For many years, March was a backwater on the release schedule, though some major films have emerged from the month.However, in recent years, it has become almost a mini-June in terms of blockbuster releases.
One Year Ago–March 1, 2019:
#1 Movie:
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World –$30 million
New Wide Releases:
A Madea Family Funeral –2/$27.1 million/$73.3 million/39/12%/39–Since he broke into the mainstream with 2005’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman (which he didn’t helm), Tyler Perry has been anything but lazy, writing and directing no less than 21 feature films, most of which he also acted in, as well as writing and directing several TV shows and touring in stage plays, which he also wrote and directed.Of those 21 movies, 10 of them featured his signature character of Mabel “Madea” Simmons, a cantankerous old woman who freely says and does whatever she wants.Even though none of the Madea movies topped $100 million domestic, the character became popular with both black and white audiences.Perry announced that he was retiring the character after A Madea Family Funeral , whose plot is neatly summed up by the title.

It’s not Madea’s funeral, however, and the financial success of this entry means that its not out of the question that Perry might put on the dress again.
Director: Tyler Perry
Greta –8/$4.5 million/$10.5 million/118/60%/54–On paper, this thriller looked like it could be successful.Recent Oscar nominee Isabelle Huppert played a widow who strikes up a friendship with a younger woman (Chloe Grace Moretz), only for things to take a dark turn.It was directed by Neil Jordan, making his first wide release film since The Brave One .

However, Focus apparently decided to dump it (and also couldn’t be bothered to come up with a halfway decent poster) despite good, if not overwhelming, reviews.It’s actually somewhat surprising that the film made as much as it did.
Director: Neil Jordan
New Limited Releases:
Apollo 11 –$9 million/125/99%/88–After documentaries had a blockbuster 2018, 2019 was much quieter for the format, as this examination of the historical first landing on the moon, timed for the 50th anniversary of the event, was the year’s highest grossing one, even though 5 2018 docs made more.The film made use of extensive footage of the mission, much of which had never been seen by the public before, as well as audio that, much like Peter Jackson’s WWI documentary They Shall Not Grow Old , was painstakingly matched with silent footage.Like other financially successful documentaries, this one was inexplicably snubbed by the Oscars.
Director: Todd Douglas Miller
Gone With the Wind –$2.2 million/178/91%/97–Yes, the film’s treatment of African-Americans and its glorification of southern plantation life in the Civil War era are problematic as hell.But even over 80 years after its initial release, there are still plenty of people who are willing to accept that the film comes from a different time and enjoy the grand sweep of the on-again, off-again love story of the headstrong Scarlett O’Hara (Vivian Leigh) and the practical but romantic Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) over the course of two decades, even if the film runs nearly 4 hours.
Director: Victor Fleming (and George Cukor and Sam Wood)
March 8, 2019:
New Wide Releaeses:
Captain Marvel –1/$153.4 million/$426.8 million/6/78%/64–The Marvel Cinematic Universe is arguably the most popular film series of all time, with each new film continuing to be a giant blockbuster despite the fact that a new one comes out seemingly every 3-to-6 months.It wasn’t until film #20, Ant-Man and the Wasp , for a female superhero to get titular credit, and it took until the next film, Captain Marvel , for one to get a solo title.Given the gross of this, its fair to wonder why the MCU waited so long.Brie Larson starred as a warrior of the Kree Empire who is captured by the Kree’s arch-enemy, the Skrulls.

When they all find themselves on Earth circa 1995, she discovers that all the she thought she knew about herself was wrong, as she joins with Nick Fury (a de-aged Samuel L.Jackson) to discover the truth.Jude Law played her superior officer, Annette Bening plays a mysterous woman that Larson just can’t place in her memory, Djimon Hounsou and Lee Pace revive their roles from Guardians of the Galaxy , and Clark Gregg plays the earliest version of Agent Coulson.
Director: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
New Limited Releases:
Gloria Bell –$5.6 million/137/91%/79–In this comedy-drama that had a successful run on the art house circuit, Julianne Moore is Gloria, a divorcee who enjoys going out and dancing.She begins a relationship with fellow divorcee John Turturro, but becomes disturbed by his continuing emotional attachment to his ex-wife.Michael Cera played her son and Brad Garrett played her ex-husband.

