The 1980s were a great decade for science fiction movies in general, and this included some great sci-fi comedies. With Blade Runner, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and two classic Star Wars movies, the 1980s was filled with classic sci-fi movies that changed the genre forever. This change was reflected in some great comedies too, many of which spoofed the genre’s many tropes.
Movies like Back to the Future and Ghostbusters showed that sci-fi could be hilarious while still telling fascinating stories. Some of the best sci-fi comedies of the decade would still be just as compelling with their humor ripped out, and this is often what separates a good comedy from a great one. Many of the decade’s funniest sci-fi movies started long-running franchises, while others have a distinctly 1980s feel that gives them a nostalgic quality.
You are watching: 10 Best Sci-Fi Comedies Of The 1980s
Related 10 Best Sci-Fi Comedies Of The 1990s
Some of the best comedians of the era, including Eddie Murphy and Will Smith, focused on sci-fi in the 1990s, creating timeless genre classics.
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10 Weird Science (1985)
Oingo Boingo Is Just One Part Of The ’80s Charm Of John Hughes’ Teen Comedy
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Director John Hughes Release Date August 2, 1985 Cast Bill Paxton , Robert Downey Jr. , Ilan Mitchell-Smith , Anthony Michael Hall , Robert Rusler , Kelly LeBrock
Weird Science is one of the best John Hughes movies, although it’s a slightly different prospect to his other comedies.Weird Science is raunchier and more outrageous than the director’s other teen movies, but it works just as well. Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith star as two nerdy outcasts who manage to create their dream woman on their home computers, and she is brought to life by a power surge.
Weird Science
is raunchier and more outrageous than John Hughes’ other teen movies, but it works just as well
Weird Science starts as a teenage boy’s fantasy of the Frankenstein myth, but, as the title suggests, it gets much weirder. The artificial woman, Lisa, proves to be much harder to contain than the boys first anticipated, and their experiment goes haywire. Weird Science mostly appeals to teenage boys, but Kelly LeBrock’s performance provides some much-needed nuance. Between the upbeat theme song by Oingo Boingo and the quirky special effects, she’s able to highlight the drawbacks of fanciful teen daydreaming.
9 Short Circuit (1986)
Ally Sheedy Stars Alongside A Robotic E.T.
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Director John Badham Release Date May 9, 1986 Cast Fisher Stevens
Short Circuit is a movie about a military robot that gains sentience and escapes from its creators. While this may sound like the set-up for an action movie about a killer robot on a rampage, it’s actually a sweet comedy, with Number 5 learning about the world it has suddenly been born into. It has more in common with something like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial than The Terminator.
Short Circuit
has Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg playing second fiddle to a clunky, retrofuturistic robot.
Short Circuit has Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg playing second fiddle to a clunky, retrofuturistic robot. Even by the standards of the 1980s, Number 5 looks charmingly shoddy, as if it could have been cobbled together with spare parts. The fact that the design is a little rough around the edges fits the tone of the movie perfectly, however. Number 5 is a character to be loved, not feared.
8 Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1989)
Rick Moranis Shines As A Stressed-Out Scientist
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Director Joe Johnston Release Date June 23, 1989 Cast Rick Moranis , Matt Frewer , Marcia Strassman , Kristine Sutherland , Thomas Wilson Brown , Jared Rushton
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids is a great children’s comedy with a sci-fi premise. There have been plenty of sci-fi movies over the years about people either shrinking or growing to supernatural extremes. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids fits into this niche subgenre without taking anything too seriously. The scenes of the children struggling to survive in their ant-sized states are paired with scenes of the parents trying desperately to find them.
The scenes of the children struggling to survive in their ant-sized states are paired with scenes of the parents trying desperately to find them
Rick Moranis delivers a likable performance as the scientist whose experiment proves to be a little too effective, shrinking both his children and the neighbor’s kids. He has moments of blistering panic, but he also puts on a thin veil of calmness to defend his actions to everyone else, including his wife. None of the sequels could recapture the energy of the original, and this is because they couldn’t create a situation as funny for Moranis.
