The 10 biggest box office hits of the 1980s

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The 1980s was the heyday of fantasy, comedy, and teen romance. It gave us heroes like Indiana Jones and the Ghostbusters, and a little alien named E.T.

Long before streaming or internet videos, moviegoing was an experience, one fans would pay top dollar for, filling cinemas and grossing hundreds of millions of dollars for filmmakers.

There are a few ways to count success, but going by Box Office Mojo and ScreenRant, here are the top 10 (domestic) box office hits of the 1980s, ranked.

10 Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom – $179 million

The best Indiana Jones film (don’t @ us), comes at the bottom of the top 10 heap, which still isn’t bad considering the film made nearly $180 million in the U.S. and the franchise dominated the entire decade.

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9 Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade – $197 million

As we said: Indy dominated the box office in the ‘80s. The prequel/threequel of the series, The Last Crusade, brought in nearly $200 million. That’s what you get when you combine the star powers of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.

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8 The Empire Strikes Back – $209 million

Again the best in the series is shunted toward the bottom of the top 10, but the second Star Wars film, aka Episode V, won big in 1980.

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7 Back To The Future – $210 million

The film may largely take place in 1955, but Back to the Future scored big with audiences in 1985 when it was released. Still a fashion icon, Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly (his name literally has “fly” in it) tears up his 1950s town and sets the franchise up well for years to come.

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6 Raiders Of The Lost Ark – $212 million

Hey again, Indiana. The original Indiana Jones film blasted past the competition in 1981, winning nine Academy Awards and forever defining the action-adventure-comedy genre.

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