Critics generally liked the film, but they loved Moore, who got some Oscar buzz for her performance.This is a remake of a Chilean film, also directed by Sebastian Lelio.
Director: Sebastian Lelio
Expanding:
Apollo 11 –10/$1.3 million
Five Years Ago–February 27, 2015:
New Wide Releases:
Focus –1/$18.7 million/$53.9 million/55/56%/56–A year and a half before teaming up for Suicide Squad , Will Smith and Margot Robie starred in this flick about two con artists who were formally romantically involved, and find themselves together again on an even bigger job.A few years earlier, Smith probably would have had the clout to get the film to $150 million domestic, instead of having it end its run as a mild disappointment.

Meanwhile, Robie, in her first leading role, did just fine for herself.
Director: Glen Ficarra, John Requa
The Lazarus Effect –5/$10.2 million/$25.8 million/93/17%/31–In this standard issue horror movie, a team, led by Mark Duplass and Olivia Wilde, invents a serum that can bring dead things back to life.When a team member is killed, the serum is used on her.But of course, no one can rise from the dead unchanged…This was low budget enough that it actually turned a decent profit.Donald Glover, who probably should have had better projects to pick from by that point, played one of the team members.
Director: David Gelb
New Limited Releases:
A La Mala –$3.6 million/158/43%/NA–This Mexican romcom is about an actress who gets a side gig testing the fidelity of her clients’ boyfriends.Naturally, she eventually falls for one of her marks.This wasn’t a huge hit, but did well for a subtitled film.
Director: Pitipol Ybarra
The Hunting Ground –$0.4 million/279/93%/77–This documentary, from acclaimed documentation Kirby Dick, focused on sexual assault against female college students and many administrators’ decisions to look the other way rather than bring the perpetrators to justice or even make the campuses significantly safer.This one ended up mostly under the radar until a year after its release, when its original song “Til It Happens To You”, written by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga and performed by Gaga, got an Oscar nomination.
Director: Kirby Dick
Expanding:
Still Alice –9/$2.7 million
March 6, 2015:
New Wide Releases:
Chappie –1/$13.3 million/$31.6 million/82/32%/41–In this sci-fi action flick, which could best be described as RoboCop meets Wall-E , a decommissioned police robot, along with its creator (Dev Patel), is kidnapped by a street gang in order to turn the robot into a criminal.

The robot, nicknamed Chappie, not only learns criminal behavior, but begins to develop A.I., which leads him to discover that not all criminals are necessarily bad, and not all law enforcement is necessarily good.Sigourney Weaver played an executive of the company that created the robots, and Hugh Jackman played a rival programmer who wants his prototype to replace the current generation of robots.
Director: Neill Blomkamp
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel –3/$8.5 million/$33.1 million/78/65%/51–Dev Patel did double duty this week, as he also starred in this sequel to the sleeper comedy hit from 2012.Patel is interested in opening a second residential hotel in India, and is convinced that Richard Gere is the anonymous inspector sent by a potential investor.

Returning from the first film are Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and Bill Nighy.

This one wasn’t quite as successful as the first one, but since the budget was kept low, it still turned a nice profit.
Director: John Madden
Unfinished Business –10/$4.8 million/$10.2 million/126/10%/32–In this bomb of a comedy, Vince Vaughn, Tom Wilkinson, and Dave Franco travel to Germany to try to secure a deal to save their company, where hijinks ensure.Sienna Miller played a business rival, while James Marsden and Nick Frost played potential investors.The title was unfortunately ironic for Vaughn, because after this film, he was finished as a leading man in mainstream films.
Director: Ken Scott
Fifteen Years Ago–February 26, 2010:
#1 Movie:
Shutter Island –$22.7 million
New Wide Releases:
Cop Out –2/$18.2 million/$44.9 million/71/18%/31–After spending roughly 15 years directing low-budget indie comedies that he wrote himself (to generally diminishing returns), Kevin Smith made his first big studio movie with his biggest budget ever (admittedly, only $30 million).The result sent him right back to making indie films (though he’s also been directing episodes of TV shows here and there as well).

Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan played cops who get involved with a gang war involving a valuable baseball card.Smith regular Jason Lee played the new husband of Willis’s ex-wife, and Rashida Jones played Morgan’s wife.
Director: Kevin Smith
The Crazies –3/$16.1 million/$39.1 million/80/71%/56–In this surprisingly well-received horror film ( a remake of a largely forgotten George Romero film from 1973), a plane crash infects a small town’s water supply with a chemical that causes the town’s residents to become increasingly, violently psychotic.

Timothy Olyphant played the local sheriff, and Radha Mitchell played his doctor wife, who have to evade both the townspeople and the military, that has arrived to quarantine the town and, as is the fate of all small towns in movies where government-caused bad things happen, make sure no one from the outside ever learns the truth.
Director: Breck Eisner
New Limited Releases:
A Prophet –$2.1 million/171/97%/90–This French prison drama opened a week before the Oscars, where it was nominated for Foreign Language Film.It chroniced the rise in power of a Muslim teenager, as he uses his wiles to gradually rise up the ranks and to play the various factions against each other.
Director: Jacques Audiard
March 5, 2010:
New Wide Releases:
Alice in Wonderland –1/$116.1 million/$334.2 million/2/51%/53–In this interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s classic novels (which, like nearly all adaptions, fuses the most familiar parts of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There together), Alice is played by then-19-year-old Mia Wasikowska, who is considerably older than the actresses who usually play the role.That’s because this version is actually a sequel, in which Alice is returning to where she visited as a child (and assumed her visits were nightmares) to save it from the tyranny of the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter, run through the CGI wringer so her head is gigantic).Also showing up is Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, the voice of Alan Rickman as the Caterpillar, and, of course, Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter.Even though the title is Alice in Wonderland , his chalk-white mug was over all of the marketing for the film, and his role was significantly increased to justify him playing it.The film was a visual feast, and it was the first 3D movie since Avatar , which may explain why it was such a gigantic hit (it would win the Oscar for Costumes and Art Direction, and was nominated for Visual Effects).

But story-wise, the film was a mess, and Johnny Depp’s popularity took a big hit after this.Five years later, he was starring in Mortdecai .
Director: Tim Burton
Brooklyn’s Finest –2/$13.4 million/$27.2 million/99/44%/43–Finishing far, far, far back in second was this well-cast, downbeat cop drama starring Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke, and Don Cheadle as officers in crisis, and featuring Wesley Snipes as a drug kingpin, Ellen Barkin as a federal agent, and Vincent D’Onofrio as a local lowlife.

Critics liked the performances, but were considerably more mixed on the film.It did OK opening weekend, given how much oxygen Alice in Wonderland sucked up, but ended up having awful legs.
Director: Antoine Fuqua
New Limited Releases:
The Secret of Kells –$0.7 million/209/91%/81–The 82nd Annual Academy Awards were the first since 2002 and only the second overall to nominate five films in the Animated Features category.For award-watchers were were expecting 5 well-known films to be nominated, this obscure Irish feature shocked by getting in ahead of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs , A Christmas Carol , Monsters vs.Aliens , and Ponyo .The strikingly animated film told the story of a young boy in medieval times who has to fight between human, animal, and supernatural forces to help put together an important book.The film wasn’t a big box office success, but its nomination probably meant it earned more than it otherwise would have, and set a precedent that at least one art house title got nominated every year since.
Director: Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey
Fifteen Years Ago–March 4, 2005:
New Wide Releases:
The Pacifier –1/$30.6 million/$113.1 million/17/21%/30–Vin Diesel, whose career had largely consisted of action and sci-fi movies up to this point, decided to do a change of pace by starring in a PG-rated Disney movie.