7 Repo Man (1984)
Emilio Estevez Stars In A Mystifying Sci-Fi Adventure
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Director Alex Cox Release Date March 20, 1984 Cast Harry Dean Stanton , Emilio Estevez , Tracey Walter , Olivia Barash , Sy Richardson , Susan Barnes
Repo Man has developed a cult following over the years, thanks to its headbanging punk rock soundtrack and its wildly original story. The plot follows a young rocker played by Emilio Estevez who gets a job as a repo man and stumbles onto a bizarre alien conspiracy. Racing across the desert is a tight-lipped stranger in a Chevrolet Malibu. Anyone who looks into the trunk of the car is immediately vaporized.
Repo Man
has developed a cult following over the years, thanks to its headbanging punk rock soundtrack and its wildly original story.
Repo Man never reveals exactly what it is that’s lying in the trunk of the Chevrolet, although there are theories being thrown around that it’s either a nuclear weapon of some kind or a species of extra-terrestrial so incredible that to look at them causes the human body to combust. Repo Man leaves the fine details open to interpretation. It’s a movie which is so enjoyable and entertaining throughout that its quirky mysteries only add to the fun.
6 Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)
Bill And Ted’s Slacker Savants Are Cultural Icons
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Director Stephen Herek Release Date February 17, 1989 Cast Keanu Reeves , Alex Winter , George Carlin , Terry Camilleri , Dan Shor , Tony Steedman
Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter make a great duo in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure as two dim-witted slackers who are more interested in their pipe dreams of becoming famous rock stars than they are in finishing their homework. Gifted with a time machine, they embark on an odyssey through the years to speak face-to-face with the subjects of their history paper. Predictably, everything goes wrong very quickly.
Bill and Ted
has a lot of fun history-based humor, especially when certain historical figures are brought into the 1980s.
Bill and Ted has a lot of fun history-based humor, especially when certain historical figures are brought into the 1980s. However, the comedic heart of Bill and Ted – and its two sequels – is the delightful chemistry between Reeves and Winter. They echo one another and feed off the energy they create together, making Bill and Ted extremely likable, despite their foolish schemes.
5 Back To The Future Part II (1989)
Back To The Future’s First Sequel Keeps The Fun Going
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Director Robert Zemeckis Release Date November 22, 1989 Cast Lea Thompson , Elisabeth Shue , Christopher Lloyd , Michael J. Fox , Thomas F. Wilson
Although it may be ever so slightly less popular than the first movie in the trilogy, Back to the Future Part II still packs in plenty of laughs. After the original movie sends Marty into the past to deal with his own creation, the sequel sends him into the future to sort out his legacy. This is a natural progression, and it means that Back to the Future Part II feels like an interesting and worthwhile sequel, which is relatively rare for comedy movies.
Part II
continues the good work of the first movie, with plenty of hilarious new ideas.
Back to the Future Part II‘s vision of the future has gained an extra layer of comedy now that 2015 has come and gone. Many of the movie’s tongue-in-cheek predictions ended up coming true, in one way or another. There may not be 19 Jaws movies, for example, but there are plenty of movie franchises which have outstayed their welcome. Back to the Future is certainly not one of them, as it wraps things up neatly after 1990’s Part III. Part II continues the good work of the first movie, with plenty of hilarious new ideas, like Biff’s antagonistic relationship with himself.
4 Spaceballs (1987)
Mel Brooks Sets His Satirical Sights On Sci-Fi
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Director Mel Brooks Release Date June 24, 1987 Cast John Candy , Daphne Zuniga , Mel Brooks , Rick Moranis , Bill Pullman
Mel Brooks satirized the horror genre with Young Frankenstein and Westerns with Blazing Saddles, and Spaceballs allows him to cast his eye over the sci-fi genre. Although it is mostly a spoof of the original Star Wars trilogy, Spaceballs also pokes fun at Star Trek, Dune and other genre staples. There’s even a scene featuring Alien star John Hurt in which he suffers a chestburster once more, before the baby xenomorph gets out a hat and a cane to sing a show tune.
