The 1980s are often remembered for their brashness, big action, bigger hair-Arnold Schwarzenegger shooting people. But away from the glitz and gloss of the box office juggernauts, American cinema was producing a fascinating range of more grounded, often daring films, works that explored character, politics, and social unrest with grit and nuance.

These films may have flown under the radar at the time, or been overshadowed by louder competition, but they’ve quietly aged into cinematic documents that are deserving of a reappraisal. Here are 10 underrated American classics from the 1980s that you might not have seen.

1. Nighthawks (1981)

Sylvester Stallone may be best remembered for Rocky and Rambo, but Nighthawks offered something far more interesting, an urban thriller with a European edge.

Stallone plays Deke DaSilva, a New York cop tasked with tracking down a ruthless international terrorist (played rather chillingly by Rutger Hauer in his first American role). Fascinatingly, Nighthawks was originally conceived as The French Connection III, but when Gene Hackman was reluctant to reprise the role of Popeye Doyle, Bruce Malmuth’s film became something else.

Stallone, sporting a beard that looks like he’s come straight from the set of Serpico (1973), delivers one of his more nuanced performances, and the film leans into the paranoia and murk of early 1980s Manhattan. Stylish, tense, and at times surprisingly thoughtful, it’s another of Stallone’s most underrated outings, culminating in a tense finale in a cable car no less.

2. Outland (1981)

Outland sometimes feels like High Noon (1952) in space. It’s a sci-fi Western that swaps spurs for spacesuits and casts Sean Connery as a beleaguered marshal facing down corporate corruption in a remote mining colony.

The film’s production design is deeply atmospheric—grimy corridors, flickering monitors, and a constant sense of isolation—recalling Ridley Scott’s Alien that had emerged just two years previously.

Jerry Goldsmith’s score adds to the tension, and Connery anchors what is essentially a space-age morality play, and while Outland may have been overshadowed by flashier sci-fi films of the era, it’s a tightly wound thriller with a surprisingly timely message about profit vs people, and was very much a touching point for Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus (2024).

3. Variety (1983)

Bette Gordon’s Variety is a strange yet vital feminist psychological noir that blends voyeurism, sexuality, and urban decay to form something quite unique. Sandy McLeod plays Christine, a woman who takes a job selling tickets at a Times Square porn theatre and slowly becomes obsessed with one of the patrons.

Shot with downtown New York grit and scored by John Lurie, the film feels like a hybrid of Taxi Driver (1976) and Jeanne Dielman (1975) by way of Hardcore (1979) but through a uniquely female lens.

Variety is less concerned with plot than mood, but its influence on later indie and art house films, as well as the impact on future female film makers like Jane Campion and Claire Denis, is undeniable.

Gordon’s film remains a fascinating curio of the early ’80s underground scene and deserves to be seen by a much wider audience.

4. Tightrope (1984)

Clint Eastwood starring in a sex thriller might sound like parody, but Tightrope is a much more hardened and bleak film then it’s given credit for and provides a much more prescient touchpoint over forty years on.

Eastwood plays a New Orleans detective tracking a serial killer who preys on sex workers—but as the investigation progresses, he finds himself drawn into the same underworld as the killer.

The line between hunter and hunted becomes uncomfortably blurred, and whilst you might immediately think of William Friedkin’s Cruising (1980), Tightrope holds its own in dealing with difficult subject matter, at a time when it perhaps wasn’t at the forefront of mainstream media.

Eastwood is at his most vulnerable here, playing a man wrestling with his own impulses, and the film—directed by Richard Tuggle but heavily shaped by Eastwood himself—feels like a deep dive into toxic masculinity long before that term was even coined. Sleazy, stylish, and far more psychologically probing than anyone might expect.

5. The Mission (1986)

Though remembered as a British production, The Mission was largely financed and distributed through Warner Bros., with Robert De Niro and Jeremy Irons anchoring this sweeping, morally complex tale set in 18th-century South America.