Critics panned the movie, but it proved to be a springtime hit.Diesel didn’t stray too far from his usual role, playing a Navy SEAL who is assigned to protect the family of a recently deceased agent, who might have some top secret information somewhere in his house.Despite the film’s success, Diesel has yet to make another kids flick.
Director: Adam Shankman
Be Cool –2/$23.5 million/$56.1 million/48/30%/37–In 1995, Get Shorty proved that John Travolta’s Pulp Fiction -fueled comeback was no fluke.Ten years later, with his career floundering, appearing in the unwanted sequel did Travolta no favors.

Having tired of the movie business, former gangster Chili Palmer sets his sights on the music industry, only to discover its far more violent and corrupt than the movies ever were.This one has an impressive cast, including Travolta’s Pulp Fiction co-star Uma Thurman as the owner of a struggling record label, Vince Vaughn and Harvey Keitel as rival producers, and Vin Diesel’s future Fast & Furious co-star and real life nemesis Dwayne Johnson, still being billed as The Rock, as a gay hitman who wants to be an actor.Johnson was pretty much the only one to come out of this unscathed.
Director: F.

Gary Gray
The Jacket –10/$2.7 million/$6.3 million/160/44%/44–The titular jacket is a straitjacket, constraining a Gulf War vet (Adrian Brody) who, while in a mental institution, is put through experiences that lead to him traveling forward in time and befriending the now-grown woman (Kiera Knightly) who he had met when she was a child.Despite a good cast (which included Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Daniel Craig), this attracted little attention from critics or moviegoers.
Director: John Maybury
March 11, 2005:
New Wide Releases:
Robots –1/$36.1 million/$128.2 million/15/64%/64–The second feature film from animation studio Blue Sky, this one did a 180 from Ice Age ‘s prehistoric setting, as this takes place in a futuristic world inhabited entirely by robots.

For some reason, however, the script revolved around boardroom politics.Ewan McGregor voiced an idealistic young inventor robot who discovers the corporation he dreams of working for has been taken over by an evil executive (Greg Kinnear) who wants to melt down outmoded robots.Halle Berry voiced another executive opposed to Kinnear’s plan, Mel Brooks played McGregor’s inventor hero, and Robin Williams played an eccentric robot that McGregor befriends.Even though the film did decent business, and even though Blue Sky is perfectly fine with franchises (as evidenced by the 5 Ice Age movies), this one never got a follow-up.
Director: Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha
Hostage –4/$9.8 million/$34.6 million/78/35%/44–After his own family gets kidnapped, hostage negotiator Bruce Willis is forced to go to the scene of another hostage situation, to negotiate for the release of an encrypted DVD a mysterious criminal syndicate desperately wants to recover.This rather preposterous thriller co-starred Ben Foster as the psycho hostage taker and a young Rumer Willis as Willis’s character’s daughter.
Director: Florent Siri
New Limited Releases:
The Upside of Anger –$18.8 million/119/74%/63–This comedy-drama starred Joan Allen as a woman whose husband has abandoned her and her four daughters (Erika Christensen, Keri Russell, Alicia Witt, Evan Rachel Wood) who begins to grow close to her neighbor, Kevin Costner.

Allen, in what is, sadly, her last leading role in a wide-release film, got excellent reviews, though the film was probably released too early in the year to have gotten her an Oscar nomination.
Director: Mike Binder
Twenty Years Ago–March 3, 2000:
#1 Movie:
The Whole Nine Yards –$7.2 million
New Wide Releases:
The Next Best Thing –2/$5.9 million/$15 million/117/19%/25–Based on the casting, it was clear that the producers really wanted Julia Roberts for the lead role.After all, they cast Rupert Everett, her co-star from My Best Friend’s Wedding , as the leading man, and her then-boyfriend Benjamin Bratt as her love interest.But Roberts turned the movie down, opting to do what would turn out to be a slightly better and more financially successful movie, a biopic, that we’ll be discussing next week.So, the producers decided the next best thing would be Madonna.Maybe they should have gone with the third best thing.She and Everett play best friends who have a drunken one-night stand, even though Everett is gay.Madonna gets pregnant, and they agree to raise the baby together–at least until she meets Bratt and decides to move away with him.

