20 awesome ’80s movies you should totally see before you die

12. Top Gun (1986)

Before Tom Cruise became the face of Scientology, before he started jumping around on couches, before his private life began to overshadow his professional one, Cruise was famous for dancing around in his tighty whities in Risky Business. Then he starred in a film about fighter pilots called Top Gun, and he became a household name.

Tom Cruise plays aviator Pete “Maverick” Mitchell. Along with his best friend and Radio Intercept Officer (not a navigator, sort of co-pilot, mostly a backseat driver) Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), they are the bad boys of naval aviation. Thanks to their mad skills, the twosome get to train at the elite Fighter Weapons School known as Top Gun.

The film is a “target-rich environment” when it comes to the hottest men of the ’80s: Val Kilmer, Rich Rossovich, Tim Robbins, Whip Hubley and Barry Tub. There’s even a gratuitous volleyball scene when all the sweaty muscular men shed their shirts.

Top Gun didn’t just do wonders for Cruise’s career, whose acting skills are less on display than his million-dollar smile. It also put Meg Ryan (When Harry Met Sally) on the map and turned former nerd herder Edwards into a bit of a sex symbol in his own right.

Full of heart-pounding action sequences, Top Gun earned $365 million dollars worldwide, and the soundtrack remains one of the most popular of all time thanks to catchy tunes like “Danger Zone” by Kenny Loggins and Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” which won the Oscar for Best Original Song.

A sequel entitled Top Gun: Maverick is set to hit theaters in 2020.