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Best Drama Movies of the 1980s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
276 drama films from the 1980s are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Grave of the Fireflies (1988), at 8.5 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 8.0. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Pink Floyd: The Wall, 8.0 on IMDb against 47 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grave of the Fireflies '1988 | Animation / Drama / War | 8.5 | 100% | 94 | 8.5 | Isao Takahata |
| 2 | Cinema Paradiso '1988 | Drama / Romance | 8.5 | 90% | 80 | 8.4 | Giuseppe Tornatore |
| 3 | Amadeus '1984 | Drama / Musical | 8.4 | 90% | 87 | 8.0 | Miloš Forman |
| 4 | Scarface '1983 | Action / Crime / Drama | 8.3 | 77% | 65 | 8.2 | Brian De Palma |
| 5 | Once Upon a Time in America '1984 | Drama / Crime | 8.3 | 86% | 75 | 8.4 | Sergio Leone |
| 6 | Das Boot '1981 | Drama / War | 8.3 | 98% | 85 | 8.1 | Wolfgang Petersen |
| 7 | Full Metal Jacket '1987 | Drama / War | 8.2 | 84% | 78 | 8.1 | Stanley Kubrick |
| 8 | The Elephant Man '1980 | Drama | 8.2 | 91% | 78 | 8.0 | David Lynch |
| 9 | Blade Runner '1982 | Sci-Fi / Drama / Thriller | 8.1 | 89% | 84 | 7.9 | Ridley Scott |
| 10 | Raging Bull '1980 | Drama | 8.1 | 92% | 90 | 7.9 | Martin Scorsese |
| 11 | Dead Poets Society '1989 | Drama | 8.1 | 85% | 79 | 8.3 | Peter Weir |
| 12 | Stand by Me '1986 | Drama | 8.1 | 89% | 76 | 7.8 | Rob Reiner |
| 13 | Rain Man '1988 | Drama | 8.0 | 88% | 65 | 7.7 | Barry Levinson |
| 14 | Come and See '1985 | Drama / War / Horror | 8.3 | 90% | - | 8.2 | Elem Klimov |
| 15 | Platoon '1986 | Drama / War / Action | 8.0 | 89% | 92 | 7.7 | Oliver Stone |
| 16 | Ran '1985 | Action / Drama | 8.2 | 96% | 97 | 8.0 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 17 | Gandhi '1982 | Drama | 8.0 | 89% | 79 | 7.6 | Richard Attenborough |
| 18 | Paris, Texas '1984 | Drama | 8.1 | 95% | 81 | 8.1 | Wim Wenders |
| 19 | Fanny and Alexander '1982 | Fantasy / Drama / Mystery | 8.1 | 100% | 100 | 7.8 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 20 | Pink Floyd: The Wall '1982 | Musical / Drama | 8.0 | 73% | 47 | 8.0 | Alan Parker |
| 21 | The Breakfast Club '1985 | Comedy / Drama | 7.8 | 87% | 66 | 7.7 | John Hughes |
| 22 | The King of Comedy '1982 | Drama / Comedy | 7.8 | 89% | 73 | 7.8 | Martin Scorsese |
| 23 | First Blood '1982 | Action / Thriller / Drama | 7.7 | 86% | 61 | 7.5 | Ted Kotcheff |
| 24 | Mississippi Burning '1988 | Drama / Crime / Mystery / Thriller | 7.8 | 79% | 65 | 7.7 | Alan Parker |
| 25 | Do the Right Thing '1989 | Drama | 7.9 | 92% | 93 | 7.8 | Spike Lee |
| 26 | When Harry Met Sally... '1989 | Comedy / Romance / Drama | 7.7 | 90% | 76 | 7.4 | Rob Reiner |
| 27 | Wings of Desire '1987 | Drama / Fantasy / Romance | 7.9 | 95% | 79 | 7.8 | Wim Wenders |
