Top Ten Movies By Decade 1930-2010

[Town Heretic]

I'm going to post my favorite movies in a given decade and invite anyone to chime in or comment.

1930s: a great decade for film. Some find the theatrical element of presentation offputting. The "realism" of the 60s forward have skewed expectations, but I think people who aren't open to examining early film within its context are missing out on some of the most remarkable gems in the cinematic crown.

1. Gone With the Wind: great cast in a revisionist look at one of the worst periods of American history. But if you can get past the distorted romanticism there's a heck of a film underneath it with Gable demonstrating how a couple of films can establish an acting legend.

2. Wizard of Oz: a children's classic for the entire family and, for my money, special effects have never been better at evoking a response than that amazing tornado plowing across fields in route to Dorothy's house.

3. It Happened One Night: a spoiled heiress runs away from papa, who objects to nuptials with a fortune hunting loser. Along the way she takes up with a sly newspaper reporter and strikes a deal that will change both of their lives in one of the better romantic comedies of the Golden Age.

4. Mr. Smtih Goes to Washington: Jimmy Stewart's second best film and one of the most likable (and corny as it is, still spot on) critiques of power and politics.

5. A Christmas Carol: arguably the best of the film retellings of the Dickens classic.

6. Bringing Up Baby: the greatest early screwball comedy with Hepburn and Grant demonstrating a tremendous chemistry and deft timing.

7. Duck Soup: the Marx brothers take on politics with flair and absurd, deadly satire.

8. City Lights: Chaplin's Tramp falls in love with a flower girl. Could as easily have been at the top of a great list of films.

9. The Thin Man: Powel is exceptionally likable in the film that started a private eye series oft imitated but rarely equaled.

10. Stagecoach: John Wayne's introduction to A films. And he's good in a surprisingly complicated western that takes on the human condition under stress.

Hon. Men.: Beau Geste

 

[Town Heretic]

The 1940s picked up where the 30s left off in more ways than chronologically, with a spate of extraordinary films of which I’ve chosen my favorite ten.


1. It’s a Wonderful Life: Jimmy Stewart’s best and a Christmas classic about a man who doubts the value of his life and learns the truth about success and failure.


2. Casablanca: Humphry Bogart’s best. Nazis, romance, a great theme song and Claude Rains giving Ingrid Bergman a run for her money in the chemistry/pairing department with the lead.


3. His Girl Friday: sharp writing with Cary Grant in the lead as a newspaper owner and manipulator in search of a great story and the end of his newly minted ex-wife's flirtation with another man and a new life. People who think Woody Allen invented overlapping comedic dialogue in film haven't seen this clever outing.


4. The Maltese Falcon: Bogey’s second best and the cream of the film noir crop. Began the “he’s in another great film” notice of Ward Bond in support…seriously, look up Ward Bond’s filmography. He’s in a ridiculous number of classic films.


5. The Great Dictator: Chaplin’s adroit pin in Hitler’s balloon.


6. Miracle on 34th Street: A man who claims to be Santa Claus comes to test the age through a single mother and her daughter, with some help from an able lawyer and a pliable court. Christmas gold.


7. Sergeant York: Gary Cooper as the reluctant WWI hero of conscience and war.


8. Red River: Wayne’s second best western and arguably his best job of acting as a cattle baron haunted by the ghost of past choices, driven to desperate measures and a conflict with his heir apparent.


9. Notorious: Bergman, Grant and Rains in a story of redemption, love and, of course, Nazis.

10. The Grapes of Wrath: Henry Fonda breathes life into the literary bones of Tom Joad in a stirring examination of the dust bowl nomads and the brutality of an unjust machinery that used and discarded them.

Hon. Men.: Meet Me in St. Louis, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Big Sleep, Rope, Arsenic and Old Lace, Double Indemnity, To Have and Have Not, The Enchanted Cottage, The Red Shoes, My Darling Clementine, The Big Sleep, Rebecca, Citizen Kane (yes, it may be the best film ever made and I admired but never could warm to it).

