It Was a Very Good Year

[Allhallowsday]

^1980? Don't forget ALTERED STATES ...or CRUISIN' and of course THE APPLE...

[Detective Jim McLeod]

1962 is my favorite year in film.

What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? is one of my favorite films. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford together for the first and only time, the story a twisted thriller about faded fame.
Dr, No was the first and still one of the best James Bond films.
The Manchurian Candidate was a riveting political thriller with a shocker of an ending.
Sundays And Cybele is one of my favorite foreign language films.

Other great stuff was an early Sam Peckinpah film Ride The High Country which I still think is his best, a last great one for Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea. Stark B&W dramas about real life issues were David And Lisa (mental illness) and Days Of Wine And Roses (alcoholism). Lawrence Of Arabia a great color wide screen epic. John Wayne and James Stewart were paired for the first time in the last great John Ford western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Gypsy was a great version of the musical, we got to hear Natalie Wood sing with her own voice in this one.
Excellent adaptations of novels and plays were To Kill A Mockingbird, The Miracle Worker, Long Day's Journey Into Night,Billy Budd and Stanley Kubrick somehow made a great version of Lolita.
Even the exploitation horror and sci fi were great and unusual this year. Carnival Of Souls was an atmospheric ghost story that is still haunting to this day. Panic In Year Zero was a surprisingly tough and thoughtful film about how people act in a crisis, Ray Milland starred and directed this.

Some more lesser known and underrated ones are Term Of Trial with one of Laurence Olivier's best performances as a teacher wrongly accused of sexual misconduct. Pressure Point has a great Sidney Poitier performance as psychiatrist, singer Bobby Darin shows he was a fine actor as well playing a neo Nazi.

[CinemaInternational]

Thank you for doing something like this. It's something I have vaguely thought about for a while, thinking it would make a good, lively thread that plenty of discussion could be made about. I only wish I had finished my personal project of ranking what I had seen by year prior to this! (I started with the modern years, to get them out of the way, and have arranged everything back through 1952....but the period from 1931-1951 is one of the most crowded, so it will take me a while to rank those)

All movie years have their ups and downs, the good as well as the bad, but for such an experiment, a year should be found with many memorable titles, be it the ones everyone is familiar with or the niche titles. In addition, it must have few flat-out bad films, and generally speaking an air of consistency. For this post, I picked two years, one from the classic era (1894-1966), one from the modern age (1967-present).

But before I get to my two picks, I want to talk a little more about 1980, because there are a few more films from that year that I wish to list as being worth the time for one reason or another, even if with Heaven's Gate, it is best just to study the visuals rather than to go with the story. (and thanks for talking about good films like Somewhere in Time, The Competition, Those Lips, Those Eyes, and Hide in Plain Sight and giving some suggestions like Carny. And yes, Melvin and Howard is a lovely film, well worth the time.)

The Last Metro
Gloria
Dressed to Kill
Hopscotch
9 to 5
Gregory's Girl
HealtH
My Bodyguard
The Mirror Crack'd
Tribute
Gilda Live
Xanadu (yes, I know, it is goofy, but its heart is in the right place, Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly are charming, and have a great intimate dance scene together, and the soundtrack is exceptional)
Divine Madness
Resurrection
Fatso
Bronco Billy
Cattle Annie and Little Britches (this might be listed as 1981 on IMDb, but Leonard Maltin claims 1980. I'm going with it)
The Formula
The Long Riders
The Idolmaker
Popeye
It's My Turn
Seems Like Old Times
Little Miss Marker
Stardust Memories
The Earthling
Tell Me a Riddle
Just Tell Me What You Want
Foxes
Heaven's Gate

