For as long as movies have been around, there have been good ones, bad ones, and everything in between. That goes double for cheesy movies, and no period better-personified schmaltz in cinema than the 1980s, a decade during which Hollywood produced a seemingly endless line-up of drivel so bad, it often couldn’t help but be good.

80s cinema created a series of classic films, including The Shining, The Untouchables, and Blade Runner. Still, for every one of those films, ten other movies tried to reach as broad a market as possible and fell flat on their faces in the process. However, some of those movies had their tongues so firmly planted in their proverbial cheeks that they turned into guilty pleasures nonetheless.

10 The NeverEnding Story Is a Childhood Classic

Despite its status as a childhood classic for many people born in the 1980s, the NeverEnding Story was practically the definition of cheesy cinema. After all, what kid didn’t want to leave behind the dreary world of elementary school to go on an adventure in a magical storybook-like land with a flying luck dragon and other dubiously costumed creatures to earn themselves a wish for whatever their heart desires?

Mixing Lewis Caroll with Maurice Sendak and a healthy helping of Terry Gilliam gives a certain sense of what director Wolfgang Peterson was hoping to accomplish with The NeverEnding Story. However, watching the film as an adult provides a slightly different experience. Suddenly, the dragon isn’t quite so magical anymore; instead, it looks like a wet, hairy, flying dog. Still, movies don’t get much more 80s (or cheesy) than this film’s theme song, “Never Ending Story,” which was so popular back then that it peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100.

9 Adventures in Babysitting Stars a Surprisingly Stacked Cast

When listing the most underrated and enjoyable films of the 1980s, it doesn’t take movie-going fans from that decade very long to land on Adventures in Babysitting. Starring Elisabeth Shue, Vincent D’Onofrio, Keith Coogan, and Anthony Rapp, the cast was stacked in this film, which sees a too-cool-for-school teen who was stuck chaperoning her younger next-door neighbors — a feeling that most teenagers in the audience could probably relate to.

Of course, that’s not the only thing going on in Adventures of Babysitting, and anyone who’s seen the film knows that it goes to some wild and out-there places including, but not limited to, infidelity, car-jacking, prostitutes, and Playboy. Safe to say, Hollywood rarely makes films like this one anymore.

8 The Monster Squad Is an Underrated Horror Comedy

The Monster Squad was a box-office flop and practically universally panned by critics upon its release in the summer of 1987, but a funny thing has happened since then: The movie has earned itself cult status by practically everyone who’s ever seen it. A lot of that has to do with simply how fun it is to see Universal’s line-up of classic movie monsters like Dracula, the Wolfman, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Mummy, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon team up to take on a group of ordinary young kids. But it also helps that the film is incredibly corny.

Alternating between cheap gags and even cheaper scares, Shane Black and Fred Dekker’s script for The Monster Squad is much more fun than it has any right to be and perfectly captures the feeling of childlike wonder. As for the “fromage,” well, any film that involves a magical amulet-like McGuffin and features a character literally named “Scary German Guy” can’t help but reek of cheesiness. It just so happens that this underrated horror comedy also reeks of awesomeness.

7 Teen Wolf Was a Step Back From Michael J. Fox’s Last Film

Teen Wolf might be one of the most infamous movies of the ’80s. For a decade that was as fueled by illicit substances as that one was, that’s saying something. Released shortly after Back to the Future turned Michael J. Fox into Hollywood’s latest sensation, Teen Wolf was shot first but benefited greatly from being released afterward. Many Michael J. Fox fans were hopeful that this fantasy-inspired teen flick would be as good as that classic piece of cinema. It wasn’t.

Instead of a rip-roaring adventure into the past, Teen Wolf provided audiences in the 80s with a typical teen comedy featuring Michal J. Fox as a high school outcast named Scott who discovers he’s a werewolf after a particularly hair-raising make-out session with his best friend, Boof. And just in case the name of Scott’s best friend wasn’t enough to prove just how cheesy this movie was willing to get, then perhaps the idea of a werewolf becoming a basketball star will.

6 Flashdance Encapsulates the Music of the ’80s

Every film is made during a particular decade, but only a few lucky movies can personify the timeframe in which they were made. The 1980s had a glut of those types of films, but perhaps no movie better personifies the decade’s schmalziness than Flashdance. Produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, the duo that would practically come to personify excess in Hollywood, Flashdance’s music made it a hit, but its story about a young woman who dreams of becoming a ballerina and supports herself through steelwork and as an exotic dancer struck many as implausible.

