YES. Fantastic movie. Ray Wise. YES.
I read the book In Country and hated it.
“…One of the greatest stories ever told”? “…Close to perfect in its genre”? “Best 80s comedy ever!”?
Funny you should say that. In college, we used to say (tongue in cheek, of course) that Better Off Dead was the best piece of art ever produced by Western civilization. 
Lute’s suggestion of *Biloxi Blues *reminded me of Brighton Beach Memoirs, which came out a couple of years earlier and features the same character–Eugene, played by Jonathan Silverman in BBM– as a teenager growing up in Brooklyn.
Although that would have been interesting, too!
I was in my twenties during the eighties so I arbitrarily skipped all the choices after 1985. I also skipped any movie I didn’t see at the time of its release.
This list is sorely missing both My Tutor and Just One of the Guys.
Of the choices listed, my top two are definitely Back To the Future, and Heathers. And to my mind Rumble Fish is superior to The Outsiders, and has an excellent Stewart Copeland-penned score, to boot.
Thank you thank you THANK YOU for including Wish You Were Here! I adore that movie, mainly because of the super-cute Emily Lloyd, and it seems like you’re a fan too, because you also put In Country on the list. She’s fantastic in both movies.
Yes! Both of these movies provided me plenty of “material” back in the day.
Karate Kid is amazing!
Ha, this list was compiled by a female. I can remember how important My Tutor was for guys my age (also, Blame it on Rio, right?)
But, personally, I was a bit distracted by latent fantasies of Andrew McCarthy (dreamy) while I was making up the list. 