Image via Columbia Pictures
Published Jun 23, 2026, 8:32 PM EDT
Ryan Heffernan is a Senior Writer at Collider. Storytelling has been one of his interests since an early age, with his appreciation for film and television becoming a particular interest of his during his teenage years.
This passion saw Ryan graduate from the University of Canberra in 2020 with an Honours Degree in Film Production. In the years since, he has found freelance work as a videographer and editor in the Canberra region while also becoming entrenched in the city's film-making community.
In addition to cinema and writing, Ryan's other major interest is sport, with him having a particular love for Australian Rules football, Formula 1, and cricket. He also has casual interests in reading, gaming, and history.
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When it comes to cult movies, there is no better decade of cinema than the 1980s. The eccentricity and excess of the era meshed with the interest in strong, impassioned genre filmmaking to produce a litany of hits that continue to be enjoyed to this day, ranging from absurd action pieces like Big Trouble in Little China to horror highlights like The Lost Boys, and even fantasy dark fantasy epics like Legend.
However, for every great '80s cult classic that continues to be adored today, plenty of brilliant hidden gems have come to be forgotten. Consisting of everything from the monstrously macabre to the merrily maniacal, the maddening, the mystifying, and even a mesmerizing musical, these forgotten cult treats epitomize the mania and majesty of the '80s.
10 'Bad Taste' (1987)
Image via Endeavour ProductionsOvercoming the limitations of its minuscule budget with an insatiable appetite for gore and fun-loving hysteria, Bad Taste stands as a hidden treasure of New Zealand cinema that also marks the feature film debut of Peter Jackson. Delightfully mad across the board, the divinely sickening horror-comedy unfolds as aliens invade a small New Zealand town to harvest its residents for their intergalactic fast-food chain. Four gun-toting paramilitary agents are sent in to put an end to their operation.
Relentless in its pursuit of gross-out visuals and absurdist genius, it combines its revolting premise with brilliantly concocted special effects and rapid-fire storytelling to conjure a delightfully over-the-top spectacle of outrageous sci-fi horror. It is especially enthralling to revisit today to see the flourishes of creative brilliance lurking beneath the rudimentary revulsion. While it did gain some renewed traction after Jackson’s work on The Lord of the Rings, it remains a criminally underappreciated gem of black comic gratuity and genre indulgence.
Image via Columbia PicturesAn anthology of animated vignettes loosely tied together by the journey of an evil, glowing orb that inspires violence and chaos wherever it roams, Heavy Metal is a spearhead of adult animation. Spanning sci-fi, noir, and fantasy throughout its five-part amalgamation of narrative threads, it utilizes several different animation styles to craft a lively, unpredictable, and delightfully dizzying display.
While its visual punch is easy to admire, Heavy Metal’s true cult standing is equally rooted in its ensemble cast, which includes such names as John Candy, Harold Ramis, and Eugene Levy among many others. Its pulsating hard rock and heavy metal soundtrack features some of the biggest bands in the genre. Every manic and marvelous element comes together to concoct a feat of animated lunacy, a visually and tonally unhinged descent into several genres that encapsulates the hysterical excess of the '80s in its wildest form.
8 'Inferno' (1980)
Image via 20th Century StudiosDario Argento became a master of cult thrills throughout the 1970s, with giallo classics like Suspiria and Deep Red continuing to earn acclaim today for their enchanting style and compelling stories of evil, violence, and mystery. His pivot to more assured supernatural terror would provide memorable gems like 1985’s Phenomena, but one of his best achievements in the genre has been forgotten by the masses despite its atmospheric excellence and impressionable visual display.
Unraveling more as a surrealist nightmare than a plot-driven chiller, Inferno follows a music student as he investigates the death of his friend and the disappearance of his sister, both of which are tied to a book of witchcraft and alchemy. Eerie and unsettling with its morbid tone and gorgeous aesthetic, Inferno presents a stunning sensory experience through its richly stylized visuals and its ominous progressive rock score. It has perhaps been overshadowed by the litany of horror cult classics the decade produced, but few films in the history of the genre can match Inferno’s bleak beauty and atmospheric allure.
