The 1980s: The Best Time for Childrens’ Films?

The children’s films of the 1980s were incredible because of how atmospheric, dark and intriguing they were. Films like “The Secret of NIMH” have stood the test of time for being mature and treating children with respect.

One aspect of cinema that I feel is easily dismissed among adults are films meant for either children or family audiences. Too often I see families go to the most mediocre of films because “kids will watch anything.” But just because they can, doesn’t mean they should. Since the creation of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” back in 1937, there have been many great films that families have loved for generations. However, the children’s films of the 1980s really stand out to me because of how mature, beautiful, ambitious and straight-up-scary they were. 

Unlike today’s PG-rated films like “Zootopia” or “The Lego Movie,” back in the 1980s PG actually meant something and there were many PG-rated or G-rated films that pushed the envelope for how crazy they could be. Films like “The Goonies,” “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “Labyrinth” and “The Secret of NIMH” all were films that both I and my parents grew up with and they both scared and enchanted us at the same time. While I do love lots of today’s children’s films, with “Raya and The Last Dragon” and “The Mitchells Vs. The Machines” being two of my favorite films of the year right now, there is value in going back to this time period and seeing what made the 1980s so fascinating.

First of all, before the 1980s, there was a massive movement in the American film industry called “The New Hollywood.” From 1967 to 1982, the studio system was pretty much dead and the current people in charge of these studios decided to let a bunch of new filmmakers make whatever the hell they wanted. And they did. And it was awesome.

Filmmakers like Steven Spielberg (“Jaws” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”), Martin Scorsese (“Mean Streets” and “Taxi Driver”), Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather” films and “Apocalypse Now”), George Lucas (“American Graffiti” and “Star Wars”) and Bob Fosse (“Cabaret” and “All That Jazz”) were making incredible films that showed things in mainstream Hollywood that earlier generations would have crucified them for. Things like sex, violence, rock music, political commentary and corruption were no longer hinted at or referenced in film, they were shown. 

However, by the early 1980s a series of flops and a gradual understanding of how to run studios resulted in the studios taking control and becoming the bosses of Hollywood once again. While many New Hollywood filmmakers were still making films, some of them had to turn to making films that were more commercially viable. However, since these were still gifted auteurs, they made incredible films with a level of realism of the 1970s while also being very mainstream and profitable.

Not only were New Hollywood directors making these children's films, but weird newcomers were also coming up. Hardcore horror filmmakers like Joe Dante (“Phiranna”) and Tobe Hooper (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”) made more mainstream films like “Gremlins” and “Poltergeist” respectively. An animator named Tim Burton left Disney to make his own films like “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” and “Beetlejuice.” And a young filmmaker named Robert Zemeckis started making hit after hit films like the “Back to the Future” trilogy and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit.”

Steven Spielberg was incredibly active in the great children's films of the 1980s by directing films like “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial” and producing films like “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “Poltergeist” and “The Goonies.”

Another element that led to 1980s children’s films being dark as hell was the fact that Disney, the leader in children’s films, was at an all-time low. After Walt Disney’s death back in 1966, Disney started to make less money and, by the 1980s, had completely lost its touch in the market that it basically created. In 1985, “The Black Cauldron” was a massive flop and almost killed Disney. When released it was beaten at the box office by “The Care Bears Movie” which had already been in theaters for weeks. 

With children’s animation seemingly dead, a new group of animators took over the market with several of them being ex-Disney animators. The most famous of these was Don Bluth who made a series of hit animated films that were not only beloved by kids but also had a lot of scary imagery. While most Disney films also pushed the envelope dating back to “Snow White,” Bluth’s films did it in a more aggressive way. 

Bluth once said that you could show kids practically anything and get away with it as long as it had a happy ending. Whatever you think of his philosophy, he’s kind of right as many of his films are considered to be classics. These films are famous for having scary or tear-jerking moments like the scary cats in “An American Tail” or “The Secret of NIMH,” hellfire in “All Dogs Go To Heaven” as well as the death of Littlefoot’s mother in “The Land Before Time,” which is considered to be one of the saddest moments in children’s films. However, at the end of each film, you feel so good because the ending is just so happy. 

Filmmakers like Don Bluth were incredibly popular for making daring animated films like “The Land Before Time.”

