I had a friend who was a die-hard Madonna loyalist. Whatever Madge put out or starred in, my friend was 100 percent on board, and she often took me along for the ride. Which means I saw a lot of Madonna films, from the wretched (like Body of Evidence, which I am pretty sure Willem Dafoe wants to forget as much as I do) to the almost good (Evita). But 1985’s Desperately Seeking Susan was, by far, the best of the lot. It’s an entertaining comedy of errors that follows a bored New Jersey housewife (Rosanna Arquette) who gets caught up in the life of an exciting stranger (Madonna) she discovers via the personals, and—amid a series of events that involves a case of mistaken identity, amnesia, and a pair of stolen Egyptian earrings—experiences a finding-herself moment. But the film is so good because it serves as a nostalgic snapshot of a Madonna that many of us have forgotten existed: youthful, fresh, on the come-up (the film dropped less than five months after Like a Virgin), and confident without that overinflated sense of self-importance that came with her superstardom. It also marks the debut of “Into the Groove,” arguably one of the sexiest dance songs of the era. by Leilani Polk