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  1. Dartmouth Libraries
  2. Research Guides
  3. Dartmouth Libraries Guides
  4. Film Studies
  5. 1980s film history

Film Studies

This guide is an introduction to the resources for Film Studies at Dartmouth. If you are interested in Television, see the separate research guide for Television.
  • Introduction
  • Basic information on film
  • Finding a specific film title
  • Streaming film services
    • Readings on streaming video
  • National cinemas This link opens in a new window
  • Course guides for Film & Media Studies
  • Starting your research ...
  • Researching early films
  • Film history through the decades
    • 1960's film history
    • 1970's film history
    • 1980s film history
  • Books about film
  • Film reviews
  • Journals & magazines about film
  • Film theory
    • Feminist film theory
    • Auteur theory
  • Film criticism
    • Feminist film criticism
  • Box office information
  • Film audiences
  • Mass media Industry
  • Primary sources for historical film research
    • Cinema Pressbooks from the Original Studio Collections
    • Congressional Hearings & Communism
    • Film Daily
    • Herrick Library Digital Collections
    • Hollywood and the Production Code
    • Media History Digital Library
    • Moving Picture World
  • Themes
  • Acting
  • Racial & ethnic representation on film
    • African American diaspora
    • Asian American diaspora
    • Hispanic American diaspora
    • Native American & Indigenous peoples diasporas
    • Examples on film
  • LGBTQIA+
    • Examples on film
  • Women on/in/creating Film
    • Examples on film
  • Film genres This link opens in a new window
  • Film & society
  • Screenwriting
  • Film adaptations
    • Shakespeare on film
    • Television to Film adaptations
  • Color in film
  • Film music
  • Film festivals
    • A short list of film festivals
  • Film awards
  • Disney
  • Hitchcock
  • Internet resources
  • Future of Media
  • Back to Film & Media
  • Scholarly communication This link opens in a new window
  • Video Help

In the library's collections

  • motion pictures history AND 1980s
    This is a targeted, keyword search for books about 1980s films.

Introductory reading(s)

  • Cover ArtAmerican cinema of the 1980s: themes and variations by Stephen Prince, ed.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .U6 A8578 2007
    ISBN: 9780813540344
    During the 1980s, American cinema underwent enormous transformations. Blockbusters like Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., and The Empire Strikes Back grabbed huge revenues for the studios. At the same time, the growth of home video led to new and creative opportunities for independent film production, resulting in many of the decade's best films. Both large- and small-scale filmmakers responded to the social, political, and cultural conditions of the time. ...
  • Cover artThe cinema of Germany by Joseph Garncarz; Annemone Ligensa, eds.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .G3 C56 2012
    ISBN: 9781905674909
    This volume tells the story of the cinema of Germany in 24 essays, each concerning an individual film, in a fresh and concise way. It describes a 'national' film industry which successfully met the demand of a 'national' audience from the 1910s to the 1960s. The book represents this system by focusing on films which were very popular with contemporary German audiences such as Metropolis (1927), Three from the Filling Station (1930), The Great Love (1942), The Heath is Green (1951) and The Treasure of Silver Lake (1962). As a consequence of World War II, the system of popular German cinema declined during the 1960s and early 1970s. ...
  • Cover ArtFilm histories: an introduction and reader by Paul Grainge; Mark Jancovich; Sharon Montieth, eds.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .A1 G68 2007
    ISBN: 9780802095084
    Arranged chronologically, Film Histories is a wide-ranging anthology that covers the history of film from 1885 to the present. Each chapter contains an introduction by the editors on key developments within the respective period, followed by a classic piece of historical research about that period. Various approaches to film history are taken by the authors of the articles, exposing readers to different forms of historical research. ...
  • Cover artGender and action films 1980-2000: beauty in motion by Steven Gerrard; Renée Middlemost, eds.
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9781801175074
    Sylvester Stallone's action thriller, First Blood, hit cinema screens in 1982, leading to the cementing of what can be called the Action Movie Canon. With films like Die Hard, Under Siege and Total Recall pioneering post-millennial Action Movies such as Tomb Raider, The Bourne Identity and Atomic Blonde, there is a clear trajectorial line showing that the Action Movie has radically altered to incorporate much more complex portrayals of both 'hero' and 'heroine': the Action Movie Hero. Examining the changing face of Action Movies and their representations of gender since the release of First Blood, Gender and Action Films 1980-2000 examines masculinity and anxiety through subjects ranging from gender spaces in action films to the buddy cop film. ...