 

[Jedster]

Duck's soup is one of my all time favourites.
When I first saw it, the scene where he is mirroring himself had me literally rolling on the floor with laughter.
That scene "blissed me out"...thanks for the reminder

 

[SomeRandom]

Well I'm not very well versed in movies before like the 80s. But here's a few of mine.
1930s. No brainer, Wizard of Oz.
1950s. The Ten Commandments. Although clunky and emotional empty at times. The sheer spectacle.
Ben Hur. A much smoother 50s epic in my opinion.
Disney's Sleeping Beauty. Storytelling wise it's not their best. But I just love it.
1970s The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Had that movie practically memorised by the time I was like 7 lol. Best **** movie ever.
The original Star Wars Trilogy (err I suppose technically like the first one or two? But whatever I'm counting them all as 70s movies.)
Oh and Disney's version of Robin Hood. Though the animation is a bit ****. I don't know, just love it.
1980s. The Ghostbusters Movies.
Disney's Fox and the Hound (yes I love Disney movies. Sue me.)
Secret of Nimh. Imo Don Bluth's magnum opus.
The Iron Giant (I think it was the 80s) Dem feels man!
Return to Oz. Dark, twisted and oddly charming. I like this better than the 30s adaptation. Closer to the original spirit of the book and I like darker things by default often.
The Indiana Jones Trilogy. Not the best movies but they're just so damned fun.
90s. Most of the Disney Renaissance lol
Jurassic Park.
2000s Lord of the Rings. My childhood!!

Movies I love but don't know their respective decades are Shindler's List. The Usual Suspects. Sev7en. Fight Club. Oh and Wolf Children. Such a beautiful anime. A Christmas Carol, the one with George C Scott. That one is amazing and my favourite adaptation.
The first 2 Xmen movies. Guardians of the Galaxy. Most of the Marvel Universe movies. (Well I know when many of them were made I just forgot about them.)
Honourable shout out to the Harry Potter adaptations. I'm a bit mixed on them, but they're just such an integral part of my entire childhood that I can't leave them off the list.

Oh and almost all the Pixar movies. Just too lazy to add them into the decades.

 

[rocala]

I think 'Arsenic and Old Lace' deserves a mention for the 40's.

 

[Town Heretic]

I think 'Arsenic and Old Lace' deserves a mention for the 40's.

So did I. It made my honorable mention list.

 

[Revoltingest]

So many decades.....so many movies.....so much work to categorize them this way.
I'll give some highlights.....

30s
The Wizard Of Oz

50s
Some Like It Hot
High Noon
Shane
Rear Window

60s
Cape Fear
Lawrence Of Arabia
Psycho
Dr Strangelkove
My Fair Lady
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

70s
Alien
Star Wars
A Clockwork Orange
Mad Max
West Side Story
Rocky
Patton
Annie Hall
American Graffiti
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Papillion

80s
The Princess Bride
Aliens
Amadeus
Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Das Boot
Die Hard
The Terminator

90s
The Hudsucker Proxy
Fargo
Beauty & The Beast
T2
Pulp Fiction
The Usual Suspects
Gattaca
Groundhog Day
The Shawshank Redemption
Forrest Gump
The Silence Of The Lambs - It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again.
Dances With Wolves - I'm ashamed to admit I think it's great.
The 6th Sense

00s
Kill Bill (parts 1 & 2)
The Dark Knight
V For Vendetta

 

[Town Heretic]

Bringing us up to the 1950s and the transition between the idealized Golden Age and the grittier methodology of the 60s and beyond.

Stalag 17: William Holden's best (yes, including Sunset Blvd.) is a study in redemption set within the confines of a WWII concentration camp. When two men are killed attempting to escape, suspicion turns on Holden's scrounger, who is suddenly seen as too comfortable with their captors. To preserve his own life and underlying (if well hidden) sense of honor, the endangered pariah will have to solve the mystery himself.

