Your favorite movies of 1989?

My top 3.

Batman
Lethal Weapon 3
Xmas Vac.

 

Wow, how could I have forgotten Do the Right Thing and Heathers? Both are seminal films for me. I saw a 30th Anniversary screening of Do the Right Thing followed by a Q&A with Spike Lee a few months ago and the film is as powerful and resonant as ever.

Heathers... well, I saw it when I was 13 and thought it was the most amazing thing ever with so many quotable lines. Now when I watch it, I find it very disturbing. It's still a good film but watching it with an adult point of view is very different.

 

Looking at the list of films released this year I have to say it looks like a pretty poor year, imho. There were a few big films that were good but overall not enough great films to even consider this a golden year. Look at 1982, 1999, 1984...and you will see what a great year is.

I really liked these three though:
Do The Right Thing
The Last Crusade
Abyss

 

Actually, here's my revised list for my birth year.

Do the Right Thing
Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade Batman
The Little Mermaid/Kiki's Delivery Service
Roger and Me
Heathers
Sex, lies and videotape
Crimes and Misdemeanors
UHF
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Honorable mentions:
The Abyss
Back to the Future Part II/Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
The Killer
Lethal Weapon 2/Licence to Kill

(Dis)honorable mentions:
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
The Toxic Avenger Part II/The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie

Disappointments:
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Vancouver/Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

 

Sex, Lies, And Videotape

Hard to believe it’s over 30 years old.

 

do the right thing
sex, lies, and videotape
crimes and misdemeanors

 

Wow, what a great year for movies. My favorites:

Say Anything
Sex, Lies, & Videotape
Heathers
Crimes & Misdemeanors
The Abyss
Field of Dreams
Dead Calm

 

Santa Sangre
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Do the Right Thing
Mystery Train
The Killer
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Drugstore Cowboy
Meet the Feebles
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
The Parents

 

I saw more movies in the theater and drive-in the summer/fall of 89 than any year before or since.

My cousin and I would buy a ticket to something, watch it, sneak into another, watch it, sneak into another....

It was barely sneaking. In fact it was pretty blatant. In hindsight I realize that the workers just didn't give a **** and let us do whatever we wanted.

Around Christmas he moved about 20 miles away and that put an end to my weekly presence in the theater.


Pet Sematary
Born on the 4th of July
See No Evil, Hear No Evil
Roadhouse
Harlem Nights
Halloween 5
Back to the Future II
An Innocent Man
Parenthood
The Abyss

Any time I watch a movie from 89, I think about our little adventures at 14. Smoking a joint on the way, getting stopped for jaywalking, talking our way out of it, and then running like hell so we don't miss Turner and Hooch.

 

Ugh, terrible year for movies. Of all the films checked in this thread, I would only willingly watch DO THE RIGHT THING again . . .

 

Crimes and Misdemeanors
Do the Right Thing
The Fabulous Baker Boys
Mystery Train
Sea of Love
Sex, Lies and Videotape

 

Recently re-watched this, HH helped usher in the Indy Film movement.

 

Not a year overly burdened with excellence. I'd probably go:

1. Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade
2. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
3. Licence To Kill
4. A Dry White Season

I have a soft spot for Scandal because the first date my wife & I went on was a press showing. Terrible film though.

 

-Sweetie
-Interrogation
-Dead Poets Society

 

Driving Miss Daisy
We're No Angels
Mystery Train
Heathers

 

Mystery Train by far. I was so enamored with the film that I took a vacation to Memphis and visited most of the film locations. The Arcade restaurant was still open. Train station was for sale! Arcade Hotel was still standing but closed. Likely it was later demolished. Incidentally the Arcade Restaurant and hotel were/are around the corner and just a couple of hundred feet from the site of Martin Luther Kings murder. That site, The Lorraine motel, was closed at the time and being demolished to build the Civil Rights Museum that is now at the site. Had he stayed at the Arcade maybe he would have avoided that fate, as it had no outside balcony. I’ve read that Elvis ate frequently, in the 50s at the Arcade. I believe, last I heard, it remains open for business.

 

Absolutely nothing wrong with 1989. Hit just about everything, but here’s a few more I don’t think were mentioned:
The Unbelievable Truth
Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down
Chocolat
Black Rain - dir. Imamura (just want to make sure we don’t mean the Ridley Scott movie of the same name released in the same year, lol!)
Story of Women
True Love

 

Can I just say thanks.
I worked on "UHF' cutting sound and I am happy to see it mentioned on a few of the lists.

1989 was by no means a "great" year for film, in the grand scheme of things maybe an OK year for film.
But "UHF", oh my ... a pretty amateurish hodge podge throwing everything at the wall hoping something would stick and some stuff actually did stick.

A side note, when the clown ate the dog biscuits and vomited they took out my vomit sound FX as being too realistic ... bummer.

 

Any year that produces The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is alright by me. One of my top ten all-time.