The '80s may for many be the decade that taste forgot, but it was no cop-out for film-goers. Lovers of big entertainment cinema could rejoice as Hollywood came in from the grim cold of the '70s and entered the new decade determined to put the audience, rather than the auteur, first. It was the era of VHS and the burgeoning home video market - films released in this period were, for the first time ever, made with the knowledge that viewers would later have the opportunity to rewatch them time and again in the comfort of their own home. The way audiences viewed movies shifted forever in the '80s, and with that changed the movies. The more adult works of the previous decade were beginning to be edged out by blockbusters; no fun at all for high-minded acolytes of 'serious cinema', but a big deal for the popcorn crowd and fans of escapism. No decade in film has seen the industry so focused on making the medium fun as the 1980s, and the result is an era of alternately thrilling, action-packed, terrifying and hilarious movies that still today reward repeated screenings. But which are the most rewatchable of the lot? Here are the twenty films whose VHS' are most likely to have been worn out.
Lover of film, writer of words, pretentious beyond belief. Thinks Scorsese and Kubrick are the kings of cinema, but PT Anderson and David Fincher are the dashing young princes. Follow Brogan on twitter if you can take shameless self-promotion: @BroganMorris1