The Searchers: arguably the greatest epic/western of all. Wayne is terrific playing the tortured, revenge driven Ethan Edwards, searching for more than he knows in the company of a top-tier supporting cast (including Ward Bond). Legendary director John Ford's finest outing in a genre where he was unsurpassed.

Ben Hur: an old-fashioned Hollywood epic in the best sense of the word, with Heston providing a surprisingly deft turn as the focal point of a semi-Biblical narrative that satisfies on nearly every level.

12 Angry Men: a jury in a seemingly unstoppable hurry to convict a likely murderer runs into an immovable conscience in the form of Henry Fonda. What follows is the best courtroom drama of its or nearly any day.

North by Northwest: there are better Hitchcock films, but none of them are as complete a package as this one. Grant and Saint are perfectly cast, the writing is clever and well paced. Probably my favorite collaboration by Grant and Hitch and that's saying something.

Shane: it's not a western epic, but it manages to feel like one anyway. A top five all-time western with Alan Lad doing a surprising job out of his usual genre.

Rear Window: Hitch again, this time with Stewart in one of the better suspense films going. Grace Kelly does subtly solid work in underpinning the paranoid and helpless worrying of a wheelchair-bound witness to murder racing the clock to bring a killer to justice before he and the girl he loves can join the tally of victims.

The Quiet Man: John Wayne plays a boxer who leaves the states for his childhood home in Ireland following the death of an opponent in the ring. Helping him come to terms with his actions and settle things between an envious neighbor who may stand in his path to happiness in more than one way is the lovely, firey Maureen O'Hara. Ward Bond, Barry Fitzgerald and Victor McLagen make up the just part of one of the best jobs of casting you'll ever find. It's funny and endearing and as likeable as it is surprising a turn for Wayne.

Singing in the Rain: Maybe you think An American in Paris is as good or better and from the narrative view I think you'd be right, but this is as good a musical/dance combination as you'll find.

Bridge on the River Kwai: Holden and Alec Guinness star in the tale of a bridge that had to be built and has to be destroyed.

Hon Men: The Quiet Man, Streetcar, Seventh Seal, On the Waterfront, Singing in the Rain, Sunset Blvd, Shane, Some Like it Hot, Paths of Glory, Broken Arrow, The Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Dial M for Murder, Guys and Dolls, Roman Holiday, From Here to Eternity.

 

[Revoltingest]

Bringing us up to the 1950s and the transition between the idealized Golden Age and the grittier methodology of the 60s and beyond.

Stalag 17: William Holden's best (yes, including Sunset Blvd.) is a study in redemption set within the confines of a WWII concentration camp. When two men are killed attempting to escape, suspicion turns on Holden's scrounger, who is suddenly seen as too comfortable with their captors. To preserve his own life and underlying (if well hidden) sense of honor, the endangered pariah will have to solve the mystery himself.

The Searchers: arguably the greatest epic/western of all. Wayne is terrific playing the tortured, revenge driven Ethan Edwards, searching for more than he knows in the company of a top-tier supporting cast (including Ward Bond). Legendary director John Ford's finest outing in a genre where he was unsurpassed.

Ben Hur: an old-fashioned Hollywood epic in the best sense of the word, with Heston providing a surprisingly deft turn as the focal point of a semi-Biblical narrative that satisfies on nearly every level.

12 Angry Men: a jury in a seemingly unstoppable hurry to convict a likely murderer runs into an immovable conscience in the form of Henry Fonda. What follows is the best courtroom drama of its or nearly any day.

North by Northwest: there are better Hitchcock films, but none of them are as complete a package as this one. Grant and Saint are perfectly cast, the writing is clever and well paced. Probably my favorite collaboration by Grant and Hitch and that's saying something.

