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 August 29, 1986, and we’re off to see Shanghai Surprise.
Shanghai Surprise
What a truly terrible movie.
Gloria Tatlock (Madonna) is a missionary nurse and she employs Glendon Wasey (Sean Penn) to help her locate a massive supply of opium that has gone missing. The two get entangled in an increasingly convoluted hunt for not only the opium, also some gems.
I had never seen this movie before, but I had heard plenty over the years about how bad it was. When I go into these movies I try to be objective despite what I’ve heard, and… hoo-boy. What I had heard wasn’t harsh enough.
I don’t normally mind Madonna. She’s not a great actor, but is usually serviceable. In this movie she feels as though she is reading off cue cards in every scene. And her delivery of “Mr. Wasey” will eventually become nails-on-a-chalkboard.
The script is overly confused. The acting is beyond sub-par to the point of painful. I paused the film once and saw that I wasn’t even halfway through it, and I truly questioned if my sanity would let me even finish it.
Where to watch: Available to stream.
1986 Movie Reviews will continue on Sept. 12, 2026, with ‘night, Mother and Restless Natives.
