The Greatest Year in Film History
I stumbled upon this thread while surfing and thought it might make interesting Circuit Blog fodder. The article argues that 1984 was the greatest year in movies ever (check out the link to see the list, its quite impressive) as opposed to the apparent critics choice of 1939 (claiming both The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind). Coming up with an alternative year will take some research and some time, so I’ll leave it out there until I pick my own choice, but I’ll be interested to see what the rest of Circuit Blog nation comes up with.
Keenan
I’ll submit the year 1980, highlights include:
The Empire Strikes Back
Caddyshack
Airplane!
The Gods Must Be Crazy
Raging Bull
The Shining
The Blue Lagoon
The Blues Brothers
The Elephant Man
Fame
Mad Max
Nine to Five
Superman II
Private Benjamin
1980 was great, 1982 was pretty great too. This opinion might change after further research, but 1999 stands out:
American Beauty
Being John Malkovich
Eyes Wide Shut
Fight Club
The Insider
The Iron Giant
Magnolia
The Matrix
Office Space
The Sixth Sense
Three Kings
The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Virgin Suicides
yeah, 1999 definitely seems like a standout year, I hesitated to pick it only because I’m sure my opinion of those films are biased by my age when they came out.
It’s such a recent year is my problem with choosing it. I’ll probably find a cooler one.
Exactly.
Other 1999 films of note: Star Wars episode 1 (in my opinion the best, or the least bad, of the prequels) and The Blair Witch Project (which has been hugely influential).
No way. 1999 it is.
1994 was pretty good too:
Forest Gump
Pulp Fiction
The Shawshank Redemption
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Legends of the Fall
Bottle Rocket
Natural Born Killers
Nell
Stargate
The Lion King
Speed
Dumb & Dumber
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
True Lies
Wow… okay, 1994 it is.
So, Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels as well as Run Lola Run also released in the US in 1999… 1999, might just take the cake.
But when you look at the movies, I would argue that there are 3 all time great movies in the ‘94 list (The Shawshank Redemption, Forest Gump, and Pulp Fiction), while there is only one, maybe two in the ‘99 list (The Matrix, Fight Club both of which I rank behind the three listed above), which I would admit is a little deeper.