I've seen most of the popular movies, Ferris Bueler. Breakfast Club, Fast times at ridgemont High, etc...these movies arguably capture portions what the 80s were like.
Idk if "slice of life" is the right terminology? But, something that really shows the regular ambiance of the 80s. I'm not sure how to put it exactly.
Any good, lesser known movies you can think of along these lines, drop em below, it would be super appreciated in helping me fill this nostalgia.
Dude. There is room to move as a fry cook
King.
God.
Yep
That movie is intense
Essential vibe, but not sure if it’s slice of life. Or.. god, that could be bad. Or good, depending on how high you are at the time.
Valley Girl (1983)
Night Of The Comet (1984)
Exactly the two movies I thought of first.
I’ll add Real Genius.
Night of the Comet is one of my all time favorite B-movies. Re-animator too.
Throw in
Chopping Mall (1986)
Thank you. Have a nice day.
Love Night of The Comet!
Night of the Comet!!!! I haven’t thought of that movie in years. Decades actually! I saw it on VHS. Thanks for rekindling a nice memory.
Omg I saw Night of the Comet right when it came out. One of the best stupid movies ever.
Loved Night of the Comet. Underrated gem in my humble opinion.
Is Valley Girl "lesser known" though? Night of the Comet surely is, and it's a lot of fun. But Valley Girl is pretty famous. I see your Night of the Comet and raise you Near Dark.
Near Dark is on my 4K wish list
Night of the Comet has a rad soundtrack and it’s on Spotify
Night of the Comet just had a BluRay release!
Came here to post Night of the Comet. Love that movie!
Three O'clock High
Legend of Billie Jean
Boo! There it is, "The Legend of Billie Jean" Christian Slater and one of the few movies his sister did through out the years. The voice of Bart Simpson getting her period in the back seat of the crappy wagon. A rich kid with a slide to his pool right outside his bedroom window. A slimy small town business man who sexually assaulted Billie Jean And pursues her in a totally messed up fashion with his own kid as the muscle in bringing the Billie Jean gang to heel. I may have watched that movie two or three hundred times from pre-teen through puberty.
Also, Yeardley Smith is the voice of Lisa Simpson, not Bart.
Christian Slate and Helen Slater are not related. I only found out a couple years ago myself, it’s hard to believe with how similar they look.
No way! Wow, I lived all this life thinking they were most def siblings. Thanks for the heads up there.
And Pat Benatar’s “Invincible” in the soundtrack.
Though Christian and Helen Slater are not related. Christian is the son of Mary Jo Slater, who is a producer and casting director, and definitely gave him a leg up in the business
The movie was my absolute favorite as a kid! Your description is awesome. It completely captures that 80s vibe. Fair is Fair!
Absolutely this!
“Don’t fuck this up Mitchell!!!”
Fair is fair!
Fair is fair
To live and die in LA
After Hours
Everything in to Live and Die in LA is pure 80’s in the best way possible. The soundtrack, the storyline, hell even the lighting is pure 80’s . Great flick.
I still listen to that soundtrack sometimes! "Side 1" is songs with words (all solid tracks!) and "Side 2" is instrumentals. The whole album is super dynamic from adrenaline pumping to downright desolate. Wang Chung deserved more credit for that.
….the director.
🌟🌟🌟🌟
I bought the 4k recently. The overall style is fantastic. William Petersen's outfits inspired me to go out and buy my first pair of cowboy boots in about 20 years. xD
Miracle Mile is another good LA based 80s movie, though totally different tone.
Also, no one has mentioned Return of the Living Dead I’ll throw it in there. Probably one of the best 80d punk movies out there. And, while it’s set in Kentucky it’s clearly filmed in downtown LA.
Beat me to it.
Miracle Mile and To Live and Die in LA were the first two cult,.semi-obscure flicks that came to my mind.
Both are very good, entertaining movies, and both absolutely scream "made in the 80s"
I was going to say the first one, but wondered if it's a lesser-known movie. Is it? It should not be, if it is. It's a good one here. 80s as fuck.
Less than Zero also has the same vibe, but that one might be more well known.
To Live and Die in LA hasn't been available for streaming for quite some time, so that probably contributes to its obscurity. Surprisely enough, its available for free on Youtube (or at least it was last time I looked).
Not really super popular, but I would call it a cult classic
FUCK YES to After Hours. I love that movie so damn much.
