Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1986 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.
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 1986 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 1986 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 Feb. 14, 1986, and we’re off to see The Delta Force, Quicksilver, and Wildcats.
The Delta Force
How can an action movie be this boring?
Colonel Nick Alexander (Lee Marvin) and Major Scott McCoy (Chuck Norris) are members of Delta Force, a special forces team tasked with rescue missions. When a plane is hijacked, they are called in to rescue them, and go through special training for the toughest mission of their lives.
For the first two-thirds of the film, this movie drags like mad with one roadblock to the mission after another. When we finally get to the third act, it turns into some weird ripoff of Megaforce.
This movie was just bad top-to-bottom. From pacing issues to third-act absurdity, it was a painful watch.
Quicksilver
I really would have loved to sit in on the pitch meeting for this movie.
Jack Casey (Kevin Bacon) is a hotshot stock trader who flies too close to the sun one day and loses a massive amount of money for his company as well as his parents’ life savings. Out of a job, he turns to being a bicycle messenger and discovers that their world isn’t as idyllic as he thought it was from the outside.
“So, yeah, when he crashes on the stock market he… uh… sees bike messenger ride by HE BECOMES A BIKE MESSENGER!”
This movie takes so many wild plot twists that I wouldn’t even know where to begin explaining it. And on top of that, it’s just not good. At no point during this movie was I entertained by it; I was simply mystified that it even exists.
Wildcats
I have never been happier to see a movie not follow the typical rulebook.
Molly McGrath (Goldie Hawn) has one love in life: Football. Since she was a child she has wanted nothing more than to coach football, and finally she gets her chance at a down-on-its-luck high school where she has to win over just about everyone to finally believe in her, and, in turn, make the athletes believe in themselves.
Don’t get me wrong, Wildcats is very predictable, but it avoided the pitfall I was most worried about: giving her a love interest. As soon as she moved to the new high school, I was positive that a new man was going to come in, be her nemesis, slow-burn into a romance, and so on. None of that happened, and I was so happy about it. The movie stayed firmly focused on Molly, who was trying to make her way with nearly everyone against her.
Her life doesn’t go smoothly. Her kids begin to resent her due to her dedication to the team. Her ex-husband worries for their kids. And the misogynist men at her old school want to see her fail. And through it all she keeps her head up and keeps going.
It’s not a perfect movie, but I had a lot of fun watching it.
1986 Movie Reviews will continue on Feb. 21, 2026, with 9 1/2 Weeks, The Hitcher, and Parting Glances.
