Top 10 Top-10 Lists: Peliculas

Some time back, I considered the best movies of the nineties in this space, in response to last year’s 25th anniversary articles commemorating widely lauded “greatest movie year ever” 1999. In addition to finding that celebrated crop at best third in its own decade. I promised to delve further and look into all-time movie years. So, today I present my top-10 list of top-10 years. As expected, the fifties dominate: the studio era was in full bloom just as in the forties, but the rest of the world was catching up and in some cases even surpassing the U.S.: France, Japan, Italy, and Sweden all played a huge role in making this decade so monumental. But I still found some surprises, as a few years were even better than I’d figured and others not quite as deep in quality. Here are my choices for best cinematic years of all-time, with an addendum featuring the prime candidate from each sound-era decade that didn’t make the cut.

10. 1994

Led by my favorite film of its decade and an all-time top 5 pick, 1994 features a solid list and several notable honorable mentions. In my book, these are personal bests for Wong, Benton, Newell, Darabont, Howard, and probably Troche (close call with Bedrooms and Hallways); runner-ups for Stillman (second to Metropolitan), Tarantino (Jackie Brown), and Sayles (Baby It’s You).

  1. Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai)
  2. Nobody’s Fool (Robert Benton)
  3. Barcelona (Whit Stillman)
  4. Ashes of Time (Wong Kar-Wai)
  5. Four Weddings and a Funeral (Mike Newell)
  6. The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont)
  7. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino)
  8. The Secret of Roan Inish (John Sayles)
  9. The Paper (Ron Howard)
  10. Go Fish (Rose Troche)

Honorable mentions: Little Women, Three Colours: Red, Ed Wood, Speed, Quiz Show

9. 1955

Only one A-plus, but the quality really holds through the ten and the closest runner-up. As you’ll see, this is the midst of what is for me the peak of film history; even though this is the last fifties year on this list chronologically, essentially every year of the decade featured a top-10 list that would be mind-blowing today.

  1. Bob le Flambeur (Jean-Pierre Melville)
  2. To Catch a Thief (Alfred Hitchcock)
  3. Il Bidone (Federico Fellini)
  4. La Pointe Courte (Agnes Varda)
  5. The Man from Laramie (Anthony Mann)
  6. The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton)
  7. French Cancan (Jean Renoir)
  8. Summertime (David Lean)
  9. Rififi (Jules Dassin)
  10.  Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges)

HM: All that Heaven Allows

8. 2006

Three exceptional movies at the top, the first two extremely underrated and the third my second favorite Almodovar (to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown). The rest of the list features top efforts by a wide variety of filmmakers (#6-10, plus the last honorable mention) as well as notable works by directors so amazing the ones listed here wouldn’t make their medal stand (Holofcener, Frears) or even the Mt. Rushmore (Scorsese, Cuaron, Eastwood).

  1. Inside Man (Spike Lee)
  2. Stranger than Fiction (Marc Forster)
  3. Volver (Pedro Almodovar)
  4. Friends with Money (Nicole Holofcener)
  5. The Departed (Martin Scorsese)
  6. The Lives of Others (Florian von Donnersmarck)
  7. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron)
  8. After the Wedding (Susanne Bier)
  9. Borat (Larry Charles)
  10. Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro)

HMs: The Queen. Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine

7. 1946

Topped by three genuine A-pluses, the first one and a half as perfect as can be and the third famously messy. The group is very solid thereafter, although I could only come up with one credible honorable mention.

1. Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)

2. A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)

3. The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)

4. No Regrets for Our Youth (Akira Kurosawa)

5. My Darling Clementine (John Ford)

6. A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir)

7. The Killers (Robert Siodmak)

8. Dirty Gertie from Harlem U.S.A. (Spencer Williams)

9. The Stranger (Orson Welles)

10. The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)

HM: The Postman Always Rings Twice

6. 1953

A great year, capped by my favorite works by three titanic filmmakers; the Fellini, in particular, is an all-time top 20 for me. The other pictures listed here are generally top two or three for me in the particular director’s catalog, with the exception of Buñuel and Wilder, both so massive that their top tier achievements rarely were relegated to the fifth, much less tenth, spot on their year-end lists:

  1. I Vitelloni (Federico Fellini)
  2. The Big Heat (Fritz Lang)
  3. Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller)
  4. Summer with Monika (Ingmar Bergman)
  5. El (Luis Buñuel)
  6. The Hitchhiker (Ida Lupino)
  7. The Naked Spur (Anthony Mann)
  8. The Blue Gardenia (Fritz Lang)
  9. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu)
  10. Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder)

HMs: Ugetsu, The Captain’s Paradise, Illusion Travels by Streetcar

5. 2004

The top four are colossal achievements; the bottom two are tremendous fun. In short, it was a great year, no doubt my favorite of the 21st century so far.