When he rips the $20 off the statue. Damn that was a moment.
Seconding To Live and Die in LA. For some inexplicable reason, I perceive this and Two Days in the Valley to be intertwined movies.
Just watched One Crazy Summer last night.
We have Better Off Dead at home.
Haven't watched that one in a long time. I loved the grandma dropping a check on the table after every meal.
Savage Steve Holland directed both movies.
Had a falling out with Cusack, although it seems to be mostly on Cusack.
The lobster scene is the fastest setup of a villain ever
First part of War Games.
Whole part of War Games!
Summer School and License to Drive
Yeeessss came here to say Summer School. Great movie, and never talked about. License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream are the lesser known Corey-Corey movies. Loved them both.
Summer School was a fav! I had the biggest crush on Shawnee Smith!
Real Genius
Val Kilmer is superb. Good choice
Ice is nice
Mitch: The weirdest thing just happened to me.
Knight: Chris Knight: Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid, with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?
Why am I the only one who has that dream?
What about that time I caught you naked with a bowl of Jello?
It was hot, and I was hungry!
Excellent movie!
The Burbs
PIZZA DUDE!!!
Sardine?
I'm gonna kill everyone, Satan is good, Satan is your pal
It came with the frrrame
That kid next door's a meatball.
Ricky!...get these lameos out of your yard!
There go the goddamn brownies.
I defy anyone to find a more quotable film from the 1980s.
“It was parked outside ALLL DAAAYYY!” '”Bout a nine on the tension scale, Reub.”
“I've never seen that. I've never seen anybody drive their garbage down to the street and bang the hell out of it with a stick. I-I've never seen that.”
“There go the Goddamn brownies!”
“In Southeast Asia we'd call this kind of thing bad karma.”
“I've been blown up, take me to the hospital!”
“Shut up and paint your GODDAMN HOUSE!”
“I find one more- just one- I'm gonna catch him and staple his ass shut!”
Better Off Dead!
"Look at that! Somebody's thrown away a perfectly good whilte boy!"
Two DOLLARS!
Ohhh, TENTacles. N-T. Big difference
This is pure snow!!! Do you know the street value of this!?
I’ve been going to this high school for seven and a half years. Im no dummy!
Less Than Zero
I was THAT age in a neighborhood very much like the move.
Less Than Zero is a documentary.
I graduated Beverly in '86
I never went to a party like that haha
But supposedly written by a student as a true story, the book was popular right before the film came out. And just watching James Spader in Blacklist and noticing how old he looks now.
Working Girl for style, hair, make up, shoulder pads.
Six thousand dollars? It’s not even leather!
I've got a mind for business and a body for sin!
one of the most 80s movies to 80s
Two I remember hazily but fondly since I only saw them at the time: Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) is a lesser known movie by John Hughes of Pretty In Pink, Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller fame. An earlier 80's teen life movie is Gregory's Girl (1980) by Bill Forsyth, set in the UK.
Looooove Some Kind of Wonderful!
“You look good wearing my future” smooth as eggs.
Some Kind of Wonderful really is underrated out of Hughes filmography, for real.
Claire Grogan would still get it. And I wasn't even born when Gregory's Girl came out.
Can't buy me love (1987)
Manhunter, an early Michael Mann film with Brian Cox as Hannible Lector. The colour grading really stands out.
Severely underrated movie.
I piss off a lot of people when I prefer Manhunter over Silence of The Lambs.
Manhunter was a smarter film.
I've always felt Brian Cox was a great Hannibal.
Monster Squad
Rad
the karate kid of bmx
Gleaming the Cube
I see your Raf and raise you a BMX Bandits and a Thrashin'.
You over rotated
Just One of the Guys (1985)
All balls itch! It's a fact!
Yeah right, and I'm Cindy LAAAUUUUper!
Yeeeessssssssss. No pain, no gain.
I loved this movie as a kid!! Does it hold up?
Still 80s amazing
“He’s such a stallion.”
Weird Science
Can’t Buy Me Love
Summer Rental (1985). Especially captures the 80’s Florida vibe.
Heathers and Pump Up the Volume.
It's not lesser known, but 'The Lost Boys ' is everything you'd expect a 80s vampire movie to be. I challenge anyone who was at least 14 when this movie came out to tell me you don't know what is meant by 'sax guy'.