For such a bad movie, it has a pretty good cast, including Josef Sommer and Lynn Redgrave as Everett’s parents, and a still-closeted in real life Neil Patrick Harris played one of Evertt’s friends.This didn’t get the Oscars that Roberts’s movie got, but it did get several Razzie nominations.To date, this is Madonna’s last starring role to get a wide release, and would prove to be the final film of Oscar-winning director John Schlesinger.
Director: John Schlesinger
Drowning Mona –4/$5.8 million/$15.5 million/113/29%/25–The Mona of the title is played by Bette Midler, suffering her second flop of the spring (after Isn’t She Great , though, despite an impressive cast, it was cheap to make and therefore, made a small profit).

She drowns when her car’s brakes fail, sending her into a river, and since everyone hated her, everyone in town is a suspect.Danny DeVito plays the town sheriff, Jamie Lee Curtis plays the mistress of Midler’s husband (William Fitchner), and Neve Campbell and Casey Affleck play an engaged couple who have their own reasons for wanting Midler dead.
Director: Nick Gomez
What Planet Are You From? –14/$3 million/$6.3 million/144/42%/41–Rarely has so much talent produced such a huge flop.Garry Shandling, in his one attempt at movie stardom, played an alien from an all-male planet who is sent to Earth to impregnate a woman.He ends up with Annette Bening, but ends up falling in love with her, which was not part of the plan.

Ben Kingsley plays his alien superior, Greg Kinner played a womanizer who Shandling worked with, and John Goodman played a man who is convinced that Shandling is an alien.

This cost $60 million to make and made about 1/10th of that back at the domestic box office.
Director: Mike Nichols
New Limited Releases:
3 Strikes –$9.8 million/134/0%/11–In this very poorly received urban comedy, Brian Hooks played a recently released convict who tries to avoid his third felony conviction, as that will send him to prison for at least 25 years.Of course, he is promptly involved in a shootout with police and has to go on the run.Some famous faces pop up, including David Alan Grier and Dean Norris as cops, Mo’Nique as a neighborhood resident, and Mike Epps as a crackhead.
Director: DJ Pooh
Expanding:
My Dog Skip –3/$5.9 million
March 10, 2000:
New Wide Releases:
Mission to Mars –1/$22.9 million/$60.9 million/41/24%/34–A good cast and impressive effects didn’t do much to elevate this routine space opera, the more successful of 2000’s two Mars-based movies.

In the far-off year of 2020, the first manned mission to Mars ends with a mysterious disaster, a rescue attempt is launched to save survivor Don Cheadle.Upon arriving, the rescue team discovers evidence that Mars was once much more hospitable to life than anyone could have guessed.Among the astronauts are Gary Sinise, Tim Robbins, Connie Nielsen, and Jerry O’Connell.
Director: Brian De Palma
The Ninth Gate –2/$6.6 million/$18.7 million/100/43%/44–In this supernatural globe-trotting thriller, Johnny Depp plays a book dealer who is hired by Frank Langella to track down the three surviving copies of a 17th century tome that is rumored to have been authored by Satan himself.

