Stallone’s ‘80s Movies: Ranked!

We’ve talked about Sylvester Stallone’s career path compared to that of his rival Arnold Schwarzenegger in the past, but now it is time to look at the movies in greater detail. Sly was especially fascinating during the ‘80s when he was at the peak of his stardom and box office impact, for it was also a period when he frequently reached the summit of his well-documented hubris.

It was a time when Stallone and the Austrian Oak were duking it out to become Hollywood’s biggest action hero, but they were very different beasts in many respects. While Arnie had few pretensions beyond wanting to become a huge superstar, Stallone always had designs on being a major player. Not just starring in movies, but producing, writing, directing and, as was often the case in the ‘80s, generally throwing his weight around on a project. 

That’s what makes Stallone so interesting to me and I’ve been revisiting his movies from the period over the last month. While Arnie had his fair share of duds, he calmly moved onto the next. Sly, on the other hand, was rarely shy about exerting his clout to a degree that bordered on megalomania, which made his failures seem more like dramatic falls from grace. Let’s take a look at his ‘80s movies and how they rank.

12. Rhinestone (1984)

Let’s face it: Stallone can’t do comedy. He had some decent moments in Demolition Man, but then he also gave us the “hunka-chunka” as a euphemism for sex. I think this is because while Arnie goes for tongue-in-cheek, Sly goes for heart-on-sleeve. That can translate to over-earnestness at times, which in turn leads to cringe.

Speaking of cringe, Rhinestone is hands-down Stallone’s worst film of the ‘80s or any other decade. It makes Oscar or Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot both seem like something from Noel Coward in comparison. Throughout his career, Sly has had a history of making poor decisions that have affected his credibility, and this tops the lot - he turned down Romancing the Stone and walked away from Beverly Hills Cop to star in this savagely misguided country-inflected modern update of Pygmalion. 

Stallone is excruciating in this movie, making it difficult to enjoy even on a so-bad-it’s-good level. He plays a meat-headed NYC cabbie who Dolly Parton bets she can turn into a country ‘n’ western star. He desperately seems to be going for a screwball energy, but it just comes across as embarrassingly manic. The calamity of his performance throws shade on everything else, including Parton’s otherwise assured and very likeable turn. She was the only person who came out of this project with any dignity intact, while Stallone deservedly received the first of his 11 Golden Raspberry awards to date.

11. Cobra (1986)

After the huge box office successes of Rambo II and Rocky IV made up for the disaster of Rhinestone, Stallone was back on top and had credit in the bank to do whatever he wanted again. He signed a deal with Cannon, the studio that dominated B-movie action in the ‘80s with the likes of Chuck Norris and Michael Dudikoff (American Ninja). Headed by Israeli duo Menahem Golan and Yolan Globus, the next target was mainstream blockbusters and securing the signature of an A-list superstar like Sly was key to their goal. It didn’t quite work out the way they hoped.

As screenwriter and star, Stallone set his sights on creating a third franchise for himself. Nominally adapting Paula Gosling’s novel Fair Game, he also took inspiration from the Dirty Harry series and re-worked ideas from his script rewrites on Beverly Hills Cop. Here, he becomes Marion “Cobra” Cobretti, a maverick L.A. cop taking on a deadly cult.

Throughout the movie, there is a definite sense that this is very much Stallone’s idea of cool. Cobra drives a vintage automobile (Stallone’s own car), wears aviators, constantly chews on a matchstick, and spits out mean one-liners like: “You’re a disease and I’m the cure.” In the film’s oddest sequence, our hero snips off a piece of cold pizza with scissors and eats it while cleaning his gun. 

Instead of creating a character we want to root for, Stallone makes a crucial mistake. He’s clearly aiming to become the ultimate bad-ass but, unlike Rocky Balboa or John Rambo, Cobretti has no recognisably human traits. It just comes across like a bloated vanity project, which wouldn’t be so bad if it was any fun. Unfortunately it’s not – it may reek of ‘80s action cheese more than any of his other movies from the decade, but it is also humourless, ultra-violent, mean-spirited, and very dull.

10. Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

In many ways Rambo: First Blood Part II is the defining ‘80s action movie. Aliens and The Terminator have certainly aged better, but George P. Cosmatos’s pumped-up sequel sums up the kind of flag-waving, gung-ho right-wing jingoism that inflected many Hollywood action flicks like Red Dawn, The Delta Force, and Top Gun.