Roland Joffé’s film examines colonialism, faith, and redemption, set against one of the most breathtaking scores ever written (Ennio Morricone in divine form). De Niro plays a mercenary seeking penance, while Irons is the Jesuit priest caught between religion and politics, thematically and spiritually it shares much with Martin Scorsese’s passion project Silence (2016).

The Mission won the Palme d’Or but was bizarrely snubbed at the Oscars and has since very much taken a back seat when people discuss classics of the era. Despite its epic scale, The Mission remains a quiet, intimate film about belief and sacrifice, and without doubt needs a re-release on the big screen.

During the 1970s, Hollywood took chances on auteurs to produce artistic epics. However, after the cataclysmic, over-budget disaster of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980), this era came to an abrupt close. Studios reduced directors’ sway, focusing more on commerce, through blockbusters like E.T. (1982) and franchises like Ghostbusters (1984).

That said, this new cinematic landscape did little to stifle cinematic creativity. During the 1980s, directors including David Cronenberg, Lucio Fulci, the Coen Brothers and John Woo emerged as fresh, exciting artists to watch. This list will explore ten 1980s classics that are worth the time of cinephiles.

1. The Fog (1980)

Ghosts surface from the ocean to take revenge upon the town of Antonio Bay.

A prominent strength of The Fog is director John Carpenter’s signature stylisation, assisted DP Dean Cundey’s atmospheric photography. Whereas most zombie movies retread old territory, Carpenter delivers a fresh take on the sub-genre. Similarly, many horror movies serve as mere entertainment. Reflecting Carpenter’s writing talent, The Fog’s message is communicated in its backstory. A hundred years before the film’s events, a leper colony ship was deliberately wrecked. The gold plundered from the ship was used to build the town of Antonio Bay.

This detail transforms The Fog from a simple horror movie, giving emotional charge to the events and provoking thoughtful debate. Jamie Lee Curtis, in her second collaboration with Carpenter, after Halloween (1978), confidently leads the production. Meanwhile, Adrienne Barbeau’s radio announcements stitch together the movie’s episodic character profiles. In addition, unlike the majority of early-‘80s horrors, The Fog is creepy rather than gory, cultivating a chillingly eerie tone.

2. Where the Buffalo Roam (1980)

An adaptation of writer Hunter S. Thompson’s Rolling Stone Magazine articles. Some of the source material includes: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 (1973) and The Great Shark Hunt (1979).

Before shooting, Bill Murray lived and became friends with Hunter S. Thompson. Their exploits included Thompson tying Murray to a chair and throwing him in a swimming pool, seeing if he could escape. Murray went so far as to say: “I took on another persona and that was tough to shake. I still have Hunter in me.” Due to this research, Murray’s portrayal is far more accurate and comedic than Johnny Depp’s in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998). Murray captures the infamous writer’s nonchalant debauchery and unique perspective.

Meanwhile, he forges excellent comedic chemistry with Peter Boyle, who plays Thompson’s disappeared sidekick: Carl Lazlo. Using a picaresque ‘storyline,’ Where the Buffalo Roam is informed by Thompson’s political concerns and opinions. By tackling the persecution of the hippies and Richard Nixon’s corruption, like Thompson himself, the movie serves as a countercultural protest. Importantly, it distills Thompson’s gonzo spirit and what he stood for ideologically. Where the Buffalo Roam was scored by Neil Young and directed by Art Linson. Linson would go on to enjoy a career as a producer, bringing titles like Fight Club (1999) and Sons of Anarchy (2008-2014) into fruition.

3. Southern Comfort (1981)

Whilst training in the Louisiana Bayou, the National Guard antagonise the local Cajuns, leading to a cat and mouse chase.

Firstly, Deliverance-inspired Southern Comfort is a classic of the action and survival genres, one of auteur Walter Hill’s best movies. Andrew Laszlo’s cinematography evokes the haunting beauty of the Louisiana bayou, as does Ry Cooder’s slide guitar score. Uniquely, Southern Comfort captures Cajun culture, which has been underrepresented in film. Hill revels in depicting the Cajuns’ parties, cooking, accordion music and spirit of “laissez les bons temps rouler.”

