Top Five Movies of each Decade

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I didn't realize how many film buffs we had here on the board until I started playing the quote and scene game. I am interested in knowing everybody's thoughts on the greatest movies of each decade:

60's
1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. Lawrence of Arabia
3. Midnight Cowboy
4. Doctor Zhivago
5. Psycho

70's
1. The Godfather 1&2
2. Chinatown
3. Star Wars
4. Jaws
5. Rocky

80's
1. Das Boot
2. Platoon
3. The Empire Strikes back
4. Raiders of the Lost Ark
5. E.T.

90's
1. Braveheart
2. Goodfellas
3. The Silence of the Lambs
4. True Romance
5. The Usual Suspects

00's
1. A Beautiful Mind
2. Mystic River
3. House of Sand and Fog
4. LOTR: Return of the King
5. Traffic

 

Just some that come to mind:

20s
- Nosferatu
- Metropolis
- The cabinet of Dr Caligari
- Intolerance
- ... and various films by Chaplin (Gold rush), Keaton (general), Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd (safety last)

30s
- Dracula
- M
- Duck Soup (or any other Marx brothers movie)
- Thin Man
- Stagecoach
- Bringing up Baby
- Oh, Gone with the wind too, i suppose

40s - this is going to be a tough one
- Casablanca
- Third Man
- Big Sleep, Maltese Falcon, Treasure of Sierra Madre, Key Largo, To Have and Have Not, High Sierra (wow, Bogart had a good decade)
- Citizen Kane
- Rebecca, Notorious, Rope, Shadow of a doubt (Hitch too)
- Double indemnity
- Laura
- Beauty and the beast
... and many more. Good time for films

50s (I'll try and keep it to 5 from here)
- Rashomon
- High Noon
- North by Northwest, Rear Window (sorry, I failed)
- Some like it Hot
- Twelve angry men
oh, yeah, almost forgot:
- The searchers

60s
- Psycho
- 2001
- Dr Strangelove
- Once upon a time in the west
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

70s
- Godfather
- Exorcist and Halloween
- Chinatown
- Clockwork Orange
- Alien
- The Sting

80s
- Amadeus
- Ko to tamo peva? (a masterpiece from Yugoslavia)
- The Shining
- Right Stuff
- Ferris Bueller's Day Off
- Ghostbusters

90s
- Silence of the Lambs
- Pulp Fiction
- L.A. Confidential
- Schindler's List
- Remains of the Day

and my two personal favourites:
- Groundhog Day
- Blade


00s
- Lord of the Rings
- Memento
- Mystic River
- Crouching tiger, hidden dragon
- Requiem for a Dream

 

Anything further back than the 80's I'm clueless (and even that's pushing it).

Ask Harbourboy, he probably saw them all when they first got released .

 

@Vukodlak: I agree to almost all the films after the 30ers. The ones before I have probably never seen.

I only would exchange a few ot them:

In the 50es, there was 'The Seven Samurai'. 'Rashomon' is very good, but cannot reach Kurosawas masterpiece.
Likewise, 'From here to Eternity' - the better 'Pearl Harbor' - and 'The Bridge' (Die Brücke) are missing.

In the 70es, both horror movies would have to go, because the list lacks 'Apocalypse now! (Redux)' and 'Full Metal Jacket'.

While 'Schindler's List' was a very good movie, I'd replace it with 'The Usual Suspects'. 'The Remains of the Day' did not really apeal to me, so it's 'Heat' for me. Further, the list lacks 'Magnolia', 'American Beauty', 'Forrest Gump' and 'Seven'.

The problem with the 00's ist that we are not throught yet. So, we can discard 'The Lord of the Rings', because it wasn't a very good movie (but the best fantasy film until now). I'd replace it with 'Amores Perros' (or probably 'City of God', which I have not yet seen).

 

Whoa. Full Metal Jacket a seventies movie? Missed it by eight years, Fabius. FMJ was released in 1987. I picked Platoon over FMJ because it started the onslaught of all the Vietnam movies.

[ November 21, 2005, 13:01: Message edited by: Newfie ]

 

For convenience, assuming a decade starts with the "0" year, despite the fact that this means the very first decade only has 9 years:

00s (in progress):

1. The Return of the King
2. The Two Towers
3. The Fellowship of the Ring
4. Revenge of the Sith
5. Attack of the Clones

1990s:
1. Matrix, The
2. Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace
3. Forrest Gump
4. Con Air
5. Star Trek: First Contact

1980s:
1. Karate Kid, The
2. Empire Strikes Back, The
3. Return of the Jedi, The
4. Back to the Future
5. Commando

1970s:
1. Star Wars
2. Grease
3. Godfather, The
4. Taxi Driver
5. Chinatown

Pre 1970 - too few seen for there to be a valid sample to choose from.

 

None of the new Star Wars (I, II, and III) deserve to be up there. They are a disgrace to the Star Wars Empire.

And IMO, the Lord of the Rings movies weren't that great. Every scene with Frodo wanted to make me throw up, from bad acting and bad characters.

And Se7en definatly deserves to be in the 90's column.

 

Star Wars rules. Those movies have lightsabres and Jedi Knights so therefore those movies ruled as well. This thread didn't say "Five movies with the most artistic acting and deepest critical themes". It just asks for you / my Top Five movies and that's what I've listed. The movies that I most enjoyed and would most want to see over again.

 

To each their own. If we all enjoyed the same movies, I wouldn't need to make this thread.

 

Damn!
I knew I should have checked this.

I was modifying Vukodlaks list, by the way.

 

It's very difficult to just name 5 or 6 or 7 because as soon as I start I go ooh how about one and what about, so I gave up.

However

these films would probably not have been made if not for 2 films from the seventies, Go Tell the Spartans (1978) the first real Vietnam film and Apocalypse Now (1979); likewise We Were Soldiers (aka We Were Soldiers Once And Young) if the eighties films had not been made.

 

This is true, Darkstrider, but the popularity and craft of Platoon renewed an interest in the Vietnam epic genre again, spawning Hamburger Hill, FMJ, and the Thin Red Line. Whose to say the Rambo movies and the Missing in Action flicks never influenced it as well?

 

You missed Casualties of War as well an oft under-rated film, but Rambo and the MIA flicks not only call for suspension of disbelief but also potions of stupidity that wear off after 2 hours imo

 

True, I agree that Rambo and Braddock movies are violence exploitation films but I can't deny Rambo sure rehashed interest in the Vietnam era of Hollywood.

Also Darkstrider, I meant Casualties of War not The Thin Red Line (doh!) which isn't even about the Vietnam war. Nice catch.

[ November 21, 2005, 18:07: Message edited by: Newfie ]

 

Ah, sorry HB, I did not mean to annoy/anger you, I was just agreeing with your list with the exceptions that I stated above. Whenever someone mentions LotR, or the new Star Wars, I get really heated.

 

Wait. The first 'Rambo' movie had quite a bit societal critizism in it. It was not your run-of-the-mill action movie.

 

Well, i dunno so much about each Decade (I don't watch that many movies). But there are some i found to be great.
The Good, The Bad And The Ugly-1966 What can i say, good movie. Seen it 7 times and i'm still not bored of it.
Spirited Away-2001 Another good one. I doubt there's anyone who hasn't seen it (correct me if i'm wrong).
Pulp Fiction-1994
Kill Bill 1 and 2-2003 and 2004 Tarantino knows what's he's doing and everything is great in these movies.

That's about it.