1987 Top Ten List

House of Games (David Mamet)

Raising Arizona (Joel Coen)

Barfly (Barbet Schroeder)

Hope and Glory (John Boorman)

Tin Men (Barry Levinson)

Moonstruck (Norman Jewison)

Housekeeping (Bill Forsyth)

The Untouchables (Brian De Palma)

Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow)

Where Is the Friend's House? (Abbas Kiarostami)

Additional 1987 Films By Rating

Rouge (Stanley Kwan)

Broadcast News (James L. Brooks)

Empire of the Sun (Steven Spielberg)

Anguish (Bigas Luna)

Matewan (John Sayles)

The Princess Bride (Rob Reiner)

Nadine (Robert Benton)

Maurice (James Ivory)

White of the Eye (Donald Cammell)

Planes, Trains & Automobiles (John Hughes)

Evil Dead II (Sam Raimi)

Ishtar (Elaine May)

Predator (John McTiernan)

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (Kazuo Hara)

RoboCop (Paul Verhoeven)

Border Radio (Allison Anders & Dean Lent & Kurt Voss)

Full Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrick)

Blind Chance (Krzysztof Kieslowski)

Family Viewing (Atom Egoyan)

Blood Rage (John M. Grissmer)

Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne)

Au revoir les enfants (Louis Malle)

The Dead (John Huston)

I've Heard the Mermaids Singing (Patricia Rozema)

Prince of Darkness (John Carpenter)

The Stepfather (Joseph Ruben)

Bad Taste (Peter Jackson)

Living on Tokyo Time (Steven Okazaki)

No Way Out (Roger Donaldson)

Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders)

The Last Emperor (Bernardo Bertolucci)

Cobra Verde (Werner Herzog)

Extreme Prejudice (Walter Hill)

King Lear (Jean-Luc Godard)

Epidemic (Lars von Trier)

Walker (Alex Cox)

Babette's Feast (Gabriel Axel)

Who Killed Vincent Chin? (Christine Choy)

Dirty Dancing (Emile Ardolino)

Making Mr. Right (Susan Seidelman)

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (Jack Clayton)

China Girl (Abel Ferrara)

Withnail & I (Bruce Robinson)

Beverly Hills Cop II (Tony Scott)

Under the Sun of Satan (Maurice Pialat)

O.C. and Stiggs (Robert Altman)

For archival purposes, I file everything by the year it had its world premiere. Many of these films will have been commercially released in the U.S. a year or two later, so my lists won’t always match up with other folks’ lists.

Ratings are on a needlessly precise 100-point scale.

Films I haven’t yet rated on that scale are marked with if I currently think they belong in my top ten. These films are subject to being shifted around or yanked altogether at any moment, after I revisit them and they get a numeral. (Lists from prior to about 1988 are especially suspect, as I compiled them long ago from memories that were in many cases already pretty dusty.)

Seen but currently unrated (and not presumptively among my top 10): Adventures in Babysitting (Columbus); Angel Heart (Parker); Anna (Bogayevicz); Aria (various); Baby Boom (Shyer); Bagdad Cafe (Adlon); The Bedroom Window (Hanson); The Believers (Schlesinger); The Belly of an Architect (Greenaway); Best Seller (Flynn); Beyond Therapy (Altman); The Big Easy (McBride); Black Widow (Rafelson); Born in East L.A. (Marin); Boyfriends and Girlfriends (Rohmer); The Brave Little Toaster (Rees); Brightness (Cissé); Can't Buy Me Love (Rash); City on Fire (Lam); Clash of the Ash (Tighe); Cry Freedom (Attenborough); Dark Eyes (Mikhalkov); Date With an Angel (McLoughlin); Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam (Couturié); Dragnet (Mankiewicz); Eddie Murphy Raw (Townsend); Five Corners (Bill); A Flame in My Heart (Tanner); Flowers in the Attic (Bloom); Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (Rohmer); The Glass Menagerie (Newman); Good Morning Babilonia (Tavianis); Good Morning, Vietnam (Levinson); The Grand Highway (Hubert); Heat and Sunlight (Nilsson); Hellraiser (Barker); The Hidden (Sholder); Hiding Out (Giraldi); High Season (Peploe); Innerspace (Dante); Intervista (Fellini); Ironweed (Babenco); Julia and Julia (Del Monte); Kangaroo (Burstall); La Bamba (Valdez); Law of Desire (Almodóvar); Lethal Weapon (Donner); Little Dorrit (Edzard); The Living Daylights (Glen); The Lost Boys (Schumacher); Maid to Order (Jones); Morgan Stewart's Coming Home (Smithee); Nadine (Benton); Nuts (Ritt); Outrageous Fortune (Hiller); Overboard (Marshall); Pelle the Conqueror (August); The Pick-Up Artist (Toback); A Prayer for the Dying (Hodges); Prick Up Your Ears (Frears); The Principal (Cain); Project X (Kaplan); Promised Land (Hoffman); Radio Days (Allen); Roxanne (Schepisi); The Running Man (Glaser); Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (Frears); The Secret of My Success (Ross); September (Allen); Siesta (Lambert); Sign "o" the Times (Prince); Some Kind of Wonderful (Deutch); Someone to Watch Over Me (R. Scott); Spaceballs (Brooks); The Squeeze (Young); Stakeout (Badham); Stranded (Fuller); Street Smart (Schatzberg); Summer School (Reiner); Surrender (Belson); Suspect (Yates); Swimming to Cambodia (Demme); A Taxing Woman (Itami); 3 Men and a Baby (Nimoy); Three O'Clock High (Joanou); Throw Momma From the Train (DeVito); Tragic Hero (Wong); Vincent (Cox); Wall Street (Stone); Weapons of the Spirit (Sauvage); Weeds (Hancock); The Whales of August (Anderson); Wish You Were Here (Leland); The Witches of Eastwick (Miller)

As yet unseen: The Cry of the Owl (Chabrol); Opera (Argento); Project A, Part II (Chan)

I occasionally write reviews of older movies, but it happens too infrequently to file them by year.