10 ’80s Movies That Could Never Be Made Today
The 1980s doesn’t seem like that long ago. Some of the decade’s most popular franchises continue today; new installments of Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones, and Top Gun are all due in theaters before the end of next year. Audiences’ appetite for nostalgia seems endless. And thanks to streaming services, many of the era’s biggest films are just a click away.
Watching those films, though, sometimes reveals just how different our rose-colored memories are from reality. And the reality is that 1980 was 40 years ago. The original Ghostbusters is as old now as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was when Ghostbusters first opened in theaters. And while Ghostbusters holds up pretty well, a lot of the popular movies released around it do not.
Cases in point: All of the titles on this list. Most of them were hits in their time, either in theaters or on home video, or both. Their actual content, though, would not fly today for one reason or another. (Or, in some cases, for many reasons.) These titles may remain well-liked, but we won’t see their likes again any time soon.