Every time I do these lists I think about how weird it is that particular movies came out in the same year or that this was the first year that a franchise existed. It is really wild. Now, in a time when franchises and IP rule the roost in the sort of way that critics used to doomsay about, it is strange to think about the first Indiana Jones movie ever appeared in the same year as Superman 2 or that the original Superman pre-dates Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the weird mental bouillabaisse of enduring franchises, it is hard to remember when they started or that there was a time they didn’t exist at all. It is weirder still to think that I was there both before and after.

This project has been weird so far because some of these foundational movies exist in my head as always having been part of my pop culture DNA and it is interesting to go back to the time before they existed or when they came on the scene. This kind of thing still happens, of course, but now it just feels like the natural movement forward of pop culture content as opposed to the laying of a foundation. The 80s is that foundation for me and the entries in this decade feel less contemplative as movies I love and more like the building blocks of who I am as a fan of filmed entertainment. That is what is cool about movies. However creatively bankrupt you might think ‘Hollywood’ has become, every year and every decade is someone’s foundation. That is rad. Here is the next layer of mine.  

If you have not read the introduction to this exercise, I recommend you do so for context regarding what this all is. In short, be nice, these are my favorites based on how I encountered them in my life and what they mean for mean to me. This is not a list of objective best movies in their respective years and if a movie that you love or is considered great does not appear, it does not mean that I think it is shit or that I don’t love it. These are just my favorites for particular personal reasons. Feel free to let everyone know your favorite five for 1981 and why as well. It is also worth mentioning that there will be spoilers here for what are now 45-year-old movies. Let’s dig in!

1.Raiders of the Lost Ark-Steven Spielberg

A collaboration between two visionary filmmakers in order to pay homage to the adventure serials of their youth, Raiders of the Lost Ark kicked off an institution that continues to exist today. Your mileage will definitely vary on the current quality of the Indiana Jones franchise, but it is undeniable that this series has captured the imaginations of generations of adventure film lovers.

Written by George Lucas (and Lawrence Kasdan and Phillip Kaufman) and directed by Steven Spielberg, Raiders of the Lost Ark follows college professor and archeologist Indiana Jones as he attempts to find the biblical ark of the covenant before the Nazis in 1936 and is pulpy, exciting, and funny. It is as thrilling as it is iconic and harkens back to a time when your hero could punch Nazis in the face without anyone complaining about it.

It is hard to write about Raiders without devolving into a Chris Farley show style sketch in which I just say ‘remember when Indy runs from the boulder? That was awesome!’ but it also feels weird not to do that. How do you write about it without invoking the well known lore like “Indy shooting the swordsman was in the script but Harrison Ford had food poisoning and improvised that to get to the restroom’ or ‘Spielberg and Lucas came up with the idea while on vacation at the beach during the Star Wars premier period.’ This has been so well documented at this point, it feels silly to write about it, but damn, it is just so cool. Even the sliding doors proposition of Tom Selleck having been cast as Indy before having to drop out when Magnum PI got picked up is interesting but well worn territory. Did you know they used 7,000 snakes for the most nightmare inducing moment ever put to film (for me personally)? Oh, yeah you did because there are roughly the same amount of articles, documentaries and podcasts about this. But here we are.

One of the things that fans talk about all the time in regard to Raiders is the idea that nothing would have been different if Indy wasn’t a part of the story. The Nazis would have found the Ark eventually and had their faces melted off by the power of god whether he got on the plane or not. I don’t know that I agree with that if only because the Nazis were looking in the wrong place and may never have found the Ark if Indy hadn’t found it. Maybe it would have been better if he had stayed home when you think about it, but think about all the Nazis who would not have been punched in the face or chopped up in spinning propellor blades if Indy didn’t show up? That makes his involvement worth it. Also, who know what would have happened to Marion if he hadn’t shown up to the bar? Probably nothing good if the Nazis had anything to say about it (maybe if he had never met her in the first place, she might have been better off altogether if the weird math about their ages when they met holds up).