Additionally, proficient character actor Brion James (Blade Runner) delivers one of the only convincing on-screen Cajun accents. Critics have drawn parallels with Southern Comfort and the Vietnam War. Crucially, Southern Comfort depicts both sides of the fight with sympathy, exposing the futility and needless suffering of war. Walter Hill commented: “none of us are quite as good or bad as we construct them.”

4. Liquid Sky (1982)

An alien invader infiltrates New York’s New Wave subculture.

Liquid Sky is worth watching for its stunning aesthetic alone, approaching the sci-fi genre like video art. It is iconoclastic of the 1980s’ garish, androgynous fashion, youth culture and music. Its psychedelic style is achieved through its saturated neon lighting, colourful makeup, synth score and the use of thermal imaging. The unnerving surrealist tone is heightened by the emotionally distant, arrogant, vain characters.

Visually, it has been an inspiration for director Nicolas Winding Refn, who dubbed it “a counterculture film. I love [it]. It’s probably the most accurate movie version of what it was like clubbing in New York at that period. A historical throwback to an era that’s certainly no longer there. It’s a bit like seeing some British film about Swinging London. It’s very unique. It’s a movie I think about a lot.”

5. The Dead Zone (1983)

When he awakens from a five-year coma, Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) discovers that he has psychic abilities.

The Dead Zone is the perfect marriage between Stephen King’s original writing and David Cronenberg’s direction. The latter’s craft is taut, focused and envelope-pushing, achieving a greater degree of relatable drama and tragedy than his earlier body horrors. This melancholy is expertly articulated by Christopher Walken, who, unusually, does not imbue his performance with humour and cheekiness.

Instead, he excels as a serious, grounded leading man, winning the audience’s pathos. By virtue of Stephen King’s vision, The Dead Zone unsettlingly mixes ordinary domesticity with the untamed malice of the supernatural. It is regarded as perhaps the finest adaptation of the writer’s work. What is more, through Martin Sheen’s diabolical performance, The Dead Zone’s political themes are even more relevant today than they were upon its release.

The 1980s were a lucrative time for American cinema, a decade in where films were consistently making previously unimaginable sums of money at the box office. Largely unpoliticized, much of the most popular cinema of the 1980s was about having a good time, living a rich and fulfilled life, overcoming the odds, and getting the girl at the end before the credits rolled.

Beneath the glossy surface though, there was more gritty, edgy fare being released, films that were far less feel-good in tone and delivered a harder punch. Given these movies pre-dated the political correctness that often stifles modern films, they often went into areas that were daring and controversial, unflinching human dramas that were fearless in their approach. Below are ten 1980s films that may have passed you by, but are well worth seeking out.

1. Best Seller (1987)

One of the least talked of, yet most impressive 1980’s films to feature James Woods, is Best Seller (1987), where he starred alongside the late and great Brian Dennehy. This sharp thriller has Woods as a hit-man named Cleve who wants the help of seasoned cop Dennis Meechum (Dennehy), who also happens to be a best selling writer, to adapt his admittedly fascinating story into book form.

Things aren’t straight forward though. Years earlier, as part of a masked gang, Cleve had killed two of Meechum’s colleagues, and once this fact is revealed he is adamant on busting him. At the start of the film though, Woods appears out of nowhere during Dennehy’s pursuit of a criminal and saves his life. Meechum is therefore torn and also genuinely intrigued by the tale Cleve has to tell him, that he was a paid assassin for Kappa International, a huge empire run by David Madlock (Paul Schena). What follows is a strange game between Woods and Dennehy, a kind of dance of psych outs and double bluffs. Is this relationship, this weird friendship that has developed between the officer and the criminal, at all healthy? Will he turn the hit man in as soon as the book is finished?

