1980 poll

[Lencho of the Apes]

Choose your favorite films from 1980 (according to IMDb).

– Each person votes for up to 20 movies. Do not feel compelled to fill the maximum allowable number, if you're enthusiastic about fewer than twenty.
– Do not rank the films except the number 1, it gets two points..

Users are urged to post their provisional lists as soon as possible so that others may use them for recommendations. You may, of course, revise your lists at any point prior to the deadline.

Ballots posted by new members who have not participated in other parts of the forum will not be counted.

Deadline for 1980 lists will be Monday, August 3rd at approximately 1 PM Pacific Time.

[Lencho of the Apes]

If you want to crib from my watchlist, you know what to do. And I'll update it as other people suggest their special favorites.

Some things from the year that I liked:

A Paso De Cojo - Alcoriza
El Coyote Y La Bronca -
The Elephant Man - Lynch
The Falls - Greernaway
Maniac -
Mother's Day -
Permanent Vacation - Jarmusch
The Shining - Kubrick
A Story Of The Forest: Mavka - Ilyenko
Village In The Jungle -
We're Going To Eat You - Hark
Who's Singing Over There? -
Zoom In: Rape Apartments -

[MrCarmady]

Oh cool! For some reason I'm pretty weak on the late 70s/early 80s so it'll be good to watch a bunch more stuff.

Times Square (Moyle)
Babylon (Rosso)
Loulou (Pialat)
Airplane! (Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker)
Dressed to Kill (De Palma)
The Long Riders (Hill)
Garazh (Ryazanov)
The Night of the Hunted (Rollin)
The Long Good Friday (Mackenzie)
Inferno (Argento)
Crac (Back)*
Raging Bull (Scorsese)*
Caddyshack (Ramis)
The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner)
American Gigolo (Schrader)*
Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears (Menshov)
The Fog (Carpenter)*
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (Blank)
Melvin and Howard (Demme)
The Blues Brothers (Landis)

* - hope to re-watch

Watch-list:
Permanent Vacation (Jarmusch)
The Falls (Greenaway)
Every Man for Himself (Godard)
The Shining (Kubrick)
Bad Timing (Roeg)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (lol) (Fassbinder)
Stardust Memories (Allen)
Altered States (Russell)
Ordinary People (Redford)
Zigeunerweisen (Suzuki)
The Gods Must Be Crazy (Uys)
Kagemusha (Kurosawa)
City of the Living Dead (Fulci)
Death Watch (Tavernier)
Gloria (Cassavetes)
The Blue Lagoon (Kleiser)
The Last Metro (Truffaut)
Spetters (Verhoeven)
Cruising (Friedkin)
Lightning Over Water (Ray/Wenders)
Poto and Cabengo (Gorin)
Fox Hunting (Abdrashitov)
Vivre est une solution (Courant)
Simone Barbes or Virtue (Treilhou)
Out of the Blue (Hopper)

Plus re-watch:
The Big Red One (Fuller)
The Elephant Man (Lynch)

[greennui]

1. Babylon (Franco Rosso)

Cruising (William Friedkin)
Simone Barbes or Virtue (Marie-Claude Treilhou)
C’est la vie! (Paul Vecchiali)
The Night of the Hunted (Jean Rollin)
Out of the Blue (Dennis Hopper)
Bad Timing (Nicolas Roeg)
Heaven’s Gate (Michael Cimino)
Tyll the Giant (Rein Raamat)
Vivre est une solution (Gérard Courant)
My American Uncle (Alain Resnais)
Loulou (Maurice Pialat)
The Age of the Earth (Glauber Rocha)
Personal Problems (Bill Gunn)
Metaphor: King Vidor Meets with Andrew Wyeth (King Vidor)
Zig~Zag (Raúl Ruiz)
Hollywood (Kevin Brownlow)
Palermo or Wolfsburg (Werner Schroeter )
Grabbe’s Last Summer (Sohrab Shahid Saless)
Larisa (Elem Klimov)

[Evelyn Library P.I.]

