Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1985 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
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We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1985 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1985 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around, it’s Dec. 6, 1985, and we’re off to see Fool for Love, Runaway Train, Spies Like Us, and Young Sherlock Holmes.
Fool for Love
Nothing says ‘love story’ quite like half-siblings falling for one another.
May (Kim Basinger) is hiding out at a roadside hotel, trying to get away from her boyfriend, Eddie (Sam Shepard). He finally finds her and what unfolds is a history of two people that should have never been pulled into one another’s orbit. As the story progresses, Old Man (Harry Dean Stanton), whom you first think is there, turns out to not only be a ghost of their past, but the father of both of them… or was he?
Throughout my viewing of the film, which I had never seen before, I kept thinking, “This was a play, wasn’t it?” One search later, yes, not only was it a play, but it was written by Shepard as well.
The film works. It’s not a masterpiece by any means, but it was engaging and kept me guessing for a long period as to what role Old Man played in all of this. I have to say I didn’t see the siblings angle coming, and then to be left questioning if they really were was all that more puzzling.
It’s not a must see, by any means, but I wouldn’t turn it off if I came across it again.
Runaway Train
Every year seems to have one movie that takes me by surprise, dating back to The Island in 1980. This may be the surprise of the year for me.
Manny (Jon Voight) is a notorious criminal who has been welded into a solitary confinement cell for three years. After suing the state, he is released, and he escapes with the help of Buck (Eric Roberts), who idolizes him. They then set off to put some distance between themselves and the prison. Little did they know, the engineer of the train they jump on would have a heart attack and die, leaving them on a runaway train.
I’m not the biggest fan of Voight or Roberts, so I went into this film with some dread. Add in the fact this is a Cannon Group film and I was expecting it to be misery. Well, I can admit when I was wrong. I really enjoyed it.
The biggest downfall of the film is Warden Ranken (John P. Ryan). I don’t know if it was the way he was written, or just performed, but he is so over-the-top cartoonish that he’s impossible to take seriously as an antagonist.
That being said, the film is well shot, the setting within four train engines is claustrophobic and tense, and I had a really good time with it. Considering the trepidation I went into it with, this was a major win for the closing days of the year.
Spies Like Us
And from a movie I really enjoyed to… this.
Austin Millbarge (Dan Aykroyd) and Emmett Fitz-Hume (Chevy Chase) are bumbling government employees recruited to be decoys for another set of spies who are trying to get to a Russian mobile missile launcher.
Really. That’s about it. It’s nothing better than a Bob Hope and Bing Crosby “Road” movie. How do I know this? Because Bob Hope makes the most random cameo known to man.
Considering director John Landis was known for comedy, and Aykroyd and Chase were original Saturday Night Live members, you would think this movie would make you laugh, and it simply doesn’t. I haven’t watched it since its original release, and I can remember going to see it with my Dad in 1985 and, despite me being 14, we both walked out going, “well, that sucked.” My opinion has not changed.
Young Sherlock Holmes
A movie that shouldn’t work, but somehow totally does.
John Watson (Alan Cox) changes schools and meets Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Rowe). Together with Elizabeth Hardy (Sophie Ward), the three discover a long-term mystery surrounding some of the staff at the school, and they have to set out to stop it before more people are killed.
In a time period where everyone is doing prequels and spinoffs to varying degrees of success, going back and covering the early years of Sherlock Holmes was a surprising idea in the 80s. Thanks to some surprisingly good special effects, good acting, and a decent script (not all of it), you ended up with an entertaining foray into a part of his life we definitely didn’t need, but was fun any way.
Chris Columbus (Gremlins, Goonies) certainly was having a writing run in the 80s, and while Young Sherlock Holmes may not have lived up to his other works, he still turned in an entertaining idea.
1985 Movie Reviews will return on Dec. 13, 2025, with Clue, Jewel of the Nile, Legend, and Trouble in Mind.