  1. 2046 (Wong Kar-Wai)
  2. Sideways (Alexander Payne)
  3. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater)
  4. The Motorcycle Diaries (Walter Salles)
  5. I Heart Huckabees (David O. Russell)
  6. The Aviator (Martin Scorsese)
  7. House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yimou)
  8. Finding Neverland (Marc Forster)
  9. Mean Girls (Mark Waters)
  10. Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright)

HMs: Collateral, Hotel Rwanda, Kill Bill Vol. 2

4. 1950

Any year with Billy Wilder’s best film, at least in my estimation, is a great one. It’s got company as well: not quite career-bests but certainly stellar noirs by John Huston and Nicholas Ray, a definite PR for Joseph Mankiewicz, and groundbreaking works by the likes of Buñuel, Rossellini, and Kurosawa. Throw in underrated gems by Curtiz and Preminger, the beginning of the historic Mann/Stewart Western series, and also-rans filled with European classics and obscure American noirs.

1. Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder)

2. The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston)

3. All About Eve (Joseph Mankiewicz)

4. In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray)

5. Stromboli (Roberto Rossellini)

6. Los Olvidados (Luis Buñuel)

7. The Breaking Point (Michael Curtiz)

8. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa)

9. Winchester ’73 (Anthony Mann)

10. Where the Sidewalk Ends (Otto Preminger)

HMs: La Ronde, The Flowers of St. Francis, No Man of Her Own, Gun Crazy, Woman on the Run, Side Street

3. 1954

To my surprise, the best year of the premier cinematic decade produced only the bronze on my all-time medal stand. Still, you can’t go wrong with this absurdly loaded crop. We’ve got the best Italian noir (diluted) and the best French noir (pure), titanic signature pieces from all-timers Hitchcock, Kurosawa, and Fellini, along with a unique career-best triumph from Nicholas Ray and a more representative one from Mikio Naruse. Rossellini’s second picture on the list is also my runner-up pick in his entire catalog; Kazan also contributed a great one which to me trails only A Face in the Crowd for his top effort.

  1. Fear (Roberto Rossellini)
  2. Touchez pas au Grisbi (Jacques Becker)
  3. Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
  4. Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray)
  5. Abismos de Pasion (Luis Buñuel)
  6. Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)
  7. Sound of the Mountain (Mikio Naruse)
  8. Voyage in Italy (Roberto Rossellini)
  9. On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan)
  10. La Strada (Federico Fellini)

HMs: Human Desire, Salt of the Earth, Sansho the Bailiff, Dial M for Murder (in 3-D)

2. 1960

Even though this list is topped by my second favorite Kurosawa and fourth favorite Wilder, the two titans were nonetheless at their creative peaks (the early Diamond phase for Wilder, exemplified by this one and Some Like It Hot; the late Mifune collabs for Kurosawa, with BSW, Yojimbo, and High and Low as intensely perfect as they got). Include the critical-mass burst of the French New Wave, the most successfully ultra-ambitious efforts of Fellini and Visconti, Buñuel’s rare English-language work serving as his attack on U.S. racism, Hitchcock’s most memorable effort (for better or worse), and Budd Boetticher’s most romantic Western, and you’ve got a varied, genuinely outstanding cinematic year.

  1. The Bad Sleep Well (Akira Kurosawa)
  2. The Apartment (Billy Wilder)
  3. Shoot the Piano Player (Francois Truffaut)
  4. The Young One (Luis Buñuel)
  5. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini)
  6. Les Bonnes Femmes (Claude Chabrol)
  7. Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard)
  8. Comanche Station (Budd Boetticher)
  9. Rocco and His Brothers (Luchino Visconti)
  10. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)

1. 1941

1. The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges)

2. The Maltese Falcon (John Huston)

3. Ball of Fire (Howard Hawks)

4. Suspicion (Alfred Hitchcock)

5. Sullivan’s Travels (Preston Sturges)

6. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)

7. Swamp Water (Jean Renoir)

8. How Green Was My Valley (John Ford)

9. High Sierra (Raoul Walsh)

10. 49th Parallel (Michael Powell)

HMs: Sergeant York, The Man Who Came to Dinner

I knew this monumental year would be in the mix, but even I would have bet on the winner coming from the early fifties. But this list speaks for itself. The top two are absolutely stellar, even if only Falcon is as revered as it deserves. Eve is my favorite romantic comedy of all time except for the very best of Ernst Lubitsch (Shop Around the Corner and Trouble in Paradise, if you’re curious). Ball of Fire, thanks to Eve only Barbara Stanwyck’s second-best film and performance, holds up amazingly well; it loosely derives the Snow White model the way Eve does the Garden of Eden. The list is solid from there: my #6 was considered the GOAT of cinema for decades, even though it lost the Oscar to my #8. Number four is Hitchcock’s first great American film, and #5 is Preston Sturges at his most personal. Even though Falcon solidified it, #9 made Humphrey Bogart a star after a decade of gradually more impressive supporting performances. Perhaps most significantly of all, #10 was a World War II film by England’s greatest filmmaker, warning the U.S. about a potential Nazi attack via Canada.

