Playlists > The Best Movies of 1981

The Best Movies of 1981
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As with most of my lists, some of the movies show a different year, but they were all released in 1981.


Creator: melissa1983
Posted: 3 years ago
 
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Movie: Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark ( 1981 )
In 1936, archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis can obtain its awesome powers.
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Movie: Porky's ( 1982 )
In 1954, a group of Florida high-school guys try to help their buddy lose his virginity, which leads them to seek revenge on a sleazy nightclub owner and his redneck sheriff brother for harassing them.
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Movie: Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior ( 1981 )
In the post-apocalyptic Australian wasteland, a cynical drifter agrees to help a small, gasoline rich community escape a horde of bandits.
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Movie: Escape from New York ( 1981 )
In 1997, when the U.S. president crashes into Manhattan, now a giant maximum security prison, a convicted bank robber is sent in to rescue him.
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Movie: Excalibur ( 1981 )
Merlin the magician helps Arthur Pendragon unite the Britons around the Round Table of Camelot, even as dark forces conspire to tear it apart.
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Movie: The Evil Dead ( 1983 )
Five friends travel to a cabin in the woods, where they unknowingly release flesh-possessing demons.
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Movie: The Boat ( 1982 )
A German U-boat stalks the frigid waters of the North Atlantic as its young crew experience the sheer terror and claustrophobic life of a submariner in World War II.
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Movie: An American Werewolf in London ( 1981 )
Two American college students on a walking tour of Britain are attacked by a werewolf that none of the locals will admit exists.
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Movie: History of the World: Part I ( 1981 )
Mel Brooks brings his one-of-a-kind comic touch to the history of mankind covering events from the Old Testament to the French Revolution in a series of episodic comedy vignettes.
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Movie: The Cannonball Run ( 1981 )
A wide variety of eccentric competitors participate in a wild and illegal cross-country road race. However, the eccentric entrants will do anything to win the road race, including low-down, dirty tricks.
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Movie: Possession ( 1983 )
A woman starts exhibiting increasingly disturbing behavior after asking her husband for a divorce. Suspicions of infidelity soon give way to something much more sinister.
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Movie: For Your Eyes Only ( 1981 )
James Bond is assigned to find a missing British vessel, equipped with a weapons encryption device and prevent it from falling into enemy hands.
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Movie: Endless Love ( 1981 )
A high school student's love for a 15-year-old girl is thwarted by parental disapproval, circumstance and accident.
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Movie: Time Bandits ( 1981 )
A young boy accidentally joins a band of time travelling dwarves, as they jump from era to era looking for treasure to steal.
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Movie: Bustin' Loose ( 1981 )
Joe Braxton is an ex-con who has been given a second chance to freedom after violating his probation. He has been hired by a school teacher named Vivian Perry to repair and drive an old school bus and drive a group of Special kids to Ms. Perry's Washington Farm from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to give them a new home after The Clarmont Center for Children is shut down by the city. The kids have severe mental problems and Joe is not looking forward to the trip at all, but Joe later bonds with Vivian and the children, offering his support and love and changes his outlook on life. But Donald, the social worker and Vivian's lover who gave Joe his break is hot on their tail and wants Joe back in prison. Joe and Vivian must now prevent Donald from sending the children back to Philadelphia, where they'll have no future.
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Movie: Stripes ( 1981 )
At the end of a very bad day when he realizes his life has gone and is going nowhere, John Winger is able to convince his best friend, Russell Ziskey, whose life is not much better, to enlist in the army, despite they not being obvious soldier material. In basic training, they are only two of a bunch of misfits that comprise their platoon. However, it is still John that is constantly butting heads with their drill sergeant, Sergeant Hulka. Two of their saving graces are Stella and Louise, two MPs who get them out of one scrape after another. Their entire platoon is in jeopardy of not graduating. But what happens during basic leads to their entire platoon being assigned to an overseas mission in Italy, to test a new urban assault vehicle, the EM-50 project. John and Russell decide to take the EM-50 for an unauthorized test drive to visit Stella and Louise who have been reassigned to West Germany. In the process, the rest of the platoon, Hulka, and Hulka's immediate superior, self-absorbed Captain Stillman, get caught unofficially behind enemy Communist lines in Czechoslovakia. John and Russell, with Stella and Louise's help, will have to show their true mettle as US army soldiers and in the process test the capabilities of the EM-50 to rescue their platoon without the rest of the US army knowing what's going on, and thus without any assistance beyond themselves.