Seen and didn't hate:
- Narrows Inlet (David Rimmer)
- Bat Without Wings (Chor Yuen)

Will try to watch some Italian genre movies and HK genre movies for this.

I'm currently making my way through Hollywood, Brownlow and Gill's classic miniseries on silent US film, (it's to be my 5000th movie on LBD), and that's conveniently 1980 too. A mixed bag thus far, but it'll definitely rate a vote.

[Holymanm]

(way way back in 1980
secret government employees
gave bill hurt some dank peyote
and turned him into a weird monkey)






Altered States (Ken Russell, 1980)
The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)
Kagemusha (Akira Kurosawa, 1980)
Gregory's Girl (Bill Forsyth, 1981)
Heaven and Hell (Cheh Chang, 1980)

Killer Constable (Kuei Chih-Hung, 1980)
Inferno (Dario Argento, 1980)
Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
The Gods Must Be Crazy (Jamie Uys, 1980)
God's Angry Man (Werner Herzog, 1980)

Airplane! (Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker, 1980)
Encounters of the Spooky Kind (Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, 1980)
Return to the 36th Chamber (Chia-Liang Liu, 1980)
The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980)



Every Man For Himself (Jean-Luc Godard, 1980)
The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (Julien Temple, 1980)
Cheech & Chong's Next Movie (Tommy Chong, 1980)
Where the Buffalo Roam (Art Linson, 1980)

[flip]

Mon Oncle d'Amerique (Alain Resnais)

Foxes (Adrian Lyne)
Who's Singin' Over There? (Slobodan Sijan)
Heaven's Gate (Michael Cimino)
The Long Riders (Walter Hill)
Hide in Plain Sight (James Caan)
Arrival (Mani Kaul)
620 Commercial (Joseph Bernard)
The Fly (Ferenc Rofusz)
Murder Psalm (Stan Brakhage)
Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese)
Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma)
The Last Metro (Francois Truffaut)
City of Women (Federico Fellini)
Bad Timing (Nicolas Roeg)
La Mort en Direct (Bertrand Tavernier)
The Falls (Peter Greenaway)
Merry-Go-Round (Jacques Rivette)

[oscarwerner]

1. Atlantic City (Louis Malle) -My Top Hit
---------------
Other films:
2.The Stunt Man (Richard Rush)
3.From the Life of the Marionettes (Ingmar Bergman)
4.Inferno (Dario Argento)
5.Berlin Alexanderplatz (Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
6.Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese)
7.Ordinary People (Robert Redford )
8.The Elephant Man (David Lynch)
9.The Shining (Stanley Kubrick)
10.The Big Red One (Samuel Fuller)
-------
11.Airplane! (Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker, David Zucker)
12.Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma)
13.The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner)
14. Kagemusha (Akira Kurosawa)
15. The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie)
16.The Blues Brothers (John Landis)
17.My American Uncle (Alain Resnais)
18.The Last Metro (François Truffaut)
19.Cruising (William Friedkin)
20.Fame (Alan Parker)
------------

[karl]

One of those years I could easily make a whole list from "red" Europe. But then I'd not be able to include my #1.

The Contenders:



A Distant Cry from Spring (Yamada Yoji)

The Constant Factor (K. Zanussi)
Build a House, Plant a Tree (Juraj Jakubisko)
Who's Singing over There? (Slobodan Šijan)
Sunday Daughters (János Rózsa)
Mavka: Song of the Forest (Yuri Ilyenko)
A Strip of Uncut Wildflowers (Ilyenko)
Confidence (Istvan Szabo)
Little Tragedies (Mikhail Shveitser)
A Bad Son (Claude Sautet)
Oblomov (Nikita Mikhalkov)
Times, Waters (Branko Gapo)
Petria's Wreath (Srđan Karanović)
Pursuit of Death (Im Kwon-taek)
Evening Rain (Wu Yonggang & Wu Yigong)
Gently Was Anastasia Passing (Alexandru Tatos)
Les bons débarras (Francis Mankiewicz)
Cordelia (Jean Beaudin)
The Fiancee (Günther Rücker & Günter Reisch)
A Fox Hunt (Vadim Abdrashitov)
Csontváry (Zoltán Huszárik)
The Beads of One Rosary (Kazimierz Kutz)
The Conductor (Andrzej Wajda)
Point of View (Janusz Zaorski)
Larisa (Elem Klimov)
In Spring One Plants Alone (Vincent Ward)
They Don't Wear Black Tie (Leon Hirszman)
Getting to Know the Big Wide World (Kira Muratova)
Kagemusha
The Shining
Atlantic City

[...]