“I still believe” is in my go to car Spotify playlist
Daryl, Explorers, The Wizzard, Harry and the Hendersons, Space Camp, Adventures in Babysitting.
data analyzing robot youth lifeform
Fast times at Ridgemont High was well known in the day, but I never hear about it anymore
That’s true. It’s been kind of eclipsed by the John Hughes movies. But I don’t think there’s a more accurate picture of 80s teen life. Fast Times shows what we did; Breakfast Club shows how we felt about it.
Phoebe Cates getting out of the pool is pretty immortal, even if people may not know where it is from.
Mannequin
Gleaming the Cube
Class of 1984
The Zero Boys
Death Spa
Better Off Dead
The Toxic Avenger
Hardbodies
Not a movie, but the TV series The Americans captures the way the '80s felt better than any movie I've ever seen since then. There's no pastels or neon, it's all leftover 70s Earth tone furniture and wood paneling, just like it was in reality.
One of the details I appreciated is that most of the cars are from the 70s, because people generally don't buy a new car more than once every decade.
The show did a lot to get details right. There's a scene where they're eating McDonalds and I think they found old 1980s McDonald's styrofoam containers and original drinks cups and stuff.
Agree with this 100%. It has an EST-like seminar, Cold War politics. It felt truer to my 1980s childhood than any movie from that era.
The Informant is the same. The set design is amazing. It is my hometown in the 1980s and they nailed it.
Better Off Dead is hilarious, but not well known.
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and Lucas
Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!!
Dancing in heaven, I never thought I'D EVER GET MY FEET THIS FAR, ORBITAL BE-BOP
Some kind of wonderful, She’s Gotta Have It , Heavenly Bodies, Do the Right Thing, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Coming to America, The Lost Boys, Hollywood Shuffle, Star Man, Wildcats, House Party, Sing, 1989, New Jack City, Don’t Tell Her It’s Me, White Palace, Sex, Lies, and Video Tape, Tuff Turf, The Mighty Quinn, Streets of Fire, Bull Durham, The Untouchables, Violets are Blue, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia
I loved going to the movies in the 80’s. Matinee tix were $1.50. This question brought back some memories. 😂😄
Please explain how “The Untouchables”, set in Al Capone’s Chicago, captures the vibe of the ‘80s.
Heathers, Real Genius, Legend of Billie Jean, and Night of the Comet are my absolute faves.
Also faves: Gleaming the Cube, Pump up the Volume, Mannequin, Weird Science.
Last American Virgin for a gut punch.
WarGames (1983). Matthew Broderick stars as a high school student who hacks into a tactical defence computer while looking for a games company. Deciding to play what he thinks is a simulation game of global thermonuclear war, he accidentally triggers WWIII
Bachelor Party (1984). Haven't seen this in years. It's a very early Tom Hanks comedy about a soon to be married school bus driver whose friends arrange the mother of all bachelor parties. Very 80s
River's Edge. It's the movie that looks most like my childhood
Heathers
Something Wild Mystic Pizza She's Having a Baby Edit to add: Tequila Sunrise and Tango & Cash. Beverly Hills Cop is very 80's, but it's pretty well known. So I Married an Axe Murderer and Married to the Mob are also very 80's.
Earth Girls are Easy
Slaves of New York
Making Mr. Right
Desperately Seeking Susan
After Hours
Starstruck
Earth Girls Are Easy is so aggressively "80s" that I'm honestly not sure if it was an ironic parody of the decade's fashion and style, or if they genuinely thought it was cool.
Real Genius (Val Kilmer in college sci fi)
Do The Right Thing (Spike Lee joint)
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (Steve Martin and John Candy on a hilarious road trip-ish)
Adventures in Babysitting (Elizabeth Shue and hijinks in Chicago)
And it’s definitely known but St Elmo’s Fire isn’t on your list and it captures 80s for recent college grads very well
Adventures in Babysitting
Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter is Dead
“Don’t fuck with the babysitter”. Best use of the PG-13 rating
Cobra (1986)
Risky Business.
The Last American Virgin, Space Camp, Valley Girl, Can’t Buy Me Love
They Live.
I feel like St. Elmo's Fire and Less Than Zero get overlooked when we talk about 80s movies
Desperately Seeking Susan - gritty 80s NYC and rising star Madonna!
