Best Movies of 1986
by terrence-gale | created - 11 Feb 2014 | updated - 16 Mar 2014 | PublicHere are my selections for the best movies of 1986.
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1. Blue Velvet (1986)
R | 120 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child.
Director: David Lynch | Stars: Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern
Votes: 214,895 | Gross: $8.55M
2. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
PG-13 | 107 min | Comedy, Drama
Between two Thanksgivings two years apart, Hannah's husband falls in love with her sister Lee, while her hypochondriac ex-husband rekindles his relationship with her sister Holly.
Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Michael Caine, Barbara Hershey
Votes: 76,579 | Gross: $40.08M
3. Children of a Lesser God (1986)
R | 119 min | Drama, Romance
A new speech teacher at a school for the deaf falls in love with the janitor, a deaf woman speechless by choice.
Director: Randa Haines | Stars: William Hurt, Marlee Matlin, Piper Laurie, Philip Bosco
Votes: 18,602 | Gross: $31.85M
4. Lady Jane (1986)
PG-13 | 136 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of Lady Jane Grey, who was Queen of England for only nine days.
Director: Trevor Nunn | Stars: Helena Bonham Carter, Cary Elwes, John Wood, Michael Hordern
Votes: 7,074 | Gross: $0.28M
5. Aliens (1986)
R | 137 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Decades after surviving the Nostromo incident, Ellen Ripley is sent out to re-establish contact with a terraforming colony but finds herself battling the Alien Queen and her offspring.
Director: James Cameron | Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser
Votes: 760,155 | Gross: $85.16M
6. The Mission (1986)
PG | 125 min | Adventure, Drama, History
Eighteenth-century Spanish Jesuits try to protect a remote South American tribe in danger of falling under the rule of pro-slavery Portugal.
Director: Roland Joffé | Stars: Robert De Niro, Jeremy Irons, Ray McAnally, Aidan Quinn
Votes: 65,466 | Gross: $17.22M
7. The Decline of the American Empire (1986)
R | 101 min | Comedy, Drama
Sexual revelations emerge when a group of academics and their partners spend a weekend at a country retreat.
Director: Denys Arcand | Stars: Dominique Michel, Dorothée Berryman, Louise Portal, Pierre Curzi
Votes: 8,679 | Gross: $1.90M
8. Stand by Me (1986)
R | 89 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A writer recounts a childhood journey with his friends to find the body of a missing boy.
Director: Rob Reiner | Stars: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell
Votes: 439,791 | Gross: $52.29M
9. Betty Blue (1986)
Unrated | 119 min | Drama, Romance
A lackadaisical handyman and aspiring novelist tries to support his younger girlfriend as she slowly succumbs to madness.
Director: Jean-Jacques Beineix | Stars: Jean-Hugues Anglade, Béatrice Dalle, Gérard Darmon, Consuelo De Haviland
Votes: 23,265 | Gross: $2.00M
10. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
PG-13 | 103 min | Comedy
A popular high school student, admired by his peers, decides to take a day off from school and goes to extreme lengths to pull it off, to the chagrin of his Dean, who'll do anything to stop him.
Director: John Hughes | Stars: Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jeffrey Jones
Votes: 385,119 | Gross: $70.14M
11. Mona Lisa (1986)
R | 104 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A man recently released from prison manages to get a job driving a call girl from customer to customer.
Director: Neil Jordan | Stars: Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson, Michael Caine, Robbie Coltrane
Votes: 18,615 | Gross: $5.79M
12. Hoosiers (1986)
PG | 114 min | Drama, Sport
A coach with a checkered past and a local drunk train a small-town high school basketball team to become a top contender for the state championship in 1950s Indiana.
Director: David Anspaugh | Stars: Gene Hackman, Barbara Hershey, Dennis Hopper, Sheb Wooley
Votes: 50,843 | Gross: $28.61M
13. Salvador (1986)
R | 122 min | Drama, History, Thriller
A burnt-out photojournalist becomes involved in a Central American revolution.
Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: James Woods, Jim Belushi, Michael Murphy, John Savage
Votes: 23,074
14. The Name of the Rose (1986)
R | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
An intellectually nonconformist friar investigates a series of mysterious deaths in an isolated abbey.
Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud | Stars: Sean Connery, Christian Slater, Helmut Qualtinger, Elya Baskin
Votes: 116,849 | Gross: $7.15M
15. Letter to Brezhnev (1985)
R | 94 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two Soviet sailors, Peter and Sergei, go ashore in Liverpool to spend one night on the town. Peter can speak a minimal amount of English but it's enough to make contact with two ... See full summary »
Director: Chris Bernard | Stars: Peter Firth, Alfred Molina, Tracy Marshak-Nash, Alexandra Pigg
Votes: 1,473
16. Manhunter (1986)
R | 120 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Former FBI profiler Will Graham returns to service to pursue a deranged serial killer dubbed "the Tooth Fairy" by the media.
Director: Michael Mann | Stars: William Petersen, Kim Greist, Joan Allen, Brian Cox
Votes: 80,602 | Gross: $8.62M
17. Down by Law (1986)
R | 107 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Two men are framed and sent to jail, where they meet a murderer who helps them escape and leave the state.
Director: Jim Jarmusch | Stars: Tom Waits, John Lurie, Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi
Votes: 55,138 | Gross: $1.44M
18. Sid and Nancy (1986)
R | 112 min | Biography, Drama, Music
The relationship between Sid Vicious, bassist for British punk group Sex Pistols, and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen is portrayed.
Director: Alex Cox | Stars: Gary Oldman, Chloe Webb, David Hayman, Debby Bishop
Votes: 34,599 | Gross: $2.83M
19. Pretty in Pink (1986)
PG-13 | 97 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A poor girl must choose between the affections of dating her childhood sweetheart or a rich but sensitive playboy.
Director: Howard Deutch | Stars: Molly Ringwald, Jon Cryer, Harry Dean Stanton, Annie Potts
Votes: 88,314 | Gross: $40.47M
20. Matador (1986)
NC-17 | 110 min | Drama, Thriller
A matador is wounded by a bull and can no longer kill in the arena. It is just one of the problems of one of the characters that unexpectedly collide in this film.
Director: Pedro Almodóvar | Stars: Assumpta Serna, Antonio Banderas, Nacho Martínez, Eva Cobo
Votes: 12,907 | Gross: $0.21M
21. Crimes of the Heart (1986)
PG-13 | 105 min | Comedy, Drama
Three southern sisters try to come to grips with the meaning of their mother's suicide.
Director: Bruce Beresford | Stars: Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, Sissy Spacek, Sam Shepard
Votes: 4,404 | Gross: $22.91M
22. Dona Herlinda and Her Son (1985)
Unrated | 90 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Rodolfo ( Marco Treviño ) is a young bachelor doctor who has a love affair with a younger music student, Ramon ( Arturo Meza ). When Rodolfo's mother begins to urge his son to get married, ... See full summary »
Director: Jaime Humberto Hermosillo | Stars: Arturo Meza, Marco Treviño, Guadalupe Del Toro, Letícia Lupercio
Votes: 578
23. The Fly (1986)
R | 96 min | Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
A brilliant but eccentric scientist begins to transform into a giant man/fly hybrid after one of his experiments goes horribly wrong.
Director: David Cronenberg | Stars: Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz, Joy Boushel
Votes: 201,070 | Gross: $40.46M
24. Echo Park (1985)
R | 88 min | Comedy, Drama
In the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, everyone is more than they initially seem. May waits tables, raises a son, Henry, and is an aspiring actress. She needs a roommate and takes in... See full summary »
Director: Robert Dornhelm | Stars: Susan Dey, Tom Hulce, Michael Bowen, Christopher Walker
Votes: 726 | Gross: $0.70M
25. Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)
PG-13 | 103 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy
Peggy Sue faints at a high school reunion. When she wakes up, she finds herself in her own past, just before she finished school.
Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Kathleen Turner, Nicolas Cage, Barry Miller, Catherine Hicks
Votes: 40,658 | Gross: $41.38M
26. River's Edge (1986)
R | 99 min | Crime, Drama
A high school slacker commits a shocking act and proceeds to let his friends in on the secret. However, the friends' reaction is almost as ambiguous and perplexing as the crime itself.
Director: Tim Hunter | Stars: Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Daniel Roebuck
Votes: 20,528 | Gross: $4.60M
27. Something Wild (1986)
R | 114 min | Comedy, Crime, Romance
A free-spirited woman "kidnaps" a yuppie for a weekend of adventure. But the fun quickly takes a dangerous turn when her ex-convict husband shows up.
Director: Jonathan Demme | Stars: Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith, George 'Red' Schwartz, Leib Lensky
Votes: 20,975 | Gross: $8.36M
28. Absolute Beginners (1986)
PG-13 | 108 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
In London in 1958, a young photographer seeks media stardom to keep the love of a beautiful, aspiring fashion designer.
Director: Julien Temple | Stars: Patsy Kensit, Eddie O'Connell, David Bowie, James Fox
Votes: 3,712 | Gross: $0.93M
29. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
PG | 119 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
To save Earth from an alien probe, Admiral James T. Kirk and his fugitive crew go back in time to San Francisco in 1986 to retrieve the only beings who can communicate with it: humpback whales.
Director: Leonard Nimoy | Stars: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan
Votes: 91,233 | Gross: $109.71M
30. Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986)
R | 103 min | Comedy
A rich but troubled family find their lives altered by the arrival of a vagrant who tries to drown himself in their swimming pool.
Director: Paul Mazursky | Stars: Nick Nolte, Bette Midler, Richard Dreyfuss, Little Richard
Votes: 20,178 | Gross: $62.13M
31. Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
PG-13 | 94 min | Comedy, Horror, Musical
A nerdy florist finds his chance for success and romance with the help of a giant man-eating plant who demands to be fed.
Director: Frank Oz | Stars: Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Vincent Gardenia, Levi Stubbs
Votes: 85,903 | Gross: $38.75M
32. Caravaggio (1986)
93 min | Biography, Drama, History
A retelling of the life of the celebrated 17th-century painter through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld.
Director: Derek Jarman | Stars: Noam Almaz, Dexter Fletcher, Nigel Terry, Sean Bean
Votes: 6,993 | Gross: $0.00M
33. Lucas (1986)
PG-13 | 100 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A socially inept fourteen-year-old experiences heartbreak for the first time when his two best friends - Cappie, an older-brother figure, and Maggie, the new girl with whom he is in love - fall for each other.
Director: David Seltzer | Stars: Corey Haim, Kerri Green, Charlie Sheen, Courtney Thorne-Smith
Votes: 17,472 | Gross: $8.20M
34. Ruthless People (1986)
R | 93 min | Comedy, Crime
A couple cheated by a vile businessman kidnaps his wife in retaliation, not knowing that their enemy is delighted that they did.
Directors: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker | Stars: Bette Midler, Danny DeVito, Judge Reinhold, Helen Slater
Votes: 30,425 | Gross: $71.62M
35. Crocodile Dundee (1986)
PG-13 | 97 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy
An American reporter goes to the Australian outback to meet an eccentric crocodile poacher and invites him to New York City.
Director: Peter Faiman | Stars: Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, John Meillon, David Gulpilil
Votes: 115,028 | Gross: $174.64M
36. Top Gun (1986)
PG | 109 min | Action, Drama
As students at the United States Navy's elite fighter weapons school compete to be best in the class, one daring young pilot learns a few things from a civilian instructor that are not taught in the classroom.
Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Tom Cruise, Tim Robbins, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer
Votes: 500,065 | Gross: $179.80M
37. The Color of Money (1986)
R | 119 min | Drama, Sport
Fast Eddie Felson teaches a cocky but immensely talented protégé the ropes of pool hustling, which in turn inspires him to make an unlikely comeback.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Helen Shaver
Votes: 92,989 | Gross: $52.29M
38. The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
G | 74 min | Animation, Adventure, Family
Basil, the rodent Sherlock Holmes, investigates the kidnapping of a toy maker and uncovers its link to his archenemy, Professor Ratigan.
