100 Fun Facts About 80s Movie

In E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which candy does Elliott use to lure the alien into his home?

Mars refused to let M&M's appear, fearing E.T. would frighten children, and Hershey's profits jumped 65% after the placement.

Which Spielberg film finally took E.T.'s title as highest-grossing film of all time, in 1993?

E.T. held the global record for eleven years and kept the North American record another four, until the Star Wars Special Edition.

Which actor was originally cast as Marty McFly in Back to the Future and replaced weeks into filming?

Recasting Michael J. Fox meant reshooting the finished scenes and adding $4 million to the budget.

At what speed does the DeLorean in Back to the Future activate time travel?

The number was picked because it was easy to remember and looked cool on the speedometer.

Which carmaker offered $75,000 to have Doc Brown's time machine be one of its cars instead of a DeLorean?

Co-writer Bob Gale's reply was that Doc Brown does not drive a Mustang; the time machine had once been conceived as a refrigerator.

The Breakfast Club's five students serve Saturday detention at which fictional Illinois school?

The library set was built in a gym because the real one at Maine North High School was too small.

Which band performed The Breakfast Club anthem "Don't You (Forget About Me)"?

The single reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1985.

Who directed The Empire Strikes Back?

Lucas handed the director's chair to his former USC teacher; the screenplay was by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan.

Who voiced and puppeteered Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back?

Lucas planned to dub in a different actor's voice but decided nobody could match the puppetry.

Which TV star was cast as Indiana Jones before contractual obligations forced him out?

Magnum, P.I. kept him in Hawaii, and Harrison Ford stepped in.

How many Academy Awards did Raiders of the Lost Ark win?

It was also the year's highest-grossing film despite pre-release polling that showed little interest compared with Superman II.

In Ghostbusters, what form does Gozer take after Ray thinks of a childhood corporate mascot?

The team defeats it by crossing the streams, which Egon had warned against earlier in the film.

Which real New York firehouse served as the exterior of the Ghostbusters headquarters?

Columbia University also stood in for the fictional Weaver Hall on the condition it was not named.

Who sang the number-one theme song to Ghostbusters?

The film was the number-one movie in US theaters for seven straight weeks and was then the highest-grossing comedy ever.

In The Shining, what number replaced the novel's Room 217, which the location hotel feared guests would avoid?

The plan backfired at Timberline Lodge, where Room 217 is now requested more than any other.

Jack Nicholson's improvised "Here's Johnny!" in The Shining borrowed Ed McMahon's introduction from which show?

Kubrick, long resident in England, did not recognize the reference and nearly used a different take.

Die Hard was adapted from a 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp. What was the novel called?

Thorp got the idea from a dream he had after watching The Towering Inferno.

Die Hard was filmed almost entirely in and around which real Los Angeles skyscraper?

The building doubled as Nakatomi Plaza and was the studio's own newly built headquarters in Century City.

What is Maverick's real name in Top Gun?

The film was inspired by a California magazine article titled "Top Guns" published three years earlier.

Which band's song from Top Gun won the Academy Award for Best Original Song?

"Take My Breath Away" also won the Golden Globe, and the soundtrack went on to 9x Platinum.

What make of car does Ferris borrow from Cameron's father in Ferris Bueller's Day Off?

Only about 100 were ever built, so replicas were used for the wide shots and the crash.

During the parade in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ferris lip-syncs "Danke Schoen" and which Beatles song?

The scene was shot at Chicago's Von Steuben Day Parade.

Which former football star did an Orion executive suggest for the title role in The Terminator, only for James Cameron to reject him as not believable as a killer?

Stallone and Mel Gibson also turned the role down before Schwarzenegger took it.

Which Terminator line did Schwarzenegger ask to change because he struggled with one word?

Cameron refused to soften it to "I will be back", and Schwarzenegger has repeated it in film after film since.

Blade Runner is set in a dystopian Los Angeles of which year?

The film adapts Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Which actor was originally attached to play Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop and rewrote it as a straight action film?

His draft renamed the character Axel Cobretti; Eddie Murphy's version became the highest-grossing US release of 1984.

Who composed and performed the Beverly Hills Cop instrumental theme "Axel F"?

The soundtrack won a Grammy and produced three Billboard top-10 singles.

Sigourney Weaver earned a rare Oscar nomination for a science-fiction role in which 1986 film?

Her line "Get away from her, you bitch!" had to be shot in a single take because the schedule was so tight.

In The Princess Bride, what phrase does Westley say that Buttercup realizes means 'I love you'?

