The 1980s was a great decade for mainstream classics that still endure, like Poltergeist, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Back to the Future.
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But there are plenty of fantastic ’80s movies that we love today that were not received quite as well upon release.
Watch With Us has put together a ranked list of five of the most misunderstood movies of the 1980s – movies that critics didn’t get, audiences didn’t get or have just been completely lost to time.
First up on our list is Innerspace, an irreverent sci-fi comedy starring Dennis Quaid as a man who is shrunk down to microscopic size.
Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) is a struggling actor in Los Angeles, and if things couldn’t get any worse, he gets dumped by his girlfriend. However, it seems like things are finally turning around for him when he’s offered the opportunity to house-sit an incredible mansion in the Hollywood Hills. One night at home, Jake looks through the owner’s telescope and witnesses a woman in a house nearby being murdered. Jake is determined to find the truth of what happened to him, leading him down into the seedy underworld of LA porn with an adult actress named Holly Body (Melanie Griffith).
When Brian De Palma‘s Body Double debuted at the box office in 1984, it was not well received by audiences, and critics were torn on the film’s shocking, explicit content. In the years since, however, the movie has grown to be considered one of De Palma’s greatest works, with both fans and critics reassessing the merits of the film’s aesthetic and sexual indulgences. The subversive meta-commentary about movie-making and voyeurism (mirroring the clear inspiration from Rear Window) and highly stylized thrills are just part of what makes Body Double such a masterful work.
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Based on the tragic story of Playboy model Dorothy Stratten, who was murdered at the hands of her husband, Paul Snider, in 1980, Star 80is directed by Bob Fosse and stars Mariel Hemingway as Stratten. Dorothy has the misfortune of first encountering Snider (played by Eric Roberts) in high school while working at a Dairy Queen, and Snider instantly recognizes Stratten as a star in the making. After successfully wooing her, Snider gets Dorothy to move to Los Angeles with him, where he becomes her manager and lover. Deluded into believing he is Dorothy’s only path to success, Snider becomes more and more controlling over the young woman’s life.
Star 80 had a mixed reaction from critics at the time, likely due to the extremely unsettling subject matter and Roberts’ chilling performance. Star 80 almost feels like a movie we shouldn’t be allowed to watch, but it’s really a fascinating and non-exploitative portrait of control, abuse and misogyny, giving nuanced color to Dorothy Stratten’s life and death. Ultimately, Roberts may have been too good at portraying a malignant creep, which some felt literally kept him from receiving a much-deserved Oscar nod for his performance.
Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) wants to be a successful comedian like his idol, legendary talk show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis). Unfortunately, Pupkin is an asocial and self-obsessed loser, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he talks and acts about himself and his “comedy skills.” In his efforts to be noticed by Langford, Pupkin goes to increasingly unsettling lengths to not just get Langford to read his material, but to get closer to him, too. When showing up at Langford’s house doesn’t work, Pupkin resorts to drastic measures – kidnapping Pupkin and enlisting the help of Masha (Sandra Bernhard), another disturbed Langford fan.
The King of Comedy was deeply misunderstood when it came out in 1982, receiving a lukewarm reception from critics and effectively bombing at the box office. Over time, viewers have come to regard The King of Comedy as an underrated gem among Martin Scorsese‘s impressive filmography; a disquieting film that cannily aligns you with an extremely unlikable protagonist that nevertheless mirrors behaviors we’d rather overlook in ourselves and in others. It presents a damning look at celebrity obsession that now feels eerily prescient, and features one of De Niro’s greatest performances.
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This story was originally published June 17, 2026 at 5:30 AM.