Your Best Year For Classic Movies ?

[Nethybridge]

Of course such things are subjective but IMO 1962 Hollywood was
at its peak, and has a surfeit of great films.

The Manchurian Candidate
How The West Was Won
Lawrence of Arabia [Best Picture Oscar]
Days of Wine and Roses
The Trial
To Kill a Mockingbird
Lolita
The Birdman of Alcatraz
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane
Dr. No
Jules Et Jim
The Longest Day
The Miracle Worker
Cape Fear

[Leithen]

1946

The Best Years of Our Lives
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Yearling
Razor’s Edge
A Matter of Life and Death
The Big Sleep
Great Expectations
My Darling Clementine
Notorious

[Turtle Shed]

1977

Star Wars
Close Encounters
The Spy Who Loved Me

Three of my top ten of all time.

[DodgyGeezer]

I'm passing on this, however, below is an interesting article - and it's hard to argue some of their choices...

https://movieweb.com/best-years-in-movie-history-r...

[Fundoreen]

Imagine if underpants on the outside films never caught on? We would have has original blockbusters.
When the BBC put a superhero film on at 10pm for adults to watch you realized what imbeciles the grown up have become.
Obviously some pants films can be entertaining and I have seen the latest guardiola part 3.
Things is these are no more than cartoons. I guess everyone likes cartoons.
It probably explains why they thought they could take the piss out of writers in 2023. They must have thought some hairy fatso with a cigar saying I want aliens to invade camelot! Make it! is enough.
I would say best year 1999-2000 before 9/11 and every film having a sadist revenge against terrorism theme. What s.

[Radec]

80's for me, so many memorable films.

[frisbee]

1986

Aliens
Top Gun
The Fly
Platoon
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Highlander
Big Trouble in Little China
Stand by Me
Blue Velvet

[bobbo89]

Not a specific year but for me its the mid 80's, things just seemed to change and films went up a few gears giving us what, IMO, are now some of the most iconic films and film franchises.

[Leithen]

There was a fascinating piece written by the critic Leslie Halliwell in the 80’s. It argued that the advances in camera and film technology had been detrimental to the majority of films made more recently.

In a nutshell, when more restricted in movement etc, directors and their actors were forced to deliver better acting, better scripts, far better framing, editing etc. It is one of the reasons that so many of the great films of the 40s and 50s remain regarded as some of the greatest ever made.

[_Lace_]

frisbee said:

1986

Aliens
Top Gun
The Fly
Platoon
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Highlander
Big Trouble in Little China
Stand by Me
Blue Velvet

Also 1984

Terminator
Ghostbusters
Once upon a time in America
Police Academy(!)
The Karate Kid
Footloose
Beverly Hills Cop
Gremlins
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Dune

[DodgyGeezer]

Leithen said:

There was a fascinating piece written by the critic Leslie Halliwell in the 80’s. It argued that the advances in camera and film technology had been detrimental to the majority of films made more recently.

In a nutshell, when more restricted in movement etc, directors and their actors were forced to deliver better acting, better scripts, far better framing, editing etc. It is one of the reasons that so many of the great films of the 40s and 50s remain regarded as some of the greatest ever made.

we're seeing more of that with the prevalence of CGI/SFX to make up for a lack of plot - ie just hang a lot of shiny baubles for the oiks to gawp at and they'll not care that the story doesn't make sense

[viggyp]

_Lace_ said:

frisbee said:

1986

Aliens
Top Gun
The Fly
Platoon
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Highlander
Big Trouble in Little China
Stand by Me
Blue Velvet

Also 1984

Terminator
Ghostbusters
Once upon a time in America
Police Academy(!)
The Karate Kid
Footloose
Beverly Hills Cop
Gremlins
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Dune

1984 for me too.

Also the Transformers franchise was introduced and both the Ferrari 288GTO, Testarossa and the Strada Abarth 130TC started production