My Top 20 by Year - 1984
by miran_kor | created - 27 Feb 2014 | updated - 29 Mar 2017 | PublicUnder construction and always in progress.
The Best films from this year (according to IMDb) I've seen (so far).
Out of 203 films 'seen' (ie rated at IMDb).
(Mar 2017)
Notes:
- Features, shorts, docs and TV movies eligible ("A film is a film is a film.").
- TV mini-series are NOT (unless stated otherwise).
- My humble rates added (for films with the same rate just once or twice though).
- Films with the same rate are ordered arbitrarily. Feel free to re-order them at your will.
- When I saw more than 20 excellent films (9/10 or above in my book) from a certain year I'll try and list them ALL. That would make some lists much longer but all the excellentia deserves to be mentioned.
Cinema = cinema (big screen) viewing TV = TV viewing PC = download OL = online viewing VHS = VHS viewing
Yet to see (among many):
Dong dong de jia qi (A Summer at Grandpa's, Hou, 1984) Monanieba (Repentance, Abuladze, 1984) Öszi almanac (Almanac of Fall, Tarr, 1984) Repo Man (Cox, 1984) Saraba hakobune (Goodbye Ark, Terayama, 1984) Il bacio di Tosca (Tosca's Kiss, Schmid, 1984, doc) Four Days in July (Leigh, 1984, TV) Heimat - Eine deutsche Chronik (Heimat: A Chronicle of Germany, Reitz, 1984, TV mini) Carmen (Rosi, 1984) Kaos (Chaos, P. and V. Taviani, 1984) 28 Up (Apted, 1984, doc) Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World, S. Ray, 1984) Los zancos (The Stilts, Saura, 1984) Davandeh (The Runner, Naderi, 1984) Utu (G. Murphy, 1984) Notre nazi (Our Nazi, R. Kramer, 1984, doc) Manoel dans l'île des merveilles (Manuel on the Island of Wonders, Ruiz, 1984, TV mini) Bao gio cho den tháng Muoi (When the Tenth Month Comes, Dang Nhat Minh, 1984) Tro, håb og kærlighed (Twist and Shout, August, 1984) Osôshiki (The Funeral, Itami, 1984) Top Secret! (Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker, 1984) Comfort and Joy (Forsyth, 1984) Seksmisja (Sexmission, Machulski, 1984) Bianca (Moretti, 1984) Before Stonewall (Schiller/R. Rosenberg, 1984, doc) Los motivos de Berta (Berta's Motives, Guerín, 1984) Moscow on the Hudson (Mazursky, 1984) Illustres inconnus (Notorious Nobodies, Stanojevic, 1984) Namuslu (The Honest One, Egilmez, 1984) Another Country (Kanievska, 1984) Choose Me (Rudolph, 1984)
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1. Paris, Texas (1984)
R | 145 min | Drama
Travis Henderson, an aimless drifter who has been missing for four years, wanders out of the desert and must reconnect with society, himself, his life, and his family.
Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, Dean Stockwell, Sam Berry
Votes: 118,726 | Gross: $2.18M
Cinema. 10/10.
2. Dicht hinter der Tür (1984)
89 min | Drama
It is night, Molly wants to hear a story from Leo. He tells her that he lost his reflection in the mirror while shaving in the morning.
Director: Mansur Madavi | Stars: Nicola Filippelli, Kurt Kosutic, Irene Kugler, Erhard Pauer
Cinema.
3. The Lion and the Bull (1984)
10 min | Animation, Short
A film-parable about how an envious and treacherous jackal quarreled between two friends - the Lion and the Bull.
Director: Fyodor Khitruk
Votes: 185
OL.
4. Beyond the Walls (1984)
R | 103 min | Drama
In Israel's Central Prison, the security officer is corrupt, supplying drugs and stirring the hatred between Jewish and Arab prisoners to his advantage. Uri, in for 12 years for armed ... See full summary »
Director: Uri Barbash | Stars: Arnon Zadok, Mohammad Bakri, Hillel Ne'eman, Assi Dayan
Votes: 369
Cinema.
5. Ghost (1984)
5 min | Short, Horror
Haunting light and haunted spaces, otherworldly movement and abstracted time. A ghost visits an apartment complex.
Director: Takashi Itô | Star: Bin Shimada
Votes: 603
OL.
6. Charade (1984)
5 min | Animation, Short, Comedy
A talented, but doomed, gentleman tries to participate in a properly British game of charades.
Director: John Minnis | Star: John Minnis
Votes: 802
PC. 10/10.
7. The Element of Crime (1984)
Not Rated | 104 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A cop in a dystopian Europe investigates a serial killings suspect using controversial methods written by his now disgraced former mentor.
Director: Lars von Trier | Stars: Michael Elphick, Esmond Knight, Me Me Lai, Jerold Wells
Votes: 11,281
PC. 9/10.
8. The Snowdrop Festivities (1984)
83 min | Comedy, Drama
This movie is based on texts of Bohumil Hrabal, world-known Czech prosaic. It's a story (in a form of a mosaic of short episodes and pictures) about the sadness and happiness of inhabitants... See full summary »
Director: Jirí Menzel | Stars: Rudolf Hrusínský, Jaromír Hanzlík, Josef Somr, Petr Cepek
Votes: 1,642
Orig. title: Slavnosti sněženek.
TV.
9. Love Streams (1984)
PG-13 | 141 min | Drama
Two closely bound, emotionally wounded souls reunite after years apart.
Director: John Cassavetes | Stars: Gena Rowlands, John Cassavetes, Diahnne Abbott, Seymour Cassel
Votes: 6,627
OL.
