1983: Year's Best Movies
by doxxman5 | created - 27 Nov 2017 | updated - 27 Nov 2017 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Rumble Fish (1983)
R | 94 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Absent-minded street thug Rusty James struggles to live up to his legendary older brother's reputation, and longs for the days of gang warfare.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, Dennis Hopper
Votes: 37,420 | Gross: $2.49M
2. Tender Mercies (1983)
PG | 92 min | Drama, Music
A broken-down, middle-aged country singer gets a new wife, reaches out to his long-lost daughter, and tries to put his troubled life back together.
Director: Bruce Beresford | Stars: Robert Duvall, Tess Harper, Betty Buckley, Wilford Brimley
Votes: 11,952 | Gross: $8.44M
3. Videodrome (1983)
R | 87 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
A programmer at a Toronto TV station that specializes in adult entertainment searches for the producers of a dangerous and bizarre broadcast.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: James Woods, Debbie Harry, Sonja Smits, Peter Dvorsky
Votes: 102,531 | Gross: $2.12M
4. Terms of Endearment (1983)
PG | 132 min | Comedy, Drama
Follows hard-to-please Aurora looking for love and her daughter's family problems.
Director: James L. Brooks | Stars: Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito
Votes: 65,217 | Gross: $108.42M
5. The Dead Zone (1983)
R | 103 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A man awakens from a coma to discover he has a psychic ability to foresee future events.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, Tom Skerritt, Herbert Lom
Votes: 76,969 | Gross: $20.77M
6. Scarface (1983)
18+ | 170 min | Crime, Drama
In 1980 Miami, a determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug cartel and succumbs to greed.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Al Pacino, Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
Votes: 912,439 | Gross: $45.60M
7. The Right Stuff (1983)
PG | 193 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
The U.S. space program's development from the breaking of the sound barrier to selection of the Mercury 7 astronauts, from a group of test pilots with a more seat-of-the-pants approach than the program's more cautious engineers preferred.
Director: Philip Kaufman | Stars: Sam Shepard, Scott Glenn, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid
Votes: 65,183 | Gross: $21.50M
8. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983)
PG | 131 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
After rescuing Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt, the Rebels attempt to destroy the second Death Star, while Luke struggles to help Darth Vader back from the dark side.
Director: Richard Marquand | Stars: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams
Votes: 1,117,590 | Gross: $309.13M
9. The Meaning of Life (1983)
R | 107 min | Comedy, Musical
The comedy team takes a look at life in all of its stages in their own uniquely silly way.
Director: Terry Jones | Stars: John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones
Votes: 125,077 | Gross: $14.93M
10. The Man with Two Brains (1983)
R | 93 min | Comedy, Romance, Sci-Fi
A brain surgeon marries a femme fatale whose life he saved, causing his life to turn upside down. Things go even more awry when he falls in love with a telepathic brain.
Director: Carl Reiner | Stars: Steve Martin, Kathleen Turner, David Warner, Paul Benedict
Votes: 27,781 | Gross: $10.10M
11. A Christmas Story (1983)
PG | 93 min | Comedy, Family
In the 1940s, a young boy named Ralphie Parker attempts to convince his parents, teacher, and Santa Claus that a Red Ryder Range 200 Shot BB gun really is the perfect Christmas gift.
Director: Bob Clark | Stars: Peter Billingsley, Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin, Scott Schwartz
Votes: 168,438 | Gross: $20.61M
12. Silkwood (1983)
R | 131 min | Biography, Drama, History
A worker at a plutonium processing plant is purposefully contaminated, psychologically tortured and possibly murdered to prevent her from exposing worker safety violations at the plant.
Director: Mike Nichols | Stars: Meryl Streep, Kurt Russell, Cher, Craig T. Nelson
Votes: 22,106 | Gross: $35.62M
13. Trading Places (1983)
R | 116 min | Comedy
A snobbish investor and a wily street con artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.
Director: John Landis | Stars: Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, Ralph Bellamy, Don Ameche
Votes: 165,167 | Gross: $90.40M
14. Zelig (1983)
PG | 79 min | Comedy
"Documentary" about a man who can look and act like whoever he's around, and meets various famous people.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Patrick Horgan, John Buckwalter
Votes: 44,019 | Gross: $11.80M
15. Vacation (1983)
R | 98 min | Adventure, Comedy
The Griswold family's cross-country drive to the Walley World theme park proves to be much more arduous than they ever anticipated.
Director: Harold Ramis | Stars: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Imogene Coca, Randy Quaid
Votes: 119,755 | Gross: $61.40M
16. Local Hero (1983)
PG | 111 min | Comedy, Drama
An American oil company has plans for a new refinery and sends someone to Scotland to buy up an entire village, but things don't go as expected.
Director: Bill Forsyth | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Fulton Mackay, Denis Lawson
Votes: 26,585 | Gross: $5.90M
17. The Big Chill (1983)
R | 105 min | Comedy, Drama
A group of seven former college friends gather for a weekend reunion at a South Carolina vacation home after the funeral of another of their college friends.
Director: Lawrence Kasdan | Stars: Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt
Votes: 41,176 | Gross: $56.20M
18. Lianna (1983)
R | 110 min | Drama, Romance
A happily married woman comes to realize herself of being a repressed lesbian after she has an affair with a female college professor, and then tries to come to terms with her newfound lifestyle.
Director: John Sayles | Stars: Linda Griffiths, Jane Hallaren, Jon DeVries, Jo Henderson
Votes: 1,823 | Gross: $1.50M
19. Yentl (1983)
PG | 133 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
A Jewish girl disguises herself as a boy to enter religious training.
