13 Stars of the 1980s Who Are Still Going Strong, Thank You Very Much

Winona Ryder returns to one of her most iconic roles later this year in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice , the sequel to the original Beetlejuice that made her the dark princess of the stars of the 1980s — a reputation she secured with Heathers before moving on to grown-up roles like one in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Her other standout roles have included 1990’s Edward Scissorhands (above), directed by Beetlejuice helmer Tim Burton, as well as Little Women and The Age of Innocence.

Her recent roles have included a turn on the megahit Stranger Things and the recent Haunted Mansion reboot.

Michelle Pfeiffer has been a star since 1982’s Grease 2, but really popped in 1983’s Scarface, playing Elvira, the wife of Al Pacino’s Tony Montana. The three-time Oscar nominee is almost always the best part of any film she’s in — from Batman Returns to Married to the Mob to the Fabulous Baker Boys.

She continues to show off her acting chops with meaty roles in recent films like The Wizard of Lies and French Exit. And she was the highlight of last year’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.

Kevin Costner was mostly left on the cutting-room floor of The Big Chill, but recovered nicely by becoming one of the biggest stars of the 1980s with an astonishing 1980s run that included The Untouchables, No Way Out, Bull Durham and Field of Dreams.

In the following years, he remained a giant, starring in The Bodyguard and Oliver Stone’s JFK , as well as winning Best Picture and Best Director for 1990’s Dances With Wolves.

After a highly publicized exit from Yellowstone, the biggest show on television, he again goes West this summer with Horizon: An American Saga.

Talk about peaking late in your career: Curtis won her first Oscar last year for Everything Everywhere All at Once, and hasn’t slowed down. She was excellent in the second season of The Bear, and will soon executive produce and appear in The Sticky, about a Canadian maple-syrup heist.

Though a child of Hollywood, Curtis paid her dues in a run of scream-queen roles starting with her 1978 debut in Halloween. She became one of the greatest stars of the 1980s with a remarkable run included Trading Places, Perfect and A Fish Called Wanda.

Of course she also had a massive hit opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1994 James Cameron blockbuster True Lies.

A star of bodybuilding and a successful entrepreneur before he even starred in a movie, Ahhhhnold broke out with Conan the Barbarian and became a superstar with The Terminator (above) — not the biggest movie of 1984, the year it was released, but a massive VHS hit the year after. He then continued as one of the biggest (and strongest) stars of the 1980s with hits like Commando, The Running Man, and Predator.

His ’90s were even bigger: He starred in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and True Lies, among other hits. In the next decade, And the next decade, he got elected governor of California and earned pretty high marks.

Last year he told his life story for the captivating Netflix docuseries Arnold and released the inspirational book Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life.

Sly was chronically underestimated, and has never stopped punching: Let’s not forget that he didn’t just star in Rocky — he wrote it, thereby creating one of the most beloved screen underdogs.

Arnold’s old rival KO’d the 80s box office with both the Rocky and Rambo franchises, calling his own shots and doing a lot of painting on the side. He was cool in Cobra (above), too. He eventually joined forces with his Austrian-born rival for the Planet Hollywood franchise, and brought new life to Rocky with his role in the Creed franchise.

Last year he returned to yet another franchise, The Expendables 4, and he starred in the soon-to-return series Tulsa King. He’s such an icon that Barbie made fun of that period in the 1980s when he was known for wearing a lot of fur. And he’s the focus of the recent Netflix documentary Sly.

Eddie Murphy returns this summer to the Beverly Hills Cop franchise for Netflix, but still looks young because he started so young. Maybe the flat-out funniest actor of all time, Murphy was still in his teens when he joined Saturday Night Live, and basically saved the show after the departure of the original cast.

He went on to a a phenomenal film career that stared with 48 Hrs. (above), and continued with Trading Places, the Beverly Hills Cop movies and Coming to America.

He can still score massive laughs, as you know if you saw 2019’s Dolemite Is My Name, and was charming in the Christmas movie Candy Kane Lane.

