The top 10 movies of 1983
Some of you might remember all the way back in August of 2023 when I shared my review of National Lampoon's Vacation. It was supposed to be the first in a series of 10 blog posts of the top ten grossing movies for the year I was born (1983) as a fun experiment leading up to my 40th. (Some of you may also remember that I wasn't particularly fond of movie #10 on that list.)
If I'm being really honest, this project was a bit of an exercise in disappointment. I think because I knew that the #1 movie of 1983 was Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, a movie I adore, I sort of just expected the rest to be good, fun movies as well. And while some of them are pretty good, they're still pretty dated, and occasionally hard to watch for the first time 40 years after they were released. It didn't help that I started with a movie I really didn't like.
I had only seen three of them before I started this little project; Return of the Jedi, WarGames and Octopussy. The rest were all first-time watches. And as you may have surmised from the wording up top, I never finished my series of blog posts, I got discouraged at Staying Alive and while I watched all 10 movies, I never summoned the energy to write about them (yes, Staying Alive is THAT BAD), UNTIL NOW. So, let's dive in, shall we?
10. National Lampoon's Vacation: As previously discussed, I found this movie to be cringey, unfunny, and Chevy Chase to be actively unlikeable throughout. While there were occasional bright spots of humour, not enough to make it palatable as a whole for me.
9. Mr. Mom: Honestly, after the disaster of the previous film, this one wasn't horrible, Michael Keaton is actually quite charming and doesn't hate his wife (like Chevy Chase clearly does in #10), nor begrudges her earning a living when he can't. However, that being said, it was still filled with a lot of gendered stereotypes that were dated even back in 1983 and it also has an oddly abrupt ending.
8. Risky Business: Again, if I'm being fair, this movie was actually pretty good. I went into this movie knowing one thing about it, Tom Cruise dances in his undies. Turns out it's a lot about sex work, greed, classism and Reagan-era economics. It also has a KILLER soundtrack.
7. Staying Alive: I knew three things about this movie before I watched it: 1. it was the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, 2. it was directed by Sylvester Stallone (who I since discovered also co-wrote this monstrosity) and 3. it infamously has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I wish these were still the only things I knew about this movie. When I went to watch this I was still riding the high of Mr. Mom and Risky Business being infinitely better than Vacation. It is a MESS. The story is baffling, the dialogue terrible, the plot terrible, the sound TERRIBLE. I really don't like it when people say about movies “that's an hour and a half of my life I'm never getting back” because a lot of people spend a lot of time making that movie and they deserve a little credit for that. But this is the one time I wish I could ask for those 93 minutes back.
6. Octopussy: Oh boy folks, while not nearly as bad as the previous film, it's not that much better. I had seen it before, as a Bond completionist, but not for a long time, and I forgot how nonsensical it was, and how OLD Roger Moore (my least favourite Bond) looks in it. Well, after a bit of research, it turns out ‘cause Moore was supposed to have had his swan song in For Your Eyes Only. Due to a long legal battle in the 60s, the filming rights for Never Say Never Again were kept not by Eon Productions (who have made all, save two Bond films), but one of the co-writers of Thunderball, Kevin McClorry. He and Warner Bros. announced they had convinced Sean Connery to reprise the role he originated. Eon had been looking for a new Bond, but when the other movie was announced, they cut the search short, got Moore back on board and found the salacious title buried in a Bond short story A Property of a Lady and made they made certain it was released before Connery’s film. It may have made more money, but it's a mess and it's far less well-reviewed than its counterpart.
5. WarGames: I'll admit, knowing that this was #5 helped power me through the previous two films. As one of the movies I'd previously seen, I did have ‘nostalgia eyes’ for it, but I maintain it's still an excellent film. Matthew Broderick, playing a brilliant but unmotivated high school student (sound familiar?) hacks into a NORAD computer and almost starts WWIII?! What's not to like?
4. Trading Places: I didn't really know what to expect, with the rest of the list being so up and down, but I actually quite enjoyed Trading Places. Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy are in their prime, and this is another biting satire of greed and classism with a lot of comedy thrown in. One of the things I wasn't expecting was Jamie Lee Curtis as a sex worker who helps Ackroyd get back on his feet after a callous bet has him lose everything. I didn't know she was in the movie and she was a delight. However, that being said, one of the things I remember most about the movie was the very casual Blackface that happens near the end. I was shocked by it while watching, which I guess says a lot about movies these days, but I also would've thought it was a no-no even back in '83. That shocking moment aside, a very good time.
3. Flashdance: While I enjoyed Flashdance overall, and it also has an amazing soundtrack, I found, yet again, my modern sensibilities getting the way while watching it. Jennifer Beal's character wants to be a professional ballerina but works as a stripper and at a steel mill to make ends meet, all that totally fine, with a plot similar to many a modern dance movie. What I had a hard time with was that after her boss sees her dance at the strip club and then subsequently finds out she works for him, he pursues a relationship with her, you know, power dynamics and HR be damned. I get it, it was the 80s, and like I said, I enjoyed the movie, that one part was just hard to swallow.
2. Tootsie: I'd heard of Tootsie, and like most, I knew Dustin Hoffman dressed as a woman in it. However, if you told me that he dressed up as a woman to get an acting job because he couldn't get a job as a man, I may have watched it earlier. The concept and comedy are well-done and the jabs at sexism in the workplace land well. It also pokes some fun at soap operas, which is almost always a good time.
1.Star Wars: Return of the Jedi: If you know me at all you know that I loudly celebrate May the 4th every year, and have seen every Star Wars movie in theatre, gobbled up the live-action series that have been released on Disney+ and have fallen down the hole of the excellent animated series that have come out in the last 10 years, so 10/10, no notes, would and will watch again. 100% biased on all counts. ;)
Have you had a peek at the top 10 movies that came out the year you were born? Are they better than mine (not hard to be ;) ), are you going to watch them? Let me know!