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Curated category

1980s English-language films

  • Aliens (film)Aliens, the 1986 science fiction-action film written and directed by James Cameron, opens with a woman who has been asleep for 57 years.
  • Ewoks: The Battle for EndorThe film premiered on ABC on the 24th of November 1985. It was shot in the middle of 1985 in Marin County, California. Jim and Ken Wheat co-wrote and…
  • Blade RunnerPhilip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? sat on a shelf for years before anyone could make it into a movie.
  • For All Mankind (film)Al Reinert began researching the Apollo program in 1979 while writing a story for Texas Monthly. He discovered that NASA had archived vast amounts of…
  • The TerminatorIn Rome, Italy, during the release of Piranha II: The Spawning in 1982, director James Cameron fell ill and experienced a vivid dream.
  • Mad Max 2Director George Miller abandoned a project called Roxanne in Los Angeles. He had been working on that script with Terry Hayes for months.
  • HellraiserClive Barker stood in a London studio during the autumn of 1986 with less than one million dollars to make his first feature film.
  • The Empire Strikes BackGeorge Lucas stood at a crossroads in 1978. The unexpected success of Star Wars had made him wealthy, but it also brought threats and unwelcome requests for…
  • Erik the VikingTerry Jones published The Saga of Erik the Viking in 1983 as a children's book. He wrote and directed the film version released in 1989, but the plot…
  • SpaceballsIn a galaxy very, very, very, very far away, the ruthless Spaceballs led by President Skroob squander their planet's atmosphere.
  • Glory (1989 film)Kevin Jarre stood in Room 421 of the Gramercy Park Hotel during a few weeks in 1988. He wrote the screenplay for Glory on spec while staring at the Robert…
  • Ordinary PeopleRobert Redford stepped behind the camera for the first time in 1980 with Ordinary People. The project began as a novel by Judith Guest published in 1976.
  • Give My Regards to Broad Street (film)Paul McCartney began filming Give My Regards to Broad Street in November 1982. This project marked his first attempt at a non-documentary feature film since…
  • The Compleat BeatlesThe Compleat Beatles is a two-hour documentary released in 1982 that set out to chronicle the full career of the Beatles using the people who were actually…