The grandfather closes the film with the same words when asked to read the story again.

Which bodybuilder-turned-actor was William Goldman's second choice to play Fezzik in The Princess Bride?

André the Giant was the first choice all along and only became available when a $5 million Tokyo wrestling match was cancelled.

Rain Man, the highest-grossing film of 1988, won Best Actor for which star?

The character of Raymond was inspired by real-life savant Kim Peek.

Which actress provided the uncredited speaking voice of Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

She took the job while pregnant because she only had to show up and do the voice.

In Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny share a scene doing what?

The dueling pianists were Donald Duck and Daffy Duck; Tinker Bell and Porky Pig close the film.

Driving Miss Daisy was the first Best Picture winner since Grand Hotel (1932) without which nomination?

Host Billy Crystal called it "the film that apparently directed itself"; Jessica Tandy became the oldest Best Actress winner at 80.

Oliver Stone's Platoon, the 1986 Best Picture winner, was based on his own service in which war?

Stone once sent an early version of the script to Jim Morrison hoping he would star; Morrison had it with him when he died in Paris.

In Amadeus, F. Murray Abraham won Best Actor for playing which composer?

Both Abraham and Tom Hulce, who played Mozart, were nominated in the same category.

The 1984 hits Gremlins and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom prompted the MPAA to create which classification?

The MPAA acted within two months of Gremlins' release after complaints about its violence.

The Goonies hunt for the treasure of which legendary pirate?

The kids are trying to save their homes in the Goon Docks of Astoria, Oregon from foreclosure.

Which duo performed the Oscar-winning Dirty Dancing song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life"?

The film is set at a Catskills resort in the summer of 1963 and was added to the National Film Registry in 2024.

Which martial-arts star was originally cast as the creature in Predator?

At 5'9" he looked too small next to Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers and Jesse Ventura, and reportedly kept passing out in the suit.

R. Lee Ermey, Full Metal Jacket's drill instructor, was originally hired for the film as what?

Kubrick estimated Ermey wrote about half of his own dialogue, drawing on a 250-page transcript of his improvised rants.

Which musician wrote the songs for Tim Burton's 1989 Batman?

Danny Elfman composed the score, and the film won the Oscar for Best Art Direction.

In Big, what is the name of the fortune-teller machine that grants Josh's wish?

Josh notices afterwards that the machine was unplugged the whole time; Tom Hanks earned his first Best Actor nomination for the role.

Which singer's calypso recordings feature prominently in Beetlejuice?

Tim Burton's first choice to play Betelgeuse was Sammy Davis Jr., before David Geffen suggested Michael Keaton.

Who delivers the line "I'll have what she's having" in When Harry Met Sally...?

Estelle Reiner's deadpan order was ranked 33rd on the AFI's list of great movie quotes; Katz's Deli still marks the table with a sign.

Field of Dreams was adapted from a W. P. Kinsella novel named after which baseball player?

Ray Liotta plays the ghost of the banned Black Sox outfielder; it was Burt Lancaster's final film role.

Michael Douglas won Best Actor for playing which corporate raider in Wall Street?

His declaration that greed is good became shorthand for 1980s excess, and Douglas says people still tell him it made them stockbrokers.

The Last Emperor was the first Western feature authorised by China to film inside which location?

The film tells the life of Puyi, from infant emperor to political prisoner, and Ryuichi Sakamoto both acted in it and co-wrote the score.

Ordinary People, the 1980 Best Picture winner, was the directorial debut of which actor?

Timothy Hutton became the youngest ever Best Supporting Actor winner at 20.

Which composer's electronic theme for Chariots of Fire won the Oscar for Best Original Score?

The film dramatizes Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams at the 1924 Olympics, with Kenneth Branagh and Stephen Fry in tiny debut roles.

Roughly how many extras appeared in Richard Attenborough's Gandhi, believed to be a record?

The film won eight Oscars including Best Actor for Ben Kingsley, and had been Attenborough's dream project after two earlier attempts failed.

Which actress turned down Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction because of the boiled-rabbit scene?

The producers doubted Glenn Close could be sexual enough until she auditioned with her frizzy hair let loose.

Airplane! (1980) borrows its plot and much of its dialogue from which 1957 disaster film?

The Zucker brothers and Jim Abrahams stumbled on the film while taping late-night TV to study commercials and found it perfectly structured for parody.

In Tootsie, Dustin Hoffman's Michael Dorsey lands a role on which fictional soap opera?

Disguised as Dorothy Michaels, he wins the part of hospital administrator Emily Kimberly, the role his friend Sandy had failed to get.

