Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Stats post: The best year in film?

It has often been argued that 1939 is the best year in film.  Such gems as The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Destry Rides Again, Wuthering Heights (with Laurence Olivier), Ninotchka, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Gunga Din, and so many  more were released that year.   So it would seem to be good reason to assume that 1939 would be a year that was well represented on the list, and at 9 films it is;.  But.  1942, and 1982 both top the list for most films at 11 each.

Does this make those 2 years the greatest?  I'm not sure, but it does mean they have a lot of films that appeal to a lot of people.

Here are the films for each year on the list:


1939
1942
1982
Dark Victory
Bambi
An Officer and a Gentleman
Gone With the Wind
Casablanca
Blade Runner
Gunga Din
Mrs. Miniver
Diner
Hunchback of Notre Dame
Now, Voyager
E.T.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
The Palm Beach Story
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Ninotchka
Pride of the Yankees
Gandhi
Stagecoach
Random Harvest
Poltergeist
Wizard of Oz
Road to Morocco
Sophie’s Choice
Wuthering Heights
To Be or Not To Be
Tootsie

Woman of the Year
The Verdict

Yankee Doodle Dandy
Victor/Victoria

Of those 31 films, so far I've seen 15 of them, and they were all pretty fabulous.

I think trying to decide what the best year in film was is too hard of a task. There were so many good films released in the last 100 years, with so much talent.  And these particular films cover such a variety of genres and audiences, from animated, to romance, to comedies, and action adventure fantasy films.  How could you possibly say one year was the absolute best?

So, in conclusion, I need to watch more films from the list and blog more often.  Please accept this post as an apology, and you are hopefully sticking with me as I'm slow to post things :-)

2 comments:

  1. Hey, I just found your blog through the Adult Nerdfighters FB group. I'm gonna try to keep up with it because I also love watching films and I always wanted to do the list thing, I never get organized enough but maybe this will make me ;)
    The lists I usually follow are by director or writer... For example, I'm a huge fan of Charlie Kaufman.
    I checked out your other posts and I haven't seen any of the movies you wrote about! hehehe, so maybe in time we'll fine more movies in common ;)

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    Replies
    1. Welcome!

      I always have a hard time finding the motivation to watch movies from The List. I almost always enjoy the ones I've seen so far, but I get busy, and just want to watch something I've seen a hundred times where I don't have to think. So it has been a long process, but I'm hoping to be more consistent with it!

      And it was much easier to do this when The List was ready made. Other wise I would probably have a hard time focusing on picking a certain actress or director or genre.

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