I did not see this in the theater in its first run. I remember seeing the trailer for it at a drive in though. I don’t remember what movie we were there to see but I remember the Raiders trailer. My mom was all about it. This was my first encounter with my mom in ‘thirsty’ mode. I have no idea how my dad felt about this but there were particular actors my mom went crazy for and Harrison Ford was one of them. I remember when we saw the trailer and she said ‘Ooooooh, I want to see that!’ I think my dad grunted something about it. We did not see it in the theater or drive in but saw it later on VHS.

I loved this movie when I was a kid and watched it over and over on tape. We would routinely record movies that we rented and I would then watch them over and over like a little psychopath. I am not entirely sure when I saw this for the first time because we certainly didn’t have a VCR until 83 or 84 at least. We rented them before we owned on of our own and the timeline for that is pretty fuzzy for me. Nevertheless, I watched it over and over as a kid and made a point to get a bull whip during a trip to Nogales while family was visiting. I then destroyed that whip over time by wrapping it around the top of my swing set so I could swing on it. I have had several whips since. I have one currently to go with the rest of my Indiana Jones costume that I have worn more than once to theater screenings of any of the Indy movies.

My dad bought us matching Indiana Jones jackets when I was in high school and I used to wear mine all the time. He did too but given my mom’s reaction to the Raiders trailer, I wonder if his reason for wearing his all the time was very different than mine. Whatever the reason, I still have that jacket and I have the second version of it he and I got later on. I have his now too, which is bittersweet. We all loved Indy, I guess is the point.

I have seen Raiders in the theater several times now and it will always be my preferred way of watching the movie. It is made for cinematic presentation and deserves to be larger than life on the screen. I prefer Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (which really got mom going because she had a big thing for Sean Connery as well), but Raiders is a very close second. I still watch it on the regular and just writing about it now makes me want to watch it again.

2.Clash of the Titans-Desmond Davis

A very loose telling of the exploits of Greek hero Perseus, Clash of the Titans is a sword and sandal epic with a stacked cast of Shakespearian actors and the amazing stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen. This was the last film to feature Harryhausen’s Dynamation, which blended stop motion animation and live action footage, and the only one of Harryhausen’s features to be rated PG. It rocks.

Starring Harry Hamlin as Perseus, Sir Laurence Olivier as Zeus, Dame Maggie Smith as Thetis, Claire Bloom as Hera, Burgess Meredith as Ammon, Ursula Andres as Aphrodite, Jack Gwillim as Poseidon, Juli Bowker as Andromeda, Susan Fleetwood as Athena, Neil McCarthy as Calibos, Sian Phillips as Cassiopia, and Bupo as Bupo, Clash of the Titans is a pastiche of mythology both Greek and otherwise. We would be here all day if I were to point out all of the differences between the actual myth of Perseus and Clash of the Titans, and gods know I want to, but writer Beverly Bloom played fast and loose with just about all of the characters. The Kraken comes from Norse mythology, Calibos was created for the film and doesn’t exist in Greek myth, although he was based on Caliban from the Tempest by Shakespeare. Thetis’s actual son in Greek mythology is Achilles and I think he would have given Perseus a might bit more trouble if they were at odds with one another. Bupo the owl was created for the movie as a response to R2-D2 from Star Wars. Also, Perseus in Clash of the Titans is much, much less of a dick than he is in Greek mythology proper.

I loved the shit out of this movie when I was a kid and it was another that I watched over and over again. In truth, it is the reason I am into mythology as much as I am so I think the lack of parity between the film and the source material is pretty funny. Also funny is how the 2010 remake tried to make Perseus resistant to the influence of the gods such that he rejects their gifts and wants to do it all ‘as a man.’ That is pretty rich coming from the James Bond (or Inspector Gadget) of Greek heroes. If I had winged shoes, a reflective shield, a magic sword, and helmet of invisibility I am pretty sure I could slay Medusa too, especially since he snuck up on her while she was sleeping. What an asshole.

Clash of the Titans is pretty cheesy on rewatch but I also find it to be magical. It captured my imagination when I was a kid and the Medusa scene scared the shit out of me. This was a really rough year for kids like me who were afraid of snakes. By contrast, it was a pretty good year for actor Pat Roach who played Hephaestus in this and the Nazi mechanic who gets propellor bladed in Raiders. It also allowed for a really badass moment in the God of War series when Kratos comes to kill Perseus and Harry Hamlin reprised his role. We can ignore the proximity of this kill to Kratos killing Hercules given that he was Perseus’s great-grandson because God of War kicks ass. Clash of the Titans kicks ass too.