7 'Enemy Mine' (1985)
Image via 20th Century StudiosScience-fiction was one of the great cinematic trends of the 1980s, with everything from dark thrillers like Blade Runner to family adventures like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial enduring as defining hits of the decade. One movie that neither enjoyed success upon release nor found the credit it deserves retrospectively is Enemy Mine, a high-concept sci-fi set in a future where humanity is at war with a reptilian alien race known as Dracs. It follows a human fighter pilot and a Drac warrior as they are forced into an uneasy alliance when they both crash-land on an inhospitable planet.
Granted, its ideals may, at times, be more compelling than its storytelling. Still, Enemy Mine remains an intriguing picture that cleverly uses its elaborate sci-fi premise to explore empathy, survival, camaraderie, and the pointlessness of prejudice. What starts out as intergalactic action bravado evolves into a surprisingly emotional and somber meditation on humanity, morality, and responsibility that, despite being seen by far too few, does tend to linger on the minds of those lucky enough to have watched it.
Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?
Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt
Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn't work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.
🎖️Rambo
🍸James Bond
🏺Indiana Jones
🔧John McClane
🎭Ethan Hunt
FIND YOUR PARTNER →
01
You're dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner? The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.
ASomeone who already has three contingency plans running and is calmly working through all of them. BSomeone who reads the terrain instinctively and knows exactly how to use it against the enemy. CSomeone who keeps their nerve and their sense of humour when everything is falling apart. DSomeone who knows the history of wherever we are and what we're walking into. ESomeone with the right contact, the right cover identity, and the right exit already arranged.
NEXT QUESTION →
02
You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel? How you get there is half the mission.
AOn foot through terrain no one else would attempt — I move where vehicles can't follow. BOn a motorcycle, a cargo plane, or anything else that gets me there before I think too hard about it. CIn something that belongs to someone else — borrowed, stolen, or improvised under fire. DFirst class, with a cover identity and a gadget that does something I won't explain until it's needed. EBy whatever means are available — I've driven, flown, and once arrived by camel. The destination matters, not the method.
NEXT QUESTION →
03
You're pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do? This is when you find out what someone is really made of.
ADisappears into the environment, flanks them silently, and ends it before I've reloaded. BCracks a one-liner, grabs a fire extinguisher or a chair, and improvises something that somehow works. CProduces a gadget specifically designed for this exact scenario and uses it with infuriating precision. DPulls out a whip, a pistol, and an archaeological insight that somehow gets us out alive. ENeutralises the threat with maximum efficiency and minimum words — they were already three moves ahead.
NEXT QUESTION →
04
The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest? Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.
AA bar with terrible lighting, cold beer, and absolutely no questions about feelings. BThe finest restaurant in the city, a bottle of something expensive, and a conversation that is equal parts brilliant and exhausting. CA local dig site, a museum after hours, or a long story about why that particular artefact matters to human civilisation. DPizza. Bad TV. Falling asleep halfway through a movie neither of you were watching anyway. EA debrief that turns into three hours of contingency planning that somehow becomes the most fun you've had all week.
NEXT QUESTION →
05
How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission? Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.
APrecise and minimal — tell me what I need to know and nothing else. Every word has a cost. BDeadpan and dry — keeping it light keeps me sharp, even when everything is on fire. CEnthusiastic and slightly chaotic — but always with useful information buried somewhere in the noise. DCalm and controlled through an earpiece, with a plan that covers every variable I haven't thought of yet. EBarely at all — silence is a language and they speak it fluently.
NEXT QUESTION →
06
Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them? The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.
AInfiltrate their inner circle, learn everything, and dismantle them from inside out before they know we're there. BStudy the historical pattern — every villain of this type has a weakness written somewhere in the past. CGet them talking. The more they monologue, the more time I have to figure out how to beat them. DGo through them. Directly. With as much force as the terrain allows. EFind the one thing they haven't accounted for — there's always one thing — and make sure we're holding it.
NEXT QUESTION →
07
Things go badly wrong and you're captured. What do you trust your partner to do? Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.