Honorable mention, 1930s: 1939

With two films (Renoir’s Grande Illusion and Powell’s The Edge of the World) that easily would have topped this list, 1937 has a decent claim. But it’s not quite as deep; 1939’s top five are extremely solid, and its got icons way down at #8 and 10, even though the most known film of its year (GWTW) is closer to my ten-worst list.

1. Ninochtka (Ernst Lubitsch)

2. Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir)

3. Stagecoach (John Ford)

4. Love Affair (Leo McCarey)

5. Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks)

6. The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (Kenji Mizoguchi)

7. The Spy in Black (Michael Powell)

8. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Frank Capra)

9. The Roaring Twenties (Raoul Walsh)

10. The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming)

HM: Young Mr. Lincoln

Honorable mention, 1970s: 1979

There are some knockouts in this decade, starting with 1972 (Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Godfather), ’75 (Shampoo and Night Moves), and ’76 (Network and Taxi Driver). To a lesser degree, there’s 1974 (Young Frankenstein and Godfather II) and ’77 (Annie Hall and That Obscure Object of Desire). Nothing on the 1979 list surpasses any of the aforementioned films. But ’79 does have a compelling top five (although there’s a decent-size gap between four and five). Even better, the bottom five are immensely watchable and fun, as are two of the honorable mentions.

  1. Breaking Away (Peter Yates)
  2. Manhattan (Woody Allen)
  3. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola)
  4. Real Life (Albert Brooks)
  5. Being There (Hal Ashby)
  6. Life of Brian (Terry Jones)
  7. All That Jazz (Bob Fosse)
  8. That Sinking Feeling (Bill Forsyth)
  9. The Warriors (Walter Hill)
  10. The Wanderers (Philip Kaufman)

HM: Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, Escape from Alcatraz, The In-Laws

Honorable mention, 1980s: 1987

More very good than great, but the quality doesn’t dip much on this list. The bottom three are immense works of art, 3 through 7 are a lot of fun, and the two top pictures are both.

  1. Babette’s Feast (Gabriel Axel)
  2. Housekeeping (Bill Forsyth)
  3. Broadcast News (James L. Brooks)
  4. No Way Out (Roger Donaldson)
  5. Radio Days (Woody Allen)
  6. Raising Arizona (Joel Coen)
  7. Roxanne (Fred Schepisi)
  8. Full Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrick)
  9. Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders)
  10. The Dead (John Huston)

HMs: Boyfriends and Girlfriends, Five Corners, Robocop, Pelle the Conqueror, Near Dark

Honorable mentions, 2010s: 2013

This is close enough that I’m going to post 2016 as well. They were both very good years, with ’13 getting the edge on depth.

  1. Enough Said (Nicole Holofcener)
  2. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)
  3. Nebraska (Alexander Payne)
  4. Begin Again (John Carney)
  5. Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron)
  6. The Grandmaster (Wong Kar-Wai)
  7. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen)
  8. The World’s End (Edgar Wright)
  9. Her (Spike Jonze)
  10. Philomena (Stephen Frears)

HMs: The Way, Way Back, 20 Feet from Stardom, The Spectacular Now, American Hustle, Before Midnight, Inside Llewyn Davis

2016:

  1. Moonlight (Barry Jenkins)
  2. Julieta (Pedro Almodovar)
  3. After the Storm (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
  4. 20th Century Women (Mike Mills)
  5. Yourself and Yours (Hong Sang-Soo)
  6. A Quiet Passion (Terence Davies)
  7. Hell or High Water (David Mackenzie)
  8. Hidden Figures (Theodore Melfi)
  9. Certain Women (Kelly Reichardt)
  10. Personal Shopper (Olivier Assayas)

The most notable HM is Bertrand Tavernier’s My Journey Through French Cinema, as significant as Scorsese’s similar ventures and Godard’s most adventurous one. But not only is the Tavernier a lot easier to watch, it’s more revelatory in celebrating classics that went comparatively under the radar—at least for me.

Honorable mentions, 2020s (so far): 2023

The top three look like classics to me, the best of the decade so far except for Mia Hansen-Love’s Bergman Island. Especially notable is that the top two are, for me, career-bests by legendary veterans, and the third is an outstanding, portentious debut. Of the rest, even though #6 and #7 got most of the attention, don’t miss the others, especially #4.

  1. The Old Oak (Ken Loach)
  2. Perfect Days (Wim Wenders)
  3. Past Lives (Celine Song)
  4. American Fiction (Cord Jefferson)
  5. The Taste of Things (Tran Anh Hung)
  6. Oppenheimer (Christopher Nolan)
  7. Killers of the Flower Moon (Martin Scorsese)
  8. Monster (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
  9. Orlando: My Political Biography (Paul Preciado)
  10. Fallen Leaves (Aki Kaurismaki)

HMs: Barbie, Evil Does Not Exist