Some Kind of Wonderful - Mary Stuart Masterson as Watts 💛
Adventureland (2009) wasn't made in the 80s. But it captures the time well. Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg, Ryan Reynolds.
ET the Extraterrestrial is also very authentic in how teenagers and kids roamed around on bikes and were latchkey kids.
Summer of '84
Recent but also captures suburban life in 80s.
Band of the Hand, 1984
The Big Chill is a great slice of life, of students of the hippie 60s era grown up into the older world-weary cynical boomers of the 80s
Gleaming the Cube (1989)
Remember skateboarding? It was big.
Mr. Mom
This is too far down. Probably because redditors were younger in the 80’s.
220, 221, whatever it takes
Better Off Dead is like THE perfect snapshot of how I remember the 80s.
Escape from NY
Red Dawn
Revenge of the Nerds
Risky Business
Police Academy
Death Spa. It might be the most ‘80s in terms of synth/fitness/neon/spandex supernatural horror excess.
If we're going for excessive, Liquid Sky is the quintessential 80s freaky arthouse movie: Girl in NY underground club scene gets revenge on sexual predators by allowing aliens to harvest climax hormones from her sexual partners as drugs.
Sold.
The last starfighter Jeckyll and hyde together again...
Ruthless People. Throw Momma From the Train Weekend at Bernies.
I don't actually know if they were all released in the 80s and I'm too lazy to check.
All 86/87 I think.
“Some Kind of Wonderful
Lucas. Great movie ruined when you discover Corey Haim was being abused by Charlie Sheen.
I just saw this movie called First Born on Netflix. It is a little bit made-for-tv/after-shool-specialy but it has Cory Haim, Robert Downy Jr, Sarah Jessica Parker, Terri Garr and Robocop. Robocop plays a total boohole. Omg. It was very nostalgic. Kinda like the Step Father but with cocaine.
Gotcha with Linda Fiorentino
Back when Anthony Edwards had hair. There's also The Sure Thing.
Don’t forget The Flamingo Kid
Mike Leigh made three movies in the 80s (four if you count Life Is Sweet in 1990). His work is very down-to-earth, usually mimicking the pace of day-to-day life.
The Stoned Age (1994) really captures a "day in the life" of two 80's dudes looking to score with some chics.
Night of the comet
Back To School - with Rodney Dangerfield and Robert Downie Jr
Blue Velvet was an enjoyable light hearted Rom-Com.
Rainman has a lot of rural America and also Vegas. Late 80s.
Yea I'm not sure about the lesser known part though.
Desperately Seeking Susan feels really authentic to me.
The Secret of My Success!
Michael J Fox. Corporate Finance. Hostile takeovers. Inappropriate sex in the workplace. Shoulder Pads. This movie has it all.
Better Off Dead
Heaven Help Us.
Do yourself a favor and watch!
Aspen Extreme even though it came out in 93 I'd say it captures the 80s ski culture pretty well also just a great movie
Real genius, just one of the guys, weird science, three o clock high, the burbs…all super recommendations by everyone if you read this OP. All kind of fun movies too. Manhunter is dark as fuck
The Wizard (1989)
Last American Virgin A Night in the life of Jimmy Reardon Say Anything Hiding Out
(Did my best not to repeat others suggestions)
Not really “slice of life” but feel like 80s movies -
Robocop The Neverending Story Stripes Ghostbusters UHF Uncle Buck Savage Streets Revenge of the Nerds Lost Boys Goonies
(I know a lot of these are cliche suggestions but to me they legit feel like the 80s, especially the goonies)
Beverly Hills Cop Vacation European Vacation Labyrinth Risky Business Coming to America Superman III The Toy Brewster’s Millions Trading places Mr Mom Back to School Overboard Raising Arizona Summer School The Explorers Purple Rain River’s Edge
Roadhouse is SO 80's it has a monster truck for NO reason.
Summer School 1987 with Mark Harmon. It was a high school tradition for me to watch it the day after classes ended
Mannequin was pretty good, but I don't hear people speaking much about it. St. Elmo's Fire as well captured the vibe, although I'd not call it the best quality of that decade.
I would argue that most of these are well known.
For lesser known really highlighting what life was like I’d recommend The River’s Edge, with an early career Keanu starring in it.
Ruthless People
Weird Science
Repo Man