The Top 10 Most Provocative Movies of the 80s 

Coming out in 1980, Cruising is a very controversial movie and at the time it was released it had gay rights activists up in arms. Al Pacino plays the role of an undercover cop who goes deep undercover in the New York gay scene to try and find and stop a serial killer who is targeting gay men and dumping their body parts in the Hudson River.

Granted, this is not for the faint of heart and it has not aged all that well, but back in 1980, this was a very groundbreaking movie with the story that it was telling.

Body Double is without a doubt the movie that made Melanie Griffith a star! In this movie we have a guy who is just doing a normal job, house sitting at a place in Hollywood. Only, this job takes a turn as he witnesses a murder and then ends up pulled into the world of the porn industry with a porn star called Holly Body!

This is a fun thriller and while it is certainly very provocative and erotic, the performances of Craig Wasson, Deborah Shelton, and of course Melanie Griffith as Holly Body are so much fun and pretty exciting too!

You cannot have a list of the top 10 provocative movies of the 80s list without the steamy hotness that is 9 ½ Weeks, starring Mickey Rourke (who was quite the looker in the 80s) and Kim Basinger. This is the story of two people, Elizabeth and John, who end up in a very hot and kind of messed up relationship.

John pretty much takes over Elizabeth’s life and the various sexual and criminal activities they get up to take their relationship to the next level. Both actors do such a great job here and while the movie is certainly “hot”, you kind of want Elizabeth to wake up and just get out of this mess of a relationship. You have to wonder if we would have had stuff like 50 Shades of Grey without 9 ½ Weeks!

You know, you have to wonder when you break it down, how many of the best thrillers revolve around two people having an affair and trying to bump off a spouse? That is basically what is going on here with 1981’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. We get amazing performances here from Jack Nicholson and Jessica Lange. What is fun about Jessica Lange in this movie is that if you watch American Horror Story, it’s like she taps into the character she plays here, Cora. This is the story about a drifter and woman who starts an affair and conspires to kill her husband! It is a stylish thriller that actually still holds up to this day.

Here we have Al Pacino once again making an appearance on this top 10 provocative thrillers of the 80s list. Once again, he is playing a New York City detective trying to solve the case of a series of men who have been murdered in the same way, after placing an ad in the singles section of the newspaper.

While this movie is classed as an “Al Pacino movie,” you have to give a ton of credit to Ellen Barkin who plays the role of Hellen Cruger (if it were Cruger with a K, she could have been related to Freddy!) as she keeps you guessing the whole time you watch the movie. This one here is a solid thriller that has some awesome twists and turns. 

Here we have another very early 80s movie in Dressed To Kill. Writer and director Brian De Palma had a string of great thrillers to his name in the 80s and 90s and this love letter to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is excellent! One thing that is pretty interesting about Dressed To Kill is that one of the “heroes,” or protagonists if you prefer, is a prostitute! Nancy Allen is a sex worker who sees a New York housewife murdered, and she teams up with the son of the victim to try and catch the killer. This is pretty intense stuff and while the movie certainly stands on its own as a great thriller, the nods and references to Psycho are clever and fun.

Many agree that 1980’s American Gigolo is the movie that skyrocketed Richard Gere’s career and it is hard to disagree with that. While there are certainly other movies on this top 10 provocative movies of the 80s list that have sex workers in them, American Gigolo has a man playing that role.

Richard Gere plays the role of a gigolo who ends up getting into a “situation” with a high-ranking politician’s wife and is then accused of murder! If you watch this movie, it is easy to see why so many ladies (and men) fell for Richard Gere after this!

Blue Velvet from 1986 is a real David Lynch classic. It has his trademark weird vibe all over it, and the adjectives “fun” and “thrilling” don’t do the movie justice! It also has a stacked cast with Kyle MacLachlan, the stunning Isabelle Rossellini, Laura Dern, and the craziness that is Dennis Hopper’s Frank.

In this movie, we have a young man who comes across a severed ear in a field. Now this odd and gross situation ends up with him getting to meet a beautiful lounge singer and also dealing with a criminal conspiracy involving Dennis Hopper’s Frank, who has kidnapped the son of that lounge singer and is trying to force her to be a sex slave! If you like David Lynch, you like Blue Velvet!

1981’s Body Heat is a fantastic erotic thriller. The movie was the break out role for Kathleen Turner where she plays the role of Matty Walker. There are many who consider Matty Walker to be one of, if not the greatest, femme-fatale of all time and the likes of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct truly do owe a lot to her performance here.

William Hurt plays the role of a less-than-great lawyer who starts a very hot affair with Matty. Turns out that Matty’s husband is super rich, but he is always away and ignores her a lot. Matty wants him gone and wants his money. This leads to her getting her new lover boy in on the conspiracy to kill him! At the time, this was groundbreaking stuff and it is so easy to see why Kathleen Turner became a huge star on the back of this!

When this list of the top 10 provocative movies of the 80s was being put together, I was certain that I was going to be number one! This is just an incredible erotic thriller that sees Glenn Close’s Alex have an affair with Michael Douglas’s Dan and becomes obsessed with him.

The lengths she goes to in order to try and keep him with her are insane! This is the movie that gave us the term “bunny boiler” to describe a woman who is crazily obsessed with a man. Alex is truly one of the greatest characters that Glenn Close has ever played and she keeps you on edge the whole time. Now, before you rush off to watch this, be warned, the theatrical ending kind of sucks, you want to make sure you see the original ending as it is so much better!