In The Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso and his mother move from New Jersey to which LA neighbourhood?

Newark-born Daniel meets Ali Mills, a cheerleader from Encino, and runs foul of her ex, Cobra Kai's Johnny Lawrence.

Stand by Me (1986) was adapted from which Stephen King novella?

The story of four boys hunting for a missing boy's corpse is set in the fictional Castle Rock, Oregon, in 1959.

In RoboCop, which megacorporation revives murdered officer Alex Murphy as a cyborg?

Paul Verhoeven turned the script down twice, not grasping its satire, until his wife persuaded him of its value.

Which screenwriter wrote Brian De Palma's Scarface (1983)?

Al Pacino's Tony Montana arrives in Miami during the Mariel boatlift; the film remakes Howard Hawks's 1932 original.

Footloose (1984) is loosely based on a dancing ban in which real Oklahoma town?

On screen the town became Bomont, Utah, where Kevin Bacon's Ren McCormack takes on John Lithgow's Reverend Moore.

Which then-unknown screenwriter wrote Lethal Weapon (1987)?

Black conceived it as a contemporary urban Western; Richard Donner directed and Joel Silver produced.

In Caddyshack, what animal does groundskeeper Carl Spackler wage war on?

The elusive gopher was a puppet, and its subplot was expanded in editing after the loose, improvised shoot left the film without a clear through-line.

Who played Soviet boxer Ivan Drago in Rocky IV?

Rocky IV was Lundgren's American film debut, and the stars threw real punches in their fight scenes, sending Stallone to intensive care.

In Labyrinth (1986), David Bowie plays Jareth, the king of which creatures?

Jim Henson wanted a charismatic musician for the part and considered Sting, Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson before choosing Bowie.

Which song from The Little Mermaid (1989) won the Oscar for Best Original Song?

The film also won Best Original Score, kicking off the run of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman musicals known as the Disney Renaissance.

In This Is Spinal Tap, the knobs on Nigel Tufnel’s custom amplifier go up to what?

The scene gave English the idiom "up to eleven", and IMDb lets users rate this one film eleven stars instead of the usual ten.

Which is one of the three rules for caring for the mogwai in Gremlins?

The gremlins trick Billy into breaking the rule by sabotaging his bedside clock; Roger Ebert thought the rule was lifted straight from fairy tales.

In Coming to America, Prince Akeem hails from which fictional African nation?

Akeem flees his arranged marriage for Queens, New York, and takes a job mopping floors at a fast-food joint while hunting for a bride who loves him for himself.

In Flashdance, what is dancer Alex Owens's day job at a Pittsburgh steel mill?

Jennifer Beals's torn-neck sweatshirt look happened by accident: she cut a big hole in the top of one that had shrunk in the wash.

In Teen Wolf, Scott Howard's werewolf transformation makes him a star in which sport?

Scott's school team, the Beavers, had not won a game in three years before the Wolf took the court.

Romancing the Stone sends novelist Joan Wilder to which country to free her sister?

Joan is told to bring a treasure map to the coastal city of Cartagena as her sister's ransom, but a corrupt colonel diverts her into the jungle.

Who plays Chelsea, the estranged daughter, in On Golden Pond (1981)?

She bought the rights to the play specifically so her father, Henry Fonda, could play the cantankerous Norman Thayer; he won his only acting Oscar for it.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is set in which real town east of Los Angeles?

The boys' time machine is a phone booth sent back by Rufus so they can pass a history report; the water-park scenes were shot partly at the real Raging Waters there.

In Risky Business, Tom Cruise slides across the floor in his briefs to which song?

Bob Seger's recording became the film's signature moment, endlessly parodied since; Phil Collins's "In the Air Tonight" plays elsewhere on the soundtrack.

The climactic trading-floor scheme in Trading Places revolves around which commodity?

The writers thought orange juice and pork bellies would be funnier because audiences had no idea such mundane goods were traded at all.

Which future star made his film debut in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)?

He only went along to the audition to keep a friend company: Jackie Earle Haley, who went on to play Freddy Krueger himself in the 2010 remake.

In the original Friday the 13th (1980), who turns out to be the killer?

Jason's mother, played by Betsy Palmer, is avenging her son's drowning; critics have called the reveal the most dramatic gender rug-pull in horror history.

Meryl Streep won her first Best Actress Oscar for which 1982 film?

She plays Sophie Zawistowska, a Polish immigrant in 1947 Brooklyn hiding a devastating secret from her wartime past.