As anyone who’s seen it will know, there is much more to the film than a straight forward thriller. One can look into hidden subtext a little too intensely, yet I feel there is something being said about 80’s America here, the era of aspiration, of success being all, of suited yuppies making everything a commodity. Woods gives Cleve a believability, and not once do we roll our eyes when he takes a man down with his gun with ease, or breaks another’s neck because he is in the way. We buy it, and also swallow the fact he could quietly leave the room without you even knowing he’d been there. It’s a subtle performance.

It helps of course that he was cast opposite an actor as good as Dennehy, who also settles into his role with apparent ease. Cleve sees them as soul brothers, is adamant they have a bond. “Cop and killer,” he says, adding “two sides to the same coin.” As he did with De Niro in Once Upon a Time in America, Woods plays off Dennehy splendidly, and Dennehy works against Woods’ snake-like deviousness with a stony determination.

Best Seller is not the standard 80’s thriller it looks to be on its DVD cover. An intelligently written and constructed cat and mouse game, it’s a film about morals, about motives and personal redemption. At its centre are two wonderful performances by a pair of actors who work so well together that you wish they had teamed up more often.

2. The Big Town (1987)

Matt Dillon was one of the best of the young movie brats whose profile was on the rise during the mid to late 80s, and though he didn’t become a mega star like some of his contemporaries did, he always made excellent choices and consistently played challenging, intriguing characters. One of these came in 1987’s The Big Town, in which he portrays Cullen, a small time crap-shooter who moves to Chicago in hopes of making his fortune. He immediately falls in with two hustlers, one of whom is played by Bruce Dern, and meets Lorry (Diane Lane), a stripper who wants vengeance on her husband, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Cullen finds himself stuck between two women, Suzy Amis as the sensitive Aggy, and the bad girl Lorry, all the while working away on making as much money as he can.

Seedy, sleazy and gripping, this cool noir thriller is one of those lost treasures you get a kick out of discovering. Directed by Ben Bolt (who was helped out by an uncredited Harold Becker), and adapted from Clark Howard’s book The Arm by Robert Roy Pool, The Big Town was not a box office success (clearly, it had none of the shallow appeal of the more mainstream pictures), though it did attract some solid reviews. Stylish in an unforced kind of way, it’s simply an enthralling story acted thoroughly well by a top cast. As ever, the likes of Bruce Dern and Tommy Lee Jones are superb, though the film arguably belongs to Dillon and Lane. They had starred in two films together before this (Rumble Fish and The Outsiders) and always enjoyed a lively chemistry. The Big Town is worth watching for these characterisations alone, but it’s also just a good old fashioned thriller with all the twists and turns you want and expect.

3. The Package (1989)

The Package is a murky tale of intrigue set during the Cold War. The Package of the title is none other than Tommy Lee Jones, a prisoner called Walter Henke, who must be transported from East Berlin to America by US Special Forces Sergeant Johnny Gallagher, played by Gene Hackman, where he will face a court martial. However, things do not go smoothly to plan and he proves to be a slippery customer, escaping at the airport. Only then do the complications mount, and Hackman ends up working against the clock to solve the mystery and save the life of a politician who is due to be assassinated.

A slick, smart, beautifully played thriller, The Package is directed with panache by Andrew Davis, who keeps the action coming while also leaving enough room for his cast to flesh out their roles. John Bishop’s script stays clear of cliches, though it also sticks to the rules of a good thriller. Indeed, the movie never lets you relax and become complacent as the twists and shifts in the plot arrive to take you by surprise.

The cast are great too. Hackman and Jones are marvellous in their roles, and there is a real thrill to be had in their interactions and the unfolding plot which reveals Jones’ character to be a much more dangerous figure than expected. There are also fine supporting turns from Joanna Cassidy, Dennis Franz and John Heard, the latter at his most villainous and slimy. Though it wasn’t a big hit at the time, it does have a healthy reputation as a solid entry in the paranoiac Cold War genre. That said, it definitely deserves more acclaim, as well as a decent Blu-ray release, too.

