Mmmh.. I like lists, so here is mine:
In preferential order:
1. 1980s
2. 1910s
3. 1920s
4. 1960s
5. 1970s
6. 1930s
7. 1900s
8. 1950s
9. 1890s
10. 1990s
11. 2000s
12. 1940s
But that’s only my preference from what I’ve seen so far. Of course every decade is great in itself. The problem is our limited possibility to watch all the films that have been made, when we can’t even get our hands on all the films available…
Mmmh.. I like lists, so here is mine:
Mmmh.. I like lists, so here is mine:In preferential order:
Mmmh.. I like lists, so here is mine:In preferential order:1. 1980s
2. 1910s
3. 1920s
4. 1960s
5. 1970s
6. 1930s
7. 1900s
8. 1950s
9. 1890s
10. 1990s
11. 2000s
12. 1940s
Mmmh.. I like lists, so here is mine:In preferential order:1. 1980s
2. 1910s
3. 1920s
4. 1960s
5. 1970s
6. 1930s
7. 1900s
8. 1950s
9. 1890s
10. 1990s
11. 2000s
12. 1940sBut that’s only my preference from what I’ve seen so far. Of course every decade is great in itself. The problem is our limited possibility to watch all the films that have been made, when we can’t even get our hands on all the films available…
tp
1. 1960s
2. 1970s
3. 1950s
4. 1980s
5. 1990s
6. 1940s
7. 2000s
8. 1930s
9. 1920s
10. 1910s
Back in the 1970s the famous Chinese statesman, Chou En Lai, was asked by a French TV interviewer what he thought of the outcome of the French Revolution (1789-93), and answered the question by saying that it was too early to tell. Similarly, I don’t think the staying power of anything made since about 1990 can be predicted yet. Very old people will always remember the older stuff more fondly, and very young people will always be convinced that newer is better. You see more of the latter than of the former of this website, but that’s probably reflective of the audience demographic.
Seriously? People on this website constantly talk about how good films used to be and how crappy newer films are, and most of the members here are well under 40. If there’s a bias around here, it’s towards cinema of the past.
I personally think cinema old and new can and is good, which is why two of my favorite decades are the 70s and 00s.
old isn’t 70’s,old is 10’s…
I’d say the 1960’s was my favourite decade:
Fellini, Kurosawa and Bergman. That’s all we needed.
Wow, a lot of favourites in the 70’s! I must admit there have been some really terrific movies made then, but I think that I would personally have to say the 40’s.
I’m a film noir fanatic, so maybe I’m a little biased, haha. But it’s not only the birth of film noir that make this decade great. There were also great romances (Brief Encounter) Comedies (The Lady Eve), and Mysteries. My favourite Alfred Hitchcock movies (with the exception of Strangers on a Train) were made in the 1940’s— for example Rope, Shadow of a Doubt, and Rebecca.
I’m not a fan of the 1950’s, mainly because I am more familiar with American films from that time period. From looking at the lists, amazing foreign films were made in the 1950’s, but US cinema (Thanks to Joe McCarthy’s communist witchhunt) produced many melodramas and a lot sappy drivel. That’s not to say there weren’t some excellent films in the 50’s, I just don’t think it was an artistic high point.
My ranking:
1. 60s
2. 70s
3. 50s
4. 40s
5. 20s
6. 80s
7. 30s
8. 00s
9. 90s
Hard to make, but the top 3 are set in stone for me. The 50s-70s were just incredible.
My personal favorites are from the 60’s followed by the 50’s and 70’s.. 80’s had a lot of good films too.. and of course I still love keeping up with current directors/films.
WTF, I’ll rank the decades too.
Early on in this conversation I mentioned that the 50’s are the best for my money. You can read why.
1. 50’s
2. 70’s
3. 40’s
4. 00’s
5. 30’s
6. 60’s
7. 90’s
8. 80’s
9. 20’s
There are some great silent films out there, no doubt, but I’m going to be honest and say that I much much much prefer sound films. I’m not including anything pre-20’s because I find that 99% of the pleasure that I derive from films of that time period is related to discovering history. Those films seem more like artifacts to me – I know they aren’t, but I’m just relating how I feel.