For the classic era, I picked 1932. First of all, its one of the years I have seen the most from (in excess of 150 films), it has generally high standards of quality, the creakiness of films from 1929/1930 has eased by this point, and there are plenty of major stars going about at the top of their game. I would pick the following (arranged alphabetically, due to not getting around to the year yet) as highlights of the year....
A Bill of Divorcement
A Farewell to Arms
American Madness (early Capra is one of the few films of the era to directly take on the depression)
Back Street
Blonde Venus
Broken Lullaby (Lubitsch goes darkly dramatic, with stunning results)
Downstairs (John Gilbert's career withered in the talkie era, but not before doing this most intriguing one)
Emma (Marie Dressler at her best)
Forbidden
Freaks
Frisco Jenny
Grand Hotel
Horse Feathers
Hot Saturday (very underrated, and probably along with Broken Lullaby, one of the best proofs of a nearly forgotten talent: Nancy Carroll)
I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
I Was Born, But....
If I Had a Million
Jewel Robbery
Letty Lynton (the long lost Crawford film is out there on the internet. I'm including it for the truly outrageous ending)
Life Begins (fine WB weepie with a wonderful female ensemble cast set in a hospital's maternity ward)
Love Me Tonight (one of the first great musicals)
Make Me a Star
Merrily We Go to Hell
Million Dollar Legs
Movie Crazy (Harold Lloyd's last masterpiece)
Once in a Lifetime (very little known, but the script is very witty)
One Hour with You
One Way Passage
Polly of the Circus (Marion Davies and Clark Gable together is a treat)
Prosperity
Rain
Red Dust
Shanghai Express
Smilin' Through
So Big
Strange Interlude
The Animal Kingdom
The Cabin in the Cotton (Bette Davis makes her first impact with one famous line)
The Old Dark House
The Penguin Pool Murder (the first Hildegarde Withers is a marvelous B-movie)
The Sign of the Cross
The Trial of Vivienne Ware (Joan Bennett in a film with the speed of a bullet train)
Three on a Match
Trouble in Paradise
Two Seconds (unusual crime story with Edward G Robinson in a nuanced role)
You Said a Mouthful


Then, for the modern era, I chose what stands as the last great movie year, 1993. (as opposed to 1999, which stands as the most overrated). I've stated before here that I think that the period from 1986-1993 is generally underappreciated, and hopefully this ranked list of highlights of 1993 will help to shine a light on the year, and show what a command it had, from dark, brooding sagas to light crowdpleasers.

Fearless
Three Colors: Blue
The Joy Luck Club
Matinee
Shadowlands
Heaven and Earth
Household Saints
Much Ado About Nothing
The Age of Innocence
The Piano
The Remains of the Day
Tombstone
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway
Schindler's List
Manhattan Murder Mystery
The Cemetery Club
A Perfect World
Geronimo: An American Legend
Lost in Yonkers
Philadelphia
The Man Without a Face
The Thing Called Love
What's Love Got to Do with It?
The Secret Garden
What's Eating Gilbert Grape
M. Butterfly
In the Name of the Father
Grumpy Old Men
Heart and Souls
Flesh and Bone
In the Line of Fire
King of the Hill
The Ballad of Little Jo
Six Degrees of Separation
The Pelican Brief
This Boy's Life
Splitting Heirs
Dave
Mad Dog and Glory
Falling Down
Groundhog Day
Jurassic Park
Bopha!
Poetic Justice
Mr. Wonderful
The Firm
Untamed Heart
Ruby in Paradise
A Bronx Tale
Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey
Indecent Proposal
Sleepless in Seattle
Kalifornia
Short Cuts
The Pickle
Searching for Bobby Fischer

[CinemaInternational]

1962 is my favorite year in film.

What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? is one of my favorite films. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford together for the first and only time, the story a twisted thriller about faded fame.
Dr, No was the first and still one of the best James Bond films.
The Manchurian Candidate was a riveting political thriller with a shocker of an ending.
Sundays And Cybele is one of my favorite foreign language films.

Other great stuff was an early Sam Peckinpah film Ride The High Country which I still think is his best, a last great one for Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea. Stark B&W dramas about real life issues were David And Lisa (mental illness) and Days Of Wine And Roses (alcoholism). Lawrence Of Arabia a great color wide screen epic. John Wayne and James Stewart were paired for the first time in the last great John Ford western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Gypsy was a great version of the musical, we got to hear Natalie Wood sing with her own voice in this one.
Excellent adaptations of novels and plays were To Kill A Mockingbird, The Miracle Worker, Long Day's Journey Into Night,Billy Budd and Stanley Kubrick somehow made a great version of Lolita.
Even the exploitation horror and sci fi were great and unusual this year. Carnival Of Souls was an atmospheric ghost story that is still haunting to this day. Panic In Year Zero was a surprisingly tough and thoughtful film about how people act in a crisis, Ray Milland starred and directed this.

Some more lesser known and underrated ones are Term Of Trial with one of Laurence Olivier's best performances as a teacher wrongly accused of sexual misconduct. Pressure Point has a great Sidney Poitier performance as psychiatrist, singer Bobby Darin shows he was a fine actor as well playing a neo Nazi.