4. True Believer (1989)

Director Joseph Ruben’s True Believer (1989) is another solid movie featuring yet another committed 80s James Woods performance. Here he excels as maverick defence attorney Eddie Dodd, a man who, slightly disenfranchised with the legal system, finds himself stirred once again by a prison murder which takes him back to a Chinatown killing from a decade earlier.

Way back when, Dodd was a man excited and enthralled by the very idea of seeking justice. In the late sixties and early seventies he was a famous civil rights lawyer, but twenty years on, at the end of the yuppie era, he’s slightly burnt out. He still has the long hair, but it’s tied back in a weird mullet. (In a later interview, Woods joked that he had kept the wig as a pet.) He is still on the edge, but he doesn’t have the faith and passion he once had. This case however, immediately landing him in hot water, gets his blood flowing again, and he is in his element once more, as if the 1980s never happened.

Robert Downey Jr. is effective as the rookie straight out of law school sent over to work with Dodd, but this is Woods at centre stage. Of course this does not mean he chews scenery and asserts himself over the rest of the cast, but Dodd is such a charismatic role that there was no way Woods wasn’t going to make him the heart of the picture. Embodied in this one character is the hope of a whole generation, one that believed that justice would win in the end, that truth and integrity were absolute. The fact he’s frazzled, let down by the system, only makes his resurgence all the more exciting. Woods plays it with perfection.

Overall the film is consistently gripping and keeps you fully invested and guessing away until the final reel. Though popular at the time (it even spawned a spin off TV series), it’s overlooked today and deserves a lot more attention.

5. Split Decisions (1988)

Split Decisions (1988) is a raw urban drama from director David Drury, with Gene Hackman at his grisly best as boxing trainer Danny McGuinn. He’s getting his son Eddie into the ring, while his other son, Ray, is mixing with the wrong sorts. When Ray gets killed, Eddie finds out the murderer was a mobster who also boxes, so naturally he challenges him to a match.

Some have compared the tone of the film to Rocky (1976), and though it’s very much a film which triumphs the underdog, this is a very different tale. Gritty in some ways, perhaps a little familiar in others, it is a film elevated by a subtle, multi layered performance by Hackman. Totally overlooked today, I would single it out as a minor gem in Hackman’s filmography, worth watching for his portrayal of the trainer who also happens to be a father.

Hackman played fathers very well in the 1980s, perhaps because he himself was by then an established dad to grown up kids. In Twice in a Lifetime he portrayed the wandering, tired, weary middle aged dad brilliantly, torn between his family and his fresh new love, but not torn enough to actually put his family first. Here, as in the later Wyatt Earp, family is the key word and blood comes before all else. Though some have said he sleepwalked through the part of Danny McGuinn, even a sleepwalking Hackman is better than 99 percent of other actors at their peak.

Thankfully, Split Decisions is easy to find these days and is readily available on both DVD and various digital platforms. Boxing buffs will love it, of course, but I would argue it would mainly appeal to die hard Hackman fans. Made the same year as the far more acclaimed and popular Mississippi Burning, Hackman is just as good here.

While American cinema of the 1970s, often dubbed the era of the New Hollywood boom, was largely character-based, reflecting the lives of the people who were queuing up outside the theatres, the 1980s were undoubtedly the time of the blockbuster, of escapism, the age in which big budget action flicks, dazzling sci-fi epics and feel-good adventure was the order of the day. As budgets got bigger and movies became more and more geared towards the whole family, many of the auteurs and directors who made their names in the previous decade with smaller, more intimate, much grittier films found themselves starting from the ground up as the 80s came into full swing.

Most film buffs are open to all kinds of cinema, and though the 1980s was indeed dominated by the blockbusters, there were plenty of less commercial pictures which saw release too. Though few of them could rival the extravaganzas that ruled the box office in terms of profits, there were dozens, if not hundreds of films which were just as effective. Sadly, many of them went under the radar and have since got lost in the corridors of time.

