Dang it! I’ve tried posting to this one twice and the computer’s eaten my reply both times! I’ll try again when I get home.
My favorites (which I can watch over and over)…[ul][li]1920’s - Metropolis[/li][li]1930’s - Mutiny on the Bounty, I guess…[/li][li]1940’s - Treasure of the Sierra Madre “Badges?”[/li][li]1950’s - Giant[/li][li]1960’s - True Grit[/li][li]1970’s - Patton[/li][li]1980’s - Blade Runner[/li][li]1990’s - Braveheart[/ul][/li]
The list fairly drips with testosterone…
OK, here goes:
1900s - “A Trip to the Moon” (1902) wins by default, 'cause it’s all I’ve seen.
Teens - “The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari” (1919) - kind of slow, love the sets.
20s - “Battleship Potemkin” (1925)- Film starts to get modern.
30s - Toss-up between two bizarre films: “L’Age D’Or” (1930) (I’m a big Bunuel fan) and “Freaks” (1932) (you’ve gotta see this).
40s - “Out Of The Past” (1947) - Robert Mitchum was my idol after seeing this.
50s - “Rear Window” (1954) - Despite the somewhat pat ending, some very intense moments (and plenty of Freudian elements).
60s - “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962) - One of my all-time favorites.
70s - “Mean Streets” (1973) - To my mind, Scorsese’s best.
80s - Either “Brazil” (1985) or “Gallipoli” (1981).
90s - Despite what Ben Stein says, I thought “American Beauty” kicked ass. Props also to Hal Hartley’s “Henry Fool”; “Clockwatchers”, “Dazed and Confused” and “Pleasantville” also rank pretty high.
2000 - “Mr. Death” by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris - chilling.
1990: The Matrix (groundbreaking SFX) or The Iron Giant
1980: Return of the Jedi or Blade Runner
1970: Star Wars
1960: Lawrence of Arabia
1950: Ben Hur
1940: Casablanca or Maltese Falcon
1930: Wizard of Oz or Frankenstein
1920: Battleship Potkemkin or Metropolis
1910: Dang… I dunno.
1900: Ditto.
The IMDB is fun to browse through, they have lists of each decade, top 50…
1910’s Easy Street
1920’s Napoleon
1930’s Scarface
1940’s The Big Sleep
1950’s The Bridge on the River Kwai
1960’s Goldfinger
1970’s Star Wars
1980’s When Harry Met Sally
1990’s The Silence of the Lambs
None of these choices are non-negotiable.
Shit, Cal STILL hasn’t gotten home?
Well, I hope he’s pleased with himself. His dinner is stone cold.
1910s: Les Vampires (Feuillade)
Runner-up: South (Hurley)
1920s: The General (Keaton)
Runner-up: Sunrise (Murnau)
1930s: The Crime of Monsieur Lange (Renoir)
Runner-up: Footlight Parade (Bacon)
1940s: His Girl Friday (Hawks)
Runner-up: Casablanca (Curtiz)
1950s: Vertigo (Hitchcock)
Runner-up: The Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
1960s: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
Runner-up: The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah)
1970s: Chloe in the Afternoon (Rohmer)
Runner-up: The Spirit of the Beehive (Erice)
1980s: Do the Right Thing (Lee)
Runner-up: Red Sorghum (Yimou)
1990s: Underground (Kusterica)
Runner-up: Lone Star (Sayles)
These might be subject to change depending on when you catch me.
1900s: Haven’t seen enough to make a qualified judgment. So based on what I’ve seen, The Great Train Robbery. It helped invent the language of modern film.
1910s: Again, not a decade with which I am intimately familiar, so no choice.
1920s: Greed, just for the sheer, crazed audacity of it. I’d love to see that first cut.
1930s: Hitchcock’s The Thirty-Nine Steps. Action! Romance! Comedy! This was Hitch at his best. Runner-up: It Happened One Night.
1940s: So hard to pick just one . . . I’ll go with Gilda. Ah, glorious subtext. Runner-up: Casablanca.
1950s: Vertigo. Or Singin’ In The Rain. Both are absolutely perfect movies. If I can have a second runner-up, The Caine Mutiny.
