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The Greatest Years in Movie History

If you ask most classic movie fans what the greatest year in movie history was, most of them will say 1939, and rightfully so. After all, that was the year Oscar unavoidably slighted more great performances and films than at any other time in history:

Gone With the Wind1939: Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Roaring Twenties, Dark Victory, Destry Rides Again, Beau Geste, Ninotchka, The Women, Stagecoach, The Rules of the Game, Of Mice and Men, Gunga Din, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Babes in Arms, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

Whew! Did we leave anybody out?

However, for the sake of argument, let's say that we're trying to find another year that might be the greatest in movie history. An interesting pattern emerges...

First of all, following on the heels of the boffo year of 1939, there were many great films produced in 1940, 1941, and 1942, as well. In fact, 11 of the AFI 100 films were made during those four years, including three of the top four.

The list from those first three years of the 1940s is almost as incredible as that from 1939:

1940: Fantasia, The Philadelphia Story, Rebecca, The Great Dictator, The Grapes of Wrath, His Girl Friday, Pinocchio, The Shop Around the Corner, Pride and Prejudice, Foreign Correspondent, The Thief of Bagdad, The Sea Hawk, The Bank Dick, My Little Chickadee, Northwest Passage, The Letter, and Kitty Foyle.

1941: Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, Dumbo, Suspicion, How Green Was My Valley, Sergeant York, Sullivan's Travels, Meet John Doe, High Sierra, The Lady Eve, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, The Wolf Man, Hellzapoppin, Ball of Fire, Penny Serenade, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Devil and Daniel Webster, Tobacco Road, The Little Foxes, and The Man Who Came to Dinner.

Casablanca1942: Casablanca, Bambi, To Be or Not to Be, The Magnificent Ambersons, Now, Voyager, Holiday Inn, The Pride of the Yankees, Mrs. Miniver, Saboteur, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Woman of the Year, This Gun for Hire, The Glass Key, Kings Row, The Talk of the Town, Across the Pacific, Road to Morocco, and Tales of Manhattan.

1946 was no off year, either, as was pointed out to me after I finished the first draft of this article: The Best Years of Our Lives, It's A Wonderful Life, The Big Sleep, Notorious, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Beauty and the Beast, Great Expectations, Gilda, Odd Man Out, My Darling Clementine, The Killers, Brief Encounter, Tomorrow is Forever, The Spiral Staircase, Nocturne, The Time of Their Lives, The Stranger, Humoresque, The Razor's Edge, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, The Yearling, Duel in the Sun, Song of the South

Pretty impressive! But there is one other four-year period that is almost as amazing, and it occurred exactly 20 years later. In 1959, 1960, 1961, and 1962 -- no doubt caught up in the early creative energy of the 60s -- moviemakers once again gifted us with an array of great films, including 9 of the AFI 100, only two less than 1939-1942. Consider these gems:

1959: North by Northwest, Ben-Hur, Some Like It Hot, Rio Bravo, Sleeping Beauty, The 400 Blows, Breathless, Anatomy of a Murder, The Mouse That Roared, Pillow Talk, On the Beach, Operation Petticoat, Black Orpheus, Imitation of Life, Hiroshima Mon Amour, The Diary of Anne Frank, Suddenly, Last Summer, The Horse Soldiers, A Summer Place, Compulsion, Porgy and Bess, The World, the Flesh and the Devil, and The Thirty-Nine Steps.

1960: The Apartment, BUtterfield 8, Elmer Gantry, Exodus, Inherit the Wind, Psycho, Spartacus, The Sundowners, The Time Machine, Wild River, The Magnificent Seven, La Dolce Vita, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Alamo, Ocean's Eleven, Pollyanna, Swiss Family Robinson, Tunes of Glory, Sink the Bismarck, Let's Make Love, North to Alaska, and From the Terrace.

1961: West Side Story, The Hustler, Breakfast at Tiffany's, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Guns of Navarone, Yojimbo, Jules and Jim, Judgment at Nuremberg, Splendor in the Grass, Last Year at Marienbad, El Cid, The Children's Hour, Flower Drum Song, and A Raisin in the Sun.

1962: To Kill a Mockingbird, Lawrence of Arabia, The Manchurian Candidate, Cape Fear, Days of Wine and Roses, Dr. No, Lolita, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Long Day's Journey Into Night, The Longest Day, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Miracle Worker, The Music Man, Mutiny on the Bounty, Sweet Bird of Youth, The Birdman of Alcatraz, Billy Budd, David and Lisa, and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

While I'm partial to 1960, Oscar prognosticator Dan The Man (whose newsletter I recommend to those with eclectic tastes and a broad sense of humor), argues that 1962 is the greatest year of all, and Classic Movies Bulletin Board regular "Rich" argues that '62 is second only to '39. 1963 was a bit lame, but 1964 also had a lot to offer.

Finally, it wasn't quite 20 years later, but the early-to-mid 1970s saw another spate of great flicks. Without listing every one of them, we have:

1970s: Five Easy Pieces (1970), Patton (1970), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Dirty Harry (1971), The French Connection (1971), The Last Picture Show (1971), Cabaret (1972), Deliverance (1972), The Godfather (1972), American Graffiti (1973), Badlands (1973), Don't Look Now (1973), The Exorcist (1973), Mean Streets (1973), Chinatown (1974), The Conversation (1974), The Godfather Part II (1974), Jaws (1975), Nashville (1975), One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Network (1976), Taxi Driver (1976), Annie Hall (1977), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Saturday Night Fever (1977), and Star Wars (1977).

Toward the end of the 70s and on into the 80s there was a golden age of modern horror and sci-fi spawned by Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Star Wars. From 1979 to 1984, we saw Alien, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Mad Max, The China Syndrome, Time After Time, The Empire Strikes Back, The Shining, Friday the 13th, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Road Warrior, Blade Runner, E.T.-The Extra-Terrestrial, and The Terminator. For those who love monsters and space battles, these were the best years in movie history.

Well, this has been fun, but my vote still has to go to 1939. The every-20-years pattern is kind of interesting, though. Does this mean that we'll see another rush of great films at the beginning of the next century? Only time will tell! (NOTE: This article was written in 1999. Obviously this pattern did not repeat itself, unless you consider American Beauty (1999), Gladiator (2000), A Beautiful Mind (2001), and Chicago (2002) - the four Oscar winners from those years - to be the height of filmmaking!)

Do you have some thoughts on this topic? Why not post them on the discussion thread on the subject on the Classic Movies Forum?