To make this list a movie had to be made in 1985. Obviously many movies made in 1984 earned box office dollars in 1985. On the other side many movies made in 1985 made money in 1986 and later. This page will looks at over 180 movies made in 1985. The movies are listed in two massive tables that lets you rank the movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.
Our UMR Top 50 of 1985
1985 Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.
- Sort 1985 Movies by movie titles and movie trailers
- Sort 1985 Movies by the stars or in some cases the director of the movie.
- Sort 1985 Movies by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
- Sort 1985 Movies how they were received by critics and audiences. 60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
- Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each 1985 Movies received and how many Oscar® wins each 1985 Movies received.
- Sort 1985 Movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking Score (UMR). Our UMR score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
Top earners in 1985 for Adjusted USA Box Office:
Quigley’s 1985 Top Stars List
1. Sylvester Stallone
2. Eddie Murpy
3. Clint Eastwood
4. Michael J. Fox
5. Chevy Chase
6. Arnold Schwarzenegger
7. Chuck Norris
8. Harrison Ford
9. Michael Douglas
10. Meryl Streep
11. Robert Redford
12. Sally Field
13. Kathleen Turner
14. Dan Aykroyd
15. Bill Murray
16. Jack Nicholson
17. Jessica Lange
18. Goldie Hawn
19. Charles Bronson
20. Cher
21. Mel Gibson
22. Pee-Wee Herman
23. Burt Reynolds
24. Sissy Spacek
25. Tom Cruise
i’m absolutely shocked that flesh+blood was such a flop ….This is one of the finest Paul Verhoeven movies and a cult classic ; some middle ages specialists and historians considers it to be the most accurate depiction of middle ages mercenary groups…
This is my all time favorite movie and in my humble opinion an absolute must see movie (although not recommended for children).
Hey Max…I discovered Flesh + Bone on VHS. I had never heard of the movie before renting it way back in the mid 1980s. But I loved it..and loved it even more on repeat viewings. As much as we like it…..it was a dud at the box office. From Wiki….”The film was huge box office flop, only managing to make back US $100,000 out of its estimated US$6.5 million budget.” On the plus side….the greatness of the movie opened doors for Verhoeven…which gave us classics like Total Recall and Basic Instinct…and of course Show Girls. Thanks for checking out our 1985 page.
i saw 46, including top 18 and 37 of top 52. 10s and favorites:back to the future,breakfast club, Silverado, witness. tens not favorites: kiss of the spider woman(too weird to ever recommend0. out of Africa, color purple.9s and favorites: murphys romance, fandango. 9s not favorites: cocoon, sure thing.. other hidden gems: a room with a view, trip to bountiful. great page, great comments, thanks to all. yea Cogerson.
Hey bob cox….thanks for checking out our 1985 page. I like your 10s…..I like all four of those movies…with Back to the Future and Breakfast Club being among my all-time favorites. I agree with you about Kiss of the Spider Woman. Good to see you liked Fandango…..a movie not many people know…but has a memorable Kevin Costner performance…as well as a Judd Nelson one. Thanks for the kind words, the tally and the visit…all are greatly appreciated.
HI BRUCE It was great to see your 1985 annual review flagged up. From time to time when I get your latest annual survey I like to compare it with a Cogerson annual review from the classic era to see how grosses have moved along since back then and I normally use the Top 20 highest grossers in each of the 2 years as my samples. I have therefore compared your 1985 top grossers with those in 1945-
Overall adjusted Cogerson gross for Top 20 in 1945-$6.42 billion
The adjusted Top 20 in 1985-$3.73 billion
Difference $2.69 billion massively in favour of 1945
However you have helpfully given us the actual grosses for the two years concerned and the total actual grosses for the Top 20s of 1945 and 1985 are respectively $242.5 million and $1.48 billion. Here is how the comparisons differ when GENERAL purchasing power today of the actual grosses is calculated instead of ticket price inflation:
Purchasing power of 1945s total actual grosses of $242.5 million in 2018 dollars-$3.36 billion
Purchasing power of 1985’s total actual grosses of $1.48 billion in 2018 dollars- $3.46 billion
Difference a mere $100 million dollars – virtually equal and indeed 1985 wins by a short nose and that would be the same for all 192 entries in your chart above as modern ticket prices are much dearer in real terms than in the classic era hence the greater purchasing power of modern grosses .