1960s: A Hard Day’s Night, for reasons which should be obvious if you know me. Plus it was genuinely innovative fillmaking. Runner-up: Lolita.
1970s: Jaws. Still has all the right elements. Runner-up: My heart says Star Wars, but my head says Network.
1980s: Raiders of the Lost Ark. Runner-up: The Thing (John Carpenter version).
1990s: (Tie)Se7en and Fight Club. I think David Fincher was the most imaginative director of the decade. Runner-up: Ma Vie En Rose.
2000: Haven’t seen enough movies this year to say. Was Magnolia this year or last?
1900s: Voyage to the Moon Not just because it’s one of the few I’ve seen, it’s still one of my favorites today.
1910s: No clue…
1920s: Nosferatu
1930s: Gunga Din - Sure, it’s trite, it’s paternalistic, it’s imperialistic and it’s insensitive. But it’s still a helluva good time.
1940s: Citizen Kane - It’s cliche, but it’s cliche for a damned good reason. Honorable mention: The Third Man
1950s: Ikiru - Directed by Kurosawa, a life long bureaucrat learns he is going to die and tries desperately to find something to justify his life. Honorable mention: Chimes at Midnight - Orson Welles weaves together the threads of five Shakespeare plays to tell the story of Falstaff’s decline. The sound is still weak, coming out of sync in some spots, but has been improved dramatically.
1960s: Dr. Strangelove - What else needs to be said? Honorable mention: Yojimbo - Kurosawa and Torshiro Mifune, before Clint Eastwood knew what he was doing.
1970s: Monty Python and the Holy Grail
1980s: Blade Runner Honorable Mention: Henry V
1990s: From the Earth to the Moon(if HBO miniseries count, of course) Honorable mention: L.A. Confidential
[ul]
[li]30’s - Mr Smith Goes to Washington[/li][li]40’s - The Third Man[/li][li]50’s - The Trouble with Harry[/li][li]60’s - The Pink Panther[/li][li]70’s - Alien[/li][li]80’s - The Empire Strikes Back[/li][li]90’s - The Usual Suspects[/li][/ul]
[giving ArchiveGuy the thumbs-up]
00-20’s: Won’t pretend to be knowledgable on anything in particular.
1930- Duck Soup.
1940- (Tie)Yankee Doodle Dandy and Casablanca
1950’s- Singing in the Rain
1960-Lion in the Winter or Great Escape
1970-Godfather and GF2
1980-Amadeus or ( this is embarrassing) Lethal Weapon.
1990’s - Miller’s Crossing, The Usual Suspects, Clay Pidgeons
2000-Billy Elliott & Patriot.
Naturally, this is all continent on what mood I’m in, but anything Marx Brothers or Kate Hepburn is a winner with me.
1920s: Nosferatu
1930s: Bride of Frankenstein
1940s: Double Indemnity
1950s: Sunset Boulevard
1960s: Some Like It Hot
1970s: Exorcist
1980s: Dangerous Liaisons
1990s: Kevin Smith’s Jersey Movies
30’s - Ruggles Of Red Gap (Charles Laughton at his absolute best)
40’s - The Philadelphia Story
50’s - Bridge On The River Kwai
60’s - Dr. Strangelove or To Kill A Mockingbird
70’s - Cinematically The Godfather, thematically The Man Who Would Be King
80’s - A Crhistmas Story (Ralphie rules!)
90’s - Silence Of The Lambs
1900s: The Great Train Robbery
1910s: The only film we watched in my silent cinema class from this decade was Birth of a Nation, and I refuse to put that on ANY list. Feh. Melodramatic rascist piece of…
1920s: Sherlock Jr. (I feel like I’ve DISCOVERED Buster Keaton!)
1930s: Gone With the Wind
1940s: Hmmm…so many. How about The Philadelphia Story.
1950s: Singin’ In the Rain
1960s: I’m not copying the other Dopers. Dr. Strangelove is on my top 5 greatest films EVER list. So there.
1970s: Star Wars
1980s: Eep. How about Robert Altman’s Popeye? It makes me happy, at least.
1990s: Waiting for Guffman. “I HATE you, and I HATE your ass-face!”
2000s: Chicken Run was charming, ooooh, I REALLY loved American Movie. “cOven.” heh.