List of 1985 box office number-one films in the United States

BTTF is my only choice unless I'm in the mood for goofy Ah-nold.

wow this is pretty grim aside from BHC and BTTF

Yeah this is no contest BTTF.

I suspect Witness might be the second best thing here, but I haven't seen it in decades.

Jagged Edge is stupid, but kinda worth it for peak-hotness Jeff Bridges, and European Vacation and Commando are worth a few LOLs. Beyond that...

I'd forgotten how mean that Vacation sequel is! They hate everyone: British women, the French, fat women...

Not gonna defend it, but there are some gags that still make me laugh. The weakest of the 80s Vacations, though, for sure.

i was gonna vote for Police Academy 2 until i saw Vacation on the list

witness and pale rider are good. back to the future is alright. never seen beverly hills cop somehow

I'll admit to being clueless about the appeal of Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop.

Pretty clearly BTTF, but Witness is a strong second-place. After that: Cocoon is nice, Jagged Edge is the better of Glenn Close's erotic thrillers, Pale Rider is a decent oater, Commando is pretty by-the-numbers but fine for '80s action filler, and I did actually see King Solomon's Mines but don't remember it at all.

My problems with Witness, which I saw again last year: (a) it was cornball even in spring 1985: city guy falls in love with purity of Amish peeps (b) it's sloooow

There's something about Commando I love, despite it being completely generic. "John Matrix" might be the greatest action flick character name in history. Nothing about Rambo: First Blood Part II I love. Don't think I've ever seen a Chuck Norris film in my life. Never even heard of Once Bitten. Witness was Peter Weir's weakest offering to that point, although I admit to not having seen 1979's The Plumber so maybe second weakest.

I recall a barn raising in Witness so half a star docked from the rating just for that.

Even as someone who tries to see the best in things, this list is dire. No wonder I discovered arthouse movies that year of my teens.

The only thing I remember about Once Bitten is an especially ugly moment of gay-panic comedy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wk-jT9rn-8

invasion USA sullied the memory of the 1950s one

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

also have no memory at all of the existence of:
Code of Silence
Pale Rider

First, I scanned the list and my thought was BTTF with Witness pulling up in second place. Then, I read the subsequent posts to find I wasn't exactly alone in that judgment.

No contest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bt33ElBL5nI

Three of these were shot in Florida. That's all I've got.

(*In Invasion U.S.A. the guerrilla invasion force lands on the beach at Fort Pierce, FL, which is an interesting choice)

Nothing about Rambo: First Blood Part II I love

nothing? a guy explodes. rambo grabs the microphone real hard. idk it's obviously a racist republican fantasy but it's a very enjoyable film (this is also my microreview of cobra)

for me this is between commando (childhood classic. this isn't a plane, it's a boat with wings!) and friday the 13th part v: a new beginning which is the meanest and grossest and dumbest friday the 13th of all, a true achievement in horror and exploitation cinema

The UK box office usually mirrors the US but 1985 was a bit unusual in having several homegrown films reach the top. Madonna fever took ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’ to the top spot for 5 weeks and 10th overall for the year.

Ghostbusters
Beverly Hills Cop
A Private Function
The Jungle Book (reissue)
The Prodigal
The Witch
Dance with a Stranger
A Passage to India
A Private Function
The Cotton Club
Johnny Dangerously
Witness
A View to a Kill
Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment
Return to Oz
Best Defense
Rambo: First Blood Part II
Desperately Seeking Susan
Peter Pan (reissue)
Letter to Brezhnev
Cocoon
Santa Claus: The Movie

I like Dance With a Stranger, surprised it was that big a hit.

BTTF went to number one in UK in January 86.

Miranda Richardson was briefly touted as the next big thing which helped ‘Dance With a Stranger ’.

James Cameron co-wrote Rambo, the purplest and most glorious parts.

I delivered a Pop Con paper nine years ago about the songs on these High Reagan film soundtracks.

omg Stick... Movies you haven't thought of in 40 years for $1200 Alex.

Probably most notable for being the first Elmore Leonard adaptation (other than the OG 3:10 to Yuma) that set off a string of them. From what I recall, that 3rd act got hacked in post by the studio heads into a total dogshit redemption story that has nothing to do with Leonard's source material.

(voted EuroVacation for the "Rusty" beret scene alone)

Commando is a great time at the movies, 10/10.

Pale Rider is a sort of snowy version of High Plains Drifter iirc and my memory of it is that it's good.

Code of Silence is actually an excellent cop thriller, it was directed by Andrew Davis with his usual keen eye for Chicago locations, and Henry Silva as the villain in a movie is always a plus. It's possibly the only worthwhile Chuck Norris film, depending on how you feel about Lone Wolf McQuade or Missing in Action.

It's gotta be BTTF though.

Karina Longworth’s podcast made me hate Jagged Edge even more than I already did. Still love Beverly Hills Cop, a classic of what now seems like a blip; the home video era.

If it comes to reactionary-conservative 80s texts I'll go for Death Wish 3 over Back to the Future any day.