Of course, everyone besides Depp who comes into contact with one of the volumes usually meets a swift end soon thereafter.Lena Olin and director Roman Polanski’s real-life wife Emmanuelle Seigner are also after the books.Critics compared the film unfavorably to Polanski’s own Rosemary’s Baby .
Director: Roman Polanski
Twenty-Five Years Ago–March 3, 1995:
New Wide Releases:
Man of the House –1/$9.5 million/$40.1 million/41/14%/NA–Four months after Home Improvement star Tim Allen became a movie star thanks to The Santa Clause , Disney tried to turn his TV son Jonathan Taylor Thomas into one as well, teaming him with Chevy Chase in this comedy about a kid (Thomas) who desperately wants to get rid of his mother’s (Farrah Fawcett) new boyfriend (Chase), and said boyfriend desperately wanting to bond with Thomas.Hijinks ensure.While Thomas never became a top-tier star, he did have a decent run through the 90s.
Director: James Orr
Hideaway –3/$5.2 million/$12.2 million/105/20%/NA–In this supernatural serial killer thriller, Jeff Goldblum is seemingly killed in a car accident, only to be revived by a doctor (Alfred Molina).He then realizes that he and a Satan-worshiping serial killer (Jeremy Sisto) who also survived a near-death experience, share a psychic bond, and that the killer has become obsessed with Goldblum’s daughter (pre-Clueless and post-Aerosmith videos Alicia Silverstone).Christine Lathi played Goldblum’s wife.

Despite a good cast, this one didn’t do much business.
Director: Brett Leonard
Roommates –5/$4 million/$12.1 million/106/29%/NA–In this vehicle for Peter Falk and Peter Falk’s makeup team, the once and future Columbo played a gold-hearted but cankerous old man who raised his orphan grandson.When Falk, nearing 100, got evicted from his home, he moved in with his now-grown grandson (D.B.Sweeney), a medical student, and keeps living with him as he gets older, gets married to Julianne Moore, and has kids of his own.The makeup would be Oscar nominated, even though the rest of the film was quickly forgotten.
Director: Peter Yates
New Limited Releases:
Exotica –$4.2 million/152/97%/71–Between its title and its strip club setting, this was marketed as an erotic drama, but the film was much more of a character study about a man (Bruce Greenwood) who finds solace from a series of tragedies at the club and specifically with a particular dancer (Mia Kirshner).Elias Koteas, who, like Greenwood, was a regular in director Atom Egoyan’s films, played the jealous club DJ, Victor Garber played Greenwood’s brother, and Sarah Polley, who would be the lead in Egoyan’s next film, The Sweet Hereafter , played Garber’s daughter.While previous Egoyan films had gotten US releases, this was the Canadian director’s first major success south of the border.
Director: Atom Egoyan
March 10, 1995:
New Wide Releases:
Outbreak –1/$13.4 million/$67.7 million/24/59%/64–In a film that became extremely timely almost exactly on its 25th anniversary, Dustin Hoffman plays a military doctor who discovers an outbreak of an Ebola-type disease in a small California town, one that has mutated to become airborne.

Rene Russo played his ex-wife, a doctor with the CDC, Morgan Freeman played Hoffman’s superior officer, who may know more about the disease than he’s letting on, Donald Sutherland played the vil general who is willing to sacrifice the entire town for his own nefarious reasons, Kevin Spacey and Cuba Gooding, Jr.played doctors, and Patrick Dempsey played the smuggler who brought the infected monkey to the town in the first place.In addition to being frighteningly timely for 2020 (and being suddenly very popular on Netflix), the film also seems to be a who’s who of current industry pariahs (of the males in the cast, Sutherland and Dempsey are pretty much the only ones who haven’t been accused of shitty behavior).
Director: Wolfgang Peterson
New Limited Releases:
Muriel’s Wedding –$15.1 million/95/78%/63–Austrian actresses Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths broke out in this hit Australian comedy, about an overweight, ABBA-obsessed woman (Colette) who dreams of having the perfect wedding, as a way to escape the drudgery of her boring life.Griffiths played her new best friend, who had decidedly mixed reactions to the extremes Collette would go to to make her dreams come true.Director P.J.Hogan would direct an even more successful movie centered on a wedding ( My Best Friend’s Wedding ) two years later.
Director: P.J.Hogan
Before the Rain –$0.8 million/207/92%/NA–Macedonia’s representative for the Foreign Film Oscar (and, before this year, the only film from the country to be nominated), this anti-war drama told three interconnecting stories about love that is ruined by acts of war.
Director: Milcho Manchevski
Thirty Years Ago–March 2, 1990:
New Wide Releases:
The Hunt for Red October –1/$17.1 million/$122 million/6/89%/58–In this adaption of Tom Clancy’s blockbuster thriller, a decorated-but-disillusioned Soviet submarine commander (Sean Connery) plans to defect to the US, and take the brand-new, state-of-the-art sub he was just given command of, with him.Only CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) realizes that Connery does not want to start World War III, and has to figure out how to prove Connery’s actions are noble, while the Russians, having learned of Connery’s plans themselves, try to sink the sub.