Shane: it's not a western epic, but it manages to feel like one anyway. A top five all-time western with Alan Lad doing a surprising job out of his usual genre.

Rear Window: Hitch again, this time with Stewart in one of the better suspense films going. Grace Kelly does subtly solid work in underpinning the paranoid and helpless worrying of a wheelchair-bound witness to murder racing the clock to bring a killer to justice before he and the girl he loves can join the tally of victims.

The Quiet Man: John Wayne plays a boxer who leaves the states for his childhood home in Ireland following the death of an opponent in the ring. Helping him come to terms with his actions and settle things between an envious neighbor who may stand in his path to happiness in more than one way is the lovely, firey Maureen O'Hara. Ward Bond, Barry Fitzgerald and Victor McLagen make up the just part of one of the best jobs of casting you'll ever find. It's funny and endearing and as likeable as it is surprising a turn for Wayne.

Singing in the Rain: Maybe you think An American in Paris is as good or better and from the narrative view I think you'd be right, but this is as good a musical/dance combination as you'll find.

Bridge on the River Kwai: Holden and Alec Guinness star in the tale of a bridge that had to be built and has to be destroyed.

Hon Men: The Quiet Man, Streetcar, Seventh Seal, On the Waterfront, Singing in the Rain, Sunset Blvd, Shane, Some Like it Hot, Paths of Glory, Broken Arrow, The Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Dial M for Murder, Guys and Dolls, Roman Holiday, From Here to Eternity.

Yeah, I planned to list some of those too, especially the Hitchcock ones.
Also....

 

[Town Heretic]

Yeah, I planned to list some of those too, especially the Hitchcock ones.
Also....

Hey, monkey-boy, I like that one. Great cast before anyone knew who most of them were.

 

[Town Heretic]

Where was I? Ah, the 60s.

1. Lawrence of Arabia: beautiful to look at, patient, eclectic, curious study of an enigma. Standout performances by O'Toole, Sharif, Quinn. Even the lesser roles are filled with beautiful acting by the likes of Guinness, Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy, Claud Raines, Hawkins and Quayle. You couldn't put a cast like this together today. You couldn't get a studio to foot the bill for a film that stands still and simply watches a spec in the distance grow into a shadow and then a rider. The Epic mold.

2. To Kill a Mockingbird: Peck earned his Oscar as Atticus Finch, but he wouldn't without the amazing performance of Mary Badham as Scout. Introduced us to Robert Duval and ended with what is arguably the greatest narrative closing in film.

3. The Lion in Winter: Casts? Just O'Toole, Hepburn, a Young Anthony Hopkins as a young Richard the Lionhearted, and a younger Nigel Terry (who would make a name for himself as Arthur in "Excalibur" much later), along with John Castle and Timothy Dalton, but the scenery belongs to the two leads, as O'Toole plays an aging Henry II, considering how to divide his kingdom and deal with three hostile sons and a wife he's mostly kept imprisoned in a nunnery. A wife he means to divorce in order to produce another heir. It is, by turns, funny, heartbreaking, and riveting. There's a bittersweet note in noticing how time spent in excess has already begun to rob O'Toole.

4. Once Upon a Time in the West: speaking of taking time and masterpieces, this is unquestionably an illustration of both in the form of a western. Sports the staggeringly paced railway station gunfight and Henry Fonda as a villain for any age.

5. 2001: A Space Odyssey: a masterpiece of visual storytelling.

6. Dr. Strangelove: bitterly funny satire, part biting commentary, part screwball comedy. A disjoint wonder.

7. Spartacus: a move about a brave man put together by a brave man who set the name of the black listed writer out on the screen for everyone to see. Magnificent film.

8. My Fair Lady: arguably the best musical Hollywood ever managed, with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn perfectly cast and ably directed.

9. The Apartment: I can't describe it. The description wouldn't really tell you why this small film about the rise and fall of a middle management guy and a corporate love triangle equals an endearing comedy. But it does.

