Why the Summer of 1987 Was the BEST Movie Season Ever!

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Now, some movie summers are remembered because one giant blockbuster took over everything. Uh take for example Batman in the summer of '89 or Top Gun in 1986.

[00:00:10]One movie kicks the door open, vacuums up all the box office cash, and suddenly it owns the whole season. But, the summer of 1987 was very different. This wasn't just one movie owning the whole conversation. This was a whole video store wall filling up over the summer.

[00:00:28]This was the kind of summer where you could walk into a theater and find Eddie Murphy back as Axel Foley or Arnold Schwarzenegger being hunted in the jungle, RoboCop cleaning up Detroit, you had teenage vampires prowling the boardwalk, Patrick Swayze was about to become a summer movie icon, and Stanley Kubrick dropped a Vietnam War film right in the middle of popcorn season. And that's before you even get into future retro classics such as The Untouchables, La Bamba, Born in East L.A., The Monster Squad, Summer School, Stakeout, and yes, somehow Masters of the Universe, just to name a handful. So, today instead of doing a top 10, we're going to talk about the bigger story overall, how the summer of 1987 felt like every section of the video store was being restocked at once. The action shelf was loaded, the comedy shelf was busy, the horror corner had bite, the teen movies had plenty of charm, the prestige dramas had serious weight, and the oddball cult movie shelf was quietly preparing itself for decades of VHS afterlife. And really, I think that's what makes this summer so interesting in retrospect. It wasn't perfect, not even close. There were a few classics, some solid hits, some cult favorites, a few strange swings, some franchise stumbles, and a few movies that felt like they were greenlit during a drunken brunch meeting. But, together, they would make the summer of 1987 feel alive. Messy, commercial, creative, strange, confident, and most important, extremely 1987.

[00:02:04]Now, by this point, Hollywood already knew the summer season could be huge.

[00:02:08]Jaws had changed the game in the '70s, Star Wars turned moviegoing into an event, and the early '80s would give us the blockbuster machine, movie stars, sequels, merchandising, soundtracks, and high-concept ideas that could be sold in one sentence. But, I think 1987 hit a little differently because it didn't feel like just one clean trend. It felt like Hollywood was throwing every genre into the pool, only to see somehow most of them still managing to float because some summers are built for opening weekends. I think this particular summer was built for shelf life, and I think that's why it feels so video store friendly when looking back. Because out of this summer lineup were a few movies that were massive right away. There was some that took longer to find their audience and get their footing, and a lot of these weren't fully appreciated until they hit VHS and cable for sleepover discoveries and for those lazy weekends where you rented something because the box looked cool or it was on the staff picks wall.

[00:03:12]May would kick off the summer season, and the month where early on showed signs that the season wasn't going to be just about one lane. You had Creepshow 2 bringing horror anthology flavor for fans of practical effects and comic book nastiness. The Gate would add another solid horror entry to the mix, a film that still holds up, giving uh kids a backyard portal to some demonic chaos, and reminding everybody that back in the '80s, even suburban holes in the ground could ruin your weekend. American Ninja 2 would keep the martial arts B movie shelf looking attractive. Ernest Goes to Camp would serve up pure VHS family comfort food, and River's Edge would bring something uh much darker and stranger to the teen movie conversation.

[00:03:56]It's not exactly summer escapism, it's bleak, unsettling, and full of dead end youth energy with Keanu Reeves before he became full-on Keanu, and uh Crispin Glover transmitting from his own private satellite, but it is a quality gem from the past that wasn't fully appreciated at the time. But, the season would really announce itself with Beverly Hills Cop 2, which would come out later in the month, and basically strut into theaters wearing sunglasses inside.

[00:04:24]Eddie Murphy was already a the one of the biggest stars in the world at this point, and [music] I mean, bringing Axel Foley back was a major event. First movie, I think, had that perfect blend of action, comedy, and fish-out-of-water charm, and this sequel would dial everything way up to maximum. Tony Scott style, fast cars, glossy lighting, synth energy, expensive rooms, endless gunfire, and Murphy just moving through the whole thing like he knows the movie is getting better every time he walks into the frame. It's a slick, loud, stylish sequel, and very much the summer season saying, "All right, guys, we're open for business."

[00:05:05]>> This is a Detroit badge. What the hell are you doing in Beverly Hills? I'm going deep, deep, deep, deep undercover.