Yeah, wanna push back against the idea of Commando being generic - it is basically the OTT 80's actioner, Arnold feeds a deer, a sporting goods store has military grade weapons for sale, at the end the little girl runs towards a woman she's never actually met. The one liners, of course, are out of control.

Very much enjoyed introducing my wife to that one and then, with my best poker face, just turning to her and going "so, what did you think?".

Had to vote in these for the first time, and given it to Witness, of all things

commando is also like. very very very very gay xp

indeed

Andrew Davis went from strength to strength for a while there.

Commando has to be in the upper tier of gayest films where, to my knowledge, none of the principal creative team behind it were actually gay.

I know all these movies, and I've seen ... 12 of these, but iirc only three in the theatres, including "King Solomon's Mines" (lol). A lot of (imo) bad sequels in this one. One of the worst "Friday the 13th" movies, a step down (!) for "Police Academy," I think "Rambo 2" is a big, greased step down from the first one (and "Commando" is so much more fun), the 90% montage "Rocky IV" (there's apparently now a director's cut available) is several steps down from 3, which was a big step down from 2, a significant step down from the first. As far as grown-up pop culture moments go, "Cocoon" and "Witness" hold up. Just a couple of days ago I even heard people talking about "Cocoon"!

From memory, this slate really hits that Venn space of box office success plus cable plus video store. As a 10 year old, these films and their posters/box covers were ubiquitous (even though a few of these movies are so shitty it's hard to imagine they were even released; way to go, Cannon).

When I was a kid I once went through "Commando" and counted all the deaths. Over 100?

Yeah, in 1985 we have firmly entered the video store era.

But when he was asked about how unexpectedly funny “Commando” was, Schwarzenegger said he wanted to delve even deeper into the topic.

“I wanted to cut off a guy’s arm and kill him with it. This wasn’t in the script. He would throw a knife at me and after he missed, while his arm was still extended, I chop it off at the shoulder with a machete and beat him to death with it,” Schwarzenegger said. “Needless to say, I was asked by the head of the studio, Larry Gordon to come to his office. And he said ‘what the f— is the matter with you? Do you want to make money with this movie or an x-rated movie?’ I said “you’re right” and he said ‘get the f— out of my office.’”

One commenter even chimed in with a great line he could’ve said in the moment, “Thanks for lending me a hand,” to which Schwarzenegger replied, “You’re hired.”

I don't see many contemporary actioners, I'm guessing kiss-off lines aren't so much of a thing now?

Let off some steam, Bennett!

xp VAYA CON DIOS

That's right, I'd forgotten that aspect of Commando — it gave us Arnold the quipster. I guess it really was the movie that established his screen persona, huh? The Terminator was a one-note role by definition (even though it did have "I'll be bahck").

Remember when I said I would kill you last? I lied.

https://listofdeaths.fandom.com/wiki/Commando

Total - 108
* All Men

Agree with omar; Code Of Silence is a legitimately good cop movie that happens to have Chuck Norris in it. Do not let its quality trick into watching any other Chuck Norris movies, though.

xpost That's awesome. I suspect as a kid I counted cuz I read somewhere that it was the most violent movie ever made, or something like that. Sort of like when you read in the record books about a certain Who or Deep Purple concert being the loudest ever performed.

In the same year Rae Dawn Chong went from canoodling with solo Mick Jagger in his videos to watching a man plummet to his doom in an Arnold film.

Movies on this list I've seen:

Beverly Hills Cop*
Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment**
Code of Silence**
Rambo: First Blood Part II**
Cocoon*
Pale Rider**
Back to the Future*
National Lampoon's European Vacation**
Invasion U.S.A.**
Commando***
King Solomon's Mines****
Rocky IV***

*in theaters
**video rental
***video rental years later
****other (on a plane, I think)

Several of those were chosen by my little brother.

Rae Dawn Chong

Tommy Chong's daughter no less!

Peak 80s garbage. I can understand why people thought cinema was on its deathbed.

My favorite 1985 films:

Vagabond (Agnès Varda)
The Official Story (Luis Puenzo)
Lost in America (Albert Brooks)
Prizzi’s Honor (John Huston)
What Have I Done to Deserve This? (Pedro Almodovar)
Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (Woody Allen)
Ran (Akira Kurosawa)
To Live and Die in L.A. (William Friedkin)

xxpost At first, I thought those were your star ratings!

xxxpost

Thinking about '84 and '85 in cinema is really bringing back the ubiquity of Rae Dawn Chong during this period. Had forgotten she was in Abel Ferrara's Fear City in '84, an edgy role.

peeked ahead and we don't get any of my actual favorite movies of the year until 1990, alas. and then not again until 2001. i'm box office poison

In '85 I would often go to the movies on Friday night and see two brand new releases in a row. The second feature would usually run late into the night, so sometimes I would drift off into semi-sleep and thus end up with a hazy memory of that film. For years I wondered about this gritty action film with a uniquely dark vibe that I half-remembered but its title eluded me. I finally figured it out this year. The problem was I had misremembered it as starring Jodie Foster. In fact the film was Certain Fury starring Tatum O'Neal, also featuring Irene Cara. Rewatched it recently, it's very good-bad and evocative of the time.