Yes, definitely a wonderful year. I don't know if you have a copy of it, but a few years ago, they published a book extolling 1962 as the greatest film year (going by US release date, so some foreign titles from 1961 were in the book). It was a very interesting title. Here is the link to the book on Amazon.....

https://www.amazon.com/Cinema-62-Greate ... C76&sr=8-3

[Swithin]

1957 was one of the best years for horror films. Here's a partial list and a few photos of some of the celebrity creatures 1957 gave us.

Attack of the Crab Monsters
Cat Girl
Curse of the Demon
Daughter of Dr. Jekyll
El Vampiro
Quatermass 2
From Hell It Came
I Was a Teenage Frankenstein
I Was a Teenage Werewolf
The Curse of the Aztec Mummy
The Aztec Mummy
Not of This Earth
Pharaoh’s Curse
She Devil
The Abominable Snowman
The Brain from Planet Arous
The Curse of Frankenstein
The Cyclops
The Deadly Mantis
The Giant Claw
The Man Who Turned to Stone
The Monolith Monsters
Plan 9 from Outer Space
The Undead
The Unearthly
Voodoo Island
Voodoo Woman
Zombies of Mora Tau

[Arsan444]

The 1970s is my favorite decade, and 1979 is one of the years that I like the best.
...And Justice For All. The tone of the film is erratic, but Al Pacino is terrific.
Alien. Ridley Scott's take on Horror and Science Fiction is stylish and visceral, and it still holds very well.
All That Jazz. Bob Fosse's autobiographical musical is an extraordinary achievement. Roy Scheider has never been better.
Apocalypse Now. A hellish representation of human nature. Great Film.
The Black Stallion. Superbly photographed and very entertaining fairy tale
Breaking Away. Perhaps my favorite coming-of-age movie. Barbara Barrie and Paul Dooley are excellent.
The China Syndrome. Very well made thriller with one Jack Lemmon's best performance.
Kramer vs. Kramer. Gripping drama about divorce and single-parenting. Very well directed with top-notch performances by Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Jane Alexander, and Justin Henry.
Manhattan. Woody Allen closed the decade with this perfect tale about relationships and culture in New York
Norma Rae Under Martin Ritt's heartfelt direction, the movie is restrained and engrossing. Sally Field is superb.
The Onion Field. Well made crime drama. James Woods is excellent.

[Detective Jim McLeod]

Yes, definitely a wonderful year. I don't know if you have a copy of it, but a few years ago, they published a book extolling 1962 as the greatest film year (going by US release date, so some foreign titles from 1961 were in the book). It was a very interesting title. Here is the link to the book on Amazon.....

https://www.amazon.com/Cinema-62-Greate ... C76&sr=8-3
[/quote]

Yes, I do own that book, 2 years ago Film Forum in NYC was doing a 60th anniversary of 1962 films and they were selling the book in the lobby. Though I had already made up my mind that this was my favorite year before the book came out.

Jules And Jim was one I saw for the first time at this event, I liked it very much.

[Allhallowsday]

1976

NETWORK Didn't intend to watch this last night but I did again.
MARATHON MAN
TAXI DRIVER

THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE
THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES
CAR WASH


That's all I can think of and the last 3 are favorites...

[CinemaInternational]

Thank you again, Kingrat and Detective Jim, as I hunted down Serial, Carny, and Pressure Point and liked them all. (I also watched one other 1980 film One Trick Pony for good measure)

[speedracer5]

^1980? Don't forget ALTERED STATES ...or CRUISIN' and of course THE APPLE...

The Apple might be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It’s not even bad in a good way. It’s just flat out terrible. The only thing I can remember about it is the leading actress’ song about how much she loves taking speed.

[Allhallowsday]

^1980? Don't forget ALTERED STATES ...or CRUISIN' and of course THE APPLE...

The Apple might be the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It’s not even bad in a good way. It’s just flat out terrible. The only thing I can remember about it is the leading actress’ song about how much she loves taking speed.

I am a Bad Movie lover, and I detested THE APPLE. You are correct, BAD in no good way. Dreadful. However, I've seen MUCH worse. Think "IT'S ALIVE" (1969) or MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE (1966?), inoffensive but OH SO BORING. There's worse still when they get offensive like BLOOD SUCKING FREAKS...

[Allhallowsday]

1957 was one of the best years for horror films. Here's a partial list and a few photos of some of the celebrity creatures 1957 gave us...
Curse of the Demon ...From Hell It Came...Not of This Earth




...

1: much better than expected "Casting The Runes" 2: Tobanga! 3. Earliest childhood scared the hell out of me...