These Top 5 Decade Lists I Make
Added 2023-02-14 23:05:16 +0000 UTCI gotta tell you...I was more excited to do my top 5 for the 1980s last year for Youtube, mainly because I think that is a really underrated decade for movies. Everyone says the 80s sucked for movies and...I beg to differ. So many great films came out of that decade that people rarely acknowledge. 1970s is kinda the expected route to go list-wise. People always talk about how it was the greatest decade for film. Whereas I find the 1960s far more interesting by comparison, and certainly less accessible overall. But I definitely want to try and do these every once in a while. It's an undertaking, because I often have to revisit key works, but it's fun to do as an overview. I'd like to do the 1950s at some point. That's another decade that I consider underrated like the 1980s. Lots of amazing works from that one, yet overall, it's considered safe and bland. Go figure.
Comments
80 BREAKER MORANT ELEPHANT MAN --------------------------------------- 82 PERSONAL BEST YEAR LIVING DANGEROUSLY ------------------------------------------ 83 LORDS OF DISCIPLINE PSYCHO II RIGHT STUFF SOMETHING WICKED --------------------------------------------------- 84 BLOOD SIMPLE BODY DOUBLE DUNE ------------------------------------------------- 85 BRAZIL KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN LADYHAWKE PHENOMENA --------------------------------------- 86 CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD ------------------------------------------- 87 RAISING ARIZONA --------------------------- 88 THE KISS THIN BLUE LINE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM ------------------------------------- 89 SCANDAL -----------------------------------------
PETER COLLINS
2023-02-20 23:58:25 +0000 UTC20 year periods may work, dystopian films of the 70's and 80's, French films of the 60's and 70's, Italian horror of the 60 etc...
Simon
2023-02-20 01:08:24 +0000 UTChaha yeah I heard that podcast. Maybe subconciously that's why I made this post. XD...as I disagree with Quentin at times.
Deepfocuslens
2023-02-16 03:42:11 +0000 UTCyeah I really wanna do 90s as well. Also a decade that grows with time.
Deepfocuslens
2023-02-16 03:41:14 +0000 UTCThat one was definitely in my top 10
Deepfocuslens
2023-02-16 03:40:48 +0000 UTCIt will be interesting to see how far you go with these lists - if you end up doing one for each decade from the 1920s through to the 2010s that would make for one hell of a playlist! (& maybe even a book?)
Richard Lyth
2023-02-15 19:04:05 +0000 UTC100% agree about the 1980s being underrated. Yes it was a time of excess and a lot of the more popular movies that the decade is known for probably don’t hold up well in comparison to others but there were plenty of great films and auteurs that were introduced during this time. Cronenberg, Lynch, Jarmusch, Michael Mann, the Coens, Terence Davies, Joe Dante, Tim Burton, Spike Lee, Verhoeven etc. And then you also have established directors like Carpenter, De Palma, Scorsese who turned out plenty of good films that remain relevant today. The 1950s and 1960s were definitely a great time for movies both domestically and abroad. All the directors Bennett mentions above were out in full force and making it probably the most exciting time in the history of film. Doing a top ten for either decade would be difficult to do let alone a top 5. I like the idea of splitting the 1960s into two and doing one list for the early 60s and then one for the later 60s that are closer to the New Hollywood era. Either way, I look forward to your lists!
Stephen
2023-02-15 00:20:03 +0000 UTCYeah, that’s why the ‘50s and ‘80s were thought of as inferior to other decades. There was a conservative mindset that permeated through the culture, and in the studios as well. That mindset tended to clamp down on any kind of films that attempted to provoke or take risks. Of course, there were anomalous people in the ‘50s, like, say, Otto Preminger, who strove to push the envelope and gradually helped erode the Hays Code, and there were people in the ‘80s that had the same kind of spirit who worked outside the mainstream, but generally that mindset had a pretty firm hold on what got made and what didn’t. They had a bottom line to protect.