I concur with those who called this a grim list of films. I went with Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider, maybe the only film I'd want to revisit. He was already a good director, but I don't think he really became a great one until he made White Hunter Black Heart five years later.

I don't think Witness is very good, but I like Harrison Ford in it. I always wish he was in better films because he was capable of great film performances, a rare leading man who was worthy of comparison to Gary Cooper at his best. Ford tried but the "serious" films he chose tended to be schmaltzy or ponderous. (He could be okay in comedies, but it didn't play up to his strengths.)

I'd rather see I Wanna Hold Your Hand or Used Cars at this point, but Back to the Future is still pretty fun.

Ran, Vagabond and Lost in America are all favorites too, as well as these:

Shoah [Claude Lanzmann]
Sherman's March: A Meditation on the Possibility of Romantic Love In the South During an Era of Nuclear Weapons Proliferation [Ross McElwee]
The Man Who Envied Women [Yvonne Rainer]
Taipei Story [Edward Yang]
A Time to Live and a Time to Die [Hou Hsiao-hsien]
Day of the Dead [George A. Romero]
After Hours [Martin Scorsese]
Brazil [Terry Gilliam, "Fifth and Final Cut"]

Oh yeah, Taipei Story and A Time to Live and a Time to Die.

Ford is by far the best thing in Witness; he's sturdy and gives this ponderous thing some lightness. But he got his only Oscar nomination for it when Raiders and Working Girl were right there.

Steve Guttenberg had two #1 movies in 1985? Wild. Looking at his Wiki, I saw all 3 1985 movies he was in (the third is Bad Medicine).

Probably most notable for being the first Elmore Leonard adaptation (other than the OG 3:10 to Yuma) that set off a string of them.

It's possibly the only worthwhile Chuck Norris film, depending on how you feel about Lone Wolf McQuade or Missing in Action.

Another really good film from '85 was Tuff Turf, starring James Spader and Kim Richards

I wish I saw what so many do in Brazil.

Commando is my vote, it's utter bollocks and it's great

xp Jonathan Pryce is good

witness is fantastic, i watched it in the past year and it's so empathetic and human for what is superficially an '80s suspense/action movie. i kept waiting for it to make the amish the butt of a joke and it never does it, it treats them so respectfully. ford is really great in it too. if i was going to vote in this poll it would probably have to be for BTTF which is flawless, but witness would is better than all these other movies (beverly hills cop would be #3 but it's not a personal fave).

lol was Wings Hauser fired from Commando?

Has Prizzi's Honor been memory holed for a reason? Distribution or something? Seems like it was a huge critical deal at the time, a comeback for John Huston and legitimizing Angelica. I haven't seen it since 1985, but I assume it holds up. I just don't hear it discussed much considering its star power.

William Hickey in the title role at age 57 could be an alternative Brimley/Cocoon line.

Back to the Future is a movie I think about way more frequently than its overall quality and depth would suggest. It does get at something primal about the what-ifs of time passing. Even if it's cartoonish about it, it somehow gave me a framework thinking about the mundane consequences of life choices and paths.

William Hickey (b 1927) in that film played the father of Robert Loggia (b 1930) and Lee Richardson (b 1926)

The Quiet Earth is apparently 1985 as well

I'm a fan of Prizzi's despite the length and occasional tonal clashes.

Tough pick between Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Commando, and Death Wish 3 as all three are god-tier trash. Police Academy 2, Code of Silence, Invasion U.S.A., and Rocky IV would also warrant consideration in a less stacked year. Anyone voting Witness (or BTTF honestly) deserves a wedgie.

I have no hair.

Back to the Future is no Police Academy 2, it's true.

Tough pick between Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Commando, and Death Wish 3 as all three are god-tier trash

wow can we be best friends????

I voted for Commando.

A Time to Live and a Time to Live and Die in L.A.

i'd probably put on commando before bttf these days, so that.

Tough pick between Friday the 13th: A New Beginning...

you sure you got the right one here? the halfway house for delinquents in the country one? woof.

my favorite movies as a sixth grader in 1985 were probably goonies and the peanut butter solution, which, i'm sure is true for many kids who happened to stumble upon it at the time, took years to find anyone who even knew it existed, and years longer to find it again. now it's on tubi! it's still incredible, i can report.

Tough pick between Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Commando, and Death Wish 3 as all three are god-tier trash. Police Academy 2, Code of Silence, Invasion U.S.A., and Rocky IV would also warrant consideration in a less stacked year. Anyone voting Witness (or BTTF honestly) deserves a wedgie.

― Judi Dench's Human Hand (methanietanner),

OTM (except that I don't mind Witness - last seen when it was released! - and don't think xyzzzz deserves a wedgie. But The Fugitive is much better.)

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