Film Posters of the 80s. The essential movies of the decade

The 1980s was an exceptionally fertile period for the cinema, which skilfully reflected the decade's diverse trends and the tastes of an audience obsessed with fashion, music and the latest high tech gadgetry - preferably in matt black. As the US regained confidence in itself during the Reagan years, Hollywood catered to the emerging yuppie market with movies that range from brat-pack capers such as St Elmo's Fire and The Breakfast Club to testosterone driven blockbusters like The Terminator and Die Hard, from the independent, low-budget films of the Coen Brothers to the revival of classic American film noir. The Brits chipped in with A Fish Called Wanda and Chariots of Fire and the Italians with the enchanting Cinema Paradiso, which was one of a number of foreign language films (Betty Blue, Ran, Kagamusha) that broke through into the international market. The wide variety of films on the screens of the burgeoning multiplexes was fully reflected in the poster art of the period, the cream of which features in this book.