What was it about the 1980s that inspires so much nostalgia nowadays? Was it the eight years of Reaganomics? The collapse of East European communism? New Coke, parachute pants, Thriller, Pac-Man, two separate-but-equal Teen Wolf movies? (Don't laugh. The first Teen Wolf is much, much worse than you remember.) Who knows? But, for whatever reason, you'd be hard-pressed to find a decade that modern pop culture reveres more than the 1980s. As such, people seem to go crazy for 80s movies and, we'll admit, there was a lot of good to chose from. While we wouldn't want to say that the 80s had a better overall movie-quality average than any other decade, it's hard to fault a ten-year period that gave us Airplane, American Werewolf in London, Back to the Future, Batman, Beverly Hills Cop, Big, Blade Runner, Blues Brothers, Bull Durham, Caddyshack, A Christmas Story, and Coming to America... and those are just selections from the ABCs. That's not even getting into Ghostbusters, The Shining, two non-prequel Star Wars movies, the three good Indiana Jones movies - let's just say there was a lot of amazing Hollywood product during the Reagan years. Maybe it helped having the star of Bedtime for Bonzo in the White House.

However, shows like VH1's I Love the 80s, 80s movie web sites (we're fans of Fast-Rewind.com), and recent DVD special edition reissues all seem to focus their attention on the same rotating group of memorable 80s flicks and, while we can't fault people for wanting to keep pouring the love on Spinal Tap or Heathers, here at the MovieRetriever offices, we're a bit worried that the legacy of certain under-the-radar 80s classics are going unsung and unremembered by the modern iPod-worshipping masses. As a public service, here are MovieRetriever's picks for ten 80s movies that don't nearly get the credit they whole-heartedly deserve:

1. Midnight Run (1988)

While we'd never want to take anything away from Planes, Trains, & Automobiles - another great 80s flick - it has to be said that Midnight Run is THE best buddies-who-hate-each-other-road-trip movie of the 1980s. Director Martin Brest might be best remembered as the guy behind Beverly Hills Cop and Scent of a Woman (and, regrettably, Gigli), but Midnight Run is unquestionably the best movie Brest ever made. The tale of a bounty hunter (Robert De Niro) trying to transport the world's most annoyingly conniving prisoner (Charles Grodin) from New York to LA, Midnight Run features some of the best on-screen chemistry this side of Butch & Sundance; a smart, sophisticated, and, most of all, hilarious script; a fantastic score by Danny Elfman; and it stands as one of the prototypical anti-buddy movies of all time. True Midnight Run fans know all about Grodin's permanent wrist scars and love to use "Agent Alonzo Mosely" as their go-to pseudonym of choice, however, so many modern movie fans have forgotten about this 80s classic, which is a shame. It's not only one of De Niro's finest and most accessible performances to date - a lovably gruff every-guy that De Niro has tried in vain to revisit in his more recent films - but it's also one of the truly great action-comedies of the past three decades.

**********

2. Tapeheads (1988)

Trust us. Tapeheads is the best Tim Robbins/John Cusack movie you've never heard of. And if you have heard of Tapeheads, then turn up your Swanky Modes album and head out to Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles to get some fuel for your attitude. A definite product of the burgeoning MTV generation, Tapeheads is a wild comedy (produced by Michael Nesmith of The Monkees, no less) about two young idealistic scammers, Josh (Robbins) and Ivan (Cusack), trying to hit it big in the world of music videos. Tapeheads completely skewers both Reagan-era conservativism and the smug self-importance of the 80s era music industry, largely thanks to the film's cooler-than-cool, anti-establishment bent - Soundtrack by Fishbone! Cameo by Jello Biafra! - and the hysterically funny onscreen duo of Robbins and Cusack. (The scene with them doing the alphabet backwards in sign-language, excluding all vowels, to prove they're not drunk is a scream.) It's a low-budget earnest affair all around, but the priceless music video parodies and the performances by the Swanky Modes (played by Motown legends Sam Moore and Junior Walker) make this one of our favorite music industry movies of all time.

**********

3. Clue (1985)

Let's get this out of the way first. There is NO reason this movie should've worked. It was based on a freakin' board game. It's a Murder by Death rip-off. It stars a selection of B-list (leaning towards C-list) character actors with nary a box office star in sight. And yet Clue is one of the most enjoyable, insanely re-watchable movies of the 1980s, a madcap farce that actually works, which is a rarity in Hollywood. So why does Clue work and why is it so much more memorable than the star-studded, Neil Simon-authored Murder by Death? (Stop cringing, 70s movie fans, you know we're right.) Maybe it was Jonathan Lynn's whip-crack-fast script. Maybe it was the nostalgic locked-parlor murder mystery plot. Maybe communism was a red herring. (Clue fans know what we're talking about.) But we think the real secret weapon of Clue is the cast - a selection of oft-neglected supporting actors (Michael McKean, Martin Mull, Eileen Brennan, Christopher Lloyd, Lesley Ann Warren, Madeline Kahn, and Tim Curry) who all stepped up to the plate and knocked this meager mystery out of the park. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go home and sleep with my wife..."

