23 Best Movies & Shows Released in 1988 (Page 2)

Find the best movies and show to watch from the year 1988. These handpicked recommendations are highly-rated by viewers and critics.

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16. Stand and Deliver, 1988

	
Education isn’t always a guarantee, especially in less privileged areas that are underfunded, overlooked, and underprioritized, in the belief that these kids wouldn’t amount to much in the end. That being said, sometimes, what changes that fate is having a teacher that believed in his students and encouraged them to learn more than what they were expected. Stand and Deliver is a dramatization of the real life Jaime Escalante, who transformed a math program in an east LA high school to the point where his entire class ace California’s calculus test. The film definitely takes some dramatic liberties, but it does capture a sense of his quiet determination, the personality that pushed him to believe in and connect with students differently. While Escalante’s program eventually ended due to admin changes and staff in-fighting, Stand and Deliver is a reminder of the importance of nurturing ganas, or desire, in the classroom.Genre: Drama
Actor: Andy Garcia, Betty Carvalho, Bodie Olmos, Carmen Argenziano, Edward James Olmos, Eliot, Estelle Harris, Graham Galloway, Ingrid Oliu, Irene Olga López, Karla Montana, Lou Diamond Phillips, Lydia Nicole, Manuel Benitez, Mark Phelan, Rosanna DeSoto, Vanessa Marquez, Virginia Paris, Will Gotay
Director: Ramón Menéndez
Rating: PG

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17. A Short Film About Love, 1988

Leave it to a master filmmaker like Krzysztof Kieślowski—known for the Three Colours Trilogy, The Double Life of Veronique, and the miniseries Dekalog (whose sixth episode was expanded into this film)—to take a premise as banal as that of a peeping tom and to turn it into something mysterious and poignant. There are definitely still parts to this story that may not hold up to scrutiny, like its belief in a romantic/spiritual connection that rewards the immature man for barging into a woman's life. In different hands, this subject matter would just be creepy. In Kieślowski's, the loneliness of these characters takes full shape.

As young postal clerk Tomek (Olaf Lubaszenko) quickly admits his spying to the older and more jaded Magda (Grażyna Szapołowska), the two are drawn to each other with a combination of fear, pity, and lust. And what Kieślowski does—with the help of cinematographer Witold Adamek's stunning, intimate frames; and his cast's subdued sorrow—is move the film away from concerns about consent and control, and to tell a story about what it means to truly be seen and acknowledged by another person. In an existence made up of meaningless routine and temporary relationships, seeing someone else at their most vulnerable feels like lightning.

Genre: Drama, Romance

Actor: Artur Barciś, Grażyna Szapołowska, Olaf Lubaszenko, Piotr Machalica, Stanisław Gawlik, Stefania Iwińska

Director: Krzysztof Kieślowski

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18. Zerograd, 1988

	
When visiting a new town, it’s easy to expect that there will be some differences from the place you’ve come from, but the strange small town of Zerograd is downright bizarre. From naked secretaries to cakes with that look exactly like his face, Zerograd is a boggling trip, with writer-director Karen Shakhnazarov parodying the ways the Soviet Union then clung to their distortions of reality, even as it crumbles, but it also eerily echoes the way governments around the world have manipulated their people’s concept of reality all for the sake of their respective states. Zerograd’s bizarre episodes don’t seem to go anywhere, but that’s sort of expected, especially with the world still having to deal with the loss of truth globally.Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Aleksei Zharkov, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Evgeniy Evstigneev, Leonid Filatov, Oleg Basilashvili, Pyotr Shcherbakov, Vladimir Menshov, Yuriy Sherstnyov
Director: Karen Shakhnazarov

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19. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, 1988

	
The only Kundera film adaptation frankly hasn’t disproven that the source novel is unfilmable, but The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a pretty decent attempt. While Kundera’s meditations aren’t tackled in full depth, director Philip Kaufman manages to retain enough of the novel’s images to rein in the unwieldy plot, such as Sabina with the mirror, Tereza’s nightmare of naked women, their photography around Sabina’s studio and the black-and-white moment of Prague Spring, where editor Walter Murch adeptly inserts Tereza and Tomas within the historical footage. These images, along with the excellent cast, keep the wistful feeling that haunts Kundera’s novel.Genre: Drama, Romance
Actor: Anne Lonnberg, Bruce Myers, Clovis Cornillac, Consuelo De Haviland, Daniel Day-Lewis, Daniel Olbrychski, Derek de Lint, Donald Moffat, Erland Josephson, Hana Maria Pravda, Jacques Ciron, Jean-Claude Bouillon, Juliette Binoche, László Szabó, Lena Olin, Leon Lissek, Pascale Kalensky, Pavel Landovský, Pavel Slabý, Philip Kaufman, Stellan Skarsgård, Tomasz Borkowy, Vladimír Valenta
Director: Philip Kaufman
Rating: R

