hilarious situations in an absurd urban-set purgatory.
Often considered one of Scorsese’s lesser works, After Hours blends noir with screwball comedy in this breezy flick that has a darkly funny running theme of emasculation. After Hours gets better (and more rich, even) with subsequent viewings, as we follow Paul through his endless and labyrinthine voyage that ramps up the paranoia and pressure. The movie is buoyed by a committed and comedically brilliant performance from Dunne, joined by a supporting cast including Teri Garr, Catherine O’Hara and Cheech and Chong.
1. ‘Blue Velvet’ (1986)
After his father winds up in the hospital, college student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home to be with his family. While wandering around his old stomping grounds, he finds a rotting, dismembered ear in a field and brings it to the local police. Jeffrey finds out via the detective’s daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern), that her father believes the ear is connected to an embattled lounge singer named Dorothy Valens (Isabella Rossellini). With a macabre curiosity, Jeffrey takes it upon himself to get involved in the case — eventually coming face-to-face with a dangerous mobster named Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).
Director David Lynch’s disorienting and disturbing odyssey was critically polarizing for its explicit content, initially passed on by several studios for its scenes of sex and violence. Nevertheless, Lynch was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director, and Blue Velvet has gone on to be regarded as not just one of Lynch’s best, but one of the greatest movies of all time. Toeing the line between a dream and a nightmare, watching Blue Velvet, like all of Lynch’s work, is a wholly singular experience.
Led by Senior Editor and experienced critic Jason Struss, Watch With Us’ team of writers and editors sees almost every movie and TV show from the distant past to the present to determine what’s worth your time and money. Our countless hours of multimedia consumption — combined with years of experience in the entertainment industry — help us determine the best movies and TV shows you should be streaming right now.
To be considered “the best,” these films and series can be visually engaging, intellectually stimulating or simply just fun to watch, but the one trait they must have is that they are all, in some way, entertaining. We then check which platform they are streaming on and how you can access them as a subscriber. No algorithm nonsense or paid endorsements here — our recommendations are based purely on our love and interest for the films and shows we love.
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