Best of the Decade

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Best of the Decade (40s)

Posted by Jonathan Leithold-Patt on August 31, 2014 at 5:50 PM

The best films of the 1940s. This was a decade in cinema defined by one massive, incontrovertible event: World War II. There was simply no denying it. The latter years of the war sent shockwaves through cinema all around the world, from Golden Age Hollywood to decimated Italy and Japan. The US responded by turning out some of its most astonishingly dark, socially trenchant films, finding notes of despair and yearning in genres as disparate as the musical and the war film, while establishing perhaps the decade’s defining epoch, adopted and adapted from the Germans and the French: film noir. Europe, meanwhile, saw the beginnings of some of its all-time most influential movements, namely Italian neorealism, which has ever since impressed its indelible mark on world cinema. It was a tough decade, one scarred by unfathomable political, social, and economic upheaval. And as always, the movies were there to reflect it.

And the best of the best are:

01. Bicycle Thieves 1948

02. Citizen Kane 1941

03. Late Spring 1949

04. To Be or Not to Be 1942

05. Double Indemnity 1944

06. Oliver Twist 1948

07. Casablanca 1943

08. Shoeshine 1947

09. The Third Man 1949

10. It's a Wonderful Life 1946

These are just as good:

The Letter, 1940

The Philadelphia Story, 1940

The Lady Eve, 1941

Sullivan's Travels, 1941

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942

Day of Wrath, 1943

Meet Me in St. Louis, 1944

Cover Girl, 1944

The Children Are Watching Us, 1944

Scarlet Street, 1945

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, 1945

Paisan, 1946

Notorious, 1946

Record of a Tenement Gentleman, 1947

The Lady from Shanghai, 1948

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948

Adam's Rib, 1949

White Heat, 1949

Best of the Decade (50s)

Posted by Jonathan Leithold-Patt on August 1, 2013 at 4:55 PM

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The 1950s, like the two decades on either side of it, can also lay claim to being the peak of great cinema. This was a particularly fascinating and rich ten years for many reasons, not least of all because the film landscape was transitioning from traditional, conservative narratives to films that would readily challenge the conventions of the medium. This was nowhere truer than in the US, where the all-powerful studio system that had controlled the nation's movie industry was on its last legs, leading to a boom in independently produced and financed pictures. The Production Code wouldn't be out of the way until the 1960s, but you could already feel its ugly grasp slowly eroding in morally ambiguous and suggestive American films by the likes of Douglas Sirk, Anthony Mann, Nicholas Ray, and Billy Wilder, among others. Meanwhile, a scarred post-WWII milieu allowed for a kind of cynicism and angst that hadn't really been thoroughly explored before. This was also the decade where foreign films found their fullest exposure in the US, with Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman causing waves and essentially launching art house cinema in proper. And if that tease of the greater freedom of expression to come weren't enough, the tail-end of the 1950s saw the beginnings of the French New Wave, its influences then and now simply incalculable.

Here we go...

01. Nights of Cabiria 1957

02. The 400 Blows 1959

03. Sunset Boulevard 1950

04. On the Waterfront 1954

05. Ugetsu 1953

06. Vertigo 1958

07. Seven Samurai 1954

08. The Apu Trilogy 1955-1959

09. Forbidden Games 1952

10. The Seventh Seal 1957

These runners-up are brilliant, too:

All About Eve, 1950

Orpheus, 1950

Winchester '73, 1950

Strangers on a Train, 1951

A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951

Bellissima, 1951

Singin' in the Rain, 1952

The White Sheik, 1952

Early Summer, 1952

Sawdust and Tinsel, 1953

Summer with Monika, 1953

Little Fugitive, 1953

I Vitelloni, 1953

La Strada, 1954

Sansho the Bailiff, 1954

Rebel Without a Cause, 1955

It's Always Fair Weather, 1955

Written on the Wind, 1956

The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957

Wild Strawberries, 1957

Touch of Evil, 1958

Mon Oncle, 1958

The Hidden Fortress, 1958

Hiroshima, Mon Amour, 1959

North by Northwest, 1959

Some Like it Hot, 1959

Best of the Decade (60s)

