Best Comedy Movies of the 1980s
The 1980s reshaped comedy cinema, and this is what survived the decade's own hype cycle — 20 films ranked purely by audience score, from 1980 to 1989. Back to the Future leads at 8.3. If you only work through the top ten, you will have covered the decade properly.
20 titles · average score 7.7 ·
The top 5 picks
- 1
Back to the Future (1985)
★ 8.3 · 22,183 ratingsEighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents' first meeting and attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by…
- 2
The Marquis of Grillo (1981)
★ 7.8 · 501 ratingsIn 18th-century Rome, impish aristocrat Onofrio del Grillo amuses himself by playing pranks on all sorts of people — his reactionary family and fellow nobles, the poors, the French occupiers trying to modernize society,…
- 3
Tampopo (1985)
★ 7.8 · 443 ratingsIn this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of…
- 4
Back to the Future Part II (1989)
★ 7.8 · 14,154 ratingsMarty and Doc are at it again as the time-traveling duo head to 2015 to nip some McFly family woes in the bud. But things go awry thanks to bully Biff Tannen and a pesky sports almanac. In a last-ditch attempt to set…
- 5
The King of Comedy (1982)
★ 7.8 · 2,623 ratingsAspiring comic Rupert Pupkin attempts to achieve success in show business by stalking his idol, a late night talk-show host who craves his own privacy.
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How this list is ranked
Nothing on this page is hand-picked to hit a word count. We pull films matching this list's criteria from TMDB, require a real audience behind each score, and rank by that score — 20 titles averaging 7.7. The page rebuilds daily, so new releases appear here as soon as enough people have rated them.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best comedy movie of the 1980s?
Back to the Future (1985) leads the decade with 8.3. The full list covers 1980–1989 and averages 7.7.
How many comedy movies from the 1980s are on this list?
20, each with at least 300 audience ratings behind its score. Anything with a thin vote count is excluded so the ranking reflects a real consensus.
Is this list updated?
Yes — it rebuilds every day from TMDB, so newly released movies appear as soon as enough people have rated them. You do not need an account to browse it, and there is no paywall on anything at MovieAI.