10 Highest-Grossing '80s Movies Ranked Worst To Best

Year: 1985

Box Office: $210 million

The Empire Strikes Back might be a stunning achievement in story-telling and sequel-advancement, not to mention being one of the most iconic sci-fi movies of all time, but it cannot compete with Back To The Future on sheer charm or rewatchability.

Robert Zemeckis' Spielberg-infused family sci-fi fantasy is as charismatic as films get thanks in part to the deliciously moreish central performance of Michael J Fox (unthinkably not the first person who filmed scenes as Marty McFly), the ruffled comedy of Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown and a compelling concept that burrows into your brain so effortlessly that you wonder how this was the first time anyone ever explored it. What if your parents didn't actually meet...? It's so simple but so horrifying.

Sure, there are some liberties taken with time travel and paradoxes and the film breaks its one fundamental rule (don't mess with the timeline) with reckless abandonment, but there's a reason why it's an ever-present on everyone's list of favourite movie experiences. It's infectious, surrpisingly clever and an absolute career-maker for Fox who will forever be burned into the collective consciousness running backwards or shredding his guitar or exclaiming things are "heavy."

It's not just the best highest-grossing movie of the '80s, it might be the best of the entire decade.

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