Below are ten 80s films I feel are unjustly overlooked, some of which were minor successes at the time and have fallen by the wayside, others which never got their due credit in the first place.

1. A Dry White Season (1989)

Donald Sutherland was on Oscar worthy form in the overlooked and extremely moving Apartheid drama, A Dry White Season (1989). Written and directed by Euzhan Palcy, the film is based on Andre Brink’s book and set in mid-seventies South Africa. Sutherland plays Ben du Tolt, a kind-hearted teacher who works at a whites-only school. When his gardener’s son is beaten by white police, Ben is asked to step in. At first he refuses, but when the gardener himself is abducted by the police, Ben gets involved in the case. Once he knows both men were killed, he brings the incidents to the court, with lawyer Ian McKenzie (Marlon Brando) representing him. But Ben is up against a most intimidating foe, and his quest for truth and justice leads him into dark waters.

A Dry White Season is a highly effective, unflinching, eye-opening, and often upsetting film about a sickening regime, the concept of equality, and the basic right to be treated like a human being. Directed with grace by Palcy, it is a story that needed to be told – and it is one told extremely well. Sutherland puts in a fabulous effort, playing a man we genuinely like, care for, and admire. Ben is the personification of justice itself in a time and place that seemed to be without law and decency, and Sutherland embodies this decent and all too idealistic man perfectly.

When the movie came out in 1989, much fuss was made about Brando, the man who famously hated the movie business, signing up for the role of the lawyer. He was so taken by Palcy’s passion and the story she was dying to tell that he worked for scale. The hype of Brando’s appearance in the picture aside though, A Dry White Season is in some ways held up by Sutherland’s work. Yes, Donald’s scenes with Marlon Brando, though brief, are worth the price of admission alone, but in all the film is carried by a warm Sutherland tour de force that keeps the whole thing together.

A Dry White Season is an important film that rarely gets singled out when people list highlights of the 1980s. It’s well worth seeking out.

2. Ironweed (1987)

In Hector Babenco’s 1930s set drama, based on William Kennedy’s book (adapted by the author himself to the screen), Jack plays Francis, a down and out former baseball player who dropped his son as a baby and killed him. In the aftermath of the traumatic event, after walking out on his family, he has become a drinker, a bum, and a faded ghost of his former self. In Albany on Halloween night, he meets with Helen (Meryl Streep), and attempts to move on in his new life, trying to make things as best he can despite the pitfalls of his life style choice and the quality of his peerage. While working in odd jobs, he faces his past and heads back to the house to see his wife and two surviving children. But when an aggressive group attempt to run all the vagabonds out of town, things take a drastic turn.

Ironweed features a duo of superb performances by two of American cinema’s greatest stars. Nicholson is brilliant, embodying the down and out so well that he starts to dissolve into the character, fading away more and more as the picture goes on. We believe he is every bit the boozing hobo, yet there is a tragic undercurrent which makes you care for the man. Streep is a revelation too, perhaps among her finest performances to date; a believable, savage depiction of bitterness and a woman who has totally lost her way. Jack and Meryl work wonderfully together, and though there were few dramatic fireworks in the admittedly good and refreshingly low key Heartburn (their previous film together), here they are given much more room to flesh out their parts and impress the viewer.

Unfortunately, despite Academy attention, the film sank. While it received some good reviews, box office, predictably, was lowly. Coming in at a budget of $27 million, it scraped back a mere $7 million. Clearly this was not a film made to please the blockbuster brigade, but it does seem a shame that such a well written, moving, and superbly performed piece of filmmaking would be so neglected. Worse still, thirty years on, it’s not gained much of a following. Ironweed, then, deserves a dusting off.

3. The Ninth Configuration (1980)

William Peter Blatty’s vastly underrated The Ninth Configuration is an electrifying experience, a film that lures you in with madcap comedy for its first half, and then delivers an unexpected sucker punch during its final chapters. The film takes place in a castle doubling as an asylum in the early 70s, near the end of the war in Vietnam, where a group of soldiers deemed insane are residing. Colonel Hudson Kane (Stacy Keach) is brought in to reside over the inmates.