Among the large (and very male) supporting cast were Sam Neill and Tim Curry as Red October officers, James Earl Jones as an admiral who believes Baldwin, future senator Fred Dalton Thompson as a much more skeptical admiral, and Stellan Skarsgard as another Russian sub commander.October would prove to be a huge hit, but in a month surprisingly filled with huge hits, this ended up being only the month’s third-highest grosser.At the Oscars a year later, the film would be nominated for Sound and Editing, and would win for Sound Effects Editing.
Director: John McTiernan
March 9, 1990:
#1 Movie:
The Hunt for Red October –$14.1 million
New Wide Releases:
Joe Versus the Volcano –2/$9.3 million/$39.4 million/33/63%/45–In this surrealistic comedy, the first teaming of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, Hanks played Joe, whose hopelessly boring life is interrupted with the news he has a terminal disease.

He accepts an offer from an industrialist (Lloyd Bridges) to throw himself into a volcano in order to appease a native tribe Bridges needs to do business with.Ryan plays three roles–a co-worker of Hanks and two of Bridges’s daughters, one of whom falls in love with Hanks.Robert Stack played the doctor, Ossie Davis played a chauffeur, and Abe Vigoda played the head of the tribe.This debuted to wildly mixed reviews, but did pretty good business, and in the years since has become a cult classic.
Director: John Patrick Shanley
House Party –3/$4.6 million/$26.4 million/46/93%/76–Rap group Kid’n’Play briefly became movie stars thanks to the success of this comedy, where Play (Christopher Martin) hosts the titular party, to which Kid (Christopher Reid) tries to get to, trying to avoid a group of bullies out to get him, as well as his father (Robin Harris, who was only about ten years older than Reid in real life), who had grounded him.Martin Lawrence made one of his first film appearances as a friend of Kid and Play, and his future Martin co-star Tisha Campbell played Kid’s love interest.

Harris would die of a heart attack only a week after the film opened.
Director: Reginald Hudlin
Bad Influence –4/$3.8 million/$12.6 million/88/71%/63–This film played heavily on Rob Lowe’s reputation as a bad boy after a tape of him having sex with an underage girl came out.In this thriller, Lowe plays the titular “bad influence”, who persuades wimpy James Spader to take control of his life, but encourages him to go way too far.When Spader tries to end the relationship, Lowe does not take rejection well.Marcia Cross and David Duchovny, both largely unknown at the time, play relatively minor roles.
Director: Curtis Hanson
Thirty-Five Years Ago–March 1, 1985:
#1 Movie:
Beverly Hills Cop –$5.1 million
New Wide Releases:
Missing in Action 2: The Beginning –3/$3.9 million/$10.8 million/77/NA/NA–Coming out a mere four months after the first, this insta-sequel (which was shot simultaneously with the first film) is actually a prequel.Indeed, it was supposed to be the first film, but the producers decided to switch the order around.In this one, set about ten years before the events in the original, Chuck Norris is actually a POW in a Vietnamese camp run by a sadistic colonel.