| 28 | Glory '1989 | Drama / War | 7.8 | 95% | 78 | 7.5 | Edward Zwick |
| 29 | Empire of the Sun '1987 | Drama / War | 7.7 | 75% | 62 | 7.5 | Steven Spielberg |
| 30 | Kagemusha '1980 | Action / Drama / War | 7.9 | 89% | 84 | 7.8 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 31 | Fitzcarraldo '1982 | Drama | 7.9 | 78% | - | 7.6 | Werner Herzog |
| 32 | The Name of the Rose '1986 | Drama / Thriller / Mystery | 7.7 | 74% | 54 | 7.5 | Jean-Jacques Annaud |
| 33 | The Last Emperor '1987 | Drama | 7.7 | 86% | 76 | 7.6 | Bernardo Bertolucci |
| 34 | The Right Stuff '1983 | Drama | 7.8 | 96% | 91 | 7.4 | Philip Kaufman |
| 35 | Hannah and Her Sisters '1986 | Comedy / Drama | 7.8 | 92% | 90 | 7.5 | Woody Allen |
| 36 | The Killing Fields '1984 | Drama / War | 7.8 | 91% | 76 | 7.5 | Roland Joffé |
| 37 | Ordinary People '1980 | Drama | 7.7 | 90% | 86 | 7.5 | Robert Redford |
| 38 | The Color Purple '1985 | Drama | 7.7 | 73% | 78 | 7.7 | Steven Spielberg |
| 39 | Time of the Gypsies '1988 | Drama / Crime / Fantasy / Romance | 8.1 | 100% | - | 7.6 | Emir Kusturica |
| 40 | The Verdict '1982 | Drama | 7.7 | 88% | 77 | 7.5 | Sidney Lumet |
| 41 | My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown '1989 | Drama | 7.8 | 98% | 97 | 7.5 | Jim Sheridan |
| 42 | Au Revoir les Enfants '1987 | Drama / War | 8.0 | 97% | 88 | 7.5 | Louis Malle |
| 43 | A Short Film About Love '1988 | Drama / Romance | 8.1 | 95% | - | 7.8 | Krzysztof Kieślowski |
| 44 | After Hours '1985 | Comedy / Thriller / Drama | 7.6 | 90% | 89 | 7.5 | Martin Scorsese |
| 45 | Nostalgia '1983 | Drama / Romance | 7.9 | 89% | 78 | 7.8 | Andrei Tarkovsky |
| 46 | Jean de Florette '1986 | Drama | 8.1 | 93% | 75 | 7.7 | Claude Berri |
| 47 | The Karate Kid '1984 | Action / Drama | 7.4 | 81% | 61 | 7.2 | John G. Avildsen |
| 48 | Down by Law '1986 | Crime / Drama / Comedy | 7.7 | 85% | 75 | 7.4 | Jim Jarmusch |
| 49 | Crimes and Misdemeanors '1989 | Comedy / Drama / Crime | 7.8 | 92% | 77 | 7.4 | Woody Allen |
| 50 | Blood Simple '1985 | Crime / Drama / Thriller | 7.5 | 94% | 84 | 7.3 | Joel Coen |
Our catalog covers roughly the 8,800 most-rated films on TMDB, so lesser-known titles may be missing. Order uses a confidence-weighted IMDb score so a perfect score from a handful of votes does not beat a well-established classic; the scores shown are the raw ones.
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Other genres in the 1980s
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Directors on this list
Isao Takahata Giuseppe Tornatore Miloš Forman Brian De Palma Sergio Leone Wolfgang Petersen Stanley Kubrick David Lynch Ridley Scott Martin Scorsese Peter Weir Rob Reiner
Actors on this list
Philippe Noiret Al Pacino Robert De Niro James Woods Anthony Hopkins John Hurt Harrison Ford Rutger Hauer Robin Williams Dustin Hoffman Tom Cruise Charlie Sheen