Rambo II is also the most elaborately over-the-top sequel ever made. Whereas John Rambo (Stallone) was a troubled Vietnam veteran in the first movie who only accidentally kills one person, he goes full one-man-army. As the rivalry between Sly and Arnie escalated, Stallone put himself through a tortuous exercise regime to match the Austrian Oak’s physique. Here, he has that distinctive walnuts-in-a-condom look as he straps on the bandana and goes on a mission to rescue POWs from the Viet Cong, mowing down scores of hapless enemies along the way. Sources vary, but Rambo notches up a body count of around 75 on his kill-crazy rampage.

For all the blood-thirsty mayhem, the overkill makes Rambo II pretty boring and it isn’t much better than the average Chuck Norris flick. It fully deserved its Worst Picture Razzie - Stallone also won Worst Actor, Worst Screenplay (with James Cameron, who distanced himself from the film), and his kid brother Frank Stallone took Worst Original Song for “Peace in Our Life.” All that didn’t stop it from becoming a massive global blockbuster, raking in over $300 million against its $25 million budget. 

9. Over the Top (1987)

I have a lot of nostalgia for Over the Top. I remember the next day at school after it premiered on telly in the UK – suddenly, everyone was an arm wrestler, and you weren’t allowed to win without pulling your best Stallone face, cupping your palm over your opponent’s thumb, and shouting out: “Over the top!”

It followed Cobra, which wasn’t quite the massive success that Cannon had hoped. Yet they doubled down on Stallone by paying him a record-breaking $12 million to play Lincoln Hawk in their arm wrestling movie.

Described by one critic as “the definitive film about arm-wrestling truck drivers fighting for custody of their children,” Over the Top is a mixed bag. Much of it is a slightly maudlin family drama as Stallone’s Hawk tries to bond with his estranged kid when his ex-wife becomes terminally ill. Sly is doing his earnest good guy thing here, and it might have worked better if the dramatic stuff wasn’t overwhelmed by the raucous arm wrestling scenes.

They are pretty cheesy but so totally (yes) over-the-top that we can’t wait to get back to the action during all the heart-to-hearts between Hawk and his boy. On the plus side, there is also extra nostalgia from the wall-to-wall rock soundtrack, with music from Frank Stallone and another hit single for Kenny Loggins with “Meet Me Halfway,” with Loggins on a high after contributing “Danger Zone” to the Top Gun soundtrack. A film that lives better in the memory.

8. Rambo III (1988)

After Over the Top flopped and Arnie threatened to tighten his grip on the action hero crown with Predator, Stallone needed another smash hit to keep up. So… how about another Rambo movie? It made sense after the staggering global box office success of Rambo: First Blood Part II, and the studio execs were all-in. With a budget of around $63 million, it was the most expensive movie ever made at the time.

The story picks up with Rambo hanging out in a Buddhist temple where he is approached by his old superior Trautman (Richard Crenna) once again with a proposition: the US military wants their number-one killing machine to aid Afghan rebels in their proxy war against the Russians. Trautman has a bit more to do this time, captured by the villainous Ruskies as Rambo befriends a local kid, makes some speeches, and blows a lot of stuff up. 

Stallone also made amends for the previous Rambo II fiasco where Arnie stole his thunder with a higher body count in Commando. This time, Rambo notches up 158 recorded kills, earning it an entry in the Guinness Book of Records. The insane death and destruction of this and the previous movie would later be spoofed in Hot Shots! Part Deux… remember the startled chicken?

One thing you can definitely say about Rambo III is that all the money is all up there on the screen and it looks spectacular, especially with all the real helicopters flying around. Nowadays we’re so used to CGI and there is something so viscerally exciting about the way ‘80s action flicks performed real stunts with real vehicles, real stuntmen, and real explosions. 

The Cold War context was mis-timed, however, as the conflict was beginning to wind down and audiences were tiring about narratives fixated on the battle between American goodies and wicked Russian baddies. As a result, it performed relatively poorly at the domestic box office on its way to a global haul of $189 million - still a significant return on the investment, but underwhelming compared to the previous movie.

7. Rocky IV (1985)

I’m going to make a bold statement: Rocky IV is never quite as good as you remember, even if you only watched it again last night. I’ve watched it several times over the years and I’m always left feeling a little disappointed because it never gives me the same buzz it did when I was nine, which is the perfect age to watch Rocky IV.

You know the score. Rocky heads out to Moscow to avenge the death of Apollo Creed at the hands of juiced-up Soviet killing machine Ivan Drago. Cue the montages – the second half of the film is basically one long montage, with some montages even featuring moments from previous montages. It’s crazy. And there is also the oddity of Uncle Paulie’s robot, a much-loved addition that, bizarrely, Stallone later felt necessary to chop from a later Director’s Cut – a strange decision considering he originally put the bot in the movie because it had helped the treatment of his autistic son.