So many of these scary images and mature ideas were getting to kids mainly because the rating system back then was much more basic. Back in the early 1980s there were only three main ratings (G, PG and R) and with the PG standing for Parental Guidance, many families saw these films thinking they’d be okay as long as a parent was there. Which meant that films like “Poltergeist,” “E.T. The Extraterrestrial,” “Gremlins,” “The Indiana Jones” films and “The Goonies” all made it to families. Even G-rated films were pretty edgy for the time with all of Don Bluth’s films being rated G.

However, after a while many people thought that PG was given too much leeway and so the Motion Picture Association, which rates all films released to wide audiences, created PG-13 back in 1984. However, they were very hesitant to use it until the late 1980s. 

While many of these films are dark, I have a theory for why they are so popular. If you’ve ever seen “It’s A Wonderful Life,” you’d know that it gets pretty dark. I mean, it is about Jimmy Stewart trying to kill himself and then being shown how terrible the world would be had he not been born. But after all the hardship and dark imagery, aren't you so happy when he doesn’t go through with it? Isn’t it uplifting when he runs through town shouting “Merry Christmas” to everybody? Don’t you just feel so alive when all of his friends show up for Christmas and begin singing?

Because the endings are so happy and the characters are so engaging, all of this dark imagery seemed worth it and made the journey worth it. 

The filmmakers of the time also had a more cynical view of the 1980s which translated well into their work. Under Reagan, it seemed that everything was getting better and we’d moved beyond the 70s’ issues of Watergate and Vietnam but, in an era I like to call “The Second Gilded Age,” this was all fantasy as the War on Drugs, income inequality, the foreclosure of American farms and the resurgence of the Cold War made the 1980s less than ideal for many. 

The films of the 1980s were trying to show us that this idyllic view was a fantasy which meant that many of the characters were poor or dissatisfied or were trying to escape their average life. Maybe that’s why they have such a rewatchability to them, because there is an underlying theme that deeply connects with us, especially those that grew up during the period they were made.

Films like “The Goonies” showed kids characters that were relatable because they were poor people going on a journey to save their home and stick it to those rich yuppies that thrived in the 1980s.

So what happened to these kinds of films? Well, Disney managed to come back in a big way thanks to hit films like “The Great Mouse Detective” and “The Little Mermaid,” which triggered the great Disney Renaissance of the 1990s. While the films of this period did have their dark moments, it wasn’t quite like Bluth’s work. A major hit studio called Pixar was becoming popular with computer-generated animated films like “Toy Story” and animation seemed to be moving in a different direction than the films of the 1980s.

PG-13 also took over the ratings system with major box office hits like “Batman (1989)” and “Jurassic Park” all carrying the PG-13 rating. Nowadays, PG is really applied to children’s films with very few of them even warranting Parental Guidance. What about “Frozen” or “Inside Out” requires a parent? I mean, they have adult themes within them but they’re handled on the same level as G rated films of the 80s. While some films that are rated PG, like “Coraline” and “Paranorman,” warrant this rating, they are very few.

Many of the filmmakers who made these dark children’s films also moved on to other things. Steven Spielberg decided to make more serious films like “The Color Purple,” “Empire of the Sun” and “Schindler's List.” He also made crowd pleasers like “Hook”and “Jurassic Park,” but he wanted to stretch the boundaries of his craft. After producing films like “Indiana Jones,” “Labyrinth” and “The Land Before Time,” George Lucas returned to directing by making the “Star Wars” prequel trilogy and many others like Richard Donner, Robert Zemeckis, Joe Dante and Tim Burton followed suit by continuing to make other kinds of films in their own, unique styles. 

The kids of the 1980s also grew up which meant that the darkness and cynicism of 80s childrens’ films caught up to the adult films of the 1990s. Films like “Fight Club,” “Clerks,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Boyz N The Hood,” “Election,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Clueless,” “Scream,” “House Party” and “Do The Right Thing” all seemed to capture the feelings and insecurities of Gen. X in the same way that 80s children’s films did.

In some ways, the children’s films of the 1980s are superior because they have such a unique style. However, the 1980s didn’t have Pixar films which pioneered computer animation. They didn’t have intricately made stop motion films like “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “Wallace and Gromit.” Anime from Japan wouldn’t be popular until the end of the 80s and weird ideas for films like “Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse,” “The Lego Movie,” and “Rango” were unthinkable back in the day. Now are some of the most beloved childrens’ films of the past decade that people of all ages love.

So, while the 1980s were a golden age for childrens’ films, there is still plenty to love right now.

With new, groundbreaking children’ films like “Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse,” the state of children’ media is very secure.