**********

4. The Dark Crystal (1982)

The Muppets make up the most substantial part of Jim Henson's legacy as a puppeteer, visionary, and director, and Labyrinth is probably the most accessible, non-Muppet family film he ever directed (plus it has a kicking David Bowie soundtrack - "Dance, magic, dance!). But The Dark Crystal is a cinematic spectacle made up entirely of wild ideas and imagination, and you just have to applaud Henson for even attempting to bring something so ambitious to the big screen. The plot follows Jen, an elf-like creature called a Gelfing, as he attempts to restore the power of the once-great Dark Crystal and bring an end to the rule of the vicious, vulture-like Skeksis. And did we mention that the whole story is told with puppets? And that it takes place against a fantasy backdrop as massive as anything in the Lord of the Rings movies, all while being as trippy and metaphysical as 2001: A Space Odyssey? People tend to either love or hate The Dark Crystal - we come down on the "love" side - but even if you can't appreciate Henson's grand puppet fantasy, you HAVE to applaud the effort it must have taken to bring it to life. Hmm, gelfling, indeed.

**********

5. InnerSpace (1987)

Director Joe Dante came to fame by helming the Steven Spielberg-produced Gremlins movies - Gremlins 2, one of the best sequels ever, BTW - but probably the most solid, well-constructed Hollywood movie Dante ever made was the Steven Spielberg-produced InnerSpace, an 80s riff on Fantastic Voyage and an Academy Award-winner for visual effects. Granted, we love the crazy B-movie qualities of Dante's other works (Howling and Matinee, to name a few), but InnerSpace is the complete package - a legitimately funny, sci-fi adventure with great FX and a helluva cast. Dennis Quaid is Tuck Pendleton, a washed-out military pilot, who's the guinea pig for a new experiment in miniaturization. After Tuck gets shrunk, a ruthless rival attacks the test lab to steal the secret of "shrinkage" and, in an escape attempt, Tuck's mini-test-pod gets injected into the ass of a witless grocery cashier, played by the hilariously hysterical Martin Short. The concept is really damn funny, Short and Quaid have amazing chemistry (even though they almost never share the screen), the supporting cast rocks (Meg Ryan, Kevin McCarthy, Robert Picardo), and the solid, very cool visual effects ensure that the film barely looks dated. Come across InnerSpace on TBS late one night and, trust us, you won't change the channel for an hour and a half.

**********

6. The Living Daylights (1987)

Settle down, settle down. We knew going into this that this one was probably going to be the most controversial pick on our list, but we don't care. It's an ugly truth to admit, but here goes - Timothy Dalton was not a bad James Bond. In fact, we might almost prefer him to Roger Moore. (Let the flames begin.) And, while we'll acknowledge that the Dalton-starring License to Kill is probably one of the worst Bond movies ever made, we definitely have a soft-spot for The Living Daylights, Dalton's first foray as 007. (Heck, we even like the A-Ha theme song. Wrap your mind around that.) Why do we enjoy The Living Daylights? Aside from the assured direction by Bond veteran John Glen, the movie does a great job of getting Bond trapped in a surprisingly well-constructed mystery about Cold War politics and war profiteering, which was a nice change from the sillier, world-domination Roger Moore Bond flicks. As 007, Dalton proved that a non-jokey Bond could work - a lesson that Daniel Craig definitely ran with - and the whole "helping Afghanistan freedom fighters" plot has a strangely ironic relevance in our new world order. (Oh, right, we DID use to help those guys, didn't we?) Plus the movie gets such a bad rap from unreasonable Dalton-haters that it almost makes us like the film even more. Face facts, we couldn't have had Casino Royale or the upcoming Quantum of Solace without Living Daylights coming first. That alone should make you Dalton-phobics let go of your exaggerated hatred and learn to embrace the last Bond of the Cold War era.

**********

7. Little Shop of Horrors (1986)

The 80s isn't exactly known as a decade in which the movie musical thrived - unless you're counting Grease 2, of course - so perhaps that's why so many musical nerds overlook the impressive accomplishment of Frank Oz's Little Shop of Horrors. Forget Hairspray. This was the original movie-turned-into-a-Broadway-musical-turned-into-a-movie-musical, and Little Shop deserves it's due. The Alan Menken/Howard Ashman songs are darkly hilarious and memorable ("Mean Green Mother From Outer Space" got cheated out of a Best Song Oscar); Audrey II is a puppeteering marvel (no surprise given Oz's involvement); and the cast is beyond impressive, from the stirring vocals of Ellen Greene to the surprising sweet voice of Rick Moranis. Plus the supporting cast is staggering (gotta love a movie that gets Christopher Guest to do a walk-on), and the Steve Martin/Bill Murray sadist-v.-masochist scene is, without a doubt, one of the funniest film moments of the entire decade. This musical has everything - heart, teeth, soul, and sarcasm - which makes it a timeless (and wickedly subversive) addition to the history of the Hollywood movie musical. (And, yes, we have seen the original ending to Oz's film in which everyone dies and the plants triumph, and we're confident in saying Oz made the right choice by changing the ending. To quote Oz himself, "In a stage play, you kill the leads and they come out for a bow — in a movie, they don't come out for a bow, they're dead. And the audience loved those people, and they hated us for it." You can check it out for yourself here.)

