'80s

Question 1

Once holding the world record for longest film ever made, a 1987 release with a 87-hour runtime was titled “The Cure for” what condition?

Answer 1

Insomnia

Question 2

Filmed in 1984 but not released until 1987, “Ghost Fever” starred this man, TV’s George Jefferson.

Answer 2

Sherman Hemsley

Question 3

Rod Ansell, the hunter and backwoodsman who died in a police shootout south of Darwin in 1999, is best known for inspiring the title character of what 1986 movie?

Answer 3

Crocodile Dundee

Question 4

Steve Guttenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon, Timothy Daly, Paul Reiser, and Ellen Barkin—mostly show biz unknowns at the time—all appeared in what 1982 Baltimore-based film comedy?

Answer 4

Diner

Question 5

While investigating drug trafficking on the beaches of Los Angeles, a newspaper reporter is approached by a bigamous airline executive with an offer to kill the executive and relieve him of his terminal cancer in exchange for $50,000. The reporter comes to learn that this is part of a fraud scheme, and also that the executive is involved in the drug trafficking in coordination with the LAPD. This roughly outlines the plot of what film?

Answer 5

Fletch

Question 6

What 1984 movie is the only film in the Internet Movie Database whose user score is always listed out of 11 stars, not 10?

Answer 6

This Is Spinal Tap

Question 7

In Spies Like Us, arguably the most popular film set in the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, nuclear war is averted by two bumbling spies played by which actors?

Answer 7

Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase

Question 8

“Wonderboy,” an inanimate object created as a result of a lightning strike, plays a central role in what 1984 film (and the 1952 novel on which it was based)?

Answer 8

The Natural

Question 9

Richard Bohringer, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, and Alan Howard play the title characters in what 1989 film, one of the last mainstream films before the creation of the NC-17 classification to be assigned an X rating by the MPAA (which was not accepted, as it was released theatrically without a rating) ?

Answer 9

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife & Her Lover

Question 10

Male film characters who get to be female for a short time, and from this brief experience believe themselves able to understand and sympathize with women and represent their perspective to the world, have been said by critics to display a syndrome named after the title character in what 1982 movie?

Answer 10

Tootsie

Question 11

In 1989 Matt Dillon starred as this “Cowboy”, searching for prescription medications.

Answer 11

Drugstore

Question 12

Name the 1989 cult classic film whose climactic scene introduced North American audiences to the unreleased-at-the-time Super Mario Bros. 3. Its title refers not to the Mario character Kamek but to the the movie’s main character and his preternatural Tommy-like video game prowess.

Answer 12

The Wizard

Question 13

The title characters in the current Netflix television series Grace and Frankie previously appeared together as two-thirds of a trio of stars in what 1980 comedy film?

Answer 13

9 To 5

Question 14

What is the shared given name of the character from a 1988 anime film who is overwhelmed by his psychic powers and obsession with Akira, battles his friend Kaneda, kills his girlfriend, and threatens to destroy Neo-Tokyo, and the title character of a 1989 horror film subtitled “The Iron Man” who transforms into a pile of walking metal, kills his girlfriend, and threatens to destroy regular Tokyo?

Answer 14

Tetsuo

Question 15

His role as drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, making him the first African-American male to win an Oscar in a supporting role.

Answer 15

Louis Gossett Jr.

Question 16

Jimmy Woods goes from arcade to arcade, hustling up enough money to enter a major video game competition in California. This is the plot line for what cult 1989 film, responsible for unveiling Super Mario Bros. 3 to American audiences?

Answer 16

The Wizard

Question 17

In what film, the third-highest grossing movie of 1985 in the U.S., were the husband-and-wife Soviet antagonists played by a Swede and a Dane? Quite understandably, the Soviet Union did not enjoy how it was portrayed and banned the movie.

Answer 17

Rocky IV

Question 18

The 1982 Costa-Gavras film Missing, which examines the claim that American diplomats were complicit in the disappearance of American journalist Charles Horman in the aftermath of a 1973 coup, was banned by the government of what Latin American country in which Horman disappeared?

Answer 18

Chile

Question 19

Long before serving more than three years in jail for his illegal lobbying activities in one of the biggest scandals of the Bush 43 administration, Jack Abramoff produced Red Scorpion. The 1989 film featured a Soviet soldier (naturally, played by Dolph Lundgren) who defects to join anti-communist African freedom fighters. Ironically, the film was shot in what is now what present-day country, where the socialist forces of SWAPO were then struggling for independence against the rule of Apartheid-era South Africa, who supported the film’s production?

Answer 19

Namibia

Question 20

The block of Stuyvesant Avenue in Brooklyn’s Bed-Stuy neighborhood between Quincy Street and Lexington Avenue has an alternate honorific name celebrating what 1989 film, which was shot in its entirety on that block during the previous summer?

Answer 20

Do The Right Thing

Question 21

The Israeli actor Topol, who portrayed Tevye in the 1971 film version of Fiddler on the Roof, also played Dr. Zarkov in what other film, whose main hero at one point only had fourteen hours to save the earth?

Answer 21

Flash Gordon

Question 22

The title of what 1986 Walter Hill-directed film is taken from the location where, according to legend, Mississippi Delta Bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for mastery of the blues guitar?

Answer 22

Crossroads

Question 23

The title of the video game Doom comes from a line in what 1986 film, when Tom Cruise’s character Vincent Lauria responds to a question about what’s in his long velvet-covered case with that word (“Doom”).

Answer 23

The Color of Money

Question 24

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is largely credited for the reported increase of 65% in profits for what candy?

Answer 24

Reese’s Pieces

Question 25

An Isaac Bashevis Singer short story subtitled “The Yeshiva Boy” was turned into what 1983 movie musical (the directorial debut of the film’s star)?

Answer 25

Yentl

Question 26

Starring John Heard and Daniel Stern, this 1984 sci-fi horror film concerns humanoid monsters living in NYC’s sewers

Answer 26

C.H.U.D.

Question 27

Who directed the 1983 film Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, a master’s thesis project at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts that won a Student Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences?

Answer 27

Spike Lee