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Movie: Body Heat ( 1981 )
In the midst of a searing Florida heat wave, a woman persuades her lover, a small-town lawyer, to murder her rich husband.
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Movie: Chariots of Fire ( 1981 )
Two British track athletes, one a determined Jew, and the other a devout Christian, compete in the 1924 Olympics.
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Movie: Clash of the Titans ( 1981 )
Perseus must battle Medusa and the Kraken to save the Princess Andromeda.
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Movie: Scanners ( 1981 )
A scientist trains a man with an advanced telepathic ability called "scanning" to stop a dangerous Scanner with extraordinary psychic powers from waging war against non scanners.
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Movie: Heavy Metal ( 1981 )
A glowing green orb - which embodies ultimate evil - terrorizes a young girl with an anthology of bizarre and fantastic stories of dark fantasy, eroticism and horror.
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Movie: Blow Out ( 1981 )
A movie sound recordist accidentally records the evidence that proves that a car accident was actually murder and consequently finds himself in danger.
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Movie: Thief ( 1981 )
Coming closer to his dream of leading a normal life, a professional safecracker agrees to do a job for the Mafia, who has other plans for him.
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Movie: The Fox and the Hound ( 1981 )
A fox named Tod and a hound named Copper vow to be best friends forever. But as Copper grows into a hunting dog, their unlikely friendship faces the ultimate test.
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Movie: Mommie Dearest ( 1981 )
The abusive and traumatic adoptive upbringing of Christina Crawford at the hands of her mother, screen queen Joan Crawford, is depicted.
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Movie: Taps ( 1981 )
Military cadets take extreme measures to ensure the future of their academy when its existence is threatened by local condo developers.
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Movie: Galaxy of Terror ( 1982 )
Science fiction suspense thriller, in which a rescue space ship crew meets up with horrors projected by their own imaginations.
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Movie: Friday the 13th Part 2 ( 1981 )
Five years after the events of the first film, a summer camp next to the infamous Camp Crystal Lake is preparing to open, but the legend of Jason is weighing heavy on the proceedings.
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Movie: Quest for Fire ( 1981 )
This story takes place in prehistoric time when three tribesmen search for a new fire source.
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Movie: On Golden Pond ( 1982 )
Norman is a curmudgeon with an estranged relationship with his daughter Chelsea. At Golden Pond, he and his wife nevertheless agree to care for Billy, the son of Chelsea's new boyfriend, and a most unexpected relationship blooms.
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Movie: Deadly Blessing ( 1981 )
After her husband dies under mysterious circumstances, a widow becomes increasingly paranoid of the neighboring religious community that may have diabolical plans for her.
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Movie: Dragonslayer ( 1981 )
A young wizarding apprentice is sent to kill a dragon which has been devouring girls from a nearby kingdom.
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Movie: Halloween II ( 1981 )
While Dr. Loomis hunts for Michael Myers, a traumatized Laurie is rushed to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, and The Shape is not far behind her.
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Movie: The Howling ( 1981 )
After a bizarre and near deadly encounter with a serial killer, a television newswoman is sent to a remote mountain resort whose residents may not be what they seem.
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Movie: Lady Chatterley's Lover ( 1981 )
A film adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's novel. After a crippling injury leaves her husband impotent, Lady Chatterly is torn between her love for her husband and her physical desires. With her husband's consent, she seeks out other means of fulfilling her needs.
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Movie: My Dinner with Andre ( 1981 )
Two old friends meet for dinner; as one tells anecdotes detailing his experiences, the other notices their differing worldviews.
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Movie: The Burning ( 1981 )
A former summer camp caretaker, horribly burned from a prank gone wrong, lurks around an upstate New York summer camp bent on killing the teenagers responsible for his disfigurement.
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Movie: Arthur ( 1981 )
Arthur spends his time with booze and whores. His dad has a wife lined up for him that he keeps rejecting - until it's her or being cut off from $750,000,000. Then he goes shopping where he falls in love with a shoplifter.