[00:05:11]>> So, right away, the summer of '87 was delivering hits, oddities, horror, comedy, action, family fare, and darkness, and the release schedule was just getting started.

[00:05:21]>> [music] >> Then, June would roll in and quickly start stacking the shelves even higher with multiple hits each week for audiences to choose from. Something that, when you think about now, seems like an urban legend. On the same day, moviegoers would get Harry and the Hendersons and The Untouchables, which, when you look at it, really is the perfect snapshot of this summer season's range. On one screen, you got John Lithgow bringing home a giant, lovable Bigfoot like he's the world's hairiest exchange student. And on the other screen, you got Brian De Palma serving up prohibition-era crime, Al Capone, federal agents, Ennio Morricone music, and Sean Connery delivering the kind of performance where they probably started etching his name on the Oscar halfway through the damn movie.

[00:06:12]>> He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way.

[00:06:19]And that's how you get Capone.

[00:06:21]>> The Untouchables would end up being one of the big prestige popcorn movies of the summer. It's classy, violent, beautifully made, and it's ridiculously rewatchable. Having Costner gives it that clean heroic center. Robert De Niro goes big as Al Capone, and Connery brings that old-school toughness to every scene. So, it's not just a crime movie, it's a real movie movie full of style and music and costume and production design and set pieces and that big screen confidence that you rarely see anymore. And then 1 week later, Predator would arrive. Now, to me, this is where the summer went from strong to legendary because Predator was one of those perfect '80s movie concepts that sounds almost too good to be real.

[00:07:06]Arnold Schwarzenegger leads an elite military rescue team into the jungle only to discover they're the ones being hunted by an invisible alien warrior who collects skulls. It's not just a movie pitch, it's basically an '80s sleepover for teenagers in cinematic form.

[00:07:26]>> If it bleeds, we can kill it.

[00:07:29]>> What makes Predator so great is that it starts as one kind of movie and then slowly turns into another. At first, it's all giant guns, giant arms, big handshakes, and guys who look like they were built in a gym during a lightning storm, but then the jungle gets quieter and the team starts getting picked off and Arnold's usual action movie certainty begins to crack and by the end it's almost primal. One man, one alien, mud, traps, fire, and survival.

[00:07:58]>> Oh my.

[00:07:59]>> It's action, sci-fi, horror, and macho mythology all at once and somehow it still feels lean. It doesn't over explain itself, it just drops you into the jungle and lets the trees start whispering trouble to you. June would also deliver The Witches of Eastwick, which would bring a whole different kind of adult weirdness to theaters. You get Jack Nicholson, Cher, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Susan Sarandon in a sexy supernatural dark comedy that centers on desire and power and one man who treats subtlety kind of like it's the parsley that they use to garnish a dinner plate.

[00:08:34]This movie is glossy, strange, funny, and a little bit grotesque in a very fun 80s way where a major studio movie could still feel a little bit dangerous. And then there was Roxanne with Steve Martin [music] I think at his most charming giving us a very sweet, clever romantic comedy that didn't need to shout at you to be funny. Now near the end of June movie goers would get a wild triple feature, Spaceballs, Dragnet, and Full Metal Jacket. Just another indication of what kind of summer this was. A Mel Brooks sci-fi parody, a buddy cop comedy with Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks, and Stanley Kubrick's brutal Vietnam War film all arriving in the same movie going window. It was a pure genre buffet.

[00:09:19]>> Lucky you came on, I'll tell you that.

[00:09:21]>> Spaceballs would give audiences Mel Brooks taking aim at Star Wars, merchandising, sequels, sci-fi fandom, and the whole pop culture machine. It may not be Brooks at his absolute sharpest from start to finish, but I mean Dark Helmet alone I think earns the movie its permanent parking spot in nerd history. Meanwhile, Full Metal Jacket was about as far from light summer viewing as you could get, yet it would still become one of the year's defining films because Kubrick could always turn discomfort into something you just simply could not look away from. The first half with R. Lee Ermey's drill instructor became instantly iconic, and then the second half turns colder, darker, stranger, and much more morally exhausting. It's far from escapism, but that's a part of what made 1987 feel so rich. Because, in true '80s fashion, the summer of '87 would give audiences jokes about ludicrous warp speeds and psychological war trauma practically side by side. You could be in the theater laughing your ass off at Spaceballs and faintly hear the rumble of carnage to the theater on one side, and faintly hear the tones of the familiar Dragnet theme song coming from the other side. Pure cinematic nirvana.