Although it is mostly a spoof of the original
Star Wars
trilogy,
Spaceballs
also pokes fun at
Star Trek
,
Dune
and other genre staples.
Spaceballs has some of Brooks’ most memorable gags, and it’s an enjoyable treat for Star Wars fans and those with very little knowledge of the franchise. Rick Moranis is on top form as Lord Dark Helmet, the Darth Vader pastiche with a Napoleon complex and a visor that keeps getting in the way of his face. Decades later, a Spaceballs sequel is in development, presumably to poke fun at the new generation of Star Wars.
3 Brazil (1985)
Terry Gilliam Presents A Bizarre Dystopia
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Director Terry Gilliam Release Date December 18, 1985 Cast Jonathan Pryce , Robert De Niro , Katherine Helmond , Ian Holm , Bob Hoskins , Michael Palin , Ian Richardson , Peter Vaughan , Kim Greist
Terry Gilliam’s darkly comic fable is a cunning satire of corporate bureaucracy, suggesting that the ideals of true love and free will are being kept out of reach by endless amounts of red tape. Sam Lowry sees himself as a winged hero with the love of a good woman, but his daily life is beset by struggles with his air conditioning and the needlessly political posturing at his workplace.
Terry Gilliam’s darkly comic fable is a cunning satire of corporate bureaucracy.
Jonathan Pryce is perfectly cast as the hapless dreamer who finds himself reluctantly shoved to the forefront of an anti-authoritarian revolution. Robert De Niro plays his much bolder, louder associate, and there’s a notable transatlantic culture-clash that colors their dynamic. The entire world of Brazil is dripping in dystopian satire, with Sam as the observer to an image-obsessed culture.
2 Ghostbusters (1984)
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Director Ivan Reitman Release Date June 8, 1984 Cast Bill Murray , Dan Aykroyd , Sigourney Weaver , Harold Ramis , Ernie Hudson , Rick Moranis
Although the Ghostbusters franchise has now passed $1 billion at the box office with the sequels and the all-female reboot, the original remains unbeaten. Ghostbusters features several Saturday Night Live alums, and it runs much like one of the show’s sketches. It’s fast-paced, endlessly quotable and built around a brilliantly simple concept. Also, much like a sketch, Ghostbusters prioritizes humor over its structure and its themes.
Ghostbusters
features several
Saturday Night Live
alums, and it runs much like one of the show’s sketches.
Ghostbusters almost amounts to a story about friendship, or a romance, or a narrative about the forces of good overcoming evil, but none of these traditional structures quite fit. First and foremost, Ghostbusters works with a premise that brings the best out of its comedic performers. Bill Murray is given license to be snarky and cynical, which perfectly balances out the self-serious technobabble nonsense of his co-stars. Ghostbusters has a lot of humor, heart and even some surprisingly effective horror. It’s no wonder that it kick-started a franchise.
1 Back To The Future (1985)
Michael J. Fox And Christopher Lloyd Are The Perfect Duo
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Director Robert Zemeckis Release Date July 3, 1985 Cast Claudia Wells , Christopher Lloyd , James Tolkan , Thomas F. Wilson , Michael J. Fox , Wendie Jo Sperber , Crispin Glover , Marc McClure , Lea Thompson
Back to the Future isn’t just the best sci-fi comedy of the 1980s; it’s one of the funniest sci-fi comedies ever. The dynamic between Michael J. Fox and Chrisopher Lloyd is obviously note-perfect, but the real key to Back to the Future‘s success is that it presents an exciting and original sci-fi story that doesn’t rely on humor at all. The comedy is therefore reserved for building character.
Back to the Future
isn’t just the best sci-fi comedy of the 1980s; it’s one of the funniest sci-fi comedies ever.
Back to the Future is filled with great quotes, but these memorable lines only work so well because the rest of the script does enough work to earn them. Everything in Back to the Future is neatly in its place, and this keeps its time-travel plot in check. Many of the movie’s biggest moments are foreshadowed earlier on, like Marty’s love of playing guitar, so the payoff is immensely satisfying. Back to the Future is a stylish, feel-good movie with endless rewatch value.
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