Harrison Ford has carried as many blockbusters as anyone, but always does it with understated cool. After kicking off the ’80s with The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Blade Runner, he earned critical acclaim for the drama Witness and the romantic comedy Working Girl, proving himself as a leading man who can do pretty much anything.

In 2023 year he not only starred in the fifth and final Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, but also on the Yellowstone spinoff 1923. And he’s joining the Marvel universe in the next Captain America sequel.

That’s him above with Kate Capshaw in the underrated Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, one of our must-see movies of 1984.

Streep is widely considered the greatest actress of all time, and it’s easy to see why. She won the second of her three Best Actress Oscars for Sophie’s Choice in 1983, years after breaking out in 1978’s The Deer Hunter, which she followed with 1979’s Kramer vs. Kramer (for which she won her first Oscar).

Her chameleonic ’80s run saw her bouncing from Out of Africa to Ironweed to Heartburn (above)to She-Devil.

After comical work as a heartless president of the United States in 2021’s Don’t Look Up, she turned to streaming in the Amazon series Extrapolations and Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building, with the next star on our list. Oh, and did we mention she’s good at accents?

It’s hard to believe it, but Steve Martin had some lean years as a writer, offbeat standup and banjo player before his explosive popularity following a Saturday Night Live hosting gig in October 1976. From there he packed arenas and made his first film, 1979’s The Jerk, a huge hit despite many critics’ failure to recognize its brilliance.

He struggled a while for another film hit as Pennies From Heaven, The Man With Two Brains and All of Me were box office disappointments, but then he hit a groove that still continues. His ’80s run included Three Amigos (1986), Roxanne (pictured) and Planes, Trains and Automobiles (both 1987), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), and Parenthood (1989), and since then he’s starred in Bowfinger (1999) the Father of the Bride films, the Pink Panther films, and It’s Complicated (2009).

Now 78, he’s doing some of the funniest work of his career in Only Murders in the Building opposite his old Three Amigos pal Martin Short.

The two-time Best Actress Oscar winner for 1988’s The Accused and 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs is fresh off another Oscar nomination for her latest film, Nyad, and just finished the latest season of True Detective: Night Country, for which she received near-unanimous praise.

Jodie Foster broke into show business with a Coppertone ad at age three in the mid-1960s, then proved herself a young master of her craft when she starred in both Freaky Friday and Taxi Driver in 1976, when she was barely a teenager.

After conquering acting, she became a director known for films including Little Man Tate and Money Monster, as well as one of the most provocative episodes of Black Mirror. She has nothing to prove but keeps going strong.

Jennifer Jason Leigh broke through as Stacy in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, a film that made Roger Ebert wonder, “Don’t they know they have a star on their hands?” given her empathetic handling of a complex character in crisis.

Leigh proved herself one of the most versatile film actors in movies ranging from Last Exit to Brooklyn to Backdraft to Single White Female to Dorothy Parker and the Vicious Circle to The Anniversary Party, which she co-wrote, co-directed, co-produced and acted in. She was stood out in Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight.

She devoured the scenery in the latest season of Fargo, and was by far the highlight of the show, her old-time transatlantic accent standing out from all the Minnesota and North Dakota accents around her. She’s a star of the 1980s who still impresses us as much as ever.

Meanwhile, her Fast Times co-star Phoebe Cates (right), is a great example of a star who quit acting on their own terms.

Speaking of actors with nothing to prove, will someone tell Tom Cruise he can stop doing his own stunts? It wouldn’t matter — he wouldn’t listen. The ageless dynamo is still flying planes and jumping off cliffs on motorcycles in his 60s.

Breaking out in the ’80s with films like All the Right Moves and Risky Business, then becoming a superstar with Top Gun, he matured into dramatic roles like Born on the Fourth of July and A Few Good Men, while also knocking out classics like Jerry Maguire and Eyes Wide Shut.

Amazingly, he had his biggest success to date with 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, in which he co-starred with Jennifer Connelly — another star of the 1980s who is still going strong. And he’s still going strong this summer with the Mission Impossible franchise.

That’s him with Kelly McGillis in 1986’s Top Gun, above.

You might also like this deep dive on a Michelle Pfeiffer ’80s masterpiece.