Posted by Jonathan Leithold-Patt on May 20, 2013 at 8:10 PM

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The 1960s might just be my favorite decade for film. As audacious as a statement like that tends to be - and maybe foolhardy, too - the '60s seem to earn it, fulfilling cinema's potential as the premier innovator in all of art. This was a decade of progress, of cultural and political tumult, of redefined (and blurred) boundaries and of revolution on a gigantic scale: socially, politically, and artistically. It was reflected in the films. Sweeping big-scale epics brushed shoulders with luxuriant musical adaptations; New Cinema movements from France, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia broke all the prevailing rules of cinematic grammar while engaging with a radical political consciousness; arthouse was brought to the mainstream; Italian neorealism transformed into the florid fantasias of Fellini and the psycho-angst of Pasolini and Antonioni; and the USA, theretofore encumbered by a restrictive production code, grew adventurous, genre-smashing films that expanded the definition of American film. And Ingmar Bergman, greatest director alive, had the most fruitful 10 years of his career.

The films that made it great?

01. Persona 1966

02. 2001: A Space Odyssey 1968

03. 8 1/2 1963

04. The Silence 1963

05. Once Upon a Time in the West 1968

06. The Graduate 1967

07. Hud 1963

08. Il Posto 1961

09. Lawrence of Arabia 1962

10. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly 1967

And the truly ravishing runners-up:

La Dolce Vita, 1960

The Virgin Spring, 1960

Rocco and His Brothers, 1960

Peeping Tom, 1960

Viridiana, 1961

West Side Story, 1961

The Hustler, 1961

Cléo from 5 to 7, 1962

Mamma Roma, 1962

Winter Light, 1962

Le Doulos, 1962

The Exterminating Angel, 1962

La Jetée, 1962

High and Low, 1963

Les Carabiniers, 1963

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, 1964

Bonnie and Clyde, 1967

Hour of the Wolf, 1968

Shame, 1968

Oliver!, 1968

The Lion in Winter, 1968

Night of the Living Dead, 1968

They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, 1969

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969

Midnight Cowboy, 1969

My Night at Maud's, 1969

The Cremator, 1969

Best of the Decade (70s)

Posted by Jonathan Leithold-Patt on October 11, 2012 at 6:25 PM

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The 1970s saw quality cinema arriving at a place delicately balanced between art and commerce. Summer blockbusters would get their big kick-off, foreign films would flourish, and a new wave of American auteurs would establish themselves, early on, as the startlingly fresh eyes of a generation fed up with war, politics, and tradition. While films like The Godfather, Jaws, and Star Wars garnered as much money as they did critical plaudits, foreign pictures from old masters like Bergman, Fellini and Truffaut had some of the healthiest successes of their careers. It was a decade not wanting for brilliant arthouse provocations or brilliant mainstream popcorn fare, and with the two meshing together in ways both strange and sublime, it was a melting pot of movies to cherish.

01. Apocalypse Now 1979

02. The Godfather: Parts I & II 1972/1974

03. Cries and Whispers 1973

04. Chinatown 1974

05. Taxi Driver 1976

06. The Conversation 1974

07. Network 1976

08. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles 1975

09. A Clockwork Orange 1971

10. The Last Picture Show 1971

The amazing runners-up:

Kes, 1970

The Conformist, 1970

McCabe & Mrs. Miller, 1971

Murmur of the Heart, 1971

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, 1972

Cabaret, 1972

The Holy Mountain, 1973

Badlands, 1973

Paper Moon, 1973

Last Tango in Paris, 1973

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, 1974

Lenny, 1974

Amarcord, 1974

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975

Dog Day Afternoon, 1975

Barry Lyndon, 1975

Love and Death, 1975

Rocky, 1976

Annie Hall, 1977

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977

News from Home, 1977

Days of Heaven, 1978

The Deer Hunter, 1978

The Black Stallion, 1979

Manhattan, 1979

The Marriage of Maria Braun, 1979

Best of the Decade (80s)

Posted by Jonathan Leithold-Patt on March 26, 2012 at 10:40 PM

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The best films of the 1980s. This was a tremendous decade for film, especially for ones coming from overseas. Sweden, Denmark, Italy, France, Japan, the United Kingdom and more were responsible for some of the greatest cinema to be found in the 80s. The American product wasn't too shabby, either, with groundbreaking work from Scorsese, Spielberg, (Spike) Lee, Cameron, Kaufman, Schrader, and Woody Allen being some of the most notable. The 1980s was no lesser of a decade for movies than any other; people who consider The Breakfast Club and Back to the Future the pinnacle of its output are full of hot air.

01. Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters 1985

02. Amadeus 1984

03. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial 1982

04. Au Revoir les Enfants 1987

05. Ran 1985

06. Pelle the Conqueror 1988

07. Raging Bull 1980

08. Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989

09. The Right Stuff 1983

10. Cinema Paradiso 1989

My brilliant runners-up:

Ordinary People, 1980

Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981

Fanny and Alexander, 1983

Paris, Texas, 1984

Brazil, 1985

Come and See, 1985

The Purple Rose of Cairo, 1985

Hannah and Her Sisters, 1986

Aliens, 1986

A Room with a View, 1986

Empire of the Sun, 1987

The Last Emperor, 1987

Wings of Desire, 1987

Dangerous Liaisons, 1988

Do the Right Thing, 1989

Best of the Decade (90s)

Posted by Jonathan Leithold-Patt on April 27, 2011 at 9:20 PM

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The best films of the 1990s. The decade I was born in, the decade I grew up with - even if the films on this list aren't exactingly the ones I was watching then. All in all, a fantastic 10 years for movies.

01. Schindler's List 1993

02. Goodfellas 1990

03. Howards End 1992

04. The English Patient 1996

05. Three Colors Trilogy: Blue, White, Red 1993/1994

06. The Long Day Closes 1992

07. Magnolia 1999

08. Pulp Fiction 1994

09. Fargo 1996

10. Benny's Video 1992

My brilliant runners-up:

Close-Up, 1990

Dances with Wolves, 1990

Beauty and the Beast, 1991

JFK, 1991

Unforgiven, 1992

What's Eating Gilbert Grape, 1993

The Lion King, 1994

Hoop Dreams, 1994

Bullets Over Broadway, 1994

Shine, 1996

Titanic, 1997

L.A. Confidential, 1997

Deconstructing Harry, 1997

Taste of Cherry, 1997

Life is Beautiful, 1998

Saving Private Ryan, 1998

The Thin Red Line, 1998

The Talented Mr. Ripley, 1999

Ratcatcher, 1999

American Beauty, 1999

Best of the Decade (00s)

Posted by Jonathan Leithold-Patt on July 8, 2010 at 6:30 PM

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Growing up and becoming a hardcore, obsessive cinephile in the 00s, there is naturally no decade where I've seen as many films from. Because of this, making a Top 10 list of its absolute best offerings was excruciatingly difficult: my list could just as easily include any of the runners-up I mention aftewards and it would be equally as satisfying, equally as rich and worthy. So while my Top 10 is, well, a Top 10, feel free to look at this list as more of a Top 34. And realize that if I were truly to list all of my favorites from the last decade, this would never end.

01. THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY 2001-2003

02. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford 2007

03. No Country for Old Men 2007

04. Lost in Translation 2003

05. There Will Be Blood 2007

06. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2004

07. Brokeback Mountain 2005

08. A Serious Man 2009

09. Pan's Labyrinth 2006

10. Thumbsucker 2005

My brilliant runners-up:

Billy Elliot, 2000

Traffic, 2000

The Gleaners and I, 2000

Mulholland Drive, 2001

Memento, 2001

A.I. Artificial Intelligence, 2001

The Hours, 2002

Gangs of New York, 2002

Adaptation., 2002

Blissfully Yours, 2002

Monster, 2003

The Return, 2003

Finding Nemo, 2003

The Aviator, 2004

King Kong, 2005

Munich, 2005

Caché, 2005

Children of Men, 2006

Letters from Iwo Jima, 2006

Little Miss Sunshine, 2006

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 2007

Milk, 2008

WALL-E, 2008

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, 2008

Let the Right One In, 2008

Flight of the Red Balloon, 2008

A Single Man, 2009

Avatar, 2009

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Best of the Decade (40s)

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