A Vietnam veteran himself, it slowly becomes clear that he may be the infamous Killer Kane of ‘Nam legend, and that he could be just as crazy as half the inmates appear to be. Most of the time speaking in a flat tone, and acting very strangely indeed, he indulges the patients and encourages them in their wild eccentricities. One patient, Cutshaw (Scott Wilson), builds a rapport with Kane, and the two go into theological discussions about good and evil, about the existence of God, an almighty creator, against theories of evolution. When Cutshaw escapes from the castle one night, Kane follows him, and finds the emotionally fragile man being roughed around at a bar frequented by Hell’s Angels. It is here that Kane snaps into violence, reverting to his manic, demented former self of Vietnam legend.

The Ninth Configuration is a complex, multi-layered film, a study of faith, of the existence of god, of good and evil on the earth, of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man, blurring the line between so called sanity and madness, a deeply theological film in every sense. But importantly, it is also extremely entertaining and gripping, a ride into pure, unadulterated madness, a horror film without creatures, monsters and demons, but human beings, who are the most monstrous beings of all. Brilliantly written, excellently directed, and acted with perfection, The Ninth Configuration is as good as filmmaking gets – and then some.

4. Jacknife (1989)

A solid but vastly sidelined Robert De Niro film of the 1980s was the moving drama Jacknife, which follows the lives of two Vietnam veterans, both affected by their time in the war in very different ways. It was almost like a distant cousin to The Deer Hunter, exploring the long term effects of war trauma. De Niro and Ed Harris give precise and finely tuned performances, both brilliantly capturing the pain, shame and torment of getting through a living nightmare such as the bloody mess of the Vietnam War.

De Niro is Megs, a troubled vet who tracks down old war buddy Dave (Ed Harris), who now has a drink problem, and aims to lift him from his depressed, drunken state. When a romance blossoms between Megs and Dave’s sister (a brilliant Kathy Baker), a combination of events brings Dave back to life, and forces him to face his inner demons and get on with his life.

Jacknife is superbly acted by De Niro and Harris, both of whom give terrific performances. Based on the play Strange Snow by Stephen Metcalfe, who also penned the screenplay, the film is compact and all about the performances, with little fuss, frills or distraction. It’s one of De Niro’s lesser known films from this time, perhaps due to its lower budget and muted release. That’s not to say it’s not brilliant, because it is; in fact it’s a lost gem, and De Niro’s Megs is one of his finest creations from the era. It’s well worth tracking down.

5. The Border (1982)

The Border is one of Jack Nicholson’s most forgotten films from the 1980s; in fact, it’s probably one of the least celebrated movies from his whole post-Easy Rider career. Directed by British great Tony Richardson, it stars Jack as immigration officer Charlie Smith, who with his wife moves to El Paso where he teams up with friend and border controller Harvey Keitel. The pair take part in a human smuggling scheme, and the new, perfect life which Charlie’s wife (Valerie Perrine) dreamed of does not come to fruition as she had hoped. The smuggling operation produces numerous dramas, and harbours within a rot which eventually costs one of the friends their life.

Jack is on fine form, and it’s refreshing to see him downplaying it, a rarity in the 1980s, a decade occupied by showy, larger than life Jack performances. Indeed, the work Nicholson did for The Border was something he might have done ten years earlier, around the time of Five Easy Pieces and The King of Marvin Gardens, before his screen persona had been properly defined.

Though an under-performer at the box office, and a film which received reserved reviews, The Border is a rather unfairly sidelined film in the Nicholson canon. It has an intriguing plot and is nicely directed, but is worth watching most of all for the characterisations. Nicholson aside, Keitel is quietly impressive too, as is the always watchable Perrine who enjoys some memorable sequences with Nicholson.