Had it not been for the fantastic performance by Jennifer Beals (aided as it was by multiple body doubles during many of the more advanced dancing-technique scenes), Flashdance might have proven to be forgettable. Time has proven that the film is anything but. That being said, you’ll likely never find an 18-year-old woman landing a skilled-labor job in the unionized steel industry as a plot point ever again, even if, as legend has it, screenwriter Thomas Hedley based the idea on a real-life woman from Toronto who worked construction by day and as a stripper at night.

5 Masters of the Universe Failed to Live Up to Its Source Material

A list of ’80s movies wouldn’t be complete without at least one feature film based on an animated series, like this big-screen adaptation of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Simply put, movies don’t come much more glamorously terrible than this one. Kids everywhere got their hopes up when this film was announced, and when Dolph Lundgren (fresh off of Rocky IV) was cast as He-Man, it sounded like the film might have a shot at being good.

Unfortunately, it seems like Masters of the Universe’s producers never accounted for Dolph Lundgren’s lack of mastery of the English language at the time. Coupling Lundgren’s compromised performance with a decidedly low budget prevented most of the film’s action from taking place on He-Man’s planet of Eternia, and fans were disappointed by the film’s final product. Still, the silliness the film offers is so next-level that it can’t help but entertain an audience despite itself. Plus, Frank Langella’s melodramatic turn as the evil Skeletor is the stuff that dreams (and nightmares) are made of.

4 Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure Featured a Future Star Actor

Combine two not-so-intelligent wannabe musicians who travel through time with the help of a phone booth and interact with a series of historical figures to pass their high-school history presentation and somehow, you’ve arrived at the plot to one of the cheesiest teen movies ever made, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. This film is not a masterpiece, but any movie that involves luring a historical figure like Genghis Kahn into a phone booth with the help of a Twinkie has got to be doing something right.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure has surpassed its expected expiration date as a movie thanks mainly to the charm of its lead stars, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winters. Not only are the two men convincing as best friends, but they’re also pretty spectacular at making the audience believe they aren’t very bright. A ludicrous plot is always critical in any cheesy movie, but equally important is that the film is also fun, which is something Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure delivers in spades.

3 Revenge of the Nerds Set the Tone for a Decade of Screwball Comedies

Released in 1984, Revenge of the Nerds has come to personify the quintessential ’80s screwball comedy, the type of film that would never, in a million years, get made today. Following a fast-and-loose story that left more time for gags than narrative, the film was a gigantic success upon release, recouping over $40 million on a budget that was a fraction of that cost and producing a ton of sequels.

Today, Revenge of the Nerd’s legacy is far more complicated, compounded by dated views on sexuality, consent, and race that have aged very poorly (to say the least). That being said, any conversation about movies in the ’80s would be incomplete without mentioning this franchise, and while nostalgia isn’t enough to make up for the film’s missteps, Seth McFarlane may find a way to adapt this concept for a more discerning modern-day audience.

2 Weird Science Could Only Be Released in the ’80s

Weird Science might not be the most beloved or memorable movie in John Hughes’s filmography, but there’s a strong argument that it’s his cheesiest. With this story, the director of The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Sixteen Candles let his freak flag fly with a silly, dude-oriented tale that sees two dorky high school students design their ideal woman with the help of revolutionary computer software.

Today, Weird Science‘s effects are (gloriously) dated, and the acting is stiff and awkward. That said, the fantasy of obtaining your ideal romantic partner in this age of digital connection and online dating is very much alive. Weird Science is a movie that speaks to the modern generation through the trappings of inescapable ’80s kitschiness.

1 Howard the Duck Was a Failed Comic Book Adaptation

The ’80s were a time when comic book movies were often considered an afterthought and treated with a total lack of respect. Then, in the middle of the decade, George Lucas stepped in and attempted to change things. With the success of the original Star Wars trilogy freshly behind him, Lucas could have produced anything he wanted, and what he wanted to produce was a movie about a talking comic-book mallard called Howard the Duck. It did not go as planned, instead becoming one of the most notorious flops in Hollywood history.

A movie doesn’t earn the right to be called one of the worst disasters in history without being incredibly cheesy, and Howard the Duck wears its tackiness with pride. Howard the Duck never had any qualms about pushing the boundaries of good taste in the name of keeping its audience entertained. Whether or not it accomplished doing so is up to each viewer to decide, but there’s one thing no one can deny: ’80s movies don’t get any cheesier than this.