Here at Watch With Us, we love the movies of the 1980s, and we’re always eager to highlight some of the best to check out.
It’s always fun to return to the decade of neon colors and teased hair by watching cinema classics over and over.
This week, we put together a list of three movies we can’t help but return to.
Our first pick is Something Wild, starring Melanie Griffith and Jeff Daniels as a free-spirited woman and an uptight banker, respectively, who end up entangled in a crazy ride together.
Keep reading for our full list of most rewatchable ’80s flicks.
Yuppie investment banker Charlie Driggs (Daniels) meets a strange woman named Lulu (Griffith) who takes a liking to him, and she ends up taking him on a wild adventure that shakes up Charlie’s entire existence. When she insists they share a cab, instead of taking Charlie back home, Lulu has them go to New Jersey, where she robs a liquor store. Just when Charlie seems to be warming up to Lulu, she has him pose as her boyfriend at her high school reunion — where her dangerous ex-con husband, Ray (Ray Liotta), will be in attendance.
Something Wild is an exuberant crime-comedy buoyed by the infectious chemistry of its two leads. Jonathan Demme‘s energetic direction carries the film from start to finish, alternating between some wild tonal shifts with surprising ease. The movie is a sublime genre blend of screwball comedy, crime thriller, rom-com and road movie. Plus, Liotta is a particular standout in this performance that predated his Goodfellas breakout.
When Harry (Billy Crystal) and college classmate Sally (Meg Ryan) reluctantly end up driving back home to New York together after graduation, they have a spirited debate over whether men and women can truly be friends. Though they part ways upon arrival, they end up becoming close buddies in New York City ten years later. But the friendship slowly evolves into something more, and when the two end up having sex, Harry is reluctant to admit that he has fallen for his best friend after all.
Rob Reiner‘s classic romantic comedy is an enduring, feel-good relationship movie with lead performances from Ryan and Crystal that have remained iconic to this day. The movie is rife with laugh-out-loud funny lines, but Nora Ephron‘s script is also smart in its observations about romance as well as deeply romantic. The conversations in the movie are so well-written that they feel like they were transposed directly from real-life.
Eccentric medical student Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) has invented a cure for death: a reanimating agent that resurrects dead matter when injected. When Herbert relocates to Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, he converts the basement of his flatshare into a laboratory so he can continue his experiments. He ends up bringing his roommate’s (Bruce Abbott) cat back to life, but there are vicious side effects. As more people on campus become aware of Herbert’s questionable research methods, it leads to horrifying consequences for all involved.
Re-Animator is one of the best comedy-horror movies of all time, featuring legendary performances from Combs and scream queen Barbara Crampton. While Re-Animator did receive positive reviews upon release, its status has only grown in estimation over the years, and it is regarded as a beloved cult film. With plenty of splatter horror, gonzo comedy and scenery-chewing performances, Re-Animator is an unmissable horror masterpiece.