Man, the 80’s sucked hard. What the hell happened then?
the 80’s don’t suck at all,maybe you’ve seen the wrong movies ;)
The 50s are my personal favorite.
The 40s are the weakest simply because WW2 stopped down so much film production.
Someone had to do this. Reasons why we shouldn’t rule out the 80s:
The Elephant Man
Come and See
Amadeus
Au revoir, les enfants
Blade Runner
Das Boot
Brazil
Kagemusha
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Dangerous Liaisons
The Dresser
Dance With A Stranger
Fanny and Alexander
The Long Good Friday
Raging Bull
Ran
The Killing Fields
The Shining
Silkwood
Sophie’s Choice
The Thing
Withnail and I
Blue Velvet
Caravaggio
Babette’s Feast
A Short Film About Love
A Short Film About Killing
Matador
The Law of Desire
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
The Draughtsman’s Contract
The Company of Wolves
A Private Function
My Beautiful Laundrette
The Shooting Party
Prick Up Your Ears
The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne
Distant Voices, Still Lives
Drowning By Numbers
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
Diva
The Last Metro
The Return Of Martin Guerre
Shoah
Monsieur Hire
Mephisto
Colonel Redl
The Last Emperor
Red Sorghum
The Dead
Do we need more??
If the decade that cinema forgot gave us all this, then surely this is proof that ALL decades had a great deal to give us at the flics.
Over a ten year period, you could only come up with 50 films (and one of them was Sophie’s Choice?!!)? That’s only 5 films per year! I think that’s proof that the 80s WEREN’T an ideal decade. Not a bad decade but certainly a lesser one.
And you forgot one of the best films of the 1980s: Hannah and Her Sisters.
…and of course Ferris Bueller.
Wait a second!? What about the two epic mini-series films that bookended the 80s! Berlin Alexanderplatz and Dekalog!
Also I feel like Fanny and Alexander should be on there twice.
EDIT: And where is The King of Comedy?
…and Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., The Purple Rose of Cairo, Back to the Future, The Right Stuff…
But I’m with Fredo here – if Sophie’s Choice is among the best movies of the 80’s, then the 80’s really are the bastard step-child decade in movie history.
I don’t think the argument is that there weren’t great films in the eighties. There certainly were. My reason for placing it last was that eighties films tended to be either continuations of or precursors to movements that were more fully developed in other decades. Yes, you have the last gasps of greatness from Kurosawa and Bergman. Directors like Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese made great movies in the eighties, but they were products of the seventies. I guess I’m looking for overriding themes like noir in the forties or westerns in the fifties. In the eighties, the trends were towards pure entertainment – blockbusters, teen films, ect. Nothing wrong with this. I love many of those movies, but if we’re grading on a curve and comparing to other decades….
I was under the impression I was expected to be subjective here – I would hardly include films I’m not a fan of. So I didn’t forget the two you mentioned. Ferris Bueller, didn’t get a mention because I don’t rate it that highly and Hannah And Her Sisters didn’t because I had added what I thought was a far superior Woody Allen film. Hannah and Her Sisters has never left much of a lasting impression on me and I’m not a huge admirer of Woody Allen anyway. But if I am to include all the films that I think other people on here would rate highly then I’m sure I could compile a much bigger list!
The point I was making was that the 80s is not the cinematic waste-ground it’s being dismissed as. I’m not saying it’s the ‘best’ decade for film – I’m not really interested in putting the decades in order of merit – I can’t be that anal (compiling the above list was boring enough), just that there is plenty to see that was released in the 80s as far as I’m concerned.
Well, since this thread is about ranking decades, I think it’s fair for people to compare it (unfavorably) to other, better decades. Of course the 80’s gave us some great films. I don’t think anyone here would deny that. It just didn’t give us as many great films.