This one is even more of a fantasy than the first film, as Norris escapes and enacts bloody revenge on his captors.Apparently sated with the first film, which had been a minor hit, audiences largely ignored the follow-up.
Director: Lance Hool
The Sure Thing –5/$3.1 million/$18.1 million/49/85%/76–Yet another teen comedy arriving at multiplexes already brimming full with them, this one got better-than-expected notices and ended up becoming a sleeper hit.

John Cusack had his first lead role as a college freshman heading across the country for Christmas with classmate Daphne Zuniga, despite their mutual antagonism.Of course, this being a romantic comedy…Anthony Edwards played Cusack’s best friend, Tim Robbins played another classmate of Cusack, and Nicolette Sheridan played the titular “sure thing”, who Cusack planned to get to know intimately over the holidays.The second film of director Rob Reiner, who would recycle the “bickering college kids sharing a ride cross-country” into the first act of When Harry Met Sally…
Director: Rob Reiner
New Limited Releases:
The Purple Rose of Cairo –$10.6 million/78/92%/75–Woody Allen’s annual movie for 1985 was this 30s set comedy about a mousy waitress (Mia Farrow) in a lousy marriage who gets noticed by the dashing archaeologist (Jeff Daniels) in the film she has seen several times.

Breaking through the movie screen, he falls for her, and they try to figure out how a relationship between a real woman and a fictional character could work.Danny Aiello played Farrow’s husband.A year after the film was released, it would get Allen’s customary Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination.
Director: Woody Allen
Expanding:
Nineteen Eighty-Four –9/$1.3 million
March 8, 1985:
#1 Movie:
Witness –$4.5 million
New Limited Releases:
Mask –$48.2 million/15/93%/73–Cher had her first lead role in this drama as the fiercely protective mother of a boy (Eric Stoltz) with lionitis, which caused extreme cranial deformities.Determined that her son would live as normal of a life as possible, she made sure that he was in mainstream classes in school instead of in special education.

Sam Elliott played Cher’s biker boyfriend, Laura Dern played a blind girl that Stoltz falls for, and Estelle Getty and Richard Dysart played his grandparents.The makeup would win an Oscar.
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Expanding:
Into the Night –5/$2.6 million
Forty Years Ago–February 29, 1980:
No wide or semi-wide releases.
March 7, 1980:
Being There –$30.2 million/24/94%/83–Peter Sellers’s next-to-last role was in this fantasy that still feels relevant today.He played a simple-minded gardener who, after his long-time employer dies, finds himself homeless in Washington D.C.His fancy clothing (hand-me-downs from his late boss) lead him to be mistaken for a rich and influential man himself, and his straight-forward discussions about gardening are mistaken for metaphoric advice about the economy.Sellers would receive his final Oscar nomination for the film, and Melvyn Douglas (who, like Sellers, would die within two years of the film’s release) would win Supporting Actor as the presidential adviser who takes Sellers under his wing.Shirley MacLaine played Douglas’s wife.
Director: Hal Ashby
Coal Miner’s Daughter –$67.2 million/7/86%/87–As audiences across the country were getting their first chance to see the performance that would win Supporting Actor in a few weeks, they were also getting the opportunity to see the performance that would win Best Actress a year from then.That would be Sissy Spacek, playing the early, hardscrabble years of country music superstar Loretta Lynn, who married as a teenager (in the film to Tommy Lee Jones), and began her singing career in earnest in her mid-20s, after already having several kids.Despite its early release date, Daughter would get 7 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.
Director: Michael Apted
Windows –$2.1 million/101/0%/NA–While Cruising was making mainstream audiences terrified of gay men, this thriller was attempting to do the same for lesbians.

Taila Shire played a woman who survives a sexual assault in her home, not realizing that her friend Elizabeth Ashley, who had fallen in love with her, had hired her assailant.As Shire begins to fall for the detective investigating her case, Ashley becomes progressively more jealous and unhinged.Needless to say, LGBT groups were not fans, and neither were critics.Luckily, the film was a sizable flop.
Director: Gordon Willis.