The wonderful movies of the 80s
I’ve felt this pull towards nostalgia for a long time, especially the 1980s. It keeps coming back and I’m never quite sure why. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just getting older, reaching middle age, or whether it’s something deeper than that. Maybe it’s when time stops feeling endless and starts feeling real, when mortality isn’t abstract anymore. When that happens you look back, not because you want to escape the life you have now, but because you want to understand what shaped you and why certain things still stay with you.
Growing up as a child and teenager in that era mattered. Those huge box-office films, often cheesy and completely unapologetic about it, full of heart and optimism, they wanted to move you, lift you, make you believe in something. Alongside the music they gave us a shared emotional language. They didn’t just entertain us, they formed us. In a lot of ways they made us.
Then technology arrived and kept evolving. In some ways it’s incredible, in others it’s quietly taken something from us. We’re connected all the time but less present, less engaged with the moment we’re actually in. I’m not pretending I sit outside that, there’s an irony in writing this and posting it online, I’m aware of it. But maybe that’s the point, using the very space that distracts us to try and pause for a second, to reflect, to remember how it feels to really pay attention.
And when I look back, it isn’t just the music or the films, it’s the people.
For those of you who were a part of my life, I thank you. I often catch a thought, a memory, and I find myself smiling without even realising it.
This isn’t about wanting to go back or pretending life was better then. It’s about perspective. Nostalgia, for me, is a reminder that life is fragile and fleeting and worth feeling deeply. Too often we get caught up in the drama, the noise, the suffocation of everyday life and forget how extraordinary it is just to breathe, to love, to still be here.
The Lies That Made Me: The Invention of Belonging. 