15 Best Movie Thrillers From The 1980s
13. Body Heat
A throwback noir with an almost incomparably steamy ‘80s sheen, Body Heat is not a film you want to watch with your parents. Starring Kathleen Turner in a star making role, the film marked the directorial debut of hugely successful screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan, though he plays things far less family friendly here than he did in the Indiana Jones franchise.
It’s a classic, slightly regressive tale of a weak man tempted to commit dreadful acts by the lure of a beautiful woman. Lawyer Ned (an intensely perspiring William Hurt) begins an affair with Turner’s Matty, and she uses her wiles to convince him to off her wealthy husband. Things descend quickly into madness.
Body Heat features brilliant cameos from Mickey Rourke (as a relatively upstanding bomb expert) and Ted Danson (in a gleefully unhinged role), but the movie belongs to Turner. So alluring is her performance that you could quite easily see yourself similarly coerced into committing a murder.
Body Heat requires a substantial suspension of disbelief; it’s a frothy film designed to titillate, there’s no getting round it. Throw yourself in, though, and you’ll find a hugely enjoyable, if aggressively erotic, neo-noir.