When You've Got Soundtracks Like Kenny Loggins In Them, You Can't Lose: Popcorn Classics of 1984

If I wanted to see any of those movies again, it would be either Purple Rain or Streets of Fire

what a year

impossible to choose

I'm pretty sure the Hanks vehicle SPLASH co-starring Darryl Hannah is the only certifiable POPCORN CLASSIC™ on this list?

ah, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. that's the one where they go back to earth

actually no it's entirely possible to choose, Repo Man wins this for me in a minute. Second place would be tough though.

Two pairs of movies that were each released on the same day:

Repo Man
This Is Spinal Tap

Ghostbusters
Gremlins

it was great to see harry dean stanton back on the big screen for Repo Man - haven't seen him for a while

When I first heard about the Muppets taking Manhattan, I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but I really loved what they did with it and I predict that this will be just the first in an annual tradition of the Muppets taking various cities by storm.

some viewers might be disappointed by the fact there is never actually any purple rain in Purple Rain, in fact there isn't even any regular rain.

With Revenge of the Nerds, I think they've made an interesting choice in releasing the sequel before the first movie in the series, which I assume will be called something like Introduction of the Nerds or maybe just The Nerds. But it was a smart choice because it builds excitement for the prequel, and everybody knows that prequels are always the best installments in a movie franchise.

Twelve year old me would have said Ghostbusters.

I think I’m voting for The Terminator. I caught part of it recently and was reminded how lean, tense, and relentless it is. Surprising horror/scare elements in the early parts. Almost a perfect film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy8aa5gAWc0

Gremlins and The Muppets Take Manhattan were the first non-animated movies that I cared about, even if their reliance on puppetry (esp. MTM) blur the live action/animation divide a bit.

The movie that feels most glaringly absent from this list, for me, is Cloak and Dagger, but I suspect that it was a bigger deal in my house than it was in the rest of the world.

Cloak & Dagger was on my first-pass list but it just didn't feel like it resonated after the passage of decades in the same way most of these others do. Trust me, it wasn't easy cutting Meatballs 2 (which I probably watched more than anything here when I was a kid with no critical faculties) but the line had to be drawn somewhere.

Meatballs 2 had the alien (and Richard Mulligan), right? I don't remember if there was any connection, character-wise between that film and the original, whereas the third film had the Chris Makepeace character from the first one (now played by Patrick Dempsey) gaining a guardian angel in the form of the ghost of a dead porn star who helps him lose his virginity. Man, this series got weird.

I'm pretty sure the Hanks vehicle SPLASH co-starring Darryl Hannah is the only certifiable POPCORN CLASSIC™ on this list?

a lot of these are p much at Popcorn Classic level but just happened to be big hits

would watch nearly any one of these if they happened to come on tv

voted Terminator for reasons PBKR said

The Terminator cannot be the perfect movie, for its title doesn't not contain the words "Electric Boogaloo".

A is for Adolfo 'Shabba Doo' Quiñones

MAD FROGS

https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/muppet/images/f/f1/MTM-OceanBreezeFrogs.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110825153418

Meatballs 2 had the alien (and Richard Mulligan), right?

All that and so much more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrAevc90p4k

Just realized I omitted Dreamscape and the goddamn Toxic Avenger. I'm so sorry.

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This should have been a ranked poll tbh, too hard to pick

ghostbusters vs Tap for me, Tap wins

I love & adore almost everything on this list, but i voted for Repo Man because it rules so hard

Voted Beverly Hills Cop, not because it is the best film but because I thought it was a soundtrack thread

and ok sure it isn't even the best soundtrack on this list but it is probably the most 1984 soundtrack on the list and stuffed ridiculously full of bangers and even the ones that don't bang sort of bang

I guess I mean to say Crazy Frog stole this song from Harold Faltermayer, we're stealing it back

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