If, as I think, 1959 was a year heavy with ambivalence about the future and the roles we play within the social order, 1980 is a year of introspection, where self examination is given a higher priority, leading to a year of more modest, largely character driven films. There aren't many films I've seen from the year that are entirely successful as total works, but there are a fair number of movies which offer smaller scale pleasures, even if the movies have as many flaws as benefits. This isn't of course always the direct theme of the films, but it seems to fit the tone of a great many.

A good share of engagement came from performance, how actors captured their roles, while there were of course still some more action oriented genre films at the margins that put the spectacle first, but even some of those, though not of course the Jackie Chan films since he doesn't really do introspection, were surprisingly subdued in how the character approach. A number of the more prominent films weren't exactly "fun" in that same sense, with characters that might not be people of personal merit, but there were others that took the more laudatory track, sometimes maybe to excess.

Punk music and attitude was a noticeable element of a number of films, as was some nostalgia based connection between punk and old school young people with attitudes from the 50s and 60s. Horror movies were prevalent and sci-fi was in the wacky in-between stage where it was seen as a thing to pursue, but without much clarity in how. TV movies/miniseries also had a strong showing, not all that far removed from the feature films of the year. A sort of longing for sincerity in a number of films was matched by a turn towards reflexivity in others, two paths perhaps towards a similar desired end.

Saw too many to make a full list, mostly US stuff and the more widely released foreign films, with a few odder works throw in as well. The few that are almost certain to make my final list are:

Zigeunerweisen
The Age of the Earth
Every Man for Himself
The Spooky Bunch
Taxi zum Klo
Return to the 36th Chamber
Kagemusha
Oblomov
Stardust Memories
Evening Rain

Followed by dozens that could fill out the roster that are more open to debate.

[ofrene]

surprisingly saw so less from this year

Altered States
Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind
Dressed to Kill
Heaven's Gate
Pursuit of Death
Raging Bull

not sure to add Shining but will get lots of vote so...

[Roscoe]

RAGING BULL
HEAVEN'S GATE
THE SHINING
THE LAST METRO
THE ELEPHANT MAN
MELVIN AND HOWARD
ALTERED STATES
HOLLYWOOD (Brownlow)
GREGORY'S GIRL -- 1980 per imdb

Seen enough for more, but not sure. I've never really warmed up to KAGEMUSHA, CRUISING isn't good enough for a Best list, BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ might sneak on. I should revisit ATLANTIC CITY, I guess. Maybe EMPIRE STRIKES BACK....

[thoxans]

HEAVEN's GATE (Michael Cimino)

christmas evil (lewis jackson)
death watch (bertrand tavernier)
dressed to kill (brian de palma)
the flag of iron (chang cheh)
the fog (john carpenter)
garlic is as good as ten mothers (les blank)
the long riders (walter hill)
maniac (william lustig)
the ninth configuration (william peter blatty)
used cars (robert zemeckis)

[therouxxx]

Khubsoorat (Hrishikesh Mukherjee)
Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Jean-Luc Godard)
Ming jian (Patrick Tam Kar-ming)
Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma)

others to see--

India - Esthappan, Arrival, Aakrosh, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyoon Aata Hai, Bhavni Bhavai, Sparsh, Arising from the Surface, Red Rose, Karz, The Burning Train, Moodu Pani, Shaan

Hong Kong - Clan of the White Lotus, The Victim, Heroes Shed No Tears, Killer Constable, Return to the 36th Chamber, Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind, Bat without Wings

other countries - Simone Barbès ou la vertu, The Fog, Bronco Billy, Kagemusha, Cannibal Holocaust, Personal Problems, City of the Living Dead, A Idade da Terra

[Curtis, baby]

Holy shit what a lousy year

1. Talking heads

Kagemusha
The Shining
The sweater (Canadian classic)
Tell me a riddle
Airplane!