Rocky IV has its moments – Apollo’s tragic arc is completed and Dolph Lundgren is an effective villain – but it is barely a film in any real sense after Creed’s death. It also highlights what terrible parents the Balboas are. Their son was always something of an afterthought, but here they leave him alone on Christmas Day as they jet out to Moscow so Rocky can face the guy who bludgeoned poor Uncle Apollo to death in the ring.

Stallone gets flak for the movie by people who dismiss it as “Rocky defeats Communism.” That is a little unfair. Stallone’s final speech may be simplistic and overly optimistic, but he deserves some credit for anticipating the winds of change that would soon sweep through Europe. A few years later, Mikhail Gorbachev echoed the Italian Stallion’s words as he sought to de-escalate Cold War tensions.

6. Escape to Victory (1981)

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Escape to Victory as much as the next footy-mad Brit. But here’s the thing: It’s simply not a very good movie.

Loosely based on the notorious and now debunked “Death Match” between Dynamo Kiev and German troops in Nazi-occupied Ukraine during World War II, John Huston crafted a Boy’s Own POW adventure that has a special place in the hearts of football lovers. Especially if you’re an Ipswich Town fan like me, as several members of Bobby Robson’s glorious UEFA Cup-winning team appear in the movie.

The cast has real novelty value with football legends like Pele, Bobby Moore, Ossie Ardilles and John Wark starring alongside Michael Caine, Max von Sydow, and Sylvester Stallone. It never quite escapes the shadow of The Great Escape, however, not helped by Bill Conti’s derivative score. But as corny as it is, it is still impossible not to get behind the team once the final match against the Nazis kicks off.

For his part, Sly seems to be aiming for Rocky-style heroics while also channelling Steve McQueen for his top-billing role as Hatch, a cocky Canadian officer who wants in on the POW football team. Naturally, as the star of the movie, Hatch even upstages Pele’s dazzling overhead kick with a last-minute penalty save to ensure the Allies escape to victory… by drawing the match.

5. Lock Up (1989)

I’d never actually seen Lock Up before I started putting this list together and it completely surprised me. I expected it to be terrible, but it’s actually a really solid prison flick.

White Eagle Enterprises was a production company set up by Stallone in 1986, but only one movie was ever released carrying its logo: Lock Up, which, as the name suggests, is all about Sly’s Frank Leone banged up in a harsh maximum security prison. 

The film starts by wrong-footing us with the first of several major implausibilities. Leone is almost at the end of his sentence for busting out of another penitentiary and such a sweetheart of the prison system that he’s been allowed out to visit his girlfriend, tinker with cars in the auto shop he plans to run when he is released, and play football with local kids. Of which all three will become major points once the story really kicks in.

His old head screw, Warden Drumgoole (Donald Sutherland), still hasn’t forgiven him for the jail break. He nabs Leone as tosses him into the harsh Gateway maximum security joint, promising to break him. To that end, he has menacing badass Chink (Sonny Landham, best known as Billy from Predator) and his gang work on Leone.

Lock Up is an odd one because it has just about every single prison movie cliche you can imagine, but that’s also one of the best things about it. For instance, from the moment we see callow tough kid First Base (Larry Romano) we know he should be nicknamed Dead Meat instead. But that’s totally fine – all the familiarity goes down like a cup of hot cocoa.

For being hyped up as hell on earth by Drumgoole, Leone and his buddies have a surprising amount of time to hang out together unsupervised, racing cockroaches and restoring a vintage Mustang in the prison’s auto shop – two more details that stretch believability, but working on the car gives us a classic men bonding montage.

Sutherland and Landham are both great value as the villains of the piece, and Lock Up stands out as something of an anomaly in Stallone’s late ‘80s output. While there is action and violence, it is more of a low-key drama with Sly in tough-but-tender mode. It flopped at the box office – probably not helped by a release date a few weeks after Batman – and critics trashed it. Perhaps it was because action movies were changing and people were tiring of the same old formulas, but Lock Up is an underrated entry in Sly’s filmography. You know exactly what you’re going to get, but that is a strength rather than a problem.

4. Rocky III (1982)

I will always go toe-to-toe with anyone over Rocky III. It was easily the best sequel until Rocky Balboa came along, and I’d go as far as to say it is the most purely entertaining movie in the entire franchise. While Rocky II was a stodgy re-tread of the original and Rocky IV went into montage overdrive, the third instalment is the perfect mix of Rockiness. Let’s consider the highpoints.