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Movie: Prince of the City ( 1981 )
A New York City narcotics detective reluctantly agrees to cooperate with a special commission investigating police corruption. However, he soon discovers that he's in over his head, and nobody can be trusted.
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Movie: Reds ( 1981 )
A radical American journalist becomes involved with the Communist revolution in Russia, and hopes to bring its spirit and idealism to the United States.
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Movie: Outland ( 1981 )
A federal marshal stationed at a mining colony on the Jupiter moon of Io, uncovers a drug-smuggling conspiracy. He gets no help from the workers or authorities when he finds himself marked for murder.
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Movie: The Postman Always Rings Twice ( 1981 )
This remake of the 1946 movie of the same name accounts an affair between a seedy drifter and a seductive wife of a roadside café owner. This begins a chain of events that culminates in murder.
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Movie: X-Ray ( 1982 )
While receiving a routine check-up, a woman finds herself stranded on the hospital's eighth floor, while someone dressed as a doctor is intent on her never leaving, even if it means killing any staff member who comes into contact with her.
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Movie: Cannibal Ferox ( 1983 )
Anthropologists take a trip to the jungles of Colombia to study native cannibals. Instead, they find a band of drug dealers, using the natives to harvest coca leaves. After awhile, the natives are tired of being tortured slaves, and turn on their masters, as well as the anthropologists, thus filling the screen with gruesome splatter!
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Movie: Tarzan the Ape Man ( 1981 )
While on an African expedition with her father, Jane Parker meets Tarzan, and the two become fascinated by each other.
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Movie: Victory ( 1981 )
As allied P.O.W.s prepare for a soccer game against the German National Team to be played in Nazi-occupied Paris, the French Resistance and British officers are making plans for the team's escape.
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Movie: Private Lessons ( 1981 )
An immigrant housemaid seduces a 15-year-old boy and later fakes her own death as part of his chauffeur's blackmail plot. Troubles arise when the two start to fall in love.
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Movie: The House by the Cemetery ( 1981 )
A New England home is terrorized by a series of murders, unbeknownst to the guests that a gruesome secret is hiding in the basement.
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Movie: My Bloody Valentine ( 1981 )
A decades-old folk tale surrounding a deranged murderer killing those who celebrate Valentine's Day turns out to be true to legend when a group defies the killer's order and people start turning up dead.
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Movie: Caveman ( 1981 )
A cave-man seeks revenge on a much larger competitor for the hand of a beautiful cave-woman.
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Movie: Gallipoli ( 1981 )
Two Australian sprinters face the brutal realities of war when they are sent to fight in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during World War I.
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TV Show: Brideshead Revisited ( 1981 )
Based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh, two years in the making, and the equivalent of seven feature films back-to-back, this epic drama tells a story of romantic yearning and loss in the glittering but fading world of the British aristocracy between the wars.
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Movie: Hell Night ( 1981 )
Four college pledges are forced to spend the night in a deserted old mansion, where they are stalked by the monstrous survivor of a family massacre years earlier.
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Movie: Horrorplanet ( 1981 )
A crew of interplanetary archaeologists is threatened when an alien creature impregnates one of their members, causing her to turn homicidal and murder them one by one.
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Movie: Ragtime ( 1981 )
A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.
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Movie: Neighbors ( 1981 )
A quiet man's peaceful suburban lifestyle is threatened by the new, obnoxious couple that moves in next door.
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Movie: The French Lieutenant's Woman ( 1981 )
Anna and Mike portray two characters in a film set in 19th century England who fall in love despite the fact that Mike's character is engaged.
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Movie: Southern Comfort ( 1981 )
During a routine exercise, a team of National Guards are threatened by angry and violent locals.
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Movie: Eyewitness ( 1981 )
Eccentric Vietnam War vet turned janitor claims to have witnessed a murder of a man tied to international political underground in order to get the attention of a TV reporter he has a huge crush on. The cops suspect his loser best friend.
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Movie: Ghost Story ( 1981 )
Two generations of men find themselves haunted by the presence of a spectral woman. When the son of one of the elderly men returns to his hometown after his brother's mysterious death, they attempt to unravel her story.
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Movie: The Beyond ( 1981 )
A young woman inherits an old hotel in Louisiana where, following a series of supernatural "accidents", she learns that the building was built over one of the entrances to Hell.