Director: Barbra Streisand | Stars: Barbra Streisand, Amy Irving, Mandy Patinkin, Nehemiah Persoff
Votes: 15,725 | Gross: $40.22M
20. Risky Business (1983)
R | 99 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A Chicago teenager is looking for fun at home while his parents are away, but the situation quickly gets out of hand.
Director: Paul Brickman | Stars: Tom Cruise, Rebecca De Mornay, Joe Pantoliano, Richard Masur
Votes: 99,436 | Gross: $63.50M
21. Flashdance (1983)
R | 95 min | Drama, Music, Romance
An 18-year-old female amateur dancer who performs nightly at a dancing bar, and works as a welder during the day, dreams of joining the Pittsburgh ballet school.
Director: Adrian Lyne | Stars: Jennifer Beals, Michael Nouri, Lilia Skala, Sunny Johnson
Votes: 59,251 | Gross: $94.90M
22. WarGames (1983)
PG | 114 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
A young man finds a back door into a military central computer in which reality is confused with game-playing, possibly starting World War III.
Director: John Badham | Stars: Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, John Wood, Dabney Coleman
Votes: 110,282 | Gross: $79.57M
23. Octopussy (1983)
PG | 131 min | Action, Adventure, Thriller
A fake Fabergé egg recovered from the body of a fellow agent leads James Bond to uncover a jewel smuggling operation led by the mysterious Octopussy, and a plot to blow up a NATO air base.
Director: John Glen | Stars: Roger Moore, Maud Adams, Louis Jourdan, Kristina Wayborn
Votes: 112,647 | Gross: $67.90M
24. City of Pirates (1983)
Not Rated | 111 min | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
A surreal odyssey in which a melancholic maidservant crosses paths with a homicidal little boy, travels to a tiny island and encounters a man with multiple personalities.
Director: Raúl Ruiz | Stars: Hugues Quester, Anne Alvaro, Melvil Poupaud, André Engel
Votes: 1,060
25. Three Crowns of the Sailor (1983)
Not Rated | 117 min | Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
A drunken sailor recounts the surrealistic odyssey of his life story to a murderous student.
Director: Raúl Ruiz | Stars: Jean-Bernard Guillard, Philippe Deplanche, Nadège Clair, Lisa Lyon
Votes: 1,152
26. Suburbia (1983)
R | 94 min | Drama, Thriller
When household tensions and a sense of worthlessness overcome Evan, he finds escape when he clings with the orphans of a throw-away society.
Director: Penelope Spheeris | Stars: Chris Pedersen, Bill Coyne, Jennifer Clay, Timothy O'Brien
Votes: 5,979
27. The Hunger (1983)
R | 97 min | Drama, Horror
A love triangle develops between a beautiful yet dangerous vampire (Catherine Deneuve), her cellist companion (David Bowie), and a gerontologist (Susan Sarandon).
Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, Susan Sarandon, Cliff De Young
Votes: 28,943 | Gross: $5.98M
28. The Ballad of Narayama (1983)
Not Rated | 130 min | Drama
In a poor 19th century rural Japanese village, everyone who reaches the age of 70 has to climb a nearby mountain to die. An elderly woman is reaching close to her cut-off age during her last days with her family.
Director: Shôhei Imamura | Stars: Ken Ogata, Sumiko Sakamoto, Tonpei Hidari, Aki Takejô
Votes: 9,067
29. Pauline at the Beach (1983)
R | 95 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Marion is about to divorce from her husband and takes her 15-year-old niece Pauline on a vacation to Granville. She meets an old love...
Director: Éric Rohmer | Stars: Amanda Langlet, Arielle Dombasle, Pascal Greggory, Féodor Atkine
Votes: 10,477
30. The Wall (1983)
Not Rated | 117 min | Drama
Teens in a Turkish prison struggle to survive under hideous conditions.
Director: Yilmaz Güney | Stars: Tuncel Kurtiz, Ayse Emel Mesci Kuray, Malik Berrichi, Nicolas Hossein
Votes: 4,420
31. Nostalghia (1983)
Not Rated | 125 min | Drama
A Russian poet and his interpreter travel to Italy researching the life of an 18th-century composer, and instead meet a ruminative madman who tells the poet how the world may be saved.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky | Stars: Oleg Yankovskiy, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano, Patrizia Terreno
Votes: 29,903 | Gross: $0.01M
32. L'Argent (1983)
Not Rated | 85 min | Crime, Drama
A counterfeit bill that starts off as a schoolboy prank leads to incarceration and violence.
Director: Robert Bresson | Stars: Christian Patey, Sylvie Van den Elsen, Michel Briguet, Vincent Risterucci
Votes: 11,760
33. Baby It's You (1983)
R | 105 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
In a 1966 New Jersey high school, Jill and new student Sheik from the other side of the tracks make their way in a first love romance.
Director: John Sayles | Stars: Rosanna Arquette, Vincent Spano, Joanna Merlin, Jack Davidson
Votes: 2,135 | Gross: $1.87M
34. The 4th Man (1983)
Unrated | 102 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A man who has been having visions of an impending danger begins an affair with a woman who may lead him to his doom.
Director: Paul Verhoeven | Stars: Jeroen Krabbé, Renée Soutendijk, Thom Hoffman, Dolf de Vries
Votes: 8,518
35. El Norte (1983)
R | 141 min | Adventure, Drama
After their family is killed in a government massacre, siblings Enrique and Rosa flee Guatemala and embark on a perilous journey to "El Norte": the United States.
Director: Gregory Nava | Stars: Zaide Silvia Gutiérrez, David Villalpando, Ernesto Gómez Cruz, Alicia del Lago
Votes: 5,572
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