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These Go To Eleven: The 10 Best Films Of The Eighties

Join us in our decade-based film retrospective, as we delve backwards all the way from 2009 to 1910. Most decade-based best movie lists grant you a whooping 50-100 entries, which makes perfect sense given all the years you have to take into consideration. But what if you were defining a decade in just ten films? Which movies would you recommend to somebody who might only watch a handful from a given decade? This week, we look back at the Eighties.

10. This Is Spinal Tap (1984) (Dir. Rob Reiner)

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“These go to eleven,” dumbfounds Christopher Guest’s Nigel Tufnel, surely one of the great comic creations of the past one hundred years. He’s talking to Rob Reiner’s humorously-named interviewer Marty DeBergi, of course, and Tufnel doesn’t quite grasp the concept of the situation at hand. I guess that’s all part and parcel of being in the world’s loudest rock band. This Is Spinal Tap was revolutionary in its mockumentary style, fooling many (though not on purpose) into believing they were viewing reality. The film itself is packed with great, idiosyncratic performances, and comic sequences that burst with invention. The years have been extremely kind too: This Is Spinal Tap is the funniest film of the 80s, and one of the funniest comedies of all-time.