Raging Bull, USA, 1980, 128 min. Starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Cathy Moriarty. Directed by Martin Scorsese. True story of the brutal life of boxer Jake LaMotta, his manager brother and his suffering wife. Scorsese's dynamic execution of the fight scenes brought a new dimension to the boxing picture, but of course, if the human drama hadn't matched up it wouldn't have been as impressive. Thankfully it matches just fine. De Niro truly becomes his character, including his famous weight gain to play him in later years.

Chariots Of Fire, UK, 1981, 123 min. Starring Ben Cross, Ian Charleson, Ian Holm, John Gielgud. Directed by Hugh Hudson. Triumphant true story of two runners in the 1924 Olympics, one motivated by religious faith, the other by a desire for personal validation. By avoiding both the overt sentiment and the chest-pounding booster-ism that overwhelm many sports-themed films, director Hudson gives us a realistic look at two men striving for excellence and achieving it.

Yol, Turkey, 1982, 114 min. Starring Tarik Akan, Serif Sezer. Directed by Serif Gören and Yilmaz Güney. Beautiful film that shines a light on the problems faced by the Kurdish people in Turkey through the individual stories of five prisoners released for a week to sort out their personal affairs. Co-director Gören made the film while co-director/writer Güney was in jail, and when the latter escaped to Switzerland, he took the materials with him to complete it.

Nostalghia, Italy-France-Russia, 1983, 125 min. Starring Oleg Yankovsky, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano, Patrizio Terreno. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. A Russian scholar traveling through Italy while researching the life of a composer from his native land rejects the attention of his beautiful translator after he meets a local man deemed insane by those around him and undertakes to fulfill a spiritual task the man requests of him. Tarkovsky's notoriously leisurely pace lends itself well to the title mental state, and it's easy to see the director's heart and soul painted across the screen in the story of a man longing for his homeland given that this was the first film Tarkovsky made outside of Russia during a self-imposed exile.

Amadeus, USA, 1984, 158 min. Starring F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge, Simon Callow. Directed by Milos Forman. Peter Shaffer adapted his own play for this speculative and sumptuous film about music, genius, and maddening jealousy. Abraham won an Oscar for his portrayal of a man in love with music who struggles between his hatred of the excesses of Mozart's life (as depicted here anyway) and his awe at the man's undeniable talent. Gorgeous design and even more gorgeous music.