80s horror everyone has forgotten
The decade is famous for slashers and Carpenter / Cronenberg / Argento. These are the films from the same period that didn't quite stick — body horror oddities, Italian giallo's last gasp, Eastern European chillers, video-store mainstays nobody talks about now.
Wolfman vs. Godzilla
foreign gem3am cultplayful
The Thing
body horrordreadparanoid
Evil Dead II
3am cultplayfulunhinged
The Fly
body horrordreadgut punch
Godzilla vs. Biollante
foreign gem3am cultneon soaked
An American Werewolf in London
bittersweetneon soakedplayful
Possession
body horrordreadgut punch
Videodrome
body horrormindfucksurreal
The Return of Godzilla
foreign gemdreadepic
Santa Sangre
gut punchsurrealtender
Poltergeist
slow burndread
Dead Ringers
body horrorcerebralgut punch
Angst
dreadparanoidraw
Fright Night
3am cultneon soakedplayful
Day of the Dead
paranoiddreadraw
The Dead Zone
dreadslow burncerebral
Manhunter
neon soakedparanoidraw
Re-Animator
body horrorplayfulunhinged
Frankenweenie
neon soakedoutsiderplayful
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
body horrorsurrealunhinged
Down to the Cellar
dreadslow burnsurreal
Little Shop of Horrors
bittersweetplayfulsexy
Dressed to Kill
mindfuckneon soakedparanoid
The Hitcher
gut punchparanoidraw
Devilman - Volume 1: The Birth
body horrordreadneon soaked
Creepshow
3am cultneon soakedplayful
The Hidden
body horrorneon soakedparanoid
Hellraiser
body horrordreadsurreal
Christine
bittersweetdreadraw
Virile Games
3am cultbody horrorsurreal
Other canon collections
Comfort-cult — the ones you rewatch forever
Deep-cut rewatchables — off the beaten path, on endless repeat
Japanese New Wave — the essentials
Giallo — Italy's blood-red mystery genre
Korean cinema essentials beyond Parasite
Post-Soviet cinema — Russia & Eastern Europe after 1991
The Romanian New Wave
Essential anime that isn't Studio Ghibli
Slow cinema — the long-take canon
70s American paranoia — the post-Watergate canon
First features by directors who later mattered
Documentaries that hold up as cinema
Scandinavian noir beyond the Stieg Larsson franchises
Iranian new wave — Kiarostami, Farhadi, and the rest
Argentine cinema — beyond Wild Tales
British kitchen-sink and what it became
First features directed by cinematographers
German New Wave — Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders, Schlöndorff
Hong Kong action — Woo, Lam, Tsui, To
Spaghetti westerns — Leone, Corbucci, Sollima, and the second tier
Mumblecore — the American indie movement nobody named
Czech New Wave — Forman, Chytilová, Menzel, before they fled
French New Wave — Godard, Truffaut, Varda, Rivette, Rohmer
Blaxploitation — Shaft, Pam Grier, and the 70s Black cinema boom
Dogme 95 — von Trier, Vinterberg, and the vow of chastity
Australian New Wave — Weir, Miller, Armstrong, Campion
African cinema — Sembène, Sissako, Mambéty, and beyond
Italian neorealism — the rubble and the real
Commedia all'italiana — Italy laughing at itself
German expressionism — shadows, angles, madness
Taiwanese New Cinema — Hou, Yang, Tsai, and the island's quiet revolution
New Queer Cinema — Haynes, Araki, Van Sant, and the 90s insurgency
Wuxia and martial arts — flying swords, hidden masters