‘The Goonies’ Climbs Up Max’s Top 10 Most-Watched List Over the Holidays

The Goonies, the adventure film from 1985 directed by Richard Donner under Steven Spielberg‘s production, is rising to the top of Max’s most-watched films. By the time of writing, it remains in the sixth spot on the list, and it’s the only movie from the 1980s to make the list during a time when Christmas movies almost exclusively enter the top 10.

The Goonies follows a group of teenagers who have an extraordinary opportunity to save their homes from being demolished. Young Mikey Walsh grew up with the pirate stories his father always told him. But they were just stories, right? However, when he and the rest of his gang of teens, the Goonies, explore the attic, they find a treasure map.

Mikey convinces the rest of his friends to go looking for the loot that could give them financial backup to save their homes in the Goon Docks area of Astoria. The problem is that Astoria is also hosting a trio of criminals who are on the run, and they find out about the Goonies’ plans.

Produced by Amblin Entertainment, Spielberg’s production label, The Goonies was based on a story by the director who hired the young writer of Gremlins, Chris Columbus, to turn his idea into a script. Even though it’s indisputably Richard Donner’s film, shades of Spielberg’s storytelling style are deeply present in the movie. Many involved in the production say that Spielberg was present on the set at all times and co-directed it with Donner.

Donner always said that working with many young performers wasn’t easy. They were impossible to control, and considering their ages, the set must have been chaotic all the time. However, if someone could control them, that would have been Spielberg. His work with young actors in E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial was essential to the alien film accomplishing the iconic tone, and it’s easy to see the association with The Goonies.

However, similar rumors surround Poltergeist, the horror film written and produced by Spielberg and directed by Tobe Hooper. Many say Spielberg is the real director of the film, and while no one denies he was always on set, those familiar with Hooper’s visual language can see that the film is his and his only.

The Spielberg Effect in ’80s Cinema

The Goonies is one of several films that feature Spielberg’s look-and-feel from the 1980s. The young director had gained the trust of the industry after making some box office behemoths like Jaws, E.T., and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Suddenly, he was a producer who believed in projects that no one else dared to touch, and for which he saw potential.

Best Films Not Directed by Spielberg That Feel Like They Were

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Films like Gremlins, Back to the Future, An American Tail, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit are only a few of the movies he produced through Amblin Entertainment and which became staples of their era because of his support. In the following decades, his work as a producer was essential to franchises like Transformers and Men in Black. However, it was during the 1980s when he became the King Midas who drove audiences to theaters, and The Goonies is one perfect example of his effect.