The Best of Times (1986)

Robin Williams can’t live down his dropped pass in a high school football game 13 years ago. Kurt Russell is his quarterback and straight man. Ron Shelton wrote the screenplay, his first sports movie about fragile male egos and male-female relationships.

d: Roger Spottiswoode | imdb.com | commercial | interview

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Life must be a bitch in this suburban Chicago high school, where John Hughes employs stereotypes in an overwrought attempt to dispel them. Anthony Michael Hall and Ally Sheedy can act. The affected Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Emilio Estevaz can’t.

d: John Hughes | imdb.com | trailer | JCPenney

Beverly Hills Cop (1984)

Audacious at the time: I was 11 years old, watching an R-rated movie with Eddie Murphy using the “fuck” word a lot. Murphy and producer Jerry Bruckheimer invented the buddy cop-action-comedy genre that is now such a cliché. Or maybe it was “48 Hrs.”

d: Martin Brest | imdb.com | trailer

The Karate Kid (1984)

John Avildsen (“Rocky”) directs another underdog story — a real crowd-pleaser that honors karate and friendship. The bullied teenager (Ralph Macchio) is a little too precious, but Pat Morita’s Oscar-nominated turn as Mr. Miyagi gives the film its heart.

d: John Avildsen | imdb.com | trailer | You’re the best.

Ghostbusters (1984)

Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis play parapsychologists who save New York City from ghosts and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in a winning comedy and special effects blockbuster. Murray perfects his comic persona as Dr. Peter Venkman.

d: Ivan Reitman | imdb.com | trailer | the whole movie | the song

Streets of Fire (1984)

Director Walter Hill (“Warriors”) shoots post-World War II America like a film noir MTV video, a world where Willem Dafoe’s shotgun-wielding gang kidnaps rock star Diane Lane, and the brooding Michael Pare saves her in a kick-ass sledgehammer fight.

d: Walter Hill | imdb.com | trailer | Inside “Streets of Fire”
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