Every decade is great but I think the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s were the three best. The 90’s are great as well and I have high hopes for this upcoming decade. I think my least favorite is probably the 80’s.
I feel the 80’s and the 60’s (foreign film speaking) and the 40’s were all fantastic times for films.
Damn, the ‘80s rocked!
Blow Out (1981)
Pennies from Heaven (1981)
Shoot the Moon (1982)
Personal Best (1982)
Something Wild (1986)
A Cry in the Dark (1988)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)
Dangerous Liasons (1988)
A World Apart (1988)
Casualties of War (1989)
and Altman’s TV opus Tanner ’88
someone mocks Sophie’s Choice and yet he adds Hughes?i hope this was ironic…
the 80’s have plenty of great films and they’re NOT a lesser decade,i do not want to add more films to the above list because you will scold me as usual and call me a person who adds “obscure films”….
As I said, my point was that the 80s gave us a lot more than it’s being given credit for – not to hold it up as some shining beacon of cinephilia. It certainly is not that. Just that there is far too many films of that period for it to be dismissed so offhand. Also, what is the point of pointing out the Spielberg films? Not only are they (to me) kind of representative of what I think went rotten in that period (big overblown studio flics) but who actually needs reminding of their existence?? But feel free to add them to the growing list.
Thanks to Elvis Is King for his input and bumping up the list too.
I would LOVE to have included Kieślowski’s Dekalog and Fassbinder’s Alexanderplatz. They are magnificent of course. But it’s TV. And I KNOW I would have had someone dismissing them as such if I had included them (I’m surprised that someone hasn’t claimed this with Fanny and Alexander and Das Boot – which are infinitely better in their truncated TV form). I did include the two stories that were adapted to the screen from Decalog and hoped at least then someone else would point out Kieslowski’s genius so thanks to Drew for not disappointing me.
Maybe it is a decade where things seemed to come to an end (though God forbid that the 90s could be called a rebirth!). After all, it was the decade when Hitchcock, Welles and Huston died. And cinema was now having to compete with the home video boom.
It was also a kind of peak for British film. It all ended here I feel and it’s never fully recovered. So there’s a lot more British film I could include but didn’t want to appear too insular.
I know some of these are not that well revered here but, what the hell, I still think they are pretty worthy of mentioning:
Gandhi
Chariots of Fire
Maurice & A Room With A View (bland M&I I know but I like these two)
Another Country
An American Werewolf In London
The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Gregory’s Girl
Britannia Hospital
Brimstone and Treacle
The Missionary
Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence
Paris By Night
Greystoke
A Passage To India
Meantime
The Angelic Conversation
The Last of England
War Requiem
Letter to Brezhnev
The Mission
Hope and Glory
Wish You Were Here
A Month in the Country
Personal Services
White Mischief
My Left Foot
And, yes Dimitris, you do add obscure films but isn’t that the point? I want to here about films I may have missed or forgotten. Don’t feel scolded mister – bring them on!
So many of the films that you’ve listed are OK, but they haven’t aged well. And, they’ve only been around for 20-30 years! But, whatever. You like the 80’s, and I’d rank them as one of the lowest decades in all of cinema.
McKittrick dude,i’m not talking about you scolding me,of course rarities make the difference and yes,some of those mentioned are rather dated and perhaps overrated (Chariots of Fire for instance is extremely periodic instead of a stellar picture)
i’m mostly referring to individuals who keep insisting on saying that the 80’s are one of the lowest decades in all cinema because these people haven’t seen true masterpieces.
p.s.: the comment about the 40’s production stopped due to WWII is as stupid as it gets….
What’s the ‘lowest decade’ for you Dimitris? I mean, if someone put a gun to your head and forced you to choose one…
Dimitris Psachos
“Otherwise known as the Arbitrary Equality Principle”
keep your ironies Gringo Tex to yourself….if you don’t believe the comment above,don’t you try and mock it…