Which era featured the best movies?

I said the 30-40, with film like: The Informer, Mutiny on the Bounty, It Happened one Night. One can say that especially 1939 with films such as Gone With The Wind, Wizard of Oz, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Wuthering Heights. They don't make like that anymore.

I said 1980-1990, but that was just to join in the poll. Most eras after 1930 had great films. You had the musicals of the 1930s, the war movies of the 1940s, the drive in schlock of the 1950s and 1960s, the nostalgia films of the 1970s, the teen films of the 1980s, the movies of the 1990s, and there are even many post new millenium films. They should've given one that says you don't particularly choose one.

Judging by the videos and CDs in my library, most come from the period 1925-1940. There were some wonderful films made during that period in the UK, Australia and the USA, no need really for colour, or even sound in those earlier films of the late silent era. I particularly like the earlier Hitchcock films and one of my all-time favourites, "Oh Mr Porter", but then I love that film also for the timeless railway scenes. The next train really has gone!. Give me Busby Berkeley with the great songs of that period and I am in escapist heaven. All I need to go with these films is a newsreel and and organ interlude, and possibly an ice-cream to savour. Not popcorn - could never take to that. Can't roll Jaffas in the TV room.

I voted for "my time"... 1950-1960. Growing up with not only Rear Window, James Dean, River Kwai, Shane, High Noon but also the 3-D, Cinemascope, VistVision and Cinerama technologies. And any decade with Shrinking Men, Colossal Beasts, 50' women, mutant insects and creatures from black lagoons......WOW!

The western was at top form, before its untimely demise, with the Duke at his finest in The Searchers & Rio Bravo; The new wave of "B" westerns with the aging Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott (especially his great Budd Boetticher oaters), the WWII hero Audie Murphy, etc.

The birth of rock n' roll on the screen in Blackboard Jungle.... blending with rebels without a cause and a country boy named ELVIS..... leading us toward the terrible-but-fun AIP epics.

Hitchcock in his prime....Rear Window, Strangers on a Train, North by Nortwest, Vertigo, Trouble with Harry, Dial M and the beauty of Grace Kelly in To Catch A Thief.

Today, I can appreciate the "girly-stuff" that I snubbed back then...the wonderful MGM musicals Singing in the Rain, An American in Paris, 7 Brides for 7 Brothers (the one that I did enjoy as a kid).....

And the fantastic foreign films ranging from the Kurosawa epics, Wages of Fear to the uproarious British comedies with Alec Guinness, Alastair Sim, Peter Sellers and the Carry On gang.

Great topic. Can't wait to see the responses. Jerry the K

My most memorable experience in a movie theater was watching "How the West Was Won" at the Warner Theater in Pittsburgh, PA in its premiere engagement in Cinerama. The screen was enormous and all of the action such as the river rapids, the buffalo stampede, and train wreck at the end seemed to spill over into the audience. Every big star of the time seemed to have a role in the film, and I "fell in love with" Debbie Reynolds at age 10!

I still love the films of the 1960s and watch them as often as I can.

That said, the era of movies I voted for is the 1970s, wherein we had great films every year from the New Hollywood mavericks such as Coppola, Scorsese, Altman, Pakula, Polanski, Allen, Spielberg, Lucas, Malick, Kubrick,and many other filmmakers.

Their films were all original - now it seems everything is geared to making the weekly # 1 spot in the boxoffice returns by gearing it toward teenagers on dates. I consider the first "Porky's" as the start of that new era.

I also find computer generated imaging annoying and phony, even when used in such epics as "Gladiator" and "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

Somebody please build a time machine, so I can go back to the late
50s through the early 80s and view the films I missed in a theater and only got to see on TV as they were meant ot be seen - on the big screen. Aaaahhhh - Wishful thinking!

I agree with Ron about CGI effects being annoying.

I suppose that the classic Hollywood year is considered by many to be 1939.

It was hard to exclude any of these decades, but I chose 70-80 because I feel so many of the movies still retained the craftsmanship of old Hollywood but with exciting new directions and a crop of younger directors (as mentioned by Ron above) who were amazing. I can't think of more than a couple of directors to come on the scene in the last 10 years that I like, but I think I could watch a different great 70's film every night and not run out of titles for weeks.

From a theater-goer perspective, this was still a time when you could still find a movie palace open, or a great 70mm presentation, and theater projectionists still cared, and theater staffs did too (not across the board of course, but there were still a few 'quality' houses).

I started working at the Vogue Theatre in 1946. I was 12 Years old and worked for noyhing doing odd jobs. I got to see all kinds of movies and my favorites were the Musicals.. Just being around inside the Theatre and hearing the music eas awsome. I think the musical scores in that eara were something else. The Vogue Theatre was in Denver, and I am still in the business today in Kansas.posted by dudley on May 21, 2005 at 2:32pm

No question that the 1930-1940 is it! I am glad to have voted with the majority for a change. The time period in question is that of the world's economic depression to the Second World War! The inherent conflicts in real lives and in the political world created the best screenplays ever written. The VAST majority of great film performers, great settings and costumes, great topics and themes, great new effects came from this period. Just look at a small sample. 1930: Public Enemy, Front Page. 1935: Mutiny on the Bounty, Merle Oberon in Dark Victory, Golddiggers of 1935 (Lullabye of Broadway), Captain Blood. 1939: Gone With the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith goes to Washington and Ninotchka! This is not to mention all of the other great comedies, dramas, musicals, animated films, westerns and gangster pictures. People WENT OUT to the movies more often before TV took its place in our homes.

I vote for the period 1930-1940.
Grand Illusion[Jean Renoir]、Gone with the Wind、The Great Waltz、I Happened One Night、The Great Ziegfeld ......are my favourites from that period.
Raymond Lo[from hong Kong]/23th May,2005

Films of the 40's-50's the best. Best stars, writers, directors and NO SPECIAL EFFECTS. The only special effects were the above...
Having moved to Pittsburgh recently, I would like to hear from someone who remembers not only the Warner, but what other single screen movie houses in the downtown area.

I voted 1920-1930, but my real period runs more like 1913-1927, and refers to silent comedies.

Silents ARE golden. We'll never again see stuff as funny as Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, the Keystone Kops, Larry Semon, Fatty Arbuckle, etc.

Of course, the best way to see this stuff, if you are lucky enough to find it, is in a big movie palace with live accompaniment on a big theatre pipe organ!

There should be an option for 'ALL OF THE ABOVE'. I think every decade has some truly wonderful movies to offer.

I think the 90's are a good decade for movies, since Titanic changed the way people went to see a movie for such a long time. You also had the introduction of digital surround sound that makes it real, and the era of the megaplex.

I'm 40 years-old, so I have a personal fondness for the movies that came out of the 1970's and the rising young directors like Spielberg, Scorcese, DePalma, Friedkin, Coppola and Lucas that came with them.

However, I voted for the era of the 1940's because there was simply no other time like it at the movies. It was called "The Golden Age" for a reason...

CASABLANCA, CITIZEN KANE, GILDA, OUT OF THE PAST, MILDRED PIERCE, NOW VOYAGER, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, THE MALTESE FALCON, THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI, KEY LARGO, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, REBECCA, NOTORIOUS, SPELLBOUND, HAMLET, FLYING TIGERS, THE THIRD MAN...

Need I go on?