It’s a good month for action movies – The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has already swooped in on the box office, with Godzilla and X-Men: Days of Future Past about to be unleashed. But if we’re thinking action movies, there’s only one decade that truly defined the genre, and that was the 80s. Everything was better then - music, movies, fashion, hair (ok, not hair). Especially when you take the first two in that list and combine them: groin-crushingly cheesy movies added to groin-crushingly cheesy music results in a cocktail so potent it’ll blow your skull into the sun. Want proof that 80s action movies have the best soundtracks?

Best Of The Best

80s martial arts films starring Eric Roberts? Yes please! Especially if it’s Best Of The Best - which has a title so apt it’ll make your brain melt. Not only is this film perfect in almost every cinematic way, it also goes close to doing the same in the audio stakes. Just listen to these tracks and tell us you don’t want to join an underground fighting tournament THIS INSTANT.

Transformers: The Movie

Forget Michael Bay’s version (well don’t - it’s amazing) - for sheer cheese and pumping soft-rock, it’s the 1986 animated movie that rules the roost. There’s almost too much to choose from, but we’ll give it a go. If you can listen to these tracks without turning into a car then you’re a better person than us.

Top Gun

If we didn’t include this classic slice of 80s brie then we deserve prison, in all honesty. This is how to do action and guitars; what a flawless serving of fondue. An all-time masterpiece in zoomy plane cinema, it really needs no more introduction: just listen.

Rocky IV

We all love the Rocky films, but which one is best? Well, probably…this one? We all love the Rocky soundtracks, but which one is best? DEFINITELY THIS ONE. Just listening to these belters makes us want to put some boxing gloves on and punch ourselves in the face until we collapse.

Cobra

Why not talk about another Stallone movie while we’re at it. He goes hand-in-hand with amazing music - especially when he’s got peng sunglasses on and he’s ragging a motorbike about the shop. It doesn’t really get much cooler than this (it does).

Karate Kid

Much like Top Gun, we’d have deserved severe martial arts punishment had we not included this absolute gem. Not only is the film undeniably awesome, the music is too - don’t even try to deny it, it’s undeniable. STOP DENYING! Just think about it like this - The Karate Kid remake (the one without any karate in it) had Justin Bieber on the soundtrack…

No Retreat, No Surrender

Hey look everyone! It’s Jean-Claude Van Damme in one of his first roles, playing a Russian with a Belgian accent - you know, the usual. And yes, this film is about a kid who gets trained in martial arts by Bruce Lee’s ghost - what of it? Pure brilliance.

The Lost Boys

Is this an action movie? Erm, sort of - there’s action in it isn’t there? Let’s go the action/horror hybrid route yeah? Cool. Either way, it’s got a fabulously cheesy soundtrack, and that’s what we’re concerned with at the moment isn’t it? Just listen to the tracks above and say your disagree with us, we dare you.

Kickboxer

Oh hello, best final fight song ever written! This film is one of the best on this planet we call Earth, and that first song is the single greatest soundtrack to any tournament in history. Well done everyone involved. You’ve won whatever competition it is we’re thinking of.

Twin Sitters

Ok, we’re cheating here a bit - this film was actually made in 1994, but the whole thing is so 80s that it might as well have been made then. It also stars The Barbarian Brothers, a pair of twin bodybuilders who made a few horrendous (read: flawless) movies in the 80s and 90s. This one has the best soundtrack, mainly because all of the songs are credited to them (even though they should really belong to Paul Sabu) - this is a great thing and people need to know about it.

By Gary Ogden