Such comparisons, which are of great interest to the movie stats “scholar”, would of course be impossible without the wealth of information provided on this site. You have now given us over half a century of annual reviews and when the project is up to the present in whatever year that ultimately happens, probably the most comprehensive record of box office performance over the entirety of the talkies era of motion pictures ever to be produced for the public domain will be available to anybody who is interested. That is a truly remarkable achievement of which Team Cogerson can be justly massively proud.
Hey Bob
1. Thanks for the very kind words.
2. These yearly pages are not the easiest to put together….but I really like them when the final result happens.
3. This is now every year from 1929 to 1985….lots and lots of movies in those yearly reviews. So we have 4 years left in the 1980s, all the 1990s, all the 2000s and 2010 to go. On the other end….we are not sure how far we will go into the 1920s. Part of our UMR equation needs Oscar stats….and the Oscars started in 1927.
4. Interesting stats…on the price index comparison. 1945 was almost the peak of the movie theater industry….as 1946 was the greatest year….and it has all been downhill since then.
5. Good feedback as always.
HI BRUCE
Thanks for feedback.
Some film historians have claimed that whilst audiences OVERALL have dropped away since the classic era the most popular films are still drawing similar audiences to the big films of the old days, so off an on I have used your Top 20’s to test that theory.
Whilst clearly in terms of audience participation 1985 didn’t come near to equalling 1945, in some years there has not been a great difference between the adjusted grosses for say a 1940s Top 20 and a modern era one particularly when a couple of the Big Beasts like Star Wars and Jaws have featured in a year.
Where modern films do invariably win or force a draw is in respect of the purchasing power of actual grosses. You will see from the 1945/1985 examples I gave you that whilst far more people attended the Top 20 films of 1945, the Top 20 of 1985 ended up in a virtual tie with 1985 in relation to the purchasing power of actual grosses.
Anyway have a good weekend and take care.
Hey Steve
1. Thanks for the comment, the visit, the tally count and the kind words.
2. Glad to be able to track down the first 3D animated movie…though…I admit….I did not know that until reading your comment.
3. Stallone was at the top of the mountain in 1985….I did not want to see First Blood 2….but saw it on the week after high school graduation…..and we had to take a break from partying….and that was the movie we picked to watch…we had a cottage on the Outer Banks….what a wreck we left after that week was over.
4. 82 is a stellar total. Looking over your favorites I see we agree on many many movies….I like seeing that.
5. As for The Color Purple…..yes it got shut out at the Oscars….but those 11 nominations and the Best Picture nomination helped it earn a good amount of Oscar points.
6. It took down Out of Africa in the review %……Out of Africa is barely floating about the “”good movie” threshold…while Purple is almost at 90%.
Good feedback as always…you are the man!
Nice work Bruce that’s quite a comprehensive list of 1985 films, you get extra points for including the nearly forgotten Starchaser, the first 3D animated movie. Fans of 3D have listed it as one of their ‘holy grail’ titles hoping it gets released on blu-ray 3D some day in the near or distant future.
1985 – back when Sylvester Stallone was king of Hollywood and Eddie Murphy was rising up the charts. But superstardom does not last.
I’ve seen 82 of the 192 films on the chart. Looking at my files I have 83 films from 1985 in my movie collection, these are my favorites –
Back to the Future
Black Cauldron ,The
Brazil
Cat’s Eye
Cocoon
Commando
Day of the Dead
Death Wish III
Emerald Forest ,The
Enemy Mine
Explorers
Flesh + Blood
Fletch
Fright Night
Jewel of the Nile
King Solomon’s Mines
Ladyhawke
Last Dragon ,The
Legend
Lifeforce
Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
National Lampoon’s European Vacation
Nightmare on Elm St. II -Freddy’s Revenge
Out of Africa
Pale Rider
Prizzi’s Honor
Protector ,The
Rambo – First Blood II
Real Genius
Reanimator
Red Sonja
Remo
Return of the Living Dead
Return to Oz
Rocky IV
Runaway Train
Silver Bullet
Silverado
Spies Like Us
To Live and Die In LA
View to a Kill ,A
Weird Science
Witness
Year of the Dragon
Young Sherlock Holmes
zz-China – Police Story
zz-Japan – Ran
zz-Japan Anime – Vampire Hunter D
Not sure why The Color Purple tops the UMR chart it received a lot of Oscar nominations but it failed to win any, at least Out of Africa did win a few inc Best Picture. Back to the Future should top all the charts.
Brazil is a huge favorite of mine too Bruce, good to see it doing well on the critics chart. Might watch it again this Xmas, straight after Die Hard. 😉
Another epic movie year page Bruce. A big Vote Up!