10. Bullit: Steve McQueen is the cool hero whose shadow would fall over generations of imitators to come.

Hon Men: Breakfast at Tiffany's, Midnight Cowboy, Bonnie and Clyde, True Grit, The Dirty Dozen, The Hustler, The Longest Day, The Wild Bunch, Judgement at Nuremberg, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, In the Heat of the Night, The Sound of Music, The Hustler, Psycho, West Side Story, The Birds, The Graduate, The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

 

[Town Heretic]

The 70s

1. The Godfather, I & II: can't really be considered apart. Brando, Pacino and DeNiro would never be better. American classic.

2. Rocky: forget what followed. This is a triumph. A small film about second chances and impossible odds overcome by will and heart.

3. Star Wars: the movie that launched a generation into space, after a fashion, and Harrison Ford's career. Perfectly scored and for at least two installments, compellingly told.

4. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: moving, poignant and Nicholson, who is Robin Williams without the ADHD shtick in this incarnation.

5. Apocalypse Now: one of the most quoted movies and for good reason. Uneven, sure, but the parts that work are better than many a whole film.

6. Monty Python Holy Grail: about as inspired as humor on film has managed since the height of the Marx brothers.

7. The Deer Hunter: compelling portrait of men struggling for meaning and sanity in the aftermath of the brutality of war.

8. Jaws: suspense doesn't come any better. Ruined the beach for years.

9. Close Encounters: idealistic science fiction aimed at an adult sense of wonder.

10. Patton: George C. Scott gives a magnificent performance in the last American movie set in the old Hollywood approach to war.

Hon Men: China Town, The Sting, MASH, Annie Hall, American Graffiti, Blazing Saddles, The Exorcist, Taxi Driver, Alien, Fiddler on the Roof, The French Connection, Foul Play, All the President's Men, The Longest Yard, High Plains Drifter, The Jerk, Catch-Twenty Two, The Outlaw Jose Wales, Kelly's Heroes, Marathon Man

 

[Town Heretic]

The 80s

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark: an homage that transcends the B movies it honors. Great, rollicking fun.

2. Ghostbusters: sharp, timed, cynical and corny, unique.

3. Field of Dreams: a father-son story of magnitude and heart. Magic.

4. Die Hard: the fly in the ointment, the monkey in the wrench, the new mold for action heroes. Smart, paced, unmatched since.

5. Blade Runner: arguably the most influential science fiction film of all time. Well written and ably acted, with one of Rutger

6. Chariots of Fire: I hear, "All of Scottland mourned" and think of a young man who ran for country while holding onto principle and it gets me. Every time.

7. Trading Places: Murphy at his comedic best before he became insufferably self-aware.

8. A Christmas Story: captures the "fragile" heart of a family at Christmas. Timeless.

9. Raising Arizona: a modern take on the madcap comedy.

10. Bull Durham: best baseball movie ever. Maybe the best sports movie ever.

Hon Men: Hoosiers, War Games, ET, Witness, Midnight Run, Dead Poets Society, Brazil, Empire Strikes Back, Back to the Future, The Princess Bride, Scar Face, Ferris Bueller's Day Off , This Is Spinal Tap, Gandhi, Ran, Little Shop of Horrors, Das Boot, Big, A Fish Called Wanda, 48 Hrs, Hannah and Her Sisters, Scrooged, Raging Bull

 

[Town Heretic]

The 90s
1. Shawshank Redemption: hits all the notes with a degree of subtle originality that makes the sum of this movie a thing far surpassing its parts...and has one of the best closing narrations in film.

2. Pulp Fiction: for a long time it was arguably the best thing Tarantino had offered, which was saying something. It's still an amazing tapestry of violent, thoughtful interconnectedness.

3. The Sixth Sense: before his fall from grace, M. Night's best. Works on every level and manages to do what few films can in a fairly predictable market, suprised us.