ACome in alone, quietly, and get me out before anyone knows they were there. BHave already been working on the extraction since the moment I disappeared — the plan is already running. CCome in loud, come in fast, and worry about the collateral damage later — I'd do the same for them. DUse every resource, every contact, and bend every rule until I'm out — they don't leave people behind. ECharm their way in somehow, bluff through the hard part, and still manage to look good doing it.
NEXT QUESTION →
08
What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn't replace? A great partner fills the gap you didn't know you had.
ATechnology that shouldn't exist yet and the training to use it under any conditions. BSurvival instinct so refined it borders on supernatural — and the scars to prove it's been tested. CKnowledge of history, language, and culture that makes them invaluable in places where force is useless. DThe ability to walk into any room in the world and immediately become the most trusted person in it. EStubbornness that refuses to accept a situation is hopeless — and the improvisational skill to back it up.
NEXT QUESTION →
09
Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with? No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.
AA partner who never fully switches off — always watching exits, always calculating threats, even at dinner. BA partner who gets the job done brilliantly but has the emotional availability of a locked filing cabinet. CA partner who makes everything ten times more complicated than it needs to be — but who always comes through. DA partner who gets personally attached to every relic, ruin, and artefact we encounter, which slows everything down. EA partner who was not built for this and knows it — but shows up anyway, every time, without being asked.
NEXT QUESTION →
10
It's the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now? The last question is the most honest one.
AOne line. Absolutely dry. Delivered like the world isn't ending. Then we move. BNothing said at all — just a look that means we both already know what has to happen. CA plan I don't fully understand that somehow accounts for everything, delivered in thirty seconds flat. DA piece of historical context that reframes the entire situation and tells us exactly what to do next. ESomeone who steps forward instead of back — because that's who they've always been.
REVEAL MY PARTNER →
Your Partner Has Been Assigned Your Perfect Partner Is…
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Rambo
Your partner doesn't talk much, doesn't need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you've finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You'll never need to ask if he has your back. You'll just know.
James Bond
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it'll take you a moment to remember what's actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You'll never be bored. You'll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Indiana Jones
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar's eye and a brawler's instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn't matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you'll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
John McClane
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren't so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Ethan Hunt
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you've finished reading the briefing, and the plan he's settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn't exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ
6 'Streets of Fire' (1984)
Image via Universal PicturesAs has been the case in several films already included on this list, the music of the '80s played an integral part in defining the cult brilliance of many of the decade's most infectious gems, forgotten or not. This is especially true of Streets of Fire, a musical action crime film set in a 1950s-inspired dystopia that leans on Jim Steinman’s brilliant rock opera soundtrack, imbuing the picture with over-the-top extravagance. It follows a former soldier in his efforts to rescue his ex-girlfriend, rising rock star Ellen Aim (Diane Lane), from an evil biker gang.
Embracing the rock ‘n’ roll philosophy that everything should be louder, bigger, and brighter than everything else, Streets of Fire excels as an exercise in excess, from the vigor and vehemence of the performances to the thumping theatricality of the visual aesthetic. It isn’t afraid to find the cheesy delight in a world of neon lights, leather jackets, and growling engines and remains one of the most exuberant cult gems of '80s cinema because of it.
5 'Return to Oz' (1985)
Image via Buena Vista DistributionReturn to Oz is something of a misunderstood masterpiece, but it is easy to see why. After all, when a film is released as a sequel to The Wizard of Oz, few would expect to see a devilishly traumatizing work of dark fantasy terror. Its PG rating was deceiving, with the film following Dorothy Gale (Fairuza Balk) as she escapes from a psychiatric facility and returns to the wonderful world of Oz only to find it in ruins and under the command of an evil empire.
Surprisingly, Return to Oz is possibly the most faithful of all the adaptations of Frank L. Baum’s books, drawing heavily on the surrealism and bleakness of the source material through its striking practical effects and its menacing creature design. Sadly, the bold and brazen sequel has struggled to find the praise it so thoroughly deserves, even retrospectively, but it holds up as a divine and dark descent into a fantasy realm of psychological horror and startling imagery.
