Best Female Lead movies of 1980s

Actors : Natalie O'Connell, Teresa Farley, Frances Raines, Lance Lewman,
Directors : Tim Kincaid,

The Manhattan General Hospital has admitted a string of young women who have been raped by something otherworldly. The perpetrator only attacks women who are virgins. Dr. Pace and Detective...

Actors : Rüdiger Vogler, Jutta Lampe, Barbara Sukowa, Doris Schade,
Directors : Margarethe von Trotta,

Two sisters both fight for women's rights. Juliane is a journalist and Marianne a terrorist. When Marianne is jailed, Juliane feels obligated to help her despite their differing views on how to live.

Actors : Daniel Olbrychski, Adelheid Arndt, Otto Sander, Barbara Sukowa,
Directors : Margarethe von Trotta,

After years of political agitation, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and Leo Jogiches form a revolutionary German party, the Spartacists.

Actors : Lawrence Ko, Shu-Fen Hsin, Tian-Lu Li, Shu-Fang Chen,
Directors : Hsiao-Hsien Hou,

A-yuan and A-yun are both from the small mining town of Jio-fen. In the city, A-yuan is an apprentice by day and goes to night school, and A-yun works as a helper at a tailors. Everyone ...

Actors : Li-Chun Lee, Wang An, Cora Miao, Pao-Ming Ku,
Directors : Edward Yang,

A metaphysical mystery about the lives of three couples in Taipei that continually intersect over a span of several weeks.

Actors : Mike Marshall, Carina Barone, Françoise Blanchard, Marina Pierro,
Directors : Jean Rollin,

A toxic spill revives a beautiful, dead heiress who, with the help of her childhood friend, must quench her insatiable thirst for blood.

Actors : Emily Chu, Alex Man, Anita Mui, Leslie Cheung,
Directors : Stanley Kwan,

Fleur is the blue angel in one of Hong Kong's "flower houses" - bordellos and night clubs of the 1930's. A detached and beautiful performer, she falls in love with Twelfth Master Chan, heir...

Actors : Christian Ruché, Miou-Miou, Sylvie Laporte, Michel Raskine,
Directors : Michel Deville,

A multi-faceted film based on Raymond Jean's novel "La Lectrice". Constance (Miou-Miou) reads the novel aloud in bed to her lover. Inspired by the story of Marie, a woman who advertises her...

Actors : Stanko Molnar, Veronica Zinny, Bernice Stegers, Roberto Posse,
Directors : Lamberto Bava,

A middle-aged woman, traumatized from the death of her adulterous lover, moves into a room at a New Orleans boarding house where the blind landlord becomes suspicious to her activities of continuing her affair with her dead lover.

Actors : Andrea Occhipinti, Franco Interlenghi, Serena Grandi, Andy J. Forest,
Directors : Tinto Brass,

In this erotic comedy, Miranda is the landlady of a small country tavern who is looking for a husband, and tries out a variety of men for size.

Actors : Melissa Moore, Gail Harris, Stacia Zhivago, Barbii,
Directors : Jim Wynorski,

Five college women buy the old Hokstedter place for their new sorority house. They got it cheap because of the bloody incidents from five years before. They decide to stay in it for the ...

Actors : Jacques Spiesser, Jeanne Moreau, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Isabelle Huppert,
Directors : Joseph Losey,

Frederique (Huppert) leaves her family's small-town trout farm to embark on an journey taking her to Japan and into the arms of a man. Irritations concerning her actions and present state ...

Actors : Rick Washburn, Carolyn Beauchamp, Sean Bowen, Patrick Weathers,

A small group of typical Tromaville citizens find themselves in the path of a terrorist army controlled by the power elite. The freedom of Tromaville and the world is at stake! Troma's War ...

Actors : Richard Lynch, Leonard Mann, Willie Aames, Lisa Blount,
Directors : Ruggero Deodato,

A reporter and her cameraman connect a surviving Jonestown leader and a TV exec's missing son to a drug war where jungle installations are being massacred by an army of natives and a skilled white assassin.

Actors : Sophie Marceau, Jean-Claude Leguay, Élisabeth Vitali, Vincent Lindon,
Directors : Claude Pinoteau,

Three months before her final examinations, the ambitious teachership student Valentine concentrates herself completely on learning. When Jazz musician Edouard wooes her, she agrees on a ...

Actors : Mary Tyler Moore, Julie Payne, Ted Danson, Christine Lahti,
Directors : Allan Burns,

Holly and Sandy strike up an instant friendship; they don't know however that they have more in common than they'd like. When tragedy strikes, their relationship is tested.

Actors : Linda Griffiths, Jo Henderson, Jane Hallaren, Jon DeVries,
Directors : John Sayles,

A happily married woman comes to realize herself of being a repressed lesbian after she has an affair with a female college professor, and then tries to come to terms with her newfound lifestyle.

Actors : Rebecca De Mornay, Frank Langella, Vincent Spano, Donovan Leitch Jr.,
Directors : Roger Vadim,

In this variation on director Vadim's own, more acclaimed Et Dieu Créa La Femme (1956, the same title in French), the vamp Robin Shea marries charming carpenter Billy Moran, only to get out...

Actors : Maury Chaykin, Kevin King, Lenore Zann, Kate Lynch,

Two men and a woman circle the globe in a satellite armed with a nuclear device. The third world war breaks out, and a few months later the satellite crashes. They survive the crash but one...

Actors : François Négret, Bruno Cremer, Ludmila Mikaël, Vanessa Paradis,
Directors : Jean-Claude Brisseau,

A teacher of philosophy encounters a complicated pupil; a seventeen year old girl who possesses quite a cynical view of the world. He attempts to help her focus on her studies, but soon ...