Crac (Back)
Arrival (Kaul)
Loulou (Pialat)
Poto & Gabengo (Jean-Pierre Gorin)

Not voting for it, but consider that the best piece of prose I've ever written (imo) is called "the constant factor" (lifted from that 1980 zanussi)

[brian d]

pretty deep year, top spot likely to one of the top two, the rest in whatever order:

narcissus and psyche (gabor body)
merry-go-round (jacques rivette)
el salvador: el pueblo vencerá (diego de la texera)
clan of the white lotus (lo lieh)
catherine de heilbronn (eric rohmer)
village in the jungle (lester james peries)
bhavni bhavai (ketan mehta)
esthappan (govindan aravindan)
build a house, plant a tree (juraj jakubisko)
confidence (istvan szabo)
arising from the surface (mani kaul)
killer constable (kuei chih-hung)
zigeunerweisen (seijun suzuki)
kagemusha (akira kurosawa)
the shining (stanley kubrick)
refused (frieda liappa)
alexander the great (theo angelopoulos)
mudas mudanças (saguenail)
panelstory or birth of a community (vera chytilova)
mavka: song of the forest (yuri ilyenko)

to see (might be able to get in more than one):
city after dark (ishmael bernal)

[Umbugbene]

Not my proudest list... there's some goofy stuff here for sure, especially The Forbidden Zone. But I stand by my #1 choice. There's a lot more going on in The Shining than the crackpots in the Room 237 documentary hint at.

1. The Shining

Mystery of Oberwald (Antonioni)
The Falls (Greenaway)
The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner)
City of Women (Fellini)
Sunbeam (Vester)
The Gods Must Be Crazy (Uys)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (Fassbinder)
The Forbidden Zone (Elfman)
Kingdom of the Diamonds (Ray)
Who's Singin' Over There? (Šijan)
Khubsoorat (Mukherjee)
Somewhere in Time (Szwarc)
Zigeunerweisen (Suzuki)
Breaker Morant (Beresford)

Want to watch:
Esthappan, Rising from the Surface, everything on Karl's list

[MrCarmady]

Rapture is 1979, bure, guess that makes the year even lousier...

[rischka]

narcissus and psyche - gabor body (thx brian and a long ago DC)
esthappan - govindan aravindan
the falls - peter greenaway
dangerous encounters of the first kind - hark tsui
raging bull - marty scorsese
the sword - patrick tam
kagemusha - akira kurosawa (better vote for it as i have a poster here on my wall lol)
a story of the forest: mavka - yuri ilyenko
the constant factor - krzysztof zanussi
who's singing over there - slobodan sijan
poto and cabengo - jean-pierre gorin
village in the jungle - lester james peries
zig~zag - raul ruiz

that's as far as i'm willing to go now, will consolidate a watchlist shortly. is this the year i watch berlin alexanderplatz

good overlap w wuxia poll

clan of the white lotus
return to the 36 chambers
age of the earth
the big red one
les bons débarras
grabbe's last summer
out of the blue
they don't wear black tie
zigeunerweisen
crazy thunder road
virus
a distant cry from spring
arising from the surface
evening rain
alexanderplatz

[St. Gloede]

1. Nárcisz és Psyché (1980, Gábor Bódy)
-
Raging Bull (1980, Martin Scorsese)
Mon oncle d'Amérique (1980, Alain Resnais)
Atlantic City (1980, Louis Malle)
Love Between the Raindrops (1980, Karel Kachyna)
The Shining (1980, Stanley Kubrick)
Panelstory aneb Jak se rodí sídliste (1980, Vera Chytilová)
Tsigoineruwaizen (1980, Seijun Suzuki)
Le dernier métro / The Last Metro (1980, François Truffaut)
The Elephant Man (1980, David Lynch)
Solo Sunny (1980, Konrad Wolf)
Postav dom, zasad strom / Build a House, Plant a Tree (1980, Juraj Jakubisko)
Loulou (1980, Maurice Pialat)
Berlin Chamissoplatz (1980, Rudolf Thome)
Poznavaya belyy svet / Getting to Know the Big Wide World (1980, Kira Muratova)
Csontváry (1980, Zoltán Huszárik)
Sauve qui peut (la vie) / Slow Motion (1980, Jean-Luc Godard)
Stardust Memories (1980, Woody Allen)
The Falls (1980, Peter Greenaway)
Bizalom / Confidence (1980, Istvan Szabo)