**********

8. The Monster Squad (1987)

Ah, The Monster Squad. It's just like Van Helsing, only with charm and restraint. Now, while we fully, fully acknowledge that The Monster Squad is not a perfect movie - although it has recently become a bit of a cult favorite, inspiring a 20th-anniversary screening at the Alamo Drafthouse - we'd also argue that Fred Dekker's teenage horror-adventure is both a fantastically watchable movie and a loving tribute to the classic Universal Studios movie monsters. However, the secret weapon that makes Monster Squad work isn't Dracula or Wolfman (who, in case you didn't know, has "nards"), it's Shane Black. For those unfamiliar, Black is one of the most self-aware, sarcastic screenwriters in the business, revered for his quip-heavy scripts for Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, and The Long Kiss Goodnight, and, particularly, for his writing/directing debut, 2005's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (which is totally making our list for 21st-century movies that don't get the credit they deserve).  Black co-wrote the script for Monster Squad, and his trademark, acid-spewing snark is apparent throughout. Monster Squad ultimately works because it refuses to talk down to its teenaged audience, making the monsters actually pretty scary and making the high-school-aged characters as foul-mouthed as they would be in real life. The film has a few problems, but it's a million times funnier and more risk-taking than anything that would be greenlit by Hollywood nowadays. Smart, heart-on-its-sleeve fun for the whole family... if your family enjoys vampires and fat kid jokes, that is.

**********

9. Near Dark (1987)

Speaking of vampires, without exaggeration, Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark is probably one of the greatest bloodsucking movies ever made and a darn good Western to boot. Confused yet? Well, in 1987, Bigelow teamed with cult favorite screenwriter Eric Red to create a genre-spanning hybrid between the vampire and western genres that eschewed all of the Lestat-esque lace collars and European accents of past vamp movies and instead turned the creatures into a nomadic tribe of white trash from hell. And the result is one of the coolest, most violent, most original vampire stories of the past few decades. In the modern American West, a man named Caleb (Heroes' Adrian Pasdar) falls for a girl named Mae, but, unfortunately, she's part of an itinerant "family" of violence-obsessed vampires (including Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein, and Lance Henriksen, who all appeared together in Jim Cameron's Aliens) and Caleb gets turned into a vamp against his will. Fortunately for him, Caleb's father comes looking for him, determined to bring his son home and stumbling upon a very original cure for vampirism along the way. Bigelow's film works so well because it taps into the ugly unconscious of creatures both blessed and cursed with limitless power and rejects the normal genre conventions of how you'd expect movie vampires to act. Plus the cast - Paxton and Henriksen, in particular - look like they're having a bloody good B-movie time, and there's even a soundtrack by Tangerine Dream (come to your own conclusion on that one.) About ten million times better than Uwe Boll's 2007 vampire western BloodRayne: Deliverance. (Like that's hard.)

**********

10. Real Men (1987)

Chances are, if you've seen this movie, you saw it late night on HBO after coming home from the bar and, after spending a few silent moments staring at the screen, you muttered to whoever was with you - "Wait, this is a Jim Belushi/John Ritter movie and... it's funny. What the hell?" For those who haven't seen it, don't let your lesser-Belushi-prejudice keep you from Real Men, one of the most strangely compelling absurdist comedies of the 1980s. Mild-mannered insurance agent and family man Bob Wilson (Ritter) is hijacked by the laughably sleazy CIA spook Nick Pirandello (Belushi) and forced to act as the doppelganger for the recently murdered Agent Pillbox (also Ritter). Turns out that Pillbox was on his way to meet with aliens (stay with us) in hopes of trading a glass of water (seriously) in exchange for the cure to a looming environmental crisis that's threatening to destroy the planet. (Riiight.)  Unfortunately, other government agencies want to trade the water for "The Big Gun," which... ah hell, it sounds ridiculous and it is.  And we're not even getting into the clown assassins, finger-guns, or dominatrix-waitresses. But Real Men revels in being ridiculous, and the closest modern movies we can compare it to are Dude, Where My Car? or the Harold & Kumar movies (both owe a debt to Real Men). Is it a perfect movie? Hell no. But Belushi does do a nice job of just bullying, cajoling, and BS-ing Ritter across the country, and the duo have a very fun, deadpan chemistry between them. Is it as funny as Spinal Tap or Ghostbusters? Of course not. But it's a completely different kind of comedy - which is admirable - and there's so much that could've gone wrong with the premise that you'll find yourself rooting for the flick, amazed that they actually pulled it off in the end. Haters might not give a Belushi/Ritter movie a chance, but you will be hard-pressed to find something that makes you laugh harder at 3:00 am in the morning on HBO West.

**********

Those are the MovieRetriever crew's picks for underrated 80s movies. Have we made some grave errors in judgment? Are you incensed that we didn't mention Night of the Comet or Who's That Girl? Would you like to evangelize about the oft-ignored timeless qualities of Moon Over Parador or The Golden Child?

Sign up for a MyVideoHound account today and post comments about your favorite 80s movies below.