In terms of what is meant by the spirit of a given decade, I leave that up to you. The only rule is that the movie should be made relatively contemporary to the decade the it captures. So You can’t use Grease to embody the 50’s. I’ve attached my picks put since I’m not a movie or historical culture buff I’m sure you all can do better
1910’s The Immigrant with Charlely Chaplin
1920’s Harold Lloyd
1930s: The Grapes of Wrath
1940s: The Best Years of Our Lives
In the 1930s the economy was very bad, but people didn’t want to see movies about a bad economy–they wanted escapism–and that is characteristic of most of the movies I think of as great movies from that era.
So I am curious as to the answers to the OP questions.
2000s: Avatar - for being completely unrealistic yet an effective illusion.
1980s: Any Arnie flick - the macho decade (after 1982)
1960s
I’ll go for the most obvious one: Easy Rider
1970s
Saturday Night Fever for the upbeat aspect
Taxi Driver for the paranoia and disillusionment
1980s: WarGames or Red Dawn.
I feel like BACK TO THE FUTURE is there to make a case for the ‘80s: it’s about a guy from the ‘80s, such that when he’s not in the ‘80s he’s trying his best to get back to the ‘80s; and the moral of the story is that yes it makes sense that Ronald Reagan would be the president, and yes we can see that our hero has succeeded by whether a guy now wears a suit to the office and yes it’s great to get yourself a big fine gas guzzler and yes solving problems with violence can work out just fine and yes Libyan terrorists exist to get conned and be a punchline and yes that DeLorean sure does look sharp even if it never actually works the way you’d expect.
Nice.
Or Predator or The Thing
70s is hard cause theres so many ‘eras’.
MASH
Soylent Green
Jaws
All The Presidents Men
Star Wars
Kramer vs Kramer
That should cover it
Same with 60’s. You go from Mod to the end of the Beatles in only 10 short years.
Meanwhile the 2010’s are almost over and I don’t even know how to distinguish them, nevermind the naughties.
edit: re; Red Dawn and Wargames…so the theme of 80s movies are “Heavy-handed but mannnn with some really cool and memorable scenes?” (Especially Wargames. Very taught. Very well done.)
60’s
Blow-Up
Midnight Cowboy
Woodstock
Reality bites - 90s.
Somehow I had a premature posting. Here is what I meant for the OP:
In terms of what is meant by the spirit of a given decade, I leave that up to you. I’m also thinking generally about American movies representing American decades but feel free to pick different experiences. The only rule is that the movie should be made relatively contemporary to the decade the it captures (but you can cheat a bit like I did with the Grapes of Wrath) . So You can’t use the Great Gatsby to embody the 20’s. I’ve attached my picks but since I’m not a movie or historical culture buff I’m sure you all can do better
1910’s The Immigrant (1917)
1920’s Lights of New York (1928)
1930’s Grapes of Wrath (1940)
1940’s The Best Years of our lives (1946)
1950’s The Blackboard Jungle (1955)
1960’s Easy Rider (1969)
1970’s Saturday night fever (1977)
1980’s Wargames (1983)
1990’s Clerks (1994)
2000’s Rendition (2007)
2010s (too soon)
A few comments. I went with Best Years of our lives for 1940’s because although it was about the war it it wasn’t a war movie and concentrated on the experience back home. I chose Black Board fever rather than Rebel w/o a cause because IMHO you can’t have a 50’s movie without rock and roll, and also the racial elements the was underlying society at the time. There are lots of options for the 80’s I chose War Games because it both captured the Cold war as well as video games and the advent of the PC.
Casablanca (1942)
Pickup on South Street (1953)/The Girl Can’t Help It (1956)
Dr. Strangelove (1962) – Early ‘60s
Battle of Algiers (1966)
I Love You, Alice B. Toklas (1968)/*Gimme Shelter *(1970) – Late ‘60s
Shampoo (1975) – Early-mid-‘70s
Dawn of the Dead (1978) – Late ‘70s
The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)/Repo Man (1984) – Early ‘80s
Top Gun (1986)/Wall Street (1987)
80s: Wall Street
90s: Bad Boys (not a great movie, but perfectly represents the bombastic-ness of the decade)
Best of Years of Our Lives is perfect for the 40s. It takes place right in the middle of the 40s with soldiers returning from the war and introduced the issues being faced in the post war 40s.
The 50s is very hard, it’s a transition period. Korea was some leftover from the 40s, the 50s is really the Eisenhower decade, full of optimism, yet growing fear and discontent. I would say The Apartment with Jack Lemmon is a pretty good look at one facet of the 50s, the growing white collar middle class, along with changes in morality and social structure. Rebel Without a Cause looks at the life of young people in the suburban environment in the way Blackboard Jungle does in the inner city.
And sometimes you get that one movie like Easy Rider that can sum up a decade, even the turbulent 60s. I’m not finding something like that to wrap up the 50s so far but there are a lot more movies to consider.
You could do worse than 12 Angry Men.
Id add grease and shampoo just because of the "50s nostalgia in the late 70s
for the 80s I’d say 3 movies * wargames, risky business, wall street* and desperately seeking Susan for the rom-com bunch…
American Pop managed to capture the spirit of every decade of the 20th century up to the one in which it was made.
That’s pretty good. The jury shows a variety of people from different walks of life. Better than anything I’ve thought of so far.
That’s a damn good list. Very accurate and as what the OP wanted. I vote The Social Network (2010) to represent the 2010 decade.
The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is what I immediately thought of for the '50s.