I don't know. I think it's much easier to list movies form the 90s since it's so recent. Although it's also much easier to only remember the good films from decades past, so who knows.

In any case I'd say the 70s. A few not yet mentioned: Chinatown, Straw Dogs, Alien, American Graffiti, All the President's Men, Annie Hall, Blazing Saddles, The Conversation, Deer Hunter, Easy Rider, Dog Day Afternoon, Five Easy Pieces, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Patton, Solaris, The Wicker Man, and then for horror's sake we've got Rabid and Last House on the Left. Might as well throw Raging Bull in as 70s too ;) it almost made the cut.

Sad how people like the post-cultural revolution cinema more than the older movies.

40s or 50s - Bunch of great James Stewart flicks

I certainly like older movies, I love a good silent flick. I think the reason I love the new[er] movies, ie the 70s, is because of the great strides made in the depth a movie could have. Sure there had been expressionism in other generations, but mostly in the silent era. Movies in the 40s and 50s became much more story driven and straightforward; there wasn't anything unique about them. I realize I'm generalizing (and I'm talking only about domestic American cinema here), and some certainly were not like this, but the 70's was the first time we had a bunch of filmmakers doing things beyond telling a story. To each their own, of course, and I certainly own plenty of movies from the 20s till the 60s, as well as beyond.

1740s

I find myself going back to the films of the 30's for repeat viewings. I watch all era of films, but I have a place in my heart for the 30's.

30's... Specifically, I think the pre-code talky era was one in which creativity thrived and some truly unique films were created.

I have been interested in pre-code stuff for a while now, and the stuff I have is a little... well, it's not great. Any recomendations for a few discs worth owning of pre-code stuff?

It was a toss up between the 70's and 80's. If we were talking horror/sci-fi then the 50's would definitely get my vote. Gritty crime/cop movies, then the 70's would win. Romantic and wacky comedies, then the 60's. Looking at them as a whole, there's a tough toss up between the 70's and 80's.

Yeah, a lot of great films came out of the 70's. More than I think could be listed because the more and more you wrote them down, the more you would think of others to add. All of these films gave great influence to the films of the 80's though, which took what had been done, refined it and put out a shinier product. The 80's also gave birth to some solid sub-genres of film, so had to go with that.

As for some of the best directing per se and some of the best films of the last 100 years, I would say the 70's ie. Star Wars, The Godfather Series and a few others.

As for technological breakthroughs and some pretty damn fine movies, I went with the 90's for my final choice.

Now.

Hey, this is a good poll !

I have to vote for the 1970's - far and away the best decade for mainstream Hollywood films. The 1950's were also a great decade for mainstream Hollywood - lots of great studio films in that decade. The 1990's get props for the emergence of the independent film industry, and the influence of that movement on the mainstream film industry.

I would rate the 30's and 60's next - lots of great films from the Golden Age (1930's), and the 1960's really started the revolution in film that made the 70's so great. The 1940's was a relatively weak decade overall, but Citizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard, and The Third Man elevate the estimation of that era.

Really, I could support a vote for any decade EXCEPT THE 1980's. Far and away, the worst of any decade of mainstream American film - filled with mindless big budget drivel. Unless you are basing your vote on a love of low budget horror movies (which I admit, I enjoy, but don't advocate as representing good taste on my part), the 1980's are pretty aesthetically indefensible.

And the 2000's aren't off to a great start for the same reason (lots of mindless big budget junk), IMHO.

1910's was the decade of World War I.

70's. Easy pick for me. A few reasons from my collection:

Star Wars
Godfather
French Connection
Exorcist
Taxi Driver
Jaws
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Deliverance
Mean Streets
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Deer Hunter
One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest
Straw Dogs
Chinatown
Apocalypse Now
Dog Day Afternoon
Rocky
The Jerk
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
Enter The Dragon
Alien
A Clockwork Orange
Dressed To Kill (on the edge 1980)
Raging Bull (on the edge 1980)

I'm a film noir freak so it's either 40's or 50's for me. I guess I'll go with the 40's for my vote since more of my favorites are from that decade...The Third Man, The Maltese Falcon, Notorious, Double Indemnity, Shadow of a Doubt, plus many, many more...

20's and 30's would come next for me just for Chaplin, Keaton and 1939...then the 60's, then the 70's, then I start to lose interest after that - with some exceptions.

We have a post-cultural revolution crowd here. Hippies

Best - 70's.
2nd Best - 90's.

Worst - 80's. Just a terrible decade for film.

I'll go with 70s.

So far I've picked up two of these photo books by Jurgen Muller.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/38...CMZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Looking through what he picked for the 70s made me realize how many of my faves were from that decade.

I'd go with the 90s second. Probably the 80s, then 60s after that.

Weird, the 90s book URL is in the message but invisible.

Examples of the book's style:

http://www.taschen.com/media/images/...ies_70s_03.jpg

http://www.taschen.com/media/images/...ies_60s_02.jpg


Each is over 600 pages.

80s- Indiana Jones Trilogy
Back To the Future
Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi
Die Hard 1
Ghostbusters

I could go on forever

This would have been my vote too.




Stew

Im more into the 90's stuff but love some of the 80's movies by Jon Hughes and back to the future series.

My rankings (00s and 10s excluded because too little survives)

40s: Birth of film noir, Kane, Casablanca, Sturges and Wilder, Hitchcock in his prime, Hawks and Ford, some great war movies.

50s: Hitch still on top of his game, some great noir, the best westerns ever made, classic SF. Kurosawa at his peak. Italian neo-realism. Heyday of the MGM color musical.

70s: Hollywood realized it didn't have a clue and got experimental. Scorsese, Polanski, Copolla in their prime.

30s: Birth of the musical, the screwball comedy, the Hollywood horror film, and the Gangster film.

90s: Indie cinema comes into its own.

20s: Great silent movies. Keaton, Chaplin, Fairbanks, German Expressionists, Eisenstein. Would rank higher if more films had survived.

80s: Rise of indie cinema, rise of the modern action movie, Hong Kong comes of age, but lots of sucky overwrought dramas and bad comedies.

60s: Beginnings of the Hollywood revolution (Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider), but the reason why there needed to be a revolution is forever written on celluloid.

Hmm, toss up between the 40s and 70s here.