Search Museum of the Moving Image

What a Way to Make a Living: Women in ’80s Hollywood

Ongoing

When we think of American movies of the 1980s, testosterone-fueled, muscle-bound action films or effects-driven supernatural comedies might first come to mind. Yet the decade was also a remarkably fecund span of years for women on screen. A dizzying array of headlining female movie stars—Jessica Lange, Whoopi Goldberg, Meryl Streep, Sissy Spacek, Sigourney Weaver—were starring in roles for adult audiences seeking dramatic complexity and emotional depth; whether melodrama, horror, or slapstick comedy, these were movies given extra dimension from their stars. In his new book Films of Endearment, MoMI’s Editorial Director and Reverse Shot editor Michael Koresky, dovetails an inquiry into this period of mainstream Hollywood filmmaking with the story of his relationship with his mother, who first introduced him to these films and sparked a lifelong love of movies. Inspired by that book, this screening series shines a spotlight on the women who, for some of us, defined a decade.