In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, what is the no-win Starfleet cadet test called?

Director Nicholas Meyer opened with Spock "dying" in the simulator to throw fans who expected his real death later in the film.

In Blue Velvet (1986), what does Jeffrey find in a vacant lot that starts the mystery?

The discovery leads him to nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens and the terrifying Frank Booth, played by Dennis Hopper.

In Moonstruck, Nicolas Cage's Ronny Cammareri lost what in a bread-slicer accident?

The wooden hand was what hooked Cage on the role; he wanted to echo the moment in Metropolis when Rotwang holds up his invented robot hand.

In Short Circuit, the runaway robot Number 5 renames himself after hearing which song?

The El DeBarge track was playing on the van radio, so Number 5 declared himself Johnny 5.

Who directed The Elephant Man (1980), the story of Joseph Merrick?

Mel Brooks produced it but kept his name off the credits so audiences would not expect a comedy.

Which band recorded “Princes of the Universe” and “A Kind of Magic” for Highlander?

The songs also landed on the band's 1986 album A Kind of Magic, whose title track plays over the film's end credits.

In Say Anything..., Lloyd Dobler hoists a boombox playing which Peter Gabriel song?

The scene was first cut to Fishbone's "Question of Life" before Cameron Crowe swapped in the Gabriel ballad to match the mood.

Why was Tron (1982) reportedly passed over for a Visual Effects Oscar nomination?

One of the first films to lean heavily on computer imagery, it lost out to a field that included E.T. and Blade Runner.

What title did the original teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode VI (1983) carry?

Lucas decided in December 1982 that a Jedi should never seek revenge and restored the title, but thousands of “Revenge” teaser posters were already out.

An American Werewolf in London won the very first Oscar in which category?

Rick Baker's transformation scene, shot in full light with no cutaways, set the standard for practical creature effects for a generation.

How did writer Cameron Crowe research the book behind Fast Times at Ridgemont High?

Crowe, then in his early twenties, enrolled at a San Diego school for a year; the character Mark "Rat" Ratner was modeled on a classmate he befriended.

In WarGames, the backdoor password "Joshua" is the name of whose dead son?

The NORAD supercomputer WOPR, pronounced "whopper", answers to the same name and has to learn from tic-tac-toe that some games cannot be won.

Clue (1985) was released to cinemas with how many different endings?

Each theater got one ending, and some advertised which one; home video later strung all of them together, labeling the last as the real solution.

Roughly how much weight did De Niro gain to play the older Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull?

Scorsese shut production for nearly four months, crew on full pay, while De Niro went on a binge-eating trip through northern Italy and France.

The Color Purple (1985) went home empty-handed from how many Oscar nominations?

It matched The Turning Point (1977) for the most nominations without a single win, and Spielberg was not even nominated for directing it.

In Turner & Hooch, Tom Hanks's slobbering canine partner is what breed?

The dog's real name was Beasley, and he was the only witness to the murder that Detective Turner is trying to solve.

The Sweethaven set from Robert Altman’s Popeye (1980) still stands as an attraction where?

Robin Williams's silicone forearms proved so hard to remove that two Italian artisans were flown in to remake them mid-shoot.

Hoosiers was inspired by the 1954 Indiana state title won by which tiny real high school?

Both the fictional Hickory and the real Milan won the final by two points, and the film's last shot came from nearly the same spot as Bobby Plump's actual winner.

Chucky’s human name in Child’s Play, Charles Lee Ray, combines the names of what?

An early draft had the killer’s soul enter the doll on a factory assembly line as he was executed; the finished film used a voodoo chant instead.

How long does the notorious alley fight over a pair of sunglasses last in They Live?

Carpenter conceived the sunglasses as the tool for seeing the truth, which the film shows in black and white; Rotten Tomatoes ranks the brawl among the greatest fight scenes ever.

In John Hughes’s story behind National Lampoon’s Vacation, where were the Griswolds going?

The film renamed it Walley World, "America's Favorite Family Fun Park", and had it closed for repairs when the family finally arrived.

Linda Hunt’s Oscar-winning character in The Year of Living Dangerously was, unusually, what?

She played Billy Kwan, a Chinese-Australian photographer, shaving her eyebrows and padding her waist; dancer David Atkins had originally been cast.

Who first played Hannibal Lecter on screen, spelled "Lecktor", in 1986's Manhunter?

Michael Mann's film adapted Thomas Harris's Red Dragon five years before Anthony Hopkins made the role famous in The Silence of the Lambs.