In March, ScreenAge Wasteland will have its 2nd annual Movie Madness tournament to determine the greatest movie of the 1980s.
Similar to the NCAA March Madness tournament that starts with 64 teams and ends with one winner standing tall, SAW is going to have 64 of the best movies from the 80s battle it out.
The great thing is you, the wasteoids, will be able to help determine the winner by voting in the matchups!
You will have to check back on March 1, 2021, when voting begins, to see what the matchups are for each region. The movies were picked by an intricate scoring system in order to get the best of the best films from the decade with minimal opinions or bias involved. The top four movies to grade out the highest are your four number one seeds in each region. Also, there was a limit of only two films per director. Lastly, the vote in winners will be marked at the bottom so you can see if your pick made the field of 64.
Check out the entries already announced in other regions to see possible Final Four matchups:
Here is your Training Montage Region!
Amadeus (1984)
“The life, success, and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was insanely jealous of Mozart’s talent and claimed to have murdered him.”
Directors: Milos Forman
Writer: Peter Shaffer
Stars: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge
Blade Runner (1982)
“A blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space, and have returned to Earth to find their creator.”
Director: Ridley Scott
Writers: Hampton Fancher, David Webb Peoples
Stars: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young
Do the Right Thing (1989)
“On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone’s hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence.”
Director: Spike Lee
Writer: Spike Lee
Stars: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee
The Elephant Man (1980)
“A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man who is mistreated while scraping a living as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of kindness, intelligence, and sophistication.”
Directors: David Lynch
Writers: Christopher De Vore, Eric Bergren, David Lynch
Stars: Anthony Hopkins, John Hurt, Anne Bancroft
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)
“A high school wise guy is determined to have a day off from school, despite what the Principal thinks of that.”
Director: John Hughes
Writer: John Hughes
Stars: Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
“A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.”
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr, Gustav Hasford
Stars: Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D’Onofrio
Glory (1989)
“Robert Gould Shaw leads the U.S. Civil War’s first all-black volunteer company, fighting prejudices from both his own Union Army and the Confederates.”
Director: Edward Zwick
Writer: Kevin Jarre
Stars: Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington, Cary Elwes
The King of Comedy (1982)
“Rupert Pupkin is a passionate yet unsuccessful comic who craves nothing more than to be in the spotlight and to achieve this, he stalks and kidnaps his idol to take the spotlight for himself.”
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Paul D. Zimmerman
Stars: Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Diahnne Abbott
The Little Mermaid (1989)
“A mermaid princess makes a Faustian bargain in an attempt to become human and win a prince’s love.”
Director: Ron Clements, John Musker
Writer: John Musker, Ron Clements
Stars: Jodi Benson, Samuel E. Wright, Rene Auberjonois
Once Upon a Time In America (1984)
“A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan over thirty years later, where he once again must confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.”
Director: Sergio Leone
Writers: Sergio Leone and many others
Stars: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern
Raging Bull (1980)
“The life of boxer Jake LaMotta, whose violence and temper that led him to the top in the ring destroyed his life outside of it.”
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writers: Paul Schrader, Mardik Martin
Stars: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci
Robocop (1987)
“In a dystopic and crime-ridden Detroit, a terminally wounded cop returns to the force as a powerful cyborg haunted by submerged memories.”
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Writers: Edward Neumeier, Michael Miner
Stars: Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Dan O’Herlihy
The Shining (1980)
“A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where a sinister presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.”
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubrick, Diane Johnson
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd
The Terminator (1984)
“A human soldier is sent from 2029 to 1984 to stop an almost indestructible cyborg killing machine, sent from the same year, which has been programmed to execute a young woman whose unborn son is the key to humanity’s future salvation.”
Director: James Cameron
Writers: James Cameron, Gale Anne Hurd
Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn
Thief (1981)
“A former ace safe-cracker is trying to go straight–if he can score one last big heist for the mob.”
Director: Michael Mann
Writer: Michael Mann
Stars: James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Willie Nelson
Comedy Vote In Winner
Raising Arizona (1988)
“When a childless couple of an ex-con and an ex-cop decide to help themselves to one of another family’s quintuplets, their lives become more complicated than they anticipated.”
Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Writers: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, Trey Wilson
What do you think of the films in this region? Have any predictions for which film will make it to the Final Four from this group of films?