Bennett Oliver
2023-02-15 00:09:29 +0000 UTCThe 80s was such a fantastic decade. I'd put Blow Out up against the best films from each decade
Tasha Morgan
2023-02-15 00:07:54 +0000 UTCThe New Hollywood era of the ‘70s was only able to come about in the first place because of the wave of great foreign films that came out in the ‘50s and ‘60s. You had the French New Wave with Godard, Truffaut, Rivette, Demy, along with people like Bergman, Antonioni, Fellini, and Visconti who were making films before and during that time. Before that, you had the great Japanese films of the ‘50s with Ozu, Mizoguchi, and Kurosawa. And even before that, in the ‘40s, you had the Italian neorealists like Rossellini and De Sica. So yeah, there were plenty of great films that were made in the decades before the ‘70s. The New Hollywood era was the beneficiary of those films, when the studio system collapsed and they brought in a new generation of filmmakers who abandoned the artifice of Old Hollywood and started applying the principles and aesthetics of world cinema to their own works. And that’s not to say that Hollywood didn’t make great films during the time preceding that era as well. With all those previous decades to explore though, I hope the ‘90s isn’t overlooked. That’s another decade worthy of exploring, and not just because I grew up watching those films. For me, it was a resurgence in the kind of daring and creativity that occurred in the ‘60s and ‘70s, with a new wave of filmmakers on the independent scene making their mark.
Bennett Oliver
2023-02-15 00:00:18 +0000 UTCofc i say “degenerate” lovingly, as a lifelong fan of Quentin who disagrees with him sometimes
Jared Angcanan
2023-02-14 23:48:13 +0000 UTCI think the greatest movies would be great if they were released in any era of cinema, so that’s what matters most to me personally. If we’re only comparing mainstream Hollywood wide releases of the 70s to the 50s and 80s, then maybe the comparative edginess would make the 70s more appealing to degenerates like Quentin Tarantino lol - I remember he shit on the 50s and 80s on a podcast. But yeah, as soon as you factor in international and indie releases, then 50s and 80s films were just as potent, cutting-edge and challenging as any other decade in film history.
Jared Angcanan
2023-02-14 23:46:58 +0000 UTCThe 80s definitely had some all time classics in both blockbuster and indie filmmaking but blockbuster filmmaking in particular started to truly nosedive in quality. Several god-awful teenage sex comedies like Porky's and mindless violent horror films like the Friday the 13th series dominated for the first half of the decade which was then followed by several dumb action films plus Hollywood beginning to really jump on the sequel and remake bandwagon. For every Terminator, Indiana Jones, and Ghostbusters, we got dozens upon dozens of these cheap, empty, and disgusting cash grabs. Also, MTV really exploded in popularity which led to a lot more movies like Flashdance and Top Gun which were more like extended music videos than story driven narratives. As for the 1950s, I don't get how people like Tarantino call it one of the worst decades in cinema when the MGM musicals and most of Marlon Brando's, Audrey Hepburn's, and several other major stars' best work came out of that decade. Was also the decade of Hitchcock, Elia Kazan, and Billy Wilder to name a few directors at the top of their game.
Wolfman Brandon
2023-02-14 23:33:29 +0000 UTCI agree. I think that there were a lot of incredible films from the ‘80s. But for me the difference is that compared to other decades, a lot of the best movies didn’t do well at the box office, weren’t received well initially, or both. Some examples include The Thing, Blow Out, Blue Velvet, Videodrome, Brazil, etc. Like the ‘50s, there was an element of cultural censorship to suppress challenges to the religious, reactionary status quo. But even in the ‘50s, great challenging American films were made, with Night of the Hunter being maybe the best example.
Jackson Littlewood
2023-02-14 23:17:15 +0000 UTCOut of curious, did you find your love of movies from those early decades (60s, 50s) come from your parents or from independent exploration? I think the 70s is the last decade I feel confident in my knowledge of and just barely and the 60s and early, even less.
Tyler Shobe
2023-02-14 23:11:44 +0000 UTCWho said the 80s suck ??? Lol what ????????? I sent u a Im on this very topic, before you even posted anything.
swift minus one
2023-02-14 23:11:07 +0000 UTC
