73 articles
1969 (film)
1969 (film) is a 1988 American drama directed by Ernest Thompson, starring Robert Downey Jr., Kiefer Sutherland, Bruce Dern, and Winona Ryder; two friends come of age during the Vietnam War era.
A Short Film About Killing
A Short Film About Killing (Krótki film o zabijaniu) is a 1988 Polish film directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski, depicting a drifter sentenced to execution after murdering a taxi driver in Warsaw.
All About Ah-Long (阿郎的故事)
All About Ah-Long (阿郎的故事, also 又见阿郎) is a 1989 Hong Kong melodrama directed by Johnnie To for Cinema City, starring Chow Yun-fat as a racer raising his son alone; it won him the 1990 Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor.
An Autumn's Tale (秋天的童话)
An Autumn's Tale (秋天的童话, Chau tin dik tung wa) is a 1987 Hong Kong romantic drama by Mabel Cheung, starring Chow Yun-fat and Cherie Chung in New York; second of her Migration Trilogy and Best Picture winner.
Babette's Feast
Babette's Feast (Babettes gæstebud) is Gabriel Axel's 1987 Danish film adapted from Karen Blixen's 1950 story, about a Parisian chef who cooks a lavish dinner for pious sisters in Jutland; it won the 1988 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, the first for Denmark.
Banana Paradise (香蕉天堂)
Banana Paradise (香蕉天堂) is a 1989 Taiwanese drama directed by Wang Toon, second of his Modern Taiwan Trilogy, about two soldiers retreating to Taiwan in 1949 under fake identities, White Terror persecution, and a family of no blood relation; Chang Shih won the Golden Horse Best Supporting Actor.
Bright Lights, Big City (film)
Bright Lights, Big City is a 1988 American drama film directed by James Bridges and starring Michael J. Fox, adapted by Jay McInerney from his 1984 novel.
Business as Usual
Business as Usual is a 1987 British social realist drama directed by Lezli-An Barrett, starring Glenda Jackson, based on the 1983 Audrey White sexual harassment case; it won the 1988 Créteil Grand Prix.
Castaway (1986 film)
Castaway (1986) is a Nicolas Roeg drama starring Oliver Reed and Amanda Donohoe, adapted from Lucy Irvine's memoir of a year on Tuin Island in the Torres Strait; distinct from the 2000 Tom Hanks film Cast Away.
Children of a Lesser God (film)
Children of a Lesser God (1986), Randa Haines's Paramount drama adapted from Mark Medoff's Broadway play, stars William Hurt and Marlee Matlin as a hearing teacher and a deaf woman; Matlin's Oscar made her the first Deaf Academy Award winner.
Chilsu and Mansu (칠수와 만수)
Chilsu and Mansu (칠수와 만수) is Park Kwang-su's 1988 debut feature, a Korean New Wave landmark about two billboard painters in Seoul whose rooftop outburst is mistaken for a suicide attempt or protest, starring Ahn Sung-ki, Park Joong-hoon, and Bae Jong-ok.
Coming Out (1989 film)
Coming Out (1989), Heiner Carow's DEFA drama, the first and only East German feature film on homosexuality, premiered the night the Berlin Wall fell and won the 1990 Silver Bear and Teddy Award.
Cry Freedom
Cry Freedom (1987) is Richard Attenborough's biographical drama about Steve Biko and Donald Woods, starring Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline; three Oscar nominations, banned in South Africa in 1988.
Damnation (1988 film)
Damnation (Kárhozat) is a 1987–1988 black-and-white Hungarian drama by Béla Tarr, co-written with László Krasznahorkai, about Karrer's doomed affair with a Titanik bar singer; it began Tarr's long-take Black Series style.
Dangerous Liaisons
Dangerous Liaisons (1988), Stephen Frears film adapted by Christopher Hampton from his play and Laclos's 1782 novel, starring Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer; won 3 of 7 Oscars including Adapted Screenplay.
Distant Voices, Still Lives
Distant Voices, Still Lives is a 1988 British film in which director Terence Davies reconstructs working-class family life in wartime and postwar Liverpool through fragmented memories, winning the Fipresci Prize at Cannes.
