Movie of the Year

Since the “Year of Death” thread is popular, and the alphabetical movies one we did a while ago was pretty popular, I thought we could do a movie list by year. We’ll start with 1916, name a movie released that year, and go to 2016. If the thread is popular, we can start again.

Any movie goes, as long as it was released in some fashion. Any country is fine, TV movies are fine, serials are fine, and go with the year of the first episode if the serial is released over a year. Shorts are fine.

The year of release counts. If a movie was three years in filming, two years in post-production, and then another year trying to edit to an “R” rating, and not NC-17, the year of release counts, even though it’s six years from the time filming began. Queen Kelly was filmed in the 1920s, but it wasn’t released until 1985, so for this game, it would count as a 1985 film.

If the movie has the same title as a more popular film, you can provide a summary, or list the main actors. Or let people wonder. Up to you.

Here’s the first one:

1916: Birth of a Nation

1917: Cleopatra (starring Theda Bara)

1918: Tarzan of the Apes

The first Tarzan movie ever made.

1919: Broken Blossoms

A Masterpiece

1920: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

This may be the earliest film I’ve seen.

1921: The Kid

Chaplin’s first full-length film as a director

1922: Nosferatu

A truly interesting vampire movie, matched by its remake done by Herzog.

I love this film.

And I have to own up to a mistake: Griffith’s 1916 big-budget film wasn’t Birth of a Nation, it was Intolerance. I knew that when I started the thread, but I had a brain cramp.

1923: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Lon Chaney version)

1924: The Thief of Bagdad

The best of Douglas Fairbanks as swashbuckler. Cast of thousands.

1925 - The Phantom of the Opera, starring Lon Chaney, Sr.

1926: Flesh and the Devil

John Gilbert loves Greta Garbo, both on and off screen.

1927: The Jazz Singer

1928: The Wind

The last, and one of the best, of Lillian Gish’s silent films.

1929: The Broadway Melody

1930: Soup to Nuts

The first movie appearance by the Three Stooges.

1931: Both Dracula & Frankenstein, and Universal becomes the “monster movie” studio.

1932: Freaks; arguably one of the creepiest films ever made.

1933: King Kong. The great one.

1934: It Happened One Night

The first of only three films to win all five major Academy Awards (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress & Screenplay).

1935: The Marx Brothers, A Night at the Opera