In 1986, there were some absolute classics released that still get talked about and rewatched to this day, among them Stand by Me, The Fly, Aliens, and Blue Velvet. It’s probably unnecessary to go on about them, and all the other usual suspects, because if something has held up after 40 years, and people are still interested in 2026, then it’s a sign that, as a movie, it probably did something right. Actually, it probably did lots of things right.
Then there are the more obscure movies from 1986, some of them cult classics and remembered by a few people, and then if you go one step further down, you find the properly under-seen ones that very few people remember. Such films include the ones mentioned below, with some of them being quite good, and perhaps worthy of being remembered to a greater extent, and others being more understandably forgotten as time has gone on.
8
‘Final Take: The Golden Age of Movies’
Final Take: The Golden Age of Movies is a love letter to Japanese cinema, specifically the 1930s, referred to by the title as a golden age in the same way that there’s also a Golden Age of Hollywood around the same time. It’s about a young woman who’s plucked from obscurity and finds herself surprisingly popular, as an actress, to the point where she seems like she could take the place of a more established actress who’s wrapped up in scandal.
You’re unsurprisingly best off knowing about classic Japanese cinema to get the most out of a movie like this, but it also works pretty well as a behind-the-scenes drama that’s nostalgic and pleasant at times, but a little more serious at other points. Final Take: The Golden Age of Movies isn’t particularly well-remembered or anything, and probably deserves to be a bit more well-known than it is.
7
‘Wise Guys’
There was a book called Wiseguy that ended up being adapted for the screen as Goodfellas, and also a series of the same name (though not related) that aired from 1987 to 1990. Neither of these should be confused with Wise Guys, though, which is surprisingly obscure, considering the famous people involved, but, then again, maybe not surprisingly obscure because it’s also not great.
It’s a comedic gangster movie with more focus on comedy over crime, and a pretty infrequent rate of jokes that actually hit, which makes it a somewhat frustrating watch. It’s not abysmal, though, and sure, there aren’t any other farcical gangster movies that star the likes of Danny DeVito, Joe Piscopo, Harvey Keitel, and Dan Hedaya, all the while being directed by Brian De Palma. For that, there is inevitably a certain novelty value to this film’s sheer existence.
6
‘Sweet Liberty’
After M*A*S*H, Alan Alda was not in the short-lived AfterMASH, but he did direct a few movies of his own, after having directed episodes of M*A*S*H. Granted, his best directorial effort, The Four Seasons, came out when M*A*S*H was still on the air, but the more obscure Sweet Liberty was his first directorial effort post-M*A*S*H. It’s quite obscure, even though it has an impressive cast that includes Michael Caine, Michelle Pfeiffer, Bob Hoskins, and… *checks notes*…uh, Lillian Gish? As in the silent-era actress who was in The Birth of a Nation. Wild.
It’s one of those movies about making movies, and lots of things going wrong, with all the chaos played for laughs. Unfortunately, Sweet Liberty is not entirely funny, but it has its moments and is something of a curiosity, at least, a little like the aforementioned Wise Guys.
5
‘Gonza the Spearman’
With a title like Gonza the Spearman, you might expect this to be something of an action or martial arts/samurai movie, but that’s not really the case. Action is minimal, because this is more of a period drama about the titular character being engaged to marry into one family, but then also pledging to marry into another, and then when this becomes widely known, drama/conflict ensues.
It ends up being very patiently-paced and low-key, albeit certainly getting grim and heavy when it wants to be. Gonza the Spearman was a later film directed by Masahiro Shinoda, who was probably best known for his Japanese New Wave movies from the 1960s. Sure, none of them were blockbusters, but the likes of Pale Flower (1964) and Double Suicide (1969) are minor classics, or at least a bit more well-known within Japanese cinema.
4
‘Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops’
There are people to whom the Doraemon movies are childhood classics, or otherwise very nostalgic, so if you’re in that camp, apologies for the suggestion here that one of the movies in the series is forgotten. It’s more in the overall scheme of things that the series is obscure, or at least an oddity outside Japan, and then even if you’re aware of the films, maybe individual ones get overshadowed because the series is so massive.
Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops plays around with some pretty out-there sci-fi concepts for a kid’s movie (including a mirror world/parallel dimension sort of thing), and it’s all quite creative.
Doraemon goes beyond just movies, but there’s been one per year, on average (just about) for nearly half a century now, so Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops is just one of many. It plays around with some pretty out-there sci-fi concepts for a kid’s movie (including a mirror world/parallel dimension sort of thing), and it’s all quite creative, really feeling like it was written and put together by a group of kids who just so happen to be pretty darn good animators.
3
‘Millionaires’ Express’
Directed by and starring Sammo Hung, who’s likely a familiar name to anyone who’s more than a casual fan of martial arts movies, Millionaires’ Express isn’t the sort of thing that’s particularly popular unless you’re, again, quite into martial arts movies. This is one of Sammo Hung’s best movies, though, and if Jackie Chan had appeared in it in either a supporting or just a cameo role (he often did one or the other in various other Sammo Hung movies), then Millionaires’ Express might well be a little more famous.
As it stands, though, it’s a fun and kind of chaotic martial arts comedy that involves a whole bunch of unusual and sometimes shady characters clashing on board a train, and then further clashes happening once that train reaches a small town. Millionaires’ Express also feels like a bit of a Western on top of an action/comedy movie, and it’s pretty entertaining stuff, especially in its final act, which is where most of the best action sequences are saved for.
2
‘Dead End Drive-In’
As a dystopian movie, Dead End Drive-In might not be perfect, but it scores more than a few points as far as sheer creativity is concerned. It’s also about exploitation movies, kind of, all the while sort of being an exploitation/grindhouse movie, or at least a B-movie. True to its title, it’s about a drive-in cinema with a secret, and how two people get trapped there, all the while struggling to break out.
That keeps things just vague enough, because what Dead End Drive-In really ends up going for is entirely unique, and equal parts surprising and baffling. And, though it’s old, it’s also a bit niche, even by the standards of cult movies, so spoiling it still feels possible, and something worth frowning upon. If you’re after a particularly weird Australian movie (which is saying a lot, since most Australian movies are already a bit weird) that’ll take you for a ride, that’s what you get here.
1
‘Parting Glances’
10 years on from Parting Glances, Steve Buscemi starred in another dramedy that’s a good deal more obscure than it deserves to be, called Trees Lounge, which he directed. He was only an actor, though, in Parting Glances, playing a young man with AIDS, while the other two main characters are a gay couple, and one of them still had complicated feelings about Buscemi’s character.
It’s surprising, maybe, that Parting Glances is a dramedy instead of being a direct drama, since the subject matter is undeniably heavy, and even heavier in 1986, considering that was back when an AIDS diagnosis was fatal. And then there’s further sadness regarding Parting Glances, because its director, Bill Sherwood, died from AIDS-related complications just a few years after Parting Glances was released, and it was his sole feature film, as director. But the film itself has endured well, being noteworthy today for very much capturing the era of – and struggles surrounding – the AIDS, pandemic, all the while giving Buscemi something of a breakout starring role.
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