Evil Angels (film)
Evil Angels, released in the US as A Cry in the Dark, is Fred Schepisi's 1988 drama starring Meryl Streep and Sam Neill about the Azaria Chamberlain dingo case; Streep won Cannes Best Actress 1989.
Full Moon in New York
Full Moon in New York (人在紐約, Ren zai Niu Yue) is a 1989 Stanley Kwan Hong Kong drama starring Sylvia Chang, Maggie Cheung, and Siqin Gaowa as three Chinese women from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the mainland who meet in New York; it won eight Golden Horse Awards including Best Feature Film.
Gagman (개그맨)
Gagman (개그맨) is Lee Myung-se's 1988 debut feature, a Korean New Wave comedy-drama starring Ahn Sung-ki, Hwang Shin-hye, and Bae Chang-ho about a delusional cabaret comedian; shot in 21 days, released June 1989, later reevaluated as a cult classic.
Her Vengeance (血玫瑰)
Her Vengeance (血玫瑰, Blood Rose) is a 1988 Hong Kong Category III rape-and-revenge thriller directed by Lam Nai-Choi, starring Pauline Wong and Lam Ching-Ying, a remake of The Kiss of Death (1973), released on Blu-ray in 2025.
King of the Children (孩子王)
King of the Children (孩子王, Hai zi wang) is Chen Kaige's 1987 Xi'an Film Studio drama, adapted from Ah Cheng's novella, about a sent-down youth teaching in Yunnan during the Cultural Revolution who abandons rote textbook instruction and is dismissed; it competed at Cannes 1988.
Kuro Arirang (구로 아리랑)
Kuro Arirang (구로아리랑, Guro Arirang) is a 1989 South Korean drama, Park Jong-won's debut film adapted from Lee Mun-yeol's short story, depicting women sewing workers in Seoul's Guro Industrial Complex; the first commercial labor film after 1987 democratization, censored with about 20 scenes cut.
La Bamba (film)
La Bamba (1987) is Luis Valdez's Columbia Pictures biographical drama of Ritchie Valens, starring Lou Diamond Phillips and Esai Morales, with Los Lobos performing the music; it grossed $54 million and entered the National Film Registry in 2017.
La Ley del Deseo
La ley del deseo (Law of Desire) is Pedro Almodóvar's 1987 Spanish melodrama-thriller, the first production of El Deseo, starring Eusebio Poncela, Carmen Maura, and Antonio Banderas; it premiered at Berlin's Panorama, won a Teddy Award, and was Almodóvar's first film released abroad.
Landscape in the Mist
Landscape in the Mist (Τοπίο στην Ομίχλη, Topio stin Omichi; Paysage dans le brouillard) is Theo Angelopoulos's 1988 Greek-French-Italian drama about two children searching for their father in Germany; it won the Venice Silver Lion and the 1989 European Film Award for Best Film.
Less than Zero (film)
Less than Zero is a 1987 American drama film directed by Marek Kanievska, loosely based on Bret Easton Ellis's novel, starring Andrew McCarthy and Robert Downey Jr.
Lola (1989 film)
Lola is a 1989 Mexican-Spanish drama film directed by María Novaro, about a young single mother who supports her seven-year-old daughter as a street vendor in Mexico City.
Longtime Companion
Longtime Companion is a 1990 American drama directed by Norman René, written by Craig Lucas, following gay friends in New York and Fire Island from 1981 to 1989 during the AIDS crisis; the first wide-release AIDS feature, it won Sundance's Audience Award and earned Bruce Davison an Oscar nomination.
Manon des Sources
Manon des Sources (Manon of the Spring), 1986 French-Italian drama by Claude Berri, second part of the Jean de Florette diptych adapted from Pagnol's L'Eau des collines, starring Montand, Auteuil, and Béart; shepherdess Manon avenges her father by blocking the village spring.
New York Stories
New York Stories is a 1989 Touchstone anthology film of three New York-set shorts by Martin Scorsese (Life Lessons), Francis Ford Coppola (Life Without Zoe), and Woody Allen (Oedipus Wrecks), released March 1989.