[00:10:38]>> [music] >> And then July would show up, and it would do its best to turn the season into a future video store Hall of Fame in just 4 weeks. Adventures in Babysitting is pure '80s teen night chaos with Elizabeth Shue trying to babysit and somehow ending up in a big city adventure involving car thieves, blues clubs, gangsters, and kids learning that the outside world was a basically a theme park designed by anxiety. It just has that great '80s quality where uh teenagers were still allowed to be in actual danger while still allowing the movie to feel fun.

[00:11:16]And then there was Innerspace. Joe Dante doing sci-fi comedy with Dennis Quaid, Martin Short, and Meg Ryan, and the kind of plot that just sounds like someone spilled three genres into a blender. You get miniaturization, espionage, body invasion, romance, physical comedy, and Martin Short panic sweating at Olympic gold levels. It's inventive and playful and very much from that era where weird mainstream movies were still allowed to be weird. But the big splashy July cannon blast would be RoboCop. And honestly, I think this movie might be the best example of why 1987 was far more interesting than it ever needed to be because on paper this movie couldn't have been more simple.

[00:11:59]Cop gets killed, cop becomes robot cop, robot cop shoots bad guys. Done. Sell the posters and try not to explain the hard R rating to parents.

[00:12:10]>> [music] >> This guy is really good.

[00:12:13]>> He's not a guy. He's a machine.

[00:12:15]>> But Paul Verhoeven would make something so much sharper. He would make a violent satirical corporate nightmare comedy disguised as an action movie. RoboCop is brutal and funny and tragic and weirdly emotional. I think Peter Weller gives Murphy a soul even underneath all that metal and the movie is just packed with subtext. You get the fake commercials, the news breaks, themes of corporate greed and privatized policing. And most importantly, Clarence freaking Boddicker. To me, one of the truly great scumbag villains of the '80s. Back in 1987, RoboCop worked perfectly as a hard R sci-fi action movie on VHS. It became a rite of passage and today it still feels like one of the smartest genre films from the entire decade, which isn't bad for a movie where the hero looks like he was constructed out of old appliance parts. And then, because every great summer needs a few cautionary tales, July also delivered Jaws the Revenge and Superman 4: The Quest for Peace. Now, neither of these movies is remembered as a high point for its franchise, but in retrospect, they do help tell the story of this season. Jaws the Revenge is what happens when a franchise keeps swimming long after the beach should have been closed down. They give the shark a personal vendetta, travel itinerary, and full access to family records. So, this four equal was never going to fly.

[00:13:40]Superman 4, on the other hand, I think had noble intentions, especially with its nuclear disarmament message and Christopher Reeve giving it some dignity, but the budget issues are all over the screen. Yet, I think you can feel the good idea somewhere buried underneath all that chaos. These movies do, however, though, I think show the other side of 1987 summer movie season because this was the moment when some older franchises were starting to creak while [music] some newer genre films like RoboCop and Predator were just getting started. Now, much to the delight of audiences, July was not done.

[00:14:15]The release schedule would also see La Bamba and Summer School, two completely different but extremely rewatchable movies. La Bamba brought real warmth and emotion to the story of Ritchie Valens with LDP, Lou Diamond Phillips, giving the movie its heart and its soul. It's fueled by music, is constantly sincere, and bittersweet without ever feeling phony. [music] Summer School, on the other hand, served up pure 100% cable comfort cinema. You get Mark Harmon as a laid-back gym teacher stuck teaching remedial English surrounded by a classroom full of lovable underachievers. It's not trying to reinvent comedy. It's really just a movie that wants to hang out with you, have some fun, and bang out some laughs.

[00:14:58]And growing up, it was a seasonal staple for us. Now, closing out July would be another awesome pair of contrasting releases, The Living Daylights and The Lost Boys. Now, Timothy Dalton's first Bond movie would give the franchise a tougher edge after the Roger Moore years, pointing toward a more serious version of the 007 character going forward, but The Lost Boys would end up being the real vibe machine of 1987 summer. You get fictional Santa Carla, the boardwalk, music, the motorcycles, the leather jackets, the vampire gang, the freaking Corey's, and that saxophone guy doing more for shirtless beach side confidence than science could ever hypothesize.