Selected book title(s)

  • Cover ArtGeorge Lucas's blockbusting: a decade-by-decade survey of timeless movies, including untold secrets of their financial and cultural success by Alex Ben Block; Lucy Autrey Wilson
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995 .G44 2010
    ISBN: 9780061778896
    By meticulously compiling the details of how movies have been made and financed since the medium's inception, chronicling their performances at the box office, and offering expert commentary about the most important trends of the last one hundred years, the authors of this book have given readers a singularly unique perspective on the film-making industry and a superlative blueprint for future successful filmmaking ventures. Taking us decade by decade, this book focuses on the revenues, costs, production and distribution of 300 of the most critically and financially successful movies of all time from the business's origins through 2005. ...
  • Cover ArtOde to Gen X: institutional cynicism in Stranger Things and 1980s film by Melissa Vosen Callens
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9781496832412
    Even for the casual viewer, the Netflix series Stranger Things will likely feel familiar, reminiscent of popular 1980s coming-of-age movies such as The Goonies, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Stand by Me. Throughout the series, nods to each movie are abundant. While Stranger Things and these classic 1980s films are all tales of childhood friendship and shared adventures, they are also narratives that reflect and shape the burgeoning cynicism of the 1980s. In Ode to Gen X: Institutional Cynicism in "Stranger Things" and 1980s Film, author Melissa Vosen Callens explores the parallels between iconic films featuring children and teenagers and the first three seasons of Stranger Things, a series about a group of young friends set in 1980s Indiana. ...
  • Cover artStan Brakhage in Rolling Stock, 1980-1990 by Jerry White
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9781771123068
    This is a collection of writings by the giant of experimental cinema, Stan Brakhage, that shows him in a completely new light, as part of world cinema. For the duration of the 1980s, Brakhage contributed to the Boulder literary magazine Rolling Stock, mostly publishing reports from the Telluride Film Festival. These reports show that Brakhage was keenly interested in world cinema, anxious to meet and dialogue with filmmakers of many different stripes. The book also contains substantial discussion of Brakhage's work in light of the filmmakers he encountered at Telluride and discussed in Rolling Stock. ...
  • Cover artTerms of endearment: Hollywood romantic comedy of the 1980s and 1990s by Celestino Deleyto; Peter William Evans, eds.
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .C55 T47 1998
    ISBN: 9780748608850
    Taking into account romantic comedy's current popularity and the genre's adaptability to changing historical circumstances, as well as its powerful tendency to contain and assimilate social changes, this book explores the complex ways in which recent cultural discourses on gender and sexuality have found their way into the apparently inflexible structure of romantic comedy. ...

Other library resource(s)

  • Resource logoAmerican cinema, 1976 to present from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Derek Nystrom
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    ISBN: 9780199791286
    American cinema has undergone a series of profound transitions since 1976. In many histories of American film, 1976 marks the end of one New Hollywood—the so-called “Hollywood Renaissance” of art cinema-inspired, personal filmmaking driven by young auteurs—and the start of another New Hollywood, this one more oriented toward blockbuster films that, many critics argue, eschew classical principles of narration in order to foreground special effects sequences and to provide opportunities for merchandizing and other product tie-ins.
  • Resource logoAmerican independent cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by David Sterritt
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    ISBN: 9780199791286
    American independent cinema, often called “indie cinema,” has no clear historical starting point and no single definition. Most broadly, the term refers to films made outside the Hollywood system, although some scholars date independent cinema from 1908, when enterprising filmmakers defied the near-monopoly of the Motion Picture Patents Company, formed by Thomas A. Edison and others hoping to control the rapidly expanding industry. ...
  • Cover artThe story of film. Episode 12 by the British Film Institute; Film4; Hopscotch Films
    • Video
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Streaming video
    With Ronald Reagan in the White House and Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street, the 1980s were the years of protest in the movies. This is the story of how brave filmmakers spoke truth to power. American independent director John Sayles talks exclusively about these years. In Beijing we discover the blossoming of Chinese cinema before the Tian’anmen crackdown. In the Soviet Union, the past wells up in astonishing films, and in Poland the master director Krzysztof Kieslowski emerges.

Internet resource(s)

  • Wikipedia logo
    1980s in film from Wikipedia
    • Link
    The decade of the 1980s in Western cinema saw the return of studio-driven pictures, coming from the filmmaker-driven New Hollywood era of the 1970s.[1] The period was when the "high concept" picture was established by producer Don Simpson,[2] where films were expected to be easily marketable and understandable. ...
  • Filmsite
    Film History of the 1980s from Filmsite
    • Link
    The decade of the 1980s tended to consolidate the gains made in the seventies rather than to initiate any new trends equal to the large number of disaster movies, buddy movies, or "rogue cop" movies that characterized the previous decade. Designed and packaged for mass audience appeal, few 80s films became what could be called 'classics'. ...
  • American Society of Cinematographers logo
    Totally 80's from American Cinematographer
    • Link
    In tribute to American Cinematographer’s 100th anniversary, we look at the magazine’s memorable coverage in this decade of innovation, experimentation and excess. ... [David E. Williams]
  • << Previous: 1970's film history
  • Next: Books about film >>
  • Last Updated: Jun 5, 2025 4:26 PM
  • URL: https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/filmstudies
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Subjects: Film and Media Studies
Tags: Arts, box office, festivals, FILM, film aesthetics, film color, film criticism, film music, film reviews, film studies, future of media, genres, LGBTQIA+, media industry, primary resources, queer cinema, representation in film, screenwriting, streaming film services, themes, women in film

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