[sally]

are we repeating years now? definitely feels like i've done this year before, or maybe it's just that pleasant soup of nostalgia these polls generally bring, how i've seen so many films that were so nice. well done humans. and then the PLANZ!!!, of so many more to see. and then i fail because life and have to sulk for months. so this time i'm going to limit it to 5 films only to see.

anyway

sauve qui peut (la vie)
merry go round
majstori, majstori (i love this film, i seem to keep voting for it all over the place)
microphone test (one of my fave romanian films + fantastic mustache)
evening rain (4th generation classic)
alexander the great
palermo or wolfsburg
bhavni bhavai (sublime mustache antics)
the spooky bunch
death watch (one of those films i think about way more than i realise)
arising from the surface
the beads of one rosary
the falls
confidence
grabbe's last summer
esthappan
salto nel vuoto
encounters of the spooky kind
panelstory
les photos d'alix
zig-zag - le jeu de l'oie (une fiction didactique à propos de la cartographie)
rycerz

to see:
city after dark
the muratova
simone barbes
la terrazza (this available anywhere? only one person i follow has seen it)
aguila (again, not available?)
narcissus and psyche
the constant factor

[St. Gloede]

Wait, Narcissus and Psyche has 3 no. 1 votes, but no one else has it on their lists?

[MrCarmady]

Wait, Narcissus and Psyche has 3 no. 1 votes, but no one else has it on their lists?

It looks great but it's like ridiculously long, right? I feel that with movies like that it's more of a binary outcome - you either see it and love it deeply or think it's a waste of time.

[rischka]

yeah it's like 4 hours long, brian played it on a director's cup at mubi years ago and it was amazing

la terrazza (this available anywhere? only one person i follow has seen it)
aguila (again, not available?)

both of these are 'available' tho aguila isn't in the best condition

[thoxans]

i will never forgive bd for using gabor body to knock out my pick of isao takahata in a dc years back on mubi. never!

[Curtis, baby]

so this time i'm going to limit it to 5 films only to see.

i like this idea. but i've barely been watching movies so i'll limit myself to 3 features and 1 short. before this poll ends i WILL (!) see:

the elephant man
a distant cry from spring
out of the blue (it's canadian)

short: larisa (klimov's doc about shepitko)

[MrCarmady]

Crac is Canadian as well and 15 minutes long and on YouTube, just saying...

[sally]

la terrazza (this available anywhere? only one person i follow has seen it)
aguila (again, not available?)

both of these are 'available' tho aguila isn't in the best condition

sucks about aguila i've never seen a filipino historical epic i didn't like, but i'm not sitting thru hours of less than best condition. oh well, there's the bernal

also, if someone wants to make N+P available, that would also be nice, i always regretted not watching it for the cup

[brian d]

i will never forgive bd for using gabor body to knock out my pick of isao takahata in a dc years back on mubi. never!

all i remember of all of that is running out of feature length movies to show and getting lucky that i didn't have to go with one of his four minute long digital experimental movies. actually, i think every time i've done a cup i've pretty much been knocked out right when i ran out of really good options, so lucky me i guess?

oh, i do remember the movie you showed with the raccoons who fly using their scrotums. definitely a memorable flick.

[Curtis, baby]

Crac is Canadian as well and 15 minutes long and on YouTube, just saying...

i've seen it and like it a lot. i usually put only 4+ on my list unless the year is <1930, but maybe i'll include some underseen 3.5s since i have a bunch of space left