4 'Near Dark' (1987)
Image via De Laurentiis Entertainment GroupReleased just three months after The Lost Boys, which has come to be the most enduring and defining '80s vampire horror, Near Dark was overshadowed upon release and has never received the universal acclaim it deserves. Incorporating elements of neo-Western flamboyance and biker gang crime, it follows a small-town cowboy who must leave his home after being bitten by a vampire. Traveling with the undead gang, he is torn between his love for Mae (Jenny Wright), the vampire that turned him, and his fleeting grasp on humanity.
While it flirts with the seductive mysticism of vampire mythology, Near Dark also treats the concept as a nightmarish plunge into addiction, restraint, and desperation. Its cult status is only bolstered by its captivating visual style and its litany of outstanding performances, particularly Bill Paxton’s turn as the charismatic and evil vampire. Gritty, Gothic, and gorgeously unglamorous, Near Dark is a masterpiece of vampire horror that stands as one of the best and most underrated horror movies of the 1980s.
3 'Dragonslayer' (1981)
Image via Walt Disney Studios Motion PicturesOne of the most commanding and compelling ventures of dark fantasy from the 1980s, Dragonslayer combines otherworldly wonder with a bleak and grounded sense of mature social realism, all while presenting what is the greatest dragon to have ever graced the silver screen. The beast, Vermithrax Pejorative, holds the kingdom in a state of fear, demanding sacrificial virgins from the king in exchange for the safety of the people. However, when a wizard’s daughter is to be presented as the next sacrifice, the aging spellcaster and his young apprentice set out to slay the dragon.
It implements integral fantasy tropes like the brave underdog knight trying to save the innocent soul in peril and the kingdom forced into subservience at the hands of terrible power, but it subverts them as well. It is intensely cynical about religious influence and ruling classes. Also featuring immersive set designs, a visceral sense of impending danger, and the meticulous brilliance of Vermithrax’s sinewy, dread-inducing appearance, Dragonslayer is a triumph of fantasy cinema even if it has drifted from mainstream interest over the years.
2 'They Live' (1988)
Image via Universal PicturesThe history of cult cinema, there is no greater name than John Carpenter, whose dazzling filmography and sci-fi, horror, and action consists of some of the most beloved and adored cult films ever made. Despite its rollicking entertainment value and its piercing, timeless social commentary, They Live hasn’t had quite the same lasting impact as some of Carpenter’s other noteworthy releases. Still, its tale of media manipulation, systemic control, and societal order remains every bit as poignant today as it was in 1988.
"Rowdy" Roddy Piper stars as an aimless drifter who finds his purpose when he discovers a pair of sunglasses that show him the ugly truth behind the subliminal world. Seeing advertising billboards as mind-washing messages of submission and the ruling elites as skull-faced alien invaders, he decides to challenge the oppressive norm with shotgun in hand. A scorching critique of consumerism and class disparity presented as a gleefully bizarre action flick, They Live is one of the most engaging and enthralling cult films, not only of the 1980s, but of all time.
1 'Brazil' (1985)
Image via Universal PicturesFrom the wonderfully abstract mind of Terry Gilliam, Brazil captivates as an eye-catching sci-fi fable that sadly ended its run as a box office flop and has struggled to break into mainstream consciousness in the decades since. The tragedy of this is that audiences of today would appreciate its messaging and style. Decades ahead of its time, it skewers the oppressive monotony of the workforce as it follows low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce), who becomes an enemy of the state when he prioritizes chasing the woman of his dreams over seeing to his work.
It’s absurd and eccentric, yet beautiful, with its powerful story of humanity and passion transpiring in a picturesque world of retro-future quirkiness that combines noir imagery and 1930s Art Deco with a vision of clunky advanced technology. Its brilliant cast and whiplash-inducing tonal pivots between slapstick lunacy and icy torture sequences only add to Brazil’s cult standing. Now, it's widely considered a true masterpiece of cinema at large that, sadly, hasn’t found the attention it deserves in a world that has grown into its ideas of corporate control, work-life imbalance, and aching loneliness.
Brazil
Release Date December 18, 1985
English (US) ·