Over at Fandango Groovers Movie Blog, a meme has sprouted up that asks interested bloggers to name their favorite films starting from the year they were born to (what I can only guess) last year, 2010. I decided to take a crack at this one even though I’d have to struggle with two handicaps: a) I don’t watch a lot of recent movies and b) I don’t watch a lot of recent movies. Surprisingly, I didn’t start to experience any major problems until I got into the aughts, when my movie attendance decreased sharply and I became, more or less, TCM’s bitch.
So what follows is a list of my favorite movies for each year starting from my date of birth until 2009 because a cursory glance at what came out in 2010 revealed that I haven’t seen anything from last year. If you’re curious to participate, all you have to go is e-mail a link to Fandango Groovers at fandangogroovers@gmail.com and I’m sure they’d only be too happy to hear from additional precincts.
1963 – Shock Corridor
1964 – Dr. Strangelove
1965 – The Pawnbroker
1966 – Seconds
1967 – In Cold Blood
1968 – Targets
1969 – Medium Cool
1970 – M*A*S*H
1971 – The Last Picture Show
1972 – The Candidate
1973 – Sleeper
1974 – The Conversation
1975 – Night Moves
1976 – The Front
1977 – Between the Lines
1978 – Who’ll Stop the Rain
1979 – Life of Brian
1980 – Atlantic City
1981 – The Howling
1982 – The Verdict
1983 – The Big Chill
1984 – Blood Simple
1985 – Brazil
1986 – Hannah and Her Sisters
1987 – Raising Arizona
1988 – The Thin Blue Line
1989 – Crimes and Misdemeanors
1990 – Goodfellas
1991 – JFK
1992 – Reservoir Dogs
1993 – In the Name of the Father
1994 – Shallow Grave
1995 – Dead Man Walking
1996 – Fargo
1997 – L.A. Confidential
1998 – Gods and Monsters
1999 – Election
2000 – O Brother, Where Art Thou?
2001 – Mulholland Dr.
2002 – Bowling for Columbine
2003 – Bad Santa
2004 – Fahrenheit 9/11
2005 – A History of Violence
2006 – Little Children
2007 – Michael Clayton
2008 – In Bruges
2009 – The Art of the Steal
(Hey…Farran Smith Nehme didn’t call me “wonderfully iconoclastic” because it was printed on my T-shirt.) Interestingly enough, some of the entries above I had already filled out for a meme that Thad Komorowski floated around on Facebook…but in that one, you chose your own fifty-year span of films and picked your favorites. I chose 1925-1974, so the remaining part of the list would read as follows:
1925 – The Freshman
1926 – The General
1927 – Sunrise
1928 – The Wind
1929 – Pandora’s Box
1930 – All Quiet on the Western Front
1931 – City Lights
1932 – Horse Feathers
1933 – Blood Money
1934 – Twentieth Century
1935 – Man on the Flying Trapeze
1936 – Modern Times
1937 – Way Out West
1938 – Angels with Dirty Faces
1939 – The Wizard of Oz
1940 – His Girl Friday
1941 – Sullivan’s Travels
1942 – Casablanca
1943 – The Ox-Bow Incident
1944 – Murder, My Sweet
1945 – Road to Utopia
1946 – It’s a Wonderful Life
1947 – Out of the Past
1948 – Force of Evil
1949 – White Heat
1950 – Winchester ‘73
1951 – His Kind of Woman
1952 – High Noon
1953 – Stalag 17
1954 – Johnny Guitar
1955 – Kiss Me Deadly
1956 – The Killing
1957 – Paths of Glory
1958 – Touch of Evil
1959 – North by Northwest
1960 – Wild River
1961 – One, Two, Three
1962 – Ride the High Country
Thrilling Days of Yesteryear 