[00:15:43]>> [music] >> The Lost Boys is horror, suspense, comedy, teen movie, vampire movie, and music video cool all at once. Kiefer Sutherland's David doesn't feel like some ancient gothic vampire. He feels like the cool older kid that your parents tried to warn you about. Only your parents were dramatically underselling the potential dangers. And really, I think maybe of all the summer of '87 movies, this one, The Lost Boys, might be the one that feels like it was most destined to live on a VHS shelf forever.

[00:16:19]>> [music] >> Now, by the time August rolled around, the season had already delivered more than enough movies for one legendary summer, but there would be more. Along with movies like a Back to the Beach, a Disorderlies, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie, House II, Hamburger Hill, and Who's That Girl, August would do its best to close the summer out with plenty of gusto. Masters of the Universe kicked the month off with some gusto, and while it may not have been the He-Man epic that us kids dreamed of, it still remains as one of the great VHS era oddities. Dolph Lundgren looks the part.

[00:16:56]Frank Langella gives Skeletor way more commitment than the movie probably had any right to expect, and the whole thing has that Golan-Globus Films energy where ambition and budget are arm wrestling in public. It's not perfect, not even close, but it is fascinating, and for a lot of kids, that box art alone was enough to secure the rental. Also opening the month with Stakeout, a very well-crafted, well-rounded movie from start to finish. In my opinion, one of the sleeper hits of this summer. You get Dreyfuss and Estevez mixing buddy cop comedy with action, romance, and suspense, and a ton of comical precision. And then there was Can't Buy Me Love, another of those classic '80s teen comedies about popularity and insecurity. And this one with the dangerous idea that high school social status could maybe be fixed with a financial transaction. Yet, regardless, Dempsey and Peterson gave it plenty of charm. And this movie just captured that specific teen movie world where the cafeteria at times could feel like a stock exchange. That same August stretch would also give us No Way Out, a slick political thriller with Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, and Sean Young. It's tense and sexy and twisty, and another reminder that Costner was having a very strong summer between this one and The Untouchables. And then there was North Shore, which admittedly may not have been a mainstream hit, but it has exactly the kind of sun-baked surf movie sincerity that just grows into cult affection. It's one of my all-time favorite movies, and for a beach town video store vibe, this little Karate Kid knockoff feels legally required to be on the shelf.

[00:18:36]>> Naughty mask, yeah? Like it was the last one. Later, brah.

[00:18:40]>> Then there was the Goonies knockoff The Monster Squad. In my opinion, one of the truly great didn't own the theaters, but certainly owned kids' memory banks movies of the era. You get kids versus Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Wolfman, the Mummy, and the Gill-man.

[00:18:57]It's basically classic monster horror all filtered through '80s kid adventure.

[00:19:02]It wasn't a huge theatrical hit, but VHS would give it the life it deserved. And again, I think that's kind of the key to the summer of '87. Some of these movies won right away, some waited until kids found them at the rental store and never let them go. Others were discovered on cable late at night or on a weekend morning with a big bowl of cereal after the cartoons were over. You never really knew where you were going to find these movies. And then swinging into theaters would be Dirty Dancing, one of the truly great sleeper success stories of 1987.

[00:19:33]Compared to the louder movies all around it, it didn't necessarily look like one that would become a cultural phenomenon, but audiences found it, they loved it, and they kept finding it over and over again. Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey absolutely had that lightning in a bottle chemistry. The music exploded.

[00:19:52]The movie captured a romance, nostalgia, class tension, coming-of-age drama, and the fantasy that your summer vacation might change your entire life. Which to be honest is kind of a misadvertisement because most summer vacations just gave you a sunburn, a few family barbecues, and if it all like mine, awkward lake rejections on a seasonal basis.

[00:20:13]>> Well, why don't you just save your breath? I'm not a tourist attraction.

[00:20:17]>> All jokes aside though, Dirty Dancing worked because it was sincere. It was not embarrassed by its own romance, a baby's transformation, Johnny's pride, the resort setting, the final dance, the music, the emotion.

[00:20:30]All of it just lands because the movie believes in itself. The people remember the lift, of course, but they remember the feeling before the lift, too. And that's why this movie is timeless. So, as you can see, by Labor Day, the summer of '87 had become comically stacked. The action shelf had Predator, RoboCop, Beverly Hills Cop II, American Ninja, The Living Daylights, and the Masters of the Universe. The comedy shelf had Spaceballs, Dragnet, Summer School, Adventures in Babysitting, Roxanne, The Squeeze, Stakeout, and Born in East L.A.

