Simple – post the best movie of each decade in your opinion. Can start as early or late as you want.
Here goes…
1890s: Train arriving at a station (Lumiere Bros.)
1900s: Un Voyage A La Lune (Georges Melies)
Teens: Abstain (Birth of a Nation the obvious choice, but its noxious politics give me pause)
1920s: The Gold Rush (Chaplin)
1930s: The Rules of the Game (Renoir)
1940s: Citizen Kane (Welles)
1950s: Ikiru (Kurosawa)
1960s: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
1970s: The Godfather (Coppola)
1980s: Amadeus (Milos Forman)
1990s: Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese)
2000s: United 93 (Paul Greengrass)
2010s: Another Year (Mike Leigh)
Note: I’m starting the decade at “0” rather than “1,” but if you want to do it the other way, go for it.
2010s: The Master (P.T. Anderson)
2000s: No Country for Old Men (The Coen Bros.)
1990s: The Big Lebowski (The Coen Bros.)
1980s: Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen)
1970s: Chinatown (Roman Polanski)
1960s: Army of Shadows (Jean-Pierre Melville)
1950s: Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)
1940s: Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
1930s: M. (Fritz Lang)
1920s: Metropolis (Fritz Lang)
To be honest, I don’t think I’ve seen anything prior to 1920 in its entirety. I’ll have to fix that sometime.
2000s: City of God (Meirelles)
1990s: Pulp Fiction (Tarantino)
1980s: Brazil (Gilliam)
1970s: Badlands (Malick)
1960s: Persona (Bergman)
1950s: The Killing (Kubrick)
1940s: The Big Sleep (Hawks)
1930s: Angels with Dirty Faces (Curtiz)
1920s: La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (Dreyer)
The 70s, the 50s and the 40s were the more difficult choices.
2010s: Moonrise Kingdom – Still riding the high on this one. Might revert to Winter’s Bone after a bit of time.
2000s: There Will Be Blood
1990s: L.A. Confidential
1980s: Raiders of the Lost Ark
1970s: Alien
1960s: Dr. Strangelove
1950s: Seven Samurai
1940s: Casablanca
20’s - The Cocoanuts
30’s - (tie) King Kong/Angels With Dirty Faces
40’s - Citizen Kane
50’s - Touch of Evil
60’s - 2001
70’s - The Godfather Part II
80’s - Raging Bull
90’s - Goodfellas
00’s - No Country For Old Men
10’s - tbd
1920s - The General (Keaton)
1930s - Bringing Up Baby (Hawks)
1940s - Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressburger)
1950s - Vertigo (Hitchcock)
1960s - Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone)
1970s - Stalker (Tarkovsky)
1980s - Vagabond (Varda)
1990s - Goodfellas (Scorsese)
2000s - Mulholland Dr (Lynch)
2010s - too early to tell!
1910s: Les Vampires
1920s: Pandora’s Box
1930s: Stagecoach
1940s: It’s a Wonderful Life
1950s: Stalag 17
1960s: Dr. Strangelove
1970s: McCabe & Mrs. Miller
1980s: The Empire Strikes Back
1990s: Red
2000s: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
1910s: Intolerance
1920s: The Gold Rush
1930s: M
1940s: They Were Expendable
1950s: Rear Window
1960s: The Wild Bunch
1970s: Taxi Driver
1980s: Blade Runner
1990s: The Big Lebowski
2000s: Memento
2010s: Drive
Type in 100 greatest movies of the 1920s, 30s, etc. into a search engine. Or just top ten. I usually had a good idea: the 20s I knew my favorites were The General, Metropolis and The Cocoanuts. 40s has my favorite movie of all time, Casablanca (and second and third are Bogart movies anyway - The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep). The 30s has a whole bunch but they are all pretty easy to remember. Fifties was a little tougher in that I had to check for ones I may have missed or were just inside or just outside of the decade. It was the hardest choice with Singing in the Rain, Paths of Glory, The African Queen, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Seven Samurai. If I make up the list tomorrow I’ll probably change my mind several times on the fifties. Seventies, again, was easy - The Godfather.
2010s: Moonrise Kingdom
2000s: The Secret in Their Eyes
1990s: The Lion King
1980s: The Empire Strikes Back
1970s: The Muppet Movie
1960s: The Great Escape (though I think it’s odd no one has picked Lawrence yet)
1950s: A Streetcar Named Desire
1940s: Notorious
1930s: Swing Time
I had nearly as hard a time distinguishing between “favorite” & “best” as I had picking among the many good choices for each decade. I feel like this list represents me pretty well.
1940s: Casablanca
1950s: Vertigo
1960s: Once Upon A Time In The West
1970s: Alien
1980s: Blade Runner
1990s: Shawshank
2000s: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
2010s: Take Shelter
Runners up:
1940s: The Maltese Falcon
1950s: Rear Window
1960s: Yojimbo
1970s: Get Carter
1980s: Gallipoli
1990s: Seven
2000s: The Prestige
2010s: Drive
1920s: Sunrise (Murnau 1927)
1930s: Trouble In Paradise (Lubitsch 1932)
1940s: The Third Man (Reed 1949)
1950s: Tokyo Story (Ozu 1953)
1960s: The Apartment (Wilder 1960)
1970s: Manhattan (Allen 1979)
1980s: Blue Velvet (Lynch 1986)
1990s: Miller’s Crossing (Coen 1990)
2000s: In The Mood For Love (Wong 2000)
2010s: Take Shelter (Nichols 2011) (I’m still catching up though…)
Summing up a decade in film with one movie is hard.
1920s: The Kid (Chaplin)
1930s: Duck Soup (Marx Bros)
1940s: Citizen Kane (Welles)
1950s: Streetcar Named Desire(Kazan)
1960s: Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick)
1970s: The Godfather II (Coppola)-and about a dozen others.
1980s: Aliens ,Abyss and Terminator (sue me)(Cameron)
1990s: Schindler’s List (Spielberg)
2000s: Spirited Away (Miyazaki)
2010s: Hrm…Inception or um…Star Wars VII.
1920’s: The General
1930’s: Wuthering Heights
1940’s: The Best Years of Our Lives
1950’s: Vertigo
1960’s: La Dolce Vita
1970’s: The Conversation
1980’s: Blade Runner
1990’s: L.A. Confidential
2000’s: Noi the Albino
2010’s: Melancholia
1880s Accordion Player
1890s Cinderella
1900s A Trip to the Moon
1910s Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics
1920s Metropolis
1930s Animal Crackers
1940s Casablanca
1950s The Seventh Seal
1960s Dr. Strangelove
1970s Annie Hall
1980s Blade Runner
1990s L.A. Story
2000s Batman Begins
2010s so far, Wreck-it Ralph is probably my favorite that I’ve seen.
1920s Man with the movie camera (Vertov)
1930s Duck Soup (Marx Bros)
1940s Arsenic and old lace (Capra)
1950s Vertigo (Hitchcock)
1960s Last Year in Marienbad (Resnais)
1970s Death in Venice (Visconti)
1980s The Falls (Greenaway)
1990s Prospero’s Books (Greenaway)
2000s Memento (Nolan)