10. The Holy Innocents (1984)
PG | 107 min | Drama
Spain, 1960s. The family of poor farmers work hard in the countryside for the rich landowners who exploit them.
Director: Mario Camus | Stars: Alfredo Landa, Terele Pávez, Belén Ballesteros, Juan Sachez
Votes: 4,699
Cinema.
11. Quilombo (1984)
114 min | Drama
Palmares is a 17th-century quilombo, a settlement of escaped slaves in northeast Brazil. In 1650, plantation slaves revolt and head for the mountains where they find others led by the aged ... See full summary »
Director: Carlos Diegues | Stars: Bené Batista, Jonas Bloch, Zózimo Bulbul, Emmanuel Cavalcanti
Votes: 501
TV.
12. Stop Making Sense (1984)
PG | 88 min | Documentary, Music
Considered by critics as the greatest concert film of all time, the live performance was shot over the course of three nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in December of 1983 and features Talking Heads' most memorable songs.
Director: Jonathan Demme | Stars: David Byrne, Bernie Worrell, Alex Weir, Steven Scales
Votes: 19,962 | Gross: $5.02M
VHS.
13. A Passage to India (1984)
PG | 164 min | Adventure, Drama, History
Cultural mistrust and false accusations doom a friendship in British colonial India between an Indian doctor, an Englishwoman engaged to marry a city magistrate, and an English educator.
Director: David Lean | Stars: Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft, James Fox
Votes: 20,824 | Gross: $27.19M
VHS.
14. Marlene (1984)
Unrated | 94 min | Documentary, Biography
Retrospective on the career of enigmatic screen diva Marlene Dietrich.
Director: Maximilian Schell | Stars: Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Annie Albers, Bernhard Hall
Votes: 842 | Gross: $0.85M
TV.
15. The Pendulum, the Pit and Hope (1983)
15 min | Animation, Short, Fantasy
A horrifying, surrealist version of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" directed by the masterful animator Jan Svankmajer.
Director: Jan Svankmajer | Star: Jan Zácek
Votes: 1,039
PC.
16. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)
PG | 117 min | Animation, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Warrior and pacifist Princess Nausicaä desperately struggles to prevent two warring nations from destroying themselves and their dying planet.
Director: Hayao Miyazaki | Stars: Sumi Shimamoto, Mahito Tsujimura, Hisako Kyôda, Gorô Naya
Votes: 182,400 | Gross: $0.50M
PC.
17. Once Upon a Time in America (1984)
R | 229 min | Crime, Drama
A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan 35 years later, where he must once again confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams
Votes: 377,447 | Gross: $5.32M
TV.
18. Anna & Bella (1984)
8 min | Animation, Short, Comedy
Two sisters look back on their life together.
Director: Børge Ring | Stars: Tonny Huurdeman, Annemieke Ring, Peter Ring
Votes: 1,059
OL.
19. The Future Is Woman (1984)
99 min | Drama
The story about a couple who do not want to have children of their own, and a pregnant, single woman who needs a home for a while, the relationship between the three protagonists is strange, at the very least.
Director: Marco Ferreri | Stars: Ornella Muti, Hanna Schygulla, Niels Arestrup, Maurizio Donadoni
Votes: 457
Cinema.
20. In the Jaws of Life (1984)
95 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
This movie, based in part on the popular novel, tells two tales about modern women. One is Stefica Cvek, average and lonely girl who is desperately trying to find the man of her dreams. The... See full summary »
Director: Rajko Grlic | Stars: Gorica Popovic, Vitomira Loncar, Bogdan Diklic, Miodrag Krivokapic
Votes: 843
Orig. title: U raljama života.
Cinema.
21. Secret Honor (1984)
Not Rated | 90 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
A fictionalized former President Richard M. Nixon offers a solitary, stream-of-consciousness reflection on his life and political career - and the "true" reasons for the Watergate scandal and his resignation.
Director: Robert Altman | Star: Philip Baker Hall
Votes: 3,386
PC.
22. Stadt in Flammen (1984)
5 min | Short
In "Stadt in Flammen" the scenes melt due to overheating, producing an infernal image impression of disappearance. The images no longer show a figuratively represented scene, but rather its dissolution as a temporal process.
Director: Schmelzdahin
Votes: 160
OL.
23. Paradise (1984)
15 min | Animation, Short, Comedy
In this short animation film, a magnificent bird performs for the Emperor inside a glittering palace. Its plumage is a blaze of colour. A blackbird, watching enviously, strives to acquire ... See full summary »
Director: Ishu Patel
Votes: 339
OL.
24. Eine blaßblaue Frauenschrift (1986 TV Movie)
105 min | Drama
In October 1936, a high official in the Austrian government receives a letter from a German Jewish woman with whom he had an affair in 1925 asking him to help place an 11-year-old, half ... See full summary »
Director: Axel Corti | Stars: Friedrich von Thun, Gabriel Barylli, Krystyna Janda, Sebastian Baur
Votes: 79
TV.
25. Sfaira 1985-1895 (1984)
10 min | Short
Sfaira (1971-1984) dedicated to Pythagoras and Plato is a homage to two of his favourite spheroids: the Earth and the Sun.
Director: Ivan Ladislav Galeta
Votes: 10
OL.
26. Mutable Fire (1984)
8 min | Short
Found footage collage of images of destruction, violence and eroticism, set to an equally impressionistic collage of sound clips.
Director: Bradley Eros | Star: Mel Blanc
Votes: 152
OL. 9/10.
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