Directors: Ron Clements, Burny Mattinson, David Michener, John Musker | Stars: Vincent Price, Barrie Ingham, Val Bettin, Susanne Pollatschek
Votes: 54,184 | Gross: $38.60M
39. An American Tail (1986)
G | 80 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
While emigrating to the United States, a young Russian mouse gets separated from his family and must relocate them while trying to survive in a new country.
Director: Don Bluth | Stars: Dom DeLuise, Christopher Plummer, Erica Yohn, Nehemiah Persoff
Votes: 57,867 | Gross: $47.48M
40. Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1987)
R | 89 min | Comedy, Drama
Realistic story of working-class Yorkshire life, alternately serious and light-hearted, as two schoolgirls have a sexual fling with a married man.
Director: Alan Clarke | Stars: Siobhan Finneran, Michelle Holmes, George Costigan, Lesley Sharp
Votes: 4,772 | Gross: $0.12M
41. The Boy Who Could Fly (1986)
PG | 114 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance
An autistic boy who dreams of flying touches everyone he meets, including a new family who has moved in after their father dies.
Director: Nick Castle | Stars: Lucy Deakins, Jay Underwood, Bonnie Bedelia, Fred Savage
Votes: 6,478 | Gross: $7.18M
42. Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986)
PG-13 | 108 min | Comedy
Eugene, a young teenage Jewish boy, recalls his memoirs of his time as an adolescent youth. He goes through the hardships of puberty, sexual fantasy, and living the life of a poor boy in a crowded house.
Director: Gene Saks | Stars: Blythe Danner, Jonathan Silverman, Stacey Glick, Lisa Waltz
Votes: 3,855 | Gross: $11.96M
43. F/X (1986)
R | 109 min | Action, Thriller
A movie special effects man is hired to fake a real-life mob killing for a witness protection plan, but finds his own life in danger.
Director: Robert Mandel | Stars: Bryan Brown, Brian Dennehy, Diane Venora, Cliff De Young
Votes: 22,114 | Gross: $20.60M
44. 52 Pick-Up (1986)
R | 110 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A secret fling between a man and his mistress leads to blackmail and murder.
Director: John Frankenheimer | Stars: Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret, Vanity, John Glover
Votes: 6,982 | Gross: $5.19M
45. At Close Range (1986)
R | 111 min | Crime, Drama
Reunited with his career criminal father, tough teen Brad thinks he's found his ticket to an exciting life of crime, only to find out he's wrong.
Director: James Foley | Stars: Sean Penn, Christopher Walken, Mary Stuart Masterson, Chris Penn
Votes: 17,643 | Gross: $2.35M
46. The Hitcher (1986)
R | 97 min | Action, Mystery, Thriller
A young man who escapes the clutches of a murderous hitchhiker is subsequently stalked by the hitcher and framed for his crimes.
Director: Robert Harmon | Stars: Rutger Hauer, C. Thomas Howell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jeffrey DeMunn
Votes: 52,282 | Gross: $5.84M
47. Labyrinth (1986)
PG | 101 min | Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Sixteen-year-old Sarah must solve a labyrinth to rescue her baby brother when he is taken by the Goblin King.
Director: Jim Henson | Stars: David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, Toby Froud, Shelley Thompson
Votes: 149,059 | Gross: $12.73M
48. Highlander (1986)
R | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
An immortal Scottish swordsman must confront the last of his immortal opponents, a murderously brutal barbarian who lusts for the fabled "Prize".
Director: Russell Mulcahy | Stars: Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Clancy Brown, Roxanne Hart
Votes: 146,909 | Gross: $5.90M
49. Jumpin' Jack Flash (1986)
R | 105 min | Comedy, Romance, Thriller
An American computer wiz who works at a New York bank is suddenly thrust into the world of international espionage after she inadvertently receives a coded message from a British spy.
Director: Penny Marshall | Stars: Whoopi Goldberg, Stephen Collins, John Wood, Carol Kane
Votes: 20,706 | Gross: $25.59M
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