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Movie: The Great Muppet Caper ( 1981 )
Kermit the Frog, The Great Gonzo, and Fozzie Bear are reporters who travel to Britain to interview a rich victim of jewel thieves and help her along with her secretary, Miss Piggy.
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Movie: Nighthawks ( 1981 )
Conservative street cop DaSilva reluctantly agrees to terminate an international terrorist who has demanded media attention. But DaSilva's "at-home" tactics are very much put to the challenge.
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Movie: One from the Heart ( 1982 )
Hank and Frannie don't seem to be able to live together anymore. After a five-year relationship, lustful and dreamy Frannie leaves down-to-earth Hank on the anniversary of their relationship. Each one of them meets their dream mate, but as bright as they may seem, they are but a stage of lights and colors. Will true love prevail over a seemingly glamorous passion? Welcome to Coppola's Broadway-like romantic musical.
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Movie: The Funhouse ( 1981 )
Four teenage friends spend the night in a carnival funhouse and are stalked by a deformed man in a Frankenstein mask.
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Movie: S.O.B. ( 1981 )
A movie producer who made a huge flop tries to salvage his career by revamping his film as an erotic production, where its family-friendly star takes her top off.
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Movie: Just Before Dawn ( 1981 )
Five campers arrive in the mountains to examine some property they have bought, but are warned by Forest Ranger Roy McLean that a huge machete-wielding maniac has been terrorising the area. Ignoring the warnings, they set up camp, and start disappearing one by one.
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Movie: Piranha II: The Spawning ( 1982 )
A scuba diving instructor, her biochemist boyfriend, and her police chief ex-husband try to link a series of bizarre deaths to a mutant strain of piranha fish whose lair is a sunken freighter ship off a Caribbean island resort.
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Movie: True Confessions ( 1981 )
A worldly ambitious monsignor clashes with his older brother, a cynical Los Angeles homicide detective who is investigating the brutal murder of a young prostitute.
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Movie: Carbon Copy ( 1981 )
When a rich white corporate executive finds out that he has an illegitimate black son, things start falling apart for him at home, at work and in his social circles.
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Movie: Butterfly ( 1982 )
In 1937 Nevada, silver mine caretaker Jess Tyler is reunited with his teenage daughter Kady who will do anything to persuade Jess to let her have claim to the mine.
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Movie: The Final Conflict ( 1981 )
Now come into his full knowledge and power, the Anti-Christ in the body of Damien Thorne is about to strike his final blow. The Christ-child has been born again, on the Angel Isle, Great Britain (Scotland, England & Wales). The plan is simple, kill the Christ child to prevent him from growing up to bring the return of Christ and death of the Anti-Christ.
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Movie: The Prowler ( 1981 )
The film begins with the return home of a wwII veteran who was the recipient of a "Dear John Letter". After swiftly dispatching a courting couple in a Gazebo we leap to present day where a college celebration becomes the hunting ground for a uniform clad killer.
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Movie: The Pit ( 1981 )
A solitary and strange preteen boy wreaks revenge on his harassers when he makes a disturbing discovery in the depth of a forest.
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Movie: Happy Birthday to Me ( 1981 )
At the snobby Crawford Academy, Virginia's group of friends start to go missing years after horrible events that happened to her as a child around her birthday.
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Movie: Harry's War ( 1981 )
After his aunt dies of a heart attack while fighting the IRS, Harry Johnson decides to take up the cause.
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Movie: The Legend of the Lone Ranger ( 1981 )
The sole surviving Texas Ranger of an ambush arranged by the outlaw leader Butch Cavandish returns to fight back as a great masked western hero - The Lone Ranger.
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Movie: Road Games ( 1981 )
A laid-back American truck driver in south Australia starts to suspect a man driving a green van of killing young women along his route, and proceeds to play a cat-and-mouse game in order to catch him red-handed.
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Movie: Roar ( 1981 )
A naturalist living with big cats in East Africa expects a visit by his family of four from Chicago. A mix-up leaves him searching for his family, who have been left in the clutches of wild lions.
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Movie: Dead & Buried ( 1981 )
A suspense horror film set in a small coastal town where, after a series of gory murders commited by mobs of townspeople against visiting tourists, the corpses begin to come back to life.
