Looking back, the 90's might've been the best decade in movies:

Cafe Society
42

I’d say the '70s win overall for best movies, but the '80s had plenty of great comedies: Airplane!, Caddyshack, Better Off Dead, Midnight Run, This Is Spinal Tap, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Ghostbusters, 48 Hours, A Fish Called Wanda, Planes Trains & Automobiles, Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, The Blues Brothers, Stripes, After Hours, The Princess Bride, Raising Arizona…I don’t see how anybody could say the '80s was lacking in comedies.

43

Most of those 80’s comedies were kinda hokey. Don’t get me wrong they are classics but I really don’t laugh when I watch them. Even as a kid, I never understood why Airplane or Caddyshack was so funny to everyone.

I will admit, I still enjoy a lot of movies from the 70’s, I would probably give the edge to the 70’s too. it’s pretty close though.

44

You forgot Two Lane Blacktop. (1971)

45

Make that:

Horror: Jaws, Halloween, THE EXORCIST.

:wink:

46

So how do you quantify a decade of good movies? Can we come up with an average movie score for each decade? Maybe compare the best and the worst?

47

How about the scores per movie (like on IMDB) and arrange it per decade?

I can’t even begin to think of how to do that, tho, without hours of work.

48

You’d have to take the top X number of movies in each decade and then just average them out. It wouldn’t be that complicated, but the way the IMDB works it would rank the 80s, 90s, 2000s, or 2010s as the best decade.

49

One suspects there is a positive correlation (not 100% but probably > 50%) between the birth year of the poster and the decade they choose as the best.

50

The only way to respond to this 1970s list : The Guardian:Chinatown the best film of all time; Time Magazine:Chinatown, the best film of the 1970s and 3rd greatest film of the 20th Century; Writers Guild of America: Chinatown greatest original screenplay of all time.

51

Here are some of the films from the 30s, after #10. Even omitting the top 10, it’s still a remarkable decade.

  1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  2. It Happened One Night
  3. Bringing Up Baby
  4. Frankenstein
  5. The Adventures of Robin Hood
  6. The Bride of Frankenstein
  7. Duck Soup
  8. The Public Enemy
  9. Dracula
  10. The Thin Man
  11. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
  12. A Star Is Born
  13. Wuthering Heights
  14. A Tale of Two Cities
  15. Little Women
  16. A Night at the Opera
  17. You Can’t Take It With You
  18. Top Hat
  19. 42nd Street
  20. The Blue Angel
  21. Les Misérables
  22. Of Mice and Men
  23. Jezebel
  24. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
  25. The Good Earth
  26. David Copperfield
  27. Show Boat
  28. Mutiny on the Bounty
  29. Camille
  30. The Mummy
  31. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
  32. Animal Crackers
  33. Ninotchka
  34. The Invisible Man
  35. Pygmalion
  36. Dark Victory
  37. A Farewell to Arms