Originally Posted by Ambassador

Personally, I've always felt 1939 to be somewhat over-rated. I'm not a big fan of the gargantuan Gone With the Wind or the sentimental tear-jerker Goodbye Mr. Chips, but I'm willing to grant them classic status. But Jesse James and Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex? Those aren't really classics in my book.

1941 has always boasted more movies that I personally enjoy than any other year, and the films from that year strike me as more mature than those from 1939. For instance,

Citizen Kane
The Maltese Falcon
High Sierra
The Lady Eve
Sullivan's Travels
Seargent York
How Green Was My Valley
Never Give a Sucker an