10 Forgotten 80s Sci-Fi Movies That Only Gen X Remembers
Video Overview & Insights
Before streaming algorithms told you what to watch, there was a video store, a rainy Saturday, and a VHS tape with cover art that had no business being that compelling. The 1980s produced a tidal wave of science fiction films in the wake of Star Wars, and while everyone was lining up for Aliens, The Terminator, and Back to the Future, dozens of genuinely remarkable films slipped through the cracks entirely.
i own Enemy mine and DARYL
This is a list of ten sci-fi films from the 1980s that the rest of the world seems to have forgotten. Films that predicted deepfakes, camera drones, AI rights disputes, and digital doubles decades before any of it existed. Films made on shoestring budgets by filmmakers who had no business pulling off what they pulled off. Films that deserve to be seen.
From the empty streets of Night of the Comet to the questions D.A.R.Y.L. was asking about artificial intelligence in 1985, these are the films that were paying attention when the blockbusters weren't.
the British historical movie about, King George's descent into what at the time was called madness had to be renamed for the same reasons Original title...the Madness of George 3 became the Madness of King George the Third
🎬 Films covered in this video:
00:49 Night of the Comet (1984)
hmmm no Buckaroo Banzai. i'llah see you inna hell sci-fi graveyard
03:25 Enemy Mine (1985)
06:19 Dreamscape (1984)
Battle Beyond the Stars. Scenes from that movie made it into 5 other movies during the 80s and a few video games during the 90s. One scene was even done by James Cameron.
09:24 Altered States (1980)
12:17 The Hidden (1987)
If you're going to make a film in which the main character is totally alone, New Zealand is the place to do it- I was there years ago, and there was a campaign to encourage people driving between cities to take a cell phone, because if you had an accident out on the road, they might not find you until it was too late.
15:03 Runaway (1984)
18:10 Looker (1981)
My Science Experiment (1985) -- InnerSPACE (1987)
20:57 The Quiet Earth (1985)
23:37 Cherry 2000 (1987)
Enemy mine: Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
26:45 D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)
If even one of these titles brings back a memory you thought you'd lost, drop it in the comments. And if you've never seen any of them, you now have ten very good reasons to start digging.
Newzealand made a mad max movie ,, called Battle Truck or Warlords of the 21st in the US. The truck was hokey, but thr rest of the movie wasnt bad
#SciFiMovies #80sSciFi #ClassicSciFi
Where’s Spacehunter,adventures in the forbidden zone ?! If you missed that then you have seriously undermined your own credibility. 😂
More User Perspectives
The Hidden is an awesome movie. It is pretty much one, continuous chase, start to finish. It's serious, funny, and a horrifying gross-out and it manages to balance all 3 really well. This movie is a treat. Don't miss it.
@nostromo7928The local independent video store was a gold mine, once or twice aweek if I was lucky, I'd get to go over there on my bike and get what I wanted.
@howardbrandwood8923I saw all of these in theaters, except for Cherry 2000. Good times with friends!
@BhedruumThe only other time I can think of Max von Sydow and Christopher Plummer on the same project was “Skyrim”.
@StruggleBusOperatorForggotn? lol
@RagdyAndyThat older actress from Dreamscape shows up 40 years later in OITNB looking exactly the same !!! :O
@jguitaravenueI get that it's a finite source, but you're repeating yourself too much, this must be your 5th video on Night of the Comet, and probably the 10th on Enemy Mine...
@jguitaravenueThank you for reminding me of Enemy Mine.
@oldfart7211984 was the year of dream films
@anubusxI was a young adult in the 1980s, and saw "Night of the Comet" with my girlfriend in a theater. It was very cathartic. And those of us who recall the 1970s appreciated the presence of Mary Woronov. (See "2000, Death Race")
@glazdarklee1683Who could really compete with "Ah'll be bark"?
@oldfart721I immediatly thought of Enemy Mine while watching Predator Badlands
@anubusxI know and remember almost all of these.
My wife gives me the side-eye every time DARYL is brought up. Because she knows I’m going to have to say it. 🤷♂️
What, no "Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone"?!?
@micpoc4597Born in 1981 in France.
Saw these :
03:25 Enemy Mine (1985)
06:19 Dreamscape (1984)
09:24 Altered States (1980)
26:45 D.A.R.Y.L. (1985)
There is a lot of movie who never been shown outside USA.
I love Dreamscape. It's Inception 26 years before 😅 I want to watch Night of the Comet looks likes pretty good.
12:24 I’m so glad The Hidden is on this list. For some silly reason I love this film.
To this day I still say “thank you, bye”. No one gets it. And I based a whole Top Secret RPG campaign on it. I knew none of the players would have seen it.
Cherry 2000 was on like every weekend on TBS. Love that movie I don't care how bad it is.
@REO_Speed_DragonMichael Crichton is the best man here.
Good list again. I liked "Enemy Mine", didn´t know its production difficulties.
Even in the Eighties, as a Sci-Fi aficionado, you could watch all those movies in the theatre, and I did most of them. Today, this is no longer possible because of the streaming portals and the ever slipping importance of the cinema as a (half-)public space of its own right (German film historian, curator and author Lars Henrik Gass regularly publishes about this highly problematic transformation process).
About "The Quiet Earth" you already published (and I commented). At 21:30 ff., you´re heading for a rather problematic assumption: About New Zealand´s cinematography, you seemed to have "forgotten" Vincent Ward. I highly treasure Ward´s work, "Vigil", "The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey", "Map of the Human Heart", "River Queen", even "What Dreams May Come".
Where is David Cronenberg in this? 1983´s "The Dead Zone" is a masterpiece. "Forgotten", too?
And where is Lizzie Borden´s surprising, thrilling "Born in Flames" of 1983 fitting in?
Left out DemonSeed, 1977 film about an AI that takes over a household.
Saturn 3,-1980 a sentient robot, Hector, runs amok on a space outpost.
VideoDrome, 1983 - a social commentary on social media influencing people.
2001: (1968) A service intelligence, HAL 9000, goes rogue.
When ever what passes for The Dating Scene these days comes up in a YouTube video, I recall "Cherry 2000" (1988).
When Capt. Mal gets into "Mr. Universe's: lair near the end of "Serenity" (2005), and finds a talking robot telling him what happened, "E.Johnson" came to mind.;)
These movies were great ways to find your own kind of people. If you ran into a person that had seen several of them, you knew you were compatible! I've been married since 1988 to a woman that had seen the same ones I had.
@orionred2489Louis gossett jr still performs the voice 2 years after died 🙄🙄🙄
@oddfoodideas885There is a varient of the turing test: A human becomes a machine if you can't tell the difference...
@terrieterblans7027No SolarBabies? Pshhh!
@TheTurnBasedGamerMickey Rooney getting text credit multiple times???
@dawneyestone1851Dreamscape is a sci-fi gem.
@DanielGarcia-r8n9oEnemy Mine is one of my favorite 80s Sci-Fi Movies... watched it many times as a kid with my mom ❤
I still have it on DVD around.
And I want to add the German subtitle is "Geliebter Feind" (Beloved Enemy)