We look back at the 80s and 90s and tell you why it was the most enjoyable era for movie audiences…
Gather round, children, it’s time for me to take a misty-eyed look back at a time I grew up, which probably represents the glory years of cinema pleasure. Sure, before the 1980s and 90s, plenty of people got swept away by the big screen experience and during this century, audiences have still been able to enjoy watching films, but I’ll tell you right now, why the 80s and 90s were the most pleasurable era for movie watching…
The Big Screen Shift
Prior to films like Jaws and Star Wars, cinema’s predominant target audience was adults. After all, it made sense to largely target the audience members who carried the cash. The new Hollywood era between 68-77 was creatively stupendous with rising new film school talents making films in a post-Hayes code era, pushing the boundaries of the ratings boards.
We had gritty, hard-hitting and complex cinema with brutal violence and a pessimistic air, fitting in with a difficult period socially and politically. The cinema of paranoia or crime was really prevalent. What the ticket sales of Jaws suggested, and more so the phenomenon of Star Wars, was that cinema may be heading towards being a family event. Big event pictures like war films, epics and westerns had long been popular but weren’t always seen as something to take the tykes to. Star Wars awoke the imagination of kids whose cinematic offerings had largely been the B picture in years gone by or the odd game changer like The Wizard of Oz that didn’t quite kick a cultural shift like George Lucas did.
By the 80s, going into the 90s, studios were now shifting their emphasis largely on box office blockbusters aimed at the family. Attracting the younger viewer got to such a point that even very distinctly adult content like RoboCop and A Nightmare On Elm Street ended up capturing the young audience’s attention and was capitalised on with cartoons, games and merchandise for the youngsters. There’s even a notorious TV cut for RoboCop that trimmed out all the swearing and extreme violence. By my reckoning and without checking, it must be 11 minutes long.
My first big-screen event was Masters of the Universe, which was huge for me, even if the film was greeted with ire by critics and apathy from audiences, judging by the box office receipts. Then, in 1993, my first all-consuming event movie was Jurassic Park. I’d seen plenty on the big screen by this point, of course, and many a family outing, but Jurassic Park was that type of film that felt like everyone had seen it, bought the T-shirt, toys, and games. It was insanely big in a way that we rarely see in 2025, even with the franchise still making waves on the big screen to this day.
Blockbusters and blockbuster season took off like wildfire in the 80s and were a cultural staple by the 90s. It felt like year upon year we had at least half a dozen iconic movies that fans of all ages could obsess over and become part of pop culture. Even beyond watching the movies, talking about them, rewatching, enjoying the tie-in games etc, was a joy. In no small part because rather than gritty reflections of reality, audiences were being treated to grand, fun, escapism.
Home Video
Another reason the 80s and 90s would become the pinnacle of movie-going enjoyment and escapism was pretty simple. Suddenly, the average Joe had the ability to watch films at home, at their leisure. From an initial novelty for the middle class, to a VHS player in every home and a video rental store in every town.
Now the event didn’t have to involve wrangling the kids and heading to the multiplex; it just meant renting a tape from the ma and pa store, or God forbid, the killer of said stores, Blockbuster Video. That is, of course, if the video you desired was available.
It wasn’t even merely the film itself or hitting play. The act of going to the video store was a big part of the experience. A veritable array of VHS boxes to admire and sift through, and aside from the tentpoles or big stars you knew of, many of these rentals were a blind gamble, often based on the quality of the cover art catching your eye (more on that coming up).
Even as you’d grow and mature to the point of perusing the stores away from your parents, it became something communal. A hangout with friends, a place to discuss films with fellow browsers, perhaps or sometimes the staff. The DVD era still had that, but it was never quite as comforting and essential as the VHS years.
The Artwork
Cinema has lost so many icons this year, from in front of and behind the camera. We’ve also sadly lost Drew Struzan and Renato Casaro within weeks of each other. If you don’t know the names, you’ll know the artwork. The absolute golden era of film artwork came in the 80s and 90s, and in particular, the hand-painted art that was often conjured.
Drew Struzan gave us iconic imagery for films like First Blood, Back to the Future, Masters of the Universe, the Star Wars films, Indiana Jones and many more.