4. Silence of the Lambs: elevated a genre in one deft bit of narrative. Foster and Hopkins are wonderfully intertwined in a tale of cat and psychotic mouse.

5. The Usual Suspects: the most perfect surprise I've ever run into in a film. Never saw it coming. Couldn't stop smiling afterward.

6. Groundhog Day: Muray at his best, because it allows him to be what he's best at, portraying a man cynic with a heart of gold in need of the right trauma to unleash it. Funny, tender, and comfortably self-aware.

7. Apollo 13: Ron Howard's best telling of a true tale, before his craft turned mannered and disingenuine. Hanks and cast are excellent.

8. Tombstone: a strange, oddly blended old/new Hollywood westerns, comfortably straddling conventions and meeting expectations without becoming stale or woodenly expected. As with most of the films on this list, excellently cast.

9. Sense and Sensibility: brilliant script. Thompson is utterly believable as a woman meeting powers beyond her control with a remarkable force of character. Splendid ensemble with particularly noteworthy performances by Thompson, Winslet and Rickman in his best role.

10. Meet Joe Black: there are movies below that are better as craftwork, but there's something in this tale of death on a holiday that works for me. If not for an unfortunate scene that launches (literally and figuratively) the protagonist, I think it would have found a wider audience. Amazing score underpins top tier cinematography and, absent that important early hiccup, a fine job of direction.

Hon Men: While You Were Sleeping, Schindler's List, Fight Club, The Matrix, American Beauty, Fargo, Toy Story, Saving Private Ryan, The Big Lebowski, Good Will Hunting, Reservoir Dogs, The Truman Show, Unforgiven, L.A. Confidential, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, A Few Good Men, Dances With Wolves, As Good as it Gets, Then English Patient, Sling Blade, Galaxy Quest, Sleepless in Seattle, The Ref, My Cousin Vinny, Cop Land, Babe, The American President, The 13th Warrior

 

[Town Heretic]

2000-2010

LOTR: Return of the King: the best of the films that were, collectively, the Star Wars of another generation and an homage to a distant one.

Lincoln: brilliant. Almost single handedly saves a weak decade in film.

The Last Samurai: compelling story telling and Cruise doing a fine impression of a version of the character we met more idealistically in Dances With Wolves.

The Grand Budapest Motel: funny, heart breaking, original. A rarity in any decade.

Gran Torino: this is how a movie star goes out...what? He didn't? Well, it's how he should hvae gone out.

We Were Soldiers: Mel Gibson before the crazy in a role that demands a great deal from him. He delivers, as does Sam Elliot as the able Master Sargeant.

Stranger than Fiction: uses its principle deftly. A wonderful mix of humor and fine acting keeps an impossible premise from seeming so.

Inception: an engrossing movie with a somber, singular contemplation hidden at its heart.

Michael Clayton: Oscar worthy performance. Likely what caused the Descendents nod and garner a bit later. This is the darker, better film.

Django Unchained: when it comes to reinventing history with humor, gore and a rollicking good time, no one does it better than Tarantino.

Hon Men: Amelie, Inglorius Basterds, Zoolander, Finding Nemo, Gladiator, No Country for Old Men, Memento, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, American Psycho, Iron Man, A Beautiful Mind, Monsters Inc., Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, War of the Worlds, Up, Tropic Thunder, Blackhawk Down, The Pianist, Wall-E, Road to Perdition, The Bourne Identity, Cast Away, Pineapple Express, Talladega Nights , IP Man, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Unbreakable, Anchorman, Collateral, Finding Neverland, Hugo, Sideways, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Moon, Michael Clayton

 

[metis]

1950's: Lawrence of Arabia
1960's: Romeo & Juliet (Zefferelli) + Un homme et une femme (A Man and a Woman)
1970's: Rocky + Jesus of Nazareth
1980's: Gandhi
1990's: Schindler's List
2000's: Slumdog Millionaire
2010's: Theory of Everything