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20. Dangerous Liaisons (1988)

	
The Dangerous Liaisons ensemble is impressively stacked, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a two-hander helmed by Glenn Close, who plays the manipulative Marquise de Merteuil, and John Malkovich, who plays the ravenous playboy Vicomte de Valmont. The two are arresting on screen, especially when they’re together concocting plans to desecrate other lovers, but the same cannot be said about their co-stars. Uma Thurman and Keanu Reeves, both painfully green, are hard to take seriously because of their missteps and accents, while Michelle Piefer gives a decent if unmemorable performance. What really makes the film worth the watch, however, is its thorny, unapologetic take on love, sex, power, and gender. The verbal spars are just as thrilling as the racy scenes, even though one in particular (which was cut from theatrical release) might not be so well-received now. The film is a visual treat too, as frilly and indulgent as its pre-revolution Parisian setting.Genre: Drama, Romance
Actor: Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Keanu Reeves, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mildred Natwick, Swoosie Kurtz, Uma Thurman
Director: Stephen Frears
Rating: R

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21. Camille Claudel, 1988

	
We remember the idea of the tortured artist, in part due to many works depicting life’s sorrows, but also due to the fact plenty of the greats fit this trope well. Camille Claudel is one such tortured artist, but her anguish has not led her to artistic acclaim. Instead, Isabelle Adjani’s take on the sculptor contemplates the ways her genius has gone unrecognized, in part due to her bout of insanity, but in part due to the maddening ways her art has been cut short by those that claim to love her. While it does take nearly three hours, and, like in real life, the film focuses more on her relationship with Rodin than her own art, Camille Claudel nonetheless remains a fascinating character study of a woman that just wanted to make art on her own terms.Genre: Drama, History, Romance
Actor: Alain Cuny, Aurelle Doazan, Danièle Lebrun, Gérard Baume, Gérard Depardieu, Hester Wilcox, Isabelle Adjani, Jean-Pierre Sentier, Katrine Boorman, Laurent Grévill, Madeleine Marie, Madeleine Robinson, Maxime Leroux, Philippe Clévenot, Roch Leibovici, Roger Planchon
Director: Bruno Nuytten
Rating: R

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22. As Tears Go By, 1988

	
Before Wong Kar Wai made his signature romantic dramas, he first made his directorial debut As Tears Go By, a film that wouldn’t be out of place in the crime and action flicks that characterized 1980s cinema. There are moments that feel a tad derivative, such as the use of Take My Breath Away from 1986’s Top Gun, and the gangster love triangle reminiscent of Martin Scorcese’s Mean Streets, but Wong’s style starts to peek through with his use of color and light, and of course, the distinctive blurred action that transforms movement into lines. It’s not as sleek as Wong’s better known works, but As Tears Go By is still a good film to watch, marking Wong as one of the biggest names in the then-emerging Hong Kong New Wave.Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Actor: Alex Man, Alex Man Chi-Leung, Andy Lau, Andy Lau Tak-Wah, Benz Kong To-Hoi, Chan Chi-Fai, Cheung Wing-Cheung, Chow Gam-Kong, Chun Kwai-Bo, Fei Pak, Ho Wing-Cheung, Hui Fan, Jacky Cheung, Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau, Kam Shan, Lam Kau, Lee Chi-Git, Ma Yuk-Sing, Maggie Cheung, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, Pak Yan, Ronald Wong, Ronald Wong Ban, William Chang Suk-Ping, Wong Aau, Wong Chi-Wai
Director: Wong Kar-wai

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23. A Fish Called Wanda, 1988

	
As long as you don’t take it too seriously and see it for the silly ‘80s comedy that it is, then A Fish Called Wanda comes as a pleasantly hilarious way to pass the time. The heist doesn’t make much sense but the farce the characters put on is as delightfully silly as they come. There are traces of Cleese’s Monty Python sketch humor here, as you’ll see in the puns and the wild physical gags he makes, and Curtis proves that comedy is her true calling. But some of the best parts of the movie are when the British characters rib with the Americans—it’s a classic feud, one you won’t help but laugh at, regardless of where you’re coming from.Genre: Comedy, Crime
Actor: Al Hunter Ashton, Andrew MacLachlan, Cynthia Cleese, David Simeon, Geoffrey Palmer, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jeremy Child, John Cleese, Kate Lansbury, Ken Campbell, Kevin Kline, Llewellyn Rees, Maria Aitken, Mark Elwes, Michael Palin, Michael Percival, Neville Phillips, Pamela Miles, Patricia Hayes, Peter Jonfield, Robert Putt, Roger Brierley, Roger Hume, Roland MacLeod, Sharon Marino, Stephen Fry, Tom Georgeson
Director: Charles Crichton
Rating: R

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