I, Claudius.
What do I win?
As far as “80’s Greed & Excess” films go, I always liked Billionaire Boys Club; My fave Judd Nelson performance besides The Breakfast Club …
Oh, hells yes. I have a grainy VHS copy that I watched as recently as a few months ago and though it’s dated, it’s still puhlenty creepy.
“Five Minutes To Midnight” was a 5 episode made for tv movie awhile back that was really good. A cop goes to the grave of his dead wife and behind the tombstone finds an old police report for an unsolved murder…his own, which will happen in 5 days. At first he thinks its some messed up joke, but then things start happening that are in the report.
I highly recommend it.
Actually, my favorite Made for TV Movie is probably
Judge Dee and the Monastery Murders.
It’s an adaptation of one of Robert H. Van Gulik’s numerous “Judge Dee” mysteries, using an all-oriental cast (except, intriguingly, the guy who plays Dee himself – Khigh Dheigh, who played Wo Fat, the Red Chinese agent on Hawaii Five-O. I had no idea until recently that he wasn’t of oriental ancestry. But he’s really English/Egyptian’Sudanese, and his name was really Kenneth Dickerson. His stage name was essentially a version of his initials – Khigh Dhiegh - Biography - IMDb )
It’s an adaptation of van Gulik’s wonderful Judge Dee musteries, which were based on a historical person and were very clever and used characteristic Chinese mystery motifs. It was pretty clearly intended to be a pilot fior a series, and was surprisingly faithful to its source.
Unfortunately, the Powers That Be nixed it, whether because it was too expensive, or they thought there wasn;'t a market for a mystery series set in T’and dynasty China, I don’t know. They did agree to a modern-day mystery series starring Dheigh entitled Khan! *, which wasn’t a success (there were four episiodes – Khan! (TV Series 1975– ) - Episode list - IMDb )
There was a British Judge Dee sereies, which I’d dearly love to see, but I don’t know if it was ever even recorded. It only ran six episodes, and starred all-white actors, one of them future James Bond Timothy Dalton: "Judge Dee" A Place of Great Evil (TV Episode 1969) - IMDb
I heard rumors that Paul Veerhoeven was going to make a Judge Dee mvie, but, if so, he changed his mind.
I’ve long suspected that “Judge Dee” inspired “Judge Dredd” (Both are active judges who investigate as well as try crimes in a setting far removed from the present day and culture), but I’ve never encountered anything that confirms or denies this.
The TV movie was the work of the King of TV movies – Nicholas Meyer, who also had something to do with The Day After, The Night that Panicked America, and The Odyssey – all excellent TV movies (In addition to a host of good theatrical movies, and several good books).
This is true. The 2003 theatrical version, on the other hand, is crap, and should be avoided at all costs. It is not even to be watched out of idle curiosity.
Babylon 5: In The Beginning is excellent, explaining the backstory of the Earth-Minbari War as a primer for new viewers watching Babylon 5 when it was moved to the TNT cable channel. Similarly, Thirdspace was a fun sci-fi lovecraft-ish action piece, even if it does fail to fit in anywhere on the B5 timeline. 
The Girl Most Likely To penned by Joan Rivers and starring Stockard Channing was brilliant. Plus a great supporting cast of Ed Asner, Fred Grandy, Larry Wilcox, Jim Backus, Joe Flynn, Annette O’Toole, among others.
Then there was Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway which was good because of the change of role by Eve “Jan Brady” Plumb being a prostitute.
Among the made-for-tv movies that I’ve liked include:
Jennifer; (The Jennifer Estess Story)
The Count of Monte Cristo (Starring Richard Chamberlain)
The Missiles of October
The Day After
Gormenghast
Testament was originally a made-for-TV movie.
Winner! - Much better than my own suggestion. I had completely forgotten this - I have to dig through the old VHS tapes one of these days…
Go Ask Alice. So utterly bad it’s hilarious. This was one of those deep.weighty.issue. flicks that we were forced to watch in junior high school health class as part of our drug education. Even before I took the first toke off a joint, I knew this movie was a bunch of horse droppings. I think it did more to encourage drug-use among my peers than discourage it. Also, we were being made to watch it circa 1982, and not too many of my classmates identified with a pill-popping wannabe hippie from 1968.
Also, I recall another titanically BAD flick that I saw on a late, late movie. I’m guessing that it was made-for-TV because it had that look & feel of an early 70s TV movie (you know, trying to be very lurid & sensational, but very careful not to show anything explicit.) Anyway, I think it was called “the Baby” or just “Baby.” It was a thriller about a social worker with a client who was a grown man who still acted like a baby, and a dysfunctional family of hippie chicks who kept him infantilized. Really, really bizarre flick. Anybody else remember it?
The original “Salem’s Lot” TV movie/miniseries (I think it was shown over two nights) was pretty good, and fairly creepy. It was weird seeing David Soul (Ken Hutchinson, Starsky and Hutch) as somebody else.
I like “Murder Most Likely”, a Canadian tv film about an RCMP undercover officer who was accused of murdering his wife. Bonus points for starring Paul Gross, who made his fame playing a by-the-book Mountie in Due South, now starring as a corrupt cop and possible murderer (the film makes it pretty clear that the dude is a bad guy, just not clear if he’s a murderer too)
Sorry – i obtained this film on videotape so I could re-watch it, and it’s intolerably dull. Zenna Henderson deserves better.
Plus, it had William Shatner.
One of the few I remember was The Pride of Jesse Hallam. Johnny Cash played an illiterate Kentucky coal miner who moved to Cincinnati with his kids. Of course he decided to better himself and learn to read with the help of Brenda Vaccaro.
It was standard 1981 inspirational schlock from a story standpoint, but up until then I only knew Cash as a singer and was very impressed and moved by his performance. The movie was what turned me from a kid who kind of liked Cash’s music into an actual fan.
Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night
Starring Susan Dey from The Partridge Family. She played a young single mother, and was very disturbed.
I was a teenager and it freaked me out.
Hal Holbrook has been in some good tv movies, including:
Murder by Natural Causes (1979). With Katharine Ross, Richard Anderson and a young Barry Bostwick. Clever, twisty psychological thingy.
When Hell Was in Session (1979). Holbrook plays Jeremiah Denton, a Naval officer who in real life was prisoner of the North Vietnamese from 1965 to 1973, withstanding everything they did to him and helping other POWs survive.
That Certain Summer (1972). Holbrook plays a divorced man who’s realized he’s gay; his teenage son has a hard time with this, and they’re both presented sympathetically. Keep in mind, this was 1972, when homosexuality practically didn’t exist on tv.
Darren McGavin was in some great movies. The Night Stalker has been noted, but I also remember a couple made while we were in Viet Nam:
Tribes (1970). McGavin plays a Marine DI; Jan Michael-Vincent is a peace-loving, meditating draftee.
The Challenge (1970). The U.S. and an unnamed Asian country are close to all-out war; they agree to settle matters by each putting a representative soldier on an island, and letting them fight to the death. Darren McGavin vs. Mako. Social commentary about the futility of war. Kickass!
Oh Yeah, and because I like Westerns I liked Tom Selleck in Monte Walsh.