1981 Movies

To make this list a movie had to be made in 1981.  Obviously many movies made in 1980 earned box office dollars in 1981.  On the other side many movies made in 1981 made money in 1942 and later.   This page will looks at over 135 movies made in 1981.  The movies are listed in two massive tables that lets you rank the movies from Best to Worst in six different sortable columns of information.

Our UMR Top 50 of 1981

1981 Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort 1981 Movies by movie titles and movie trailers
  • Sort 1981 Movies by the stars or in some cases the director of the movie.
  • Sort 1981 Movies by domestic adjusted box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort 1981 Movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each 1981 Movies received and how many Oscar® wins each 1981 Movies received.
  • Sort 1981 Movies by Ultimate Movie Ranking Score (UMR).  Our UMR score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
 
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17 thoughts on “1981 Movies”

  1. saw 41including 19 of top 20 and 12 of second 20. 10s and favorites: raiders, chariots,arthur. reds also a ten. hidden gems: eyewitness, lion of the desert. lots of great performances dunaway/mommie dearest, newman and field/absence of malice, Hepburn and fonda/on golden pond, hurt and turner/body heat, prochnow/das boot. Gibson/ road warrior and galipoli. lots of horror and comedy. amazing year. I am ecstatic you are continuing with annual pages. I hope soon you have 96 % or more in database for everyone like you had for midler. yea UMR, yea cogerson. thanks bob , flora, taylor.

    Reply

    1. Hey bob cox….41 is pretty stellar…..and 95% of the Top 20 is even more stellar. Glad to see Raiders on your favorites list. Reds and Chariots of Fire are ok….but have never been favorites of mine. I like your list of performances. I would include James Caan (I know not one of your favorites) in Thief. Glad you like that we are going to keep doing the yearly pages. With this page and the recently added 1982 page…we now have 63 years completed. We are off to a good start…lol. Good stuff.

      Reply

  2. HI BRUCE

    If I recall correctly in 1981 we were still being quoted just rentals of movies and not their grosses. I can remember for example an actual rental figure of $25 million being mentioned at one stage of the release of Newman’s Absence of Malice but information outlets in those days couldn’t be depended on for accuracy even as far as they went with provision of movie stats.

    Indeed I can’t really remember when the systems converted to giving us the full domestic grosses for movies. When the situation did change it was not made clear in my experience that the process had altered as movies earnings lists had anyway usually referred to even rentals as “grosses” and for a long time I in my naivety thought that audiences had increased dramatically and movies generally were now doubling their earnings as of course the gross was usually twice or more the rental!

    Anyway thanks to you we now have comprehensive estimates of the FULL domestic grosses for films released in 1981 and other years [the pre 1980 film market in particular being very difficult to get consistent grosses estimates for from other sources].

    I have seen 6 of the Top 10 highest grossing movies in your chart, my favourites being Newman’s Absence of Malice followed by little Dudley’s Arthur. Overall though your 1981 review deserves a “Vote Up” in my opinion.

    Reply

    1. Hey Bob
      1. Thanks for checking out our 1981 movie ranking page.
      2. As for rentals versus reported gross…..most of these movies are using the box office number used at Box Office Mojo.
      3. My Variety yearly issues ran out in 1980…..I looked at buying some individual Variety magazines…..but they are running more than I am willing to pay for it.
      4. As for the timeline as to when “rentals” went away…I am thinking by the mid to late 1980s.
      5. Once the USA today started reporting the weekend box office every Monday and Tuesday….the word “rentals” started to disappear.
      6. I like your favorites….I must have watched Arthur a 100 times growing up…..back then John G. was just the old guy from Arthur….took awhile to realize he was considered to be of the same oak as Sir Larry Olive.
      Good feedback.

      Reply

  3. Chariots of Fire might have stolen the Best Picture Oscar from Raiders of the Lost Ark…but in the all-important UMR Movie Of The Year…..Raiders has that title! Ah….life is good.

    Reply

    1. Hey Taylor….glad you like this page. Pretty much decided to do a yearly page for every year. They generally do well in views….and I personally like looking at the pages. So we need to do 1982 to 2010….as we have 1929 to 1981 done as well as 2011 to 2018. Thanks for stopping by.

      Reply

  5. There are some numerical problems where the ranking numbers are duplicated in various places staring around number 40.

    I have seen 11 movies from 1981. Since the number is so low, I will mention all of them.

    The HIGHEST Rated film I have seen is On Golden Pond.

    The highest rated film I have NOT seen is Raiders of the Lost Ark. Sorry.

    The LOWEST rated film I have seen is Pennies From Heaven.

    Three of them are in the top 10:
    On Golden Pond
    Arthur
    Absence of Malice

    Four more of them are in the top 20:
    For Your Eyes Only
    The Fox and The Hound
    Atlantic City
    Clash of the Titans

    Two More are From the Top 30:
    The Cannon Ball Run
    Das Boot

    The Final Two I Have Seen:
    S.O.B.
    Pennies From Heaven

    Favourite 1981 Movies:
    On Golden Pond
    Das Boot
    Arthur
    Absence of Malice
    For Your Eyes Only
    Pennies From Heaven

    Reply

    1. Hey Flora
      1. Those “ranking issues” have been fixed….sometimes it takes a few updates to fix that column correctly.
      2. Thanks for listing your 11 1981 movies seen. I have seen 75 of these movies. This is the beginning of primetime movie watching for me.
      3. I was 14, in 1981….and started going to movies by myself….me and my friends would sneak into R rated movies….this was a good thing for movies like Body Heat….but a bad thing for movies like Halloween 2.
      4. Halloween 2 scared me so bad, I could not sleep for a week.
      5. No Raiders of the Lost Ark? Say it say so …..lol.
      6. Of your 11….I have seen them all….with Absence of Malice, Das Boot and For Your Eyes Only being in my Top 10.
      7. The rest of my Top 10 would include…Raiders (of course), Escape From New York, Thief, Road Warrior, Excalibur, Heavy Metal and Loophole.
      Thanks for sharing your thoughts on these 1981 movies….your feedback is greatly appreciated.

      Reply

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