‘Stranger Things’ Season 5: What Were the Top Movies of Fall 1987?
What To Know
- Fall 1987 saw several major box office hits, including the buddy cop comedy Stakeout and the psychological thriller Fatal Attraction, which dominated theaters from September through early November.
- The Running Man brought dystopian sci-fi action to audiences in mid-November, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in a deadly game show scenario based on a Stephen King novel.
- Three Men and a Baby closed out the season as a blockbuster comedy, ultimately becoming the highest-grossing film released in North America in 1987.
As we get ready to step back into Hawkins for the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, it’s now fall of 1987 in Indiana — a new year, with a new set of timely pop culture references that might turn up on the show. The real world’s film, music and TV has a way of leaking into the adventures of Eleven, Mike, and the rest of the gang, from season three’s moment where Max, Lucas, Will and Mike sneak into a special screening of 1985’s George A. Romero zombie classic Day of the Dead, to season four’s repeated use of Kate Bush‘s 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill.” Though we won’t know for sure what pop culture will feature in the new season until we watch, it might be handy to flashback to the most popular films of fall 1987. These films hit number one at the box office throughout the season — and one absolutely dominated theaters for months.
Stakeout (early September 1987)
Audiences of the time loved Stakeout, a buddy cop action comedy about two detectives assigned to watch the ex-girlfriend of an escaped convict, only for one of them to start falling for her. Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Emilio Estevez and Madeleine Stowe, the film held the No. 1 spot over Labor Day weekend and into mid-September, becoming one of the year’s sleeper hits.
Fatal Attraction (late September through early November 1987)
From late September straight through the first half of November, Fatal Attraction absolutely owned the box office, which is why it still feels like the defining movie of fall ’87. The psychological thriller, starring Michael Douglas as a married lawyer who strays, and Glenn Close as the colleague whose brief affair with Douglas spirals into obsession, became a full-blown cultural event and one of the year’s highest-grossing films.
The Running Man (mid to late November 1987)
By mid-November, things got a lot darker and more dystopian with The Running Man, the sci-fi action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a wrongly convicted man forced to compete on a deadly televised game show. Schwarzenegger was already a well-known face on the big screen, having starred in Commando, The Terminator, Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer over the prior five years. But 1987, which also saw the release of Predator, was a banner year for him, and the beginning of his voyage from actor to icon.
Loosely based on the Stephen King novel written under his Richard Bachman pen name, The Running Man delivered futuristic action and exactly the kind of over-the-top spectacle audiences loved in the late ’80s. Even more timely, a reboot has just been released this year.
Three Men and a Baby (late November 1987)
Closing out November, theaters shifted to comedy with Three Men and a Baby, the charming blockbuster starring Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson as three bachelors who suddenly find themselves caring for an abandoned infant. Directed by Star Trek‘s Leonard Nimoy, the movie quickly became the top-grossing film released in North America in 1987.
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