Meanwhile, Renato Casaro was the artistic genius behind Conan the Barbarian, the Rambo sequels, The Neverending Story, Flash Gordon and more. I also loved artwork in films like Labyrinth (Ted Coconis) and pretty much every VHS cover art for any Conan or Mad Max B-movie ripoff. They were often far more majestic than the actual films.
DVD cover art dipped hugely in quality, particularly in the era of Photoshop and the future of movie art, with a likely reliance on AI looks utterly grim and joyless in comparison, even if these hand-painted masterworks were eventually deemed an expensive indulgence.
The Quality of the Films.
Another huge reason it was so enjoyable to take off to a big screen showing with family and/or friends, or gather around the TV (and VHS player) was because so many of these films and pop cultural phenomena were genuinely great. There’s so much drek nowadays that gets passed as acceptable, even having had hundreds of millions spent on them. Streaming originals often feel churned out and soulless.
Film is now often treated as content rather than cinema. Whilst we’re slowly seeing an uptick in decent movies, largely thanks to a newfound interest in indie films and world cinema, and a rising group of Gen Z cinephiles open to expanding their viewing horizons, it’s so rare to see something that feels unmissable now. Some good films come out and get vastly overhyped, largely because we’re so starved of good quality blockbuster cinema they look good comparatively. However, low to moderate budget horror is in something of a boon now.
Still, take a look at some cornerstone blockbusters and major event movies from the 80s and 90s, compared to modern equivalents and the drop in quality now is huge. The original Indiana Jones trilogy, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Speed, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, E.T, The Goonies, Ghostbusters, The Silence of the Lambs, the original bluster of Tarantino, and even Titanic as a major event. They don’t make ’em like that any more.
For all its faults, nothing in the Disney era Star Wars has captured such feverish excitement as The Phantom Menace (another great Drew Struzan poster) did. The fervor for that was insane. Nowadays, as much as anything, there feels like an almost cultural apathy toward content cinema. Is that apathy fuelled by the movies, or does that apathy fuel an apathetic approach to producing the movies?
Caring about movies, feeling lustre for the magic of cinema, is increasingly feeling like a niche activity for social outliers. It’s becoming less a mainstream thing now, and more the call of the film nerd, the cinephile, the Letterboxd user.
Cinema Had Mystery
It was far easier before the internet took off to such an extent that we carry it around in our pockets, to go into a film and discover it blind. To discover incredible movies via word of mouth, perhaps a review on TV (Ebert if you were in the States, Barry Norman if you were a Brit), or in the newspaper. Or, as said, picking a random box in the video store because a Struzan or Casaro artwork masterpiece grabbed your attention.
It’s so difficult to have any kind of anticipation for a film and not have elements spoiled by the time you see it, even if you’re on a first screening on opening day. Now, I still manage occasionally to see a film blind or with absolutely minimal knowledge of what to expect, but it’s very difficult. I’ve long lost count of accidentally stumbling across a spoiler for a new film on my feed. It’s infuriating. Likewise, the fact that movies are run more by corporate execs than actual film lovers has seen the content approach become the norm.
It’s this market-driven, focus group mentality that feels like studios couldn’t care less if people know exactly what’s going to happen before they’ve seen the film. In some cases, that’s simple predictability anyway. Still, it’s amazing that so many modern trailers opt to spoil what could have been major plot twists before a film is even released. What happened to surprising audiences? The other issue isn’t entirely new, but so many films these days mismarket the film to perhaps overemphasise the level of horror or action it may have. It tends to have a detrimental effect, however, as word of mouth inevitably becomes negative when viewers don’t get what they expect from what the trailers told them.
At one time, Alfred Hitchcock made a recorded plea ahead of Psycho screenings for audience members not to spoil the film. In 1999, The Sixth Sense was another film that took the public by storm, with so much of its hype built around ‘the twist.’ Not that a spoiler would have been necessarily hard to find online then, at least it wasn’t in your face tea tea-bagging you obnoxiously with every scroll.
What do you think was the most enjoyable era of cinema? Let us know on our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
Tom Jolliffe