[00:21:03]The horror and cult shelf had The Lost Boys, The Monster Squad, Creepshow 2, The Gate, and House 2. The drama and thriller shelf had The Untouchables, Full Metal Jacket, No Way Out, White Water Summer, River's Edge, and The Big Easy. Music and romance shelf was stocked as well with Dirty Dancing, Who's That Girl, La Bamba, Disorderlies, and Back to the Beach. The how did this even get greenlit into production aisle had both Innerspace and The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. Family section had Ernest Goes to Camp and Harry and the Hendersons. There was also the failed sequel section with Jaws The Revenge, Superman 4: The Quest for Peace, and Revenge of the Nerds Trapped in Paradise. Although, I do have a soft spot for Nerds 2. I can't lie. And lastly, and probably more iconic than anything we've covered in this video, would be a little movie that most never watched, but nearly all will remember for giving video stores one of the most memorable posters of the '80s and '90s, that being The All-Nighter. So, really that's what makes this summer so specifically special and never felt like one trend. It felt like a whole ecosystem, a loud, sweaty, neon-lit ecosystem with saxophones and squibs and vampires and robot cops and summer romances and alien hunters and at least one shark with a vendetta. The reason the summer of 1987 still plays so well now is because it captures a moment when big studio movies still had personality because these weren't just products.

[00:22:31]Predator had teeth and texture. Robocop had lived-in grit. The Lost Boys had style and Jamie Gertz. Dirty Dancing had heart. The Untouchables had old-school cinema craftsmanship. I mean, even the messy movies had their own funky flavor.

[00:22:46]And then, home video would come along and all of them would get a second, and in some cases, third, fourth, and fifth life. And I think that's the part that really matters because sure, theatrical box office tells one story, but VHS tells another. Some of these movies were huge right away. Some became cult favorites later. Some were disappointments that still became essential rental store artifacts, but regardless, once these movies hit video stores, they all had another chance to find their people. You could rent Predator because your friends hadn't seen it yet. You could grab The Lost Boys because some girls were coming over and you wanted to set the mood. You could discover The Monster Squad during a sleepover or rent RoboCop parents probably should have checked the rating first or maybe bring home Masters of the Universe because you loved the toys and were willing to negotiate with quality because of that. So, was the summer of 1987 one of the best for movies?

[00:23:42]Absolutely, but further than that, I think it has a real shot at being the greatest movie summer of all time. Maybe it doesn't have the plain mythology of one unstoppable title, but this wasn't just the summer of one movie. The summer of '87 lineup was a whole rental aisle come to life in just 4 months. It was Axel Foley and Al Capone, Dutch and the Predator, Murphy and Clarence Boddicker, Baby and Johnny, David and the vampires, Dalton's Bond, Mel Brooks playing with space toys, Stanley Kubrick taking us to war, Ritchie Valens chasing a dream, teenagers babysitting, surfing the North Shore, monster hunting from a treehouse, buying your popularity and maybe learning that summer school may not be the worst thing that can happen to you.

[00:24:26]That's why the summer of '87 still feels special, not because every movie was great, the shelves were fuller than ever and sometimes that's the real magic. So, now I want to kick it back to you guys.

[00:24:37]I want to know what your summer of '87 rental stack looks like. Are you guys grabbing Predator, RoboCop, and The Lost Boys right away? Are you making some room for Dirty Dancing, La Bamba, or The Untouchables? Are you defending Masters of the Universe with your whole chest?

[00:24:51]Or are you the brave soul walking to the counter with Jaws The Revenge and saying, "Trust me, dude. I I know what I'm doing. Let me know down in the comments, guys. Thank you so much for watching as always. I hope you enjoyed this video. I appreciate each and every one of you guys for watching. If you love talking about '80s and '90s movies and cult classics and hidden gems and forgotten favorites and all the films that just made the video store feel like a second home, make sure to like, subscribe, and stick around because here at Sunset Video, these shelves are always stocked, the neon open sign is always lit up, and movies never say die.

[00:25:26]>> This is Jack Burton in the Pork Chop Express, and I'm talking to whoever's listening out there.

[00:25:31]>> To win a war, you got to become war.

[00:25:35]>> I suppose we have to register you as a lethal weapon.

[00:25:38]>> You trying to say Jesus Christ can't [music] hit a curveball?