My favorite movie year -- 1950

[teela brown]

Any year that can produce Harvey, Born Yesterday, All About Eve and SUNSET BOULEVARD is second only to 1939. Last night, I was switching between Harvey and All About Eve because I couldn't make up my mind which one to watch. Jeez, did Josephine Hull deserve that best supporting actress award that year. However, I strongly disagree with Judy Holiday getting best actress for Born Yesterday. She was brilliant, but Bette Davis was better, and Gloria Swanson was better than both of them.

And as long as I'm musing about these fine movies, I'll add that George Sand as Addison Dewitt in All About Eve was also superb. He did a good cold, deadly snake.

[Soupy]

Whatever year Star Wars came out.

I watched that over and over and over.

And there were other shows that same year, can't recall which right now, but I do know that was the primo year for movies.

[Doug Bowe]

The second highest grossing movie after Star Wars that year was Smokey and the Bandit.

[UncaStuart]

1950 gave us The Asphalt Jungle and Rashomon, as well!

[kawliga]

Also from 1950: DOA, The Gunfighter, Winchester 73, and the unforgettable Champagne for Caesar.

[gobear]

I would have to nominate 1968 as a banner year as well-Oliver, Bullitt, Rosemary's Baby, Yellow Submarine, 2001:A Space Odyssey.

[MovieMogul]

More 1950 films: Bunuel's Los Olvidados, Nick Ray's In a Lonely Place, Bressn's Diary of a Country Priest, Ophuls' La Ronde, Joseph H. Lewis' Gun Crazy, Melville's Les Enfants Terribles, Minnelli's Father of the Bride, Dassin's Night and the City, King Solomon's Mines, The Flame and the Arrow, and Seven Days to Noon.

Beats out 1968, IMHO, which admittedly also had Bergman's Shame and Hour of the Wolf, Truffaut's Stolen Kisses, Mel Brooks' The Producers, Cassevetes' Faces, Pasolini's Teorema, Paradzhanov's Color of Pomegranates, Romero's Night of the Living Dead, Planet of the Apes, The Swimmer, Hell in the Pacific, If... and The Lion in Winter.

Personally, I still think I'd take 1932 myself.

[Eve]

No question, 1932. Pre-Code, so you get some great racy movies. What other year had such a plethora of classics ("plethora"—get HER!) as:

Back Street
A Bill of Divorcement (Kate Hepburn's debut)
Blonde Venus (one of Dietrich's best)
Shanghai Express (another Dietrich classic)
Beast of the City
Red Dust and Red-Headed Woman (two of Jean Harlow's best)
One Hour with You and Love Me Tonight (two of Chevalier's best)
What Price Hollywood? (the precursor to A Star is Born)
Million Dollar Legs (one of the funniest movies ever)
Horse Feather (one of the Marx Bros.' best)
Downstairs (John Gilbert's best talkie)
Grand Hotel
Rain (think Crawford can't act? This'll change your mind!)
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
If I Had a Million
Night After Night (Mae West's debut)
Plus, some of Betty Boops' best cartoons

Beat THAT, 1939!

[Ukulele Ike]

The hand-job...er, hand-off of power between Ronnie Reagan and George Bush Senior heralded some of the finest cultural entertainment Hollywood has ever shoved at us.

Just look at this representative sampling:

GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT
TOUGHER THAN LEATHER
RUTHLESS WOMEN
LADY GHOST AND THE CANNIBAL GIRL
MORTUARY ACADEMY
DANCING IN THE FOREST
WIZARDS OF THE LOST KINGDOM II
GIPNOTIZER
THE MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR
WHAT KIND OF GIRLS DO YOU THINK WE ARE?
LOOSE LIFESTYLES
RENT-A-COP
THREE MEN AND A BARBI
THE DIRK DIGGLER STORY

Say no more.