State of the Art: Film Writings 1983–1985 is the eighth collection of movie reviews by the American critic Pauline Kael.

She gives rich praise to the work of performers and directors she admires, for example, Molly Ringwald's performance in Sixteen Candles, - Steve Martin, Robin Williams, and Nick Nolte, ( three perennial Kael favourites), and Luchino Visconti, for his work on The Leopard - "The Leopard is so beautifully felt that it calls up a whole culture.

And she's typically cool to work she regards as second rate; 'When you come out of Desperately Seeking Susan, you don't want to know who the director is - you want to know who the perpetrator is.'

And Steven Spielberg's segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie - a, " lump of ironclad whimsy.

Films she recommends in this eighth collection include The Survivors, The Grey Fox, The Leopard, Under Fire, Heart Like a Wheel, Yentl, Choose Me, Splash, Moscow on the Hudson, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Repo Man, Dreamscape, Carmen, Utu, Stop Making Sense, A Soldier's Story, Comfort and Joy, Independence Day, Mrs. Soffel, A Passage to India, Micki + Maude, The Makioka Sisters, The Return of the Soldier, A Private Function, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Heartbreakers, Lost in America, Ghare Baire, Prizzi's Honor, The Shooting Party.