The Eighties Online

The 80s decade started off with some movies that have really stood the test of time.

The first year of the 80s, 1980, saw several promising actors that are still going strong well into the 21st century.

The Star Wars franchise was going strong in 1980. And with the release of Empire Strike Back in 1980, Star Wars and the action figures and other merchandise were officially pop-culture.

1980 was a pretty good year at the box office.

The 1980 Academy for Best Film went to “Ordinary People” starring Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore and a very young Timothy Hutton.

Robert DeNiro won the Academy Award for Best Actor in the 1980 boxing drama, “Raging Bull”

The Academy Award for Best Actress went to Sissy Spacek for “Coal Miner’s Daughter”

And the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor was awarded to Timothy Hutton for “Ordinary People”

Mary Steenburgen won the Best Supporting Actress award for “Melvin and Howard”

The Top 25 Box Office Stars of 1980 - As Ranked by John Willis Screen World 1981

1. Burt Reynolds

“Smokey and the Bandit II”

“Rough Cut”

2. Robert Redford

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It was the beginning of the New World the beginning of the information age. Perhaps never had the mood of a decade reversed itself so totally. The 1980s began with the worst U.S. inflation in 60 years in the deepening dread of nuclear annihilation.

As the 1980s came to an end inflation was making a last and unsuccessful assault on an economy that had found new resources, the Berlin wall was tumbling down, and the Soviet empire was dissolving.

The Cold War was over and the West won!

Ronald Reagan reversed the direction of government policy recasting social programs and cutting taxes. Unmatched by spending reductions, however, those cuts and deficits soaring to unheard-of highs, and the double-digit inflation of 1980 was cured only by double-digit unemployment in 1982.

The economy revived, but an outside share of the benefits seemed to flow to Wall Street. Mergers proliferated wildly, mostly, it seemed, for the enrichment of a few financial manipulators.

But unlike in the irrationally exuberant 1920s, disaster did not strike as it did in the depression that started in 1929. Those stocks fell even faster on October 19, 1987, than the hat in 1929, they bounced back higher than ever, setting the stage for the roaring bull market of the 90s. Something fundamental had happened to the boom and bust cycle of the 20th century.

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The ’80s was a decade of significant political and cultural change. These events have an impact on our lives today and will into the future in so many ways.

There were also, admittedly, trivial or relatively unimportant events that took place in the 1980’s. Here are some of the events that ranged from the deadly serious to the ridiculous.

So whether you loved the 1980s or hated it, there’s something here for everyone who lived during this decade to bring back those nostalgic memories.

1980

• The $40 million “Heaven’s Gate” took a dive after it’s Thanksgiving premier.
• Despite a recession, auction prices started to soar. Lighting the way: A Tiffany Lamp sold for $360,000.
• Tampons caused toxic shock syndrome, resulting in 42 deaths.
• In Mexico city, Yin-Yin delivered the first giant panda born outside China, but smothered the cub shortly thereafter.
• “Friday the 13th” was a big enough grosser to scare up seven sequels by the end of the decade.
• Rubik’s Cube, the product of a Hungarian inventor, tormented puzzlers trying to find the correct variation out of 43.2 quintillion possibilities.
• Dialects were Meryl Streep’s signature. Her New York whine in “Kramer vs. Kramer” won her an Oscar.

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