Image credit: Atlantic Entertainment Group, CBS, SPE, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Hemdale, Cinecom Pictures, The Samuel Goldwyn Company, Orion Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Columbia Pictures
In the 1980s, a decade known for its larger-than-life blockbusters, a series of political dramas quietly made their mark on cinema.
From the power struggles within government halls to the social upheavals on the streets, these dramas captured the spirit of the times with a subtlety and depth rarely found in the decade's more famous offerings.
17. "In the King of Prussia" (1982) The true story of the Plowshares Eight, a group of activists who broke into a nuclear missile site in Pennsylvania, challenging the moral legitimacy of nuclear weapons.
16. "The Men's Club" (1986) Rotten Tomatoes score: 25% In this drama, seven men from varied backgrounds come together for a night of storytelling, revealing their innermost fears, desires, and demons.
15. "Crisis at Central High" (1981) Rotten Tomatoes score: 40% This drama details the true story of the Little Rock Nine and their integration into an all-white Arkansas high school in 1957, amidst intense racial tension.
14. "The Ploughman's Lunch" (1983) Rotten Tomatoes score: 41% A young, ambitious British journalist manipulates facts and people, including his own mother, to achieve success, set against the backdrop of the Falklands War.
13. "Under the Volcano" (1984) Rotten Tomatoes score: 74% Set in Mexico on the Day of the Dead, this film follows the last day in the life of a self-destructive British consul grappling with love, loss, and despair.
12. "Silkwood" (1983) Rotten Tomatoes score: 76% Based on a true story, this film follows Karen Silkwood, a worker at a plutonium processing plant, who risks her life to expose unsafe working conditions, leading to her mysterious death.
11. "The Falcon and the Snowman" (1985) Rotten Tomatoes score: 83% Based on a true story, this film follows two young American men, one a disillusioned ex-CIA employee and the other a drug addict, who become involved in Soviet espionage.
10. "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1982) Rotten Tomatoes score: 88% Set in Indonesia during the overthrow of President Sukarno, a young Australian journalist navigates a dangerous political landscape and a complex love affair.
9. "The Dead Zone" (1983) Rotten Tomatoes score: 89% After awakening from a coma, a schoolteacher discovers he has psychic abilities, including foreseeing the future, which leads him to confront a dangerous political candidate.
8. "Testament" (1983) Rotten Tomatoes score: 89% In the aftermath of a nuclear attack, a small-town American family struggles to survive amidst the gradual disintegration of society and the loss of loved ones.
7. "Salvador" (1986) Rotten Tomatoes score: 90% An American journalist and his local friend navigate the brutal and chaotic civil war in El Salvador, capturing the human cost of the conflict.
6. "Under Fire" (1983) Rotten Tomatoes score: 91% In the midst of the Nicaraguan revolution, an American photojournalist is torn between his journalistic ethics and his involvement in the conflict after falling for a local woman.
5. "No Way Out" (1987) Rotten Tomatoes score: 92% A young Navy officer is assigned to investigate the murder of his lover's other partner, only to uncover a deep conspiracy within the Pentagon.
4. "The Killing Fields" (1984) Rotten Tomatoes score: 93% A harrowing and true account of the Cambodian genocide, following a New York Times journalist and his Cambodian colleague as they navigate and survive the brutal Khmer Rouge regime.
3. "Missing" (1982) Rotten Tomatoes score: 94% Based on real events, this political thriller explores the disappearance of an American journalist in the aftermath of the Chilean coup of 1973, as his wife and father uncover a web of international intrigue.
2. "Matewan" (1987) Rotten Tomatoes score: 94% In a 1920s West Virginia coal town, a labor union organizer and a group of miners face off against a tyrannical coal company in a struggle for workers' rights.
1. "True Believer" (1989) Rotten Tomatoes score: 96% A disillusioned civil rights attorney takes on a seemingly hopeless murder case, uncovering police corruption and a quest for redemption.