You’ve got Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” on the soundtrack, the quintessential Rocky tune. A last hurrah for Burgess Meredith as Mickey and the latent homo-eroticism between the Italian Stallion and Apollo Creed. Mr T playing Clubber Lang, the most convincingly menacing opponent in the series. Montages, but not too many, culminating in the now-classic surf-frolicking moment. Plus a goofy detour as Rocky faces off against Hulk Hogan’s “Thunderlips” in a charity match.

Rocky III could have easily been a blast of pure Stallone hubris if he’d gone with his original plans. As early as 1979, he was telling interviewers that he planned to give Rocky a gladiatorial send-off with a showdown in the Coliseum with the Pope looking on. Instead, he got the mix of popcorn, rousing fight scenes and heart just right, finding a convincing way to make Balboa the underdog again.

3. Tango & Cash (1989)

The ‘80s is often regarded as the decade of the Hollywood action hero, but all empires must eventually fall. In this respect, Tango & Cash is a late-era tale of production overkill, decadence, and superstar bloat. All that said, it deserves to be rediscovered as a cult item because it is surely one of the weirdest action movies to ever come out of a major American studio.

Before the credits even roll we hear Stallone say: “Okay, let’s do it!” Clearly the intention is to give the audience one hell of a ride, which the film does, albeit for not the reasons that the warring filmmakers intended. By all accounts Tango & Cash was a mess behind the scenes, with Sly getting cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld fired, legal battles, three different directors, and spiralling production costs. Nobody was quite able to settle on the tone of the film, unable to decide whether it was a gritty cop thriller or a spoof buddy comedy. In the end, we got a bit of both.

Stallone and Kurt Russell play two rival LA cops who must team up when a vicious crime boss (Jack Palance in a crazed performance) decides he would rather cook up an elaborate plan to frame them for murder rather than have them whacked. Thrown in jail, they must figure out a way to break out again and track down the baddies.

There’s a lot going on in this movie and not a whole lot of it makes any sense. Beyond the usual quips, trash talk, and awkward homo-eroticism, you’ve got car chases, fights, explosions, a monster truck, plus Teri Hatcher as Sly’s sister working in a strip club and Kurt Russell in drag. It’s all totally nuts, and a grade-A guilty pleasure if ever there was one.

2. Nighthawks (1981)

Every cinematic decade tends to bleed over into the next, and this under-seen and underrated thriller feels very much like it belongs to the ‘70s with its gritty cops, scuzzy NYC setting, and jazzy score. Indeed, the story was originally mooted as The French Connection III, which fell through when Gene Hackman decided that he didn’t want to play Detective Popeye Doyle again.

Stallone took the lead instead, looking like Frank Serpico, playing alongside Billy Dee Williams as two tough street-level detectives who would rather be pinching muggers than tracking down a ruthless international terrorist, played with chilling intensity by Rutger Hauer in his American screen debut.

The pacing is a little slow in places but Nighthawks is a gripping tale. Released five years after Stallone’s Oscar-nominated turn in Rocky, the star clearly still sees himself as a serious actor at this point. He puts in a smouldering performance that foreshadows his first outing as John Rambo a year later and a galaxy away from the more outlandish machismo he would display later in the decade. It’s a low-key gem and may be seen as the missing link between The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) and Die Hard (1988).

1. First Blood (1982)

Much of Stallone’s output in the ‘80s requires a healthy dose of ironic enjoyment, or at least a full appreciation of the decade’s excesses. Out of the whole bunch, First Blood is the only genuinely excellent movie. Although we now associate John Rambo with gung-ho destruction, Stallone made one key alteration to the screenplay based on David Morrell’s novel. He decided to make the troubled Vietnam veteran more sympathetic and cut back on all the killing, with Rambo using survival tactics to non-lethally wound and disarm his enemies instead.

Stallone is terrifically understated as he rolls into a small Washington State to visit an old war buddy. The Hicksville sheriff (a superb Brian Dennehy) and his deputies pick on Rambo for his deadbeat appearance, which is a big mistake. He’s a former Green Beret and a flashback triggers a thrilling game of cat and mouse up in the woods and mountains. 

First Blood was directed by Ted Kotcheff (Wake in Fright), who admirably treats the material seriously. This pays off when Rambo’s final rampage through the town becomes more of a futile tragic act rather than just for kicks. To his credit, Stallone also prevented it from becoming a total downer with another significant tweak: He wanted to let Rambo live, and a suicide scene was filmed but thankfully discarded.

So there you have it, my rankings of Sylvester Stallone’s ‘80s movies. Did I get it right? If not, how would you rate them? Let us know!