Best Thriller Movies of 1980, Ranked

Scott James, a veteran martial arts expert, is recruited as the protector of the wealthy and beautiful Justine after she becomes the target of a ninja clan. When Scott finds out that his ruthless arch-nemesis, McCarn , is involved with the stealthy and dangerous criminals, he is eager to settle old scores. Soon Scott is facing off against McCarn and the entire ninja horde in an effort to take them all down.

Survivors of a tragic shipping collision are rescued by a mysterious black ship which appears out of the fog. Little do they realise that the ship is actually a Nazi torture ship which has sailed the seas for years, luring unsuspecting sailors aboard and killing them off one by one.

In the future, Earth is overcrowded and the population relies on distant bases to be fed. In the Saturn 3 station, Major Adam and the scientist Alex, who is also his lover and has never been on Earth, have been researching hydroponics for three years in the base alone with their dog Sally. Captain Benson arrives Saturn 3 with Hector, incapable to controlling his emotions he transfers his homicidal tendency and insanity to Hector. Now Major Adam and Alex are trapped in the station with a dangerous psychopath robot.

To obtain a supply of a rare mineral, a ship raising operation is conducted for the only known source, the Titanic.

Garbed in his red suit, Harry, a toy factory worker, decides that the only thing he can do to save the spirit of Christmas is to become Santa Claus himself and make all of the naughty townspeople pay... in blood!

Released from captivity in Vietnam, two American Army officers return to civilian life and discover they have acquired an insatiable taste for human flesh. A city is terrorised... as they stalk the inhabitants to satisfy their primitive appetites.

At a high school senior prom, a masked killer stalks four teenagers who were responsible for the accidental death of a classmate six years prior.

Mercenary soldiers Jamie and Drew are hired by a large corporation to liberate Zangaro, a small African nation, from an despot. Havoc ensues.

A posh couple experience car trouble on their way to a villa party and stop into a local mechanic's shop for assistance, unaware of his shady background. After he and his mentally challenged assistant fix the car, the couple invite them to the party to return the favor, leading to an evening of mayhem.

During his long career, bounty hunter Ralph "Papa" Thorson has caught over 5,000 criminals. Now, while he is working on apprehending fugitives in Illinois, Texas and Nebraska, he himself is being hunted by a psychotic killer.

Two young children and an adult in a small town have an encounter with an alien spaceship. 25 years later the children are reunited as adults in the same town which is now beset by strange cattle mutilations. Matters become worse when the cattle mutilations are joined by human murders and mutilations.

Jane Marple solves the mystery when a local woman is poisoned and a visiting movie star seems to have been the intended victim.

A woman struggles to keep her stepdaughter from harms way after she hires an assassin to kill her husband, but the hitman turns and blackmails her for the crime.

A fugitive stumbles onto a movie set just when they need a new stunt man, takes the job as a way to hide out and falls for the leading lady while facing off with his manipulative director.

A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of human consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from Native American shamans, he explores these altered states of cognizance and finds that memory, time, and reality itself are states of mind.

When a young boy's family is killed by the mob, their tough neighbor Gloria becomes his reluctant guardian. In possession of a book that the gangsters want, the pair go on the run in New York.

In the late 1970s, Cockney crime boss Harold Shand, a gangster trying to become a legitimate property mogul, has big plans to get the American Mafia to bankroll his transformation of a derelict area of London into the possible venue for a future Olympic Games. However, a series of bombings targets his empire on the very weekend the Americans are in town. Shand is convinced there is a traitor in his organization, and sets out to eliminate the rat in typically ruthless fashion.

Emily Hollander becomes the subject of a lesbian obsession at the hands of Andrea Glassen, her next-door neighbour.

A shy, lonely film buff embarks on a killing spree against those who browbeat and betray him, all the while stalking his idol, a Marilyn Monroe lookalike.

David Nau leads a band of modern day pirates who raid yachts and sail boats of people on vacation in the Caribbean. When reporter Blair Maynard and his son arrive to investigate the mystery of the disappearing boats, Nau and his band of raiders decide to induct them into their tribe.

When a twisted psychotic kidnaps a young girl, mistaking her for the daughter of a wealthy developer, her father, a hardened ex-cop, doggedly hunts them through New York's seamy streets.

A baby alligator is flushed down a toilet and survives by eating discarded lab animals that have been injected with growth hormones. The now gigantic animal escapes the city sewers and goes on a rampage, pursued by a cop and a big-game hunter.

A masked killer targets six college kids responsible for a prank gone wrong three years earlier and who are currently throwing a large New Year's Eve costume party aboard a moving train.

Alex Linden is a psychiatrist living in Vienna who meets Milena Flaherty though a mutual friend. Though Alex is quite a bit older than Milena, he's attracted to her young, carefree spirit. Despite the fact that Milena is already married, their friendship quickly turns into a deeply passionate love affair that threatens to overtake them both. When Milena ends up in the hospital from an overdose, Alex is taken into custody by Inspector Netusil.

A young man returns from Rome to his sister's satanic New York apartment house.

After an American family moves to an old country manor in rural England, one of the daughters is tormented by the spirit of the owner's long lost daughter, who mysteriously disappeared 30 years ago during a solar eclipse.

Army psychiatrist Colonel Kane is posted to a secluded gothic castle housing a military asylum. With a reserved calm, he indulges the inmates' delusions, allowing them free rein to express their fantasies.

When New York is caught in the grip of a sadistic serial killer who preys on patrons of the city's underground bars, young rookie Steve Burns infiltrates the S&M subculture to try and lure him out of the shadows.

After witnessing a mysterious woman brutally slay a homemaker, prostitute Liz Blake finds herself trapped in a dangerous situation. While the police thinks she is the murderer, the real killer is intent on silencing her only witness.

Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. But they aren't prepared for the madness that lurks within.