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Movie: Absence of Malice ( 1981 )
When a prosecutor leaks a false story that a liquor warehouse owner is involved in the murder of a union head, the man's life begins to unravel.
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Movie: Sharky's Machine ( 1981 )
Tom Sharky is a narcotics cop in Atlanta who's demoted to vice after a botched bust. In the depths of this lowly division, while investigating a high-dollar prostitution ring, Sharky stumbles across a mob murder with government ties, and responds by assembling his downtrodden fellow investigators (Sharky's "machine") to find the leaders and bring them to justice before they kill off all his partners and witnesses, including Sharky himself.
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Movie: Knightriders ( 1981 )
A medieval reenactment troupe struggles to maintain its family-like dynamic amid pressure from local authorities, interest from talent agents, and their "King's" delusions of grandeur.
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Movie: Eye of the Needle ( 1981 )
A ruthless German spy, trying to get out of Britain with vital information about D-Day, must spend time with a young woman and her crippled husband.
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Movie: Polyester ( 1981 )
A suburban housewife's world falls apart when she finds that her pornographer husband is serially unfaithful to her, her daughter is pregnant, and her son is suspected of being the foot-fetishist who's been breaking local women's feet.
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Movie: They All Laughed ( 1982 )
A mad cap private-eye caper about a team of detectives who are following, and are being followed by, a group of beautiful women.
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Movie: ...All the Marbles ( 1981 )
Harry Sears manages The California Dolls, a female wrestling tag team who tour America, hoping for a chance at winning big time. Harry's also romantically involved with one of them. Their fortunes seem osecondary to him (particularly when Harry accepts an engagement involving mud wrestling!) but then a chance at the big ring match beckons, in Reno, Nevada
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Movie: Looker ( 1981 )
Plastic surgeon Larry Roberts performs a series of minor alterations on a group of models who are seeking perfection. The operations are a resounding success. But when someone starts killing his beautiful patients, Dr. Roberts becomes suspicious and starts investigating. What he uncovers are the mysterious - and perhaps murderous - activities of a high-tech computer company called Digital Matrix.
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Movie: Fort Apache the Bronx ( 1981 )
In New York, South Bronx's main police precinct is nicknamed Fort Apache by its employees who feel like troopers surrounded by hostiles in a wild west isolated outpost.
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Movie: Continental Divide ( 1981 )
A hard-nosed Chicago journalist has an unlikely love affair with an eagle researcher.
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Movie: The Last Shark ( 1982 )
An enormous and angry 35 foot Great White Shark takes revenge on humans when they build a beach just for swimmers by a coastal town. After several shark attacks, and the Mayor does nothing to stop it, James Franisscus and Vic Morrow sail in pursuit to stop it.
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Movie: Wolfen ( 1981 )
A New York cop investigates a series of brutal deaths that resemble animal attacks.
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Movie: Bloody Birthday ( 1981 )
Three children are born at the height of an eclipse of the sun. Ten years later, they begin to murder the people around them - even their family members.
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Movie: Death Hunt ( 1981 )
In 1931 Canada, Yukon trapper Johnson has a feud with a dog owner who later retaliates by publicly accusing Johnson of murder and thus triggering a police manhunt in the wilderness.
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Movie: Cutter's Way ( 1982 )
Richard spots a man dumping a body, and decides to expose the man he thinks is the culprit with his friend Alex Cutter.
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Movie: The Four Seasons ( 1981 )
Three middle-aged wealthy couples take vacations together in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Along the way we are treated to mid-life, marital, parental and other crises.
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Movie: Shock Treatment ( 1981 )
Janet and Brad become contestants on a game show... but wind up as captives instead.
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Movie: Nice Dreams ( 1981 )
Disguised as ice cream vendors, Cheech and Chong make--and subsequently lose--millions of dollars selling a batch of marijuana with an unusual side effect.
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Movie: Condorman ( 1981 )
Cartoonist Woody becomes the superhero he draws. Using his gadgets he helps a Soviet spy defect to the West.
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Movie: The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia ( 1981 )
A small town stud wants to go to Nashville and be a big country star. His ambitious kid sister works as his manager. When they cross paths with a small town sheriff, their dream comes in jeopardy.