3.Superman 2-Richard Lester

Superman 2 is a weird movie. It was partially shot concurrently with the first movie and was meant to directed by Richard Donner but after he was removed, Richard Lester pieced together this thing. There is a Richard Donner cut of this but it is also weird because it recycles the ending of the first movie because it was meant to be the ending of this movie. So in effect, Superman spins the Earth backwards twice which just feels like cheating.

I saw Superman 2 in the theater and watching Superman duke it out with General Zod (and Ursula and Non) was exactly what I wanted when I was a kid. I really didn’t care about the wackadoo bullshit that happens in the movie like Supes throwing a saran wrap version of his chest emblem as a weapon or being able to erase memories with a kiss (which would feel pretty problematic with another character). I kind of do now, but I still dig this movie a lot. It has more of the stuff I loved from the first movie and it has Terrance Stamp kicking all kinds of ass with a really sweet beard. Indeed, when I rock a beard I go with the General Zod as my preferred length and style.

This was a movie I saw with my parents and I genuinely don’t remember what they thought. I think this is because I didn’t care. I knew it was awesome and that was all the interrogation of the movie that I needed. I wish we could have gotten the version that Donner truly intended but what we got was pretty sweet anyway and that is pretty rare for a sequel like this.

4.An American Werewolf in London-John Landis

Arguably the best werewolf movie ever made, An American Werewolf in London follows the story of David (David Naughton) who is backpacking across Europe when he and his friend are attacked by a wolf on the moors. David survives and while shacking up with a nurse he met at the hospital during treatment, and following horrific nightmares and visits from slain friend Jack (Griffin Dunne), transforms into a werewolf and eventually goes on a killing spree throughout London before being gunned down in the street.

John Landis directed this as his follow up to Animal House, and it is definitely a different sort of movie. With mind blowing practical transformation effects and a healthy dose of horrific gore, An American Werewolf in London is a very simple and straightforward movie that manages to get the job done with surgical precision. It is also funnier than it has any right to be and features a weird cameo from Frank Oz.

I saw this movie during my 5^th grade horror movie awakening in which I became very interested in vampires and werewolves. I don’t really know what kicked his off aside from maybe my love of Fright Night and the early FOX tv show Werewolf, but I loved this. I was partial to bipedal werewolves than ones that are on all fours but the wolf here looks so scary and vicious, I let it slide. I am fairly certain it horrified my mom that I watched this, in the same way that she was generally horrified by my near obsession with vampires and werewolves but I loved it. I am sure it helped that I saw it after seeing the Howling 2: Your Sister is a Werewolf, which is fucking bonkers and not in the way you want it to be. I also find it kind of hilarious that David Naughton got the part in this movie off the strength of his ‘wouldn’t you like to be a Pepper too’ commercials for Dr Pepper but then lost that job because of his nude scene in this movie. I never pegged the good Dr as a prude but then I don’t know how temperamental peppers are so who am I to say.

5.Escape From New York-John Carpenter

When I was a kid, I saw the cover box for Escape From New York and wanted to watch it because I was convinced that Snake Plissken was firing a laser gun on the cover. My mom said no in another one of those nonsensical content judgements that she had and so it was several years before I managed to see it.

I want to tell you that I saw this before watching the dire sequel Escape from LA but I don’t know that I can with any credibility. I remember thinking that Escape from LA was dogshit and then convincing myself it wasn’t because it had Bruce Campbell and a cool soundtrack, but when I watched this one I realized how bad the second actually was.

It isn’t that there isn’t any silliness to this story of a convict offered a pardon if he infiltrates the no man’s land that has become New York City to rescue the president’s daughter, but that silliness is restrained by a good helping of semi-post-apocalyptic badassness. I am positive that badassness is not a word, but I am equally positive I don’t give a shit.

Escape from New York offers a grim near future reality that was weirdly believable while also being terrifying. Kurt Russel’s Snake is iconic and set the template for gritty action heroes for years to come. John Carpenter is the fucking man and I love his movies. This one is definitely no exception.