Rewinding The ’80s
By John Malahy
Running Press Adult
ISBN-139780762489664
$25.99

Today’s first entry in The 2025 PopCult Gift Guide is our second recommendation from the book division of Turner Classic Movies, and it’s the perfect gift for the film buff, child of the 80s, or Gen X pop culture maven on your holiday shopping list.

Rewinding The ’80s: Cinema Under the Influence of Music Videos, Action Stars, and a Cold War, is an in-depth look at the ultimate collaborative art form during the “Me Decade.” This was when trash was flashy, the mainstream embraced the cheesy and the movie industry was fueled by excess and cocaine.

Readers can take a trip back to their favorite video store with this in-depth journey through the highs and lows of ’​80s cinema—with profiles of hundreds of films—and how Hollywood studios around the globe reflected a period of cultural change.

The movies were flying blind in 1980. “New Hollywood” was over and the era of auteur-driven, personal films that had defined moviemaking since the late ‘60s came to a symbolic end with Heaven’s Gate (1980), replaced by a new world of multiplex blockbusters supported by massive marketing campaigns.

Beyond the high-school comedies and hardbody action films came a new wave of cinematic excitement—an era defined by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Purple Rain, When Harry Met Sally, E.T., and Top Gun, each of which are now classics for a new generation of nostalgic movie lovers.

The decade saw works that uniquely captured an era of cultural and technological change, from new indie auteurs to the highs and lows of animation, an emergent LGBTQ+ cinema, the last days of the Cold War, and the explosive impact of MTV.

With wit and authority, author John Malahy provides fresh insight about the films, filmmakers, and stars who illuminated each of the exciting new facets of Hollywood throughout the decade.

Illustrated with more than 200 full-color photos, Rewinding the ’80s is a lively, intelligent, and immersive look at an indelible moment in modern history.

You can order this from any bookseller, or from the publisher, who has a handy list of other online retailers, who might have the book cheaper, on their info page.