SHORTLIST VINTAGE FILM OF 1978

For 20th- and 40th-anniversary screenings of Grease, teenagers abandoned their screens and flocked to the big one at the cinema and sing along with John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, and that scene-stealing Stockard Channing. There should be a law against any effort to remake this classic.

Produced for not much more than today’s tuition at a college in New England – where Otis Day and the Knights are still available to sing “Shout” at your fall formal – Animal House is a good and funny reminder that boys mature relatively late.

San Francisco residents are practicing social distancing, in a bad way, and two staffers from the health department soon figure out why: aliens are taking over their bodies. “They get you when you sleep,” we soon learn, but don’t worry: you’re unlikely to nod off during this Philip Kaufman sci-fi thriller.

Though we’re not in Bangkok – this was shot on location in Egypt – the lyric “a show with everything but Yul Brynner” comes to mind during the final credits; there are too many A-list stars to count in this adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel. With Peter Ustinov as the Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot.

Zombies attack! Surviving Americans establish a shopping mall (of course) as their Alamo. Over-the-top gore ensues. Never has a pointless bloodbath been so well-loved by critics and audiences alike; as Roger Ebert wrote of the film: “Nobody ever said art had to be in good taste.”

Against golden-hour backdrops of the Texas panhandle, young Linda (Manz) narrates the story of her older brother (Gere) and girlfriend (Adams) trying to escape poverty working for a well-off farmer (Shepard). If possible, see it on the big screen.

Even Deadpool owes a debt of gratitude to 1978’s Superman, the first “comic-book movie” to offer an origin story for its hero. As he did later in Lethal Weapon and The Goonies, the versatile Donner delivers an expert mix of action, emotion and comedy.

Oliver Stone’s riveting script shows the ordeal of an American student, arrested at the airport with drugs, trying to endure and escape a Turkish prison. Giorgio Moroder’s soundtrack also won an Oscar.

The ur-slasher movie. Masked Michael Myers chases the original “final girl” Laurie Strode, leaving a trail of tropes recycled by the Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and other franchises. True to the genre it created, the killer keeps coming back; a 10th Halloween sequel is expected in 2020.

Heartbreaking and unforgettable, The Deer Hunter depicts the tragedy of America’s war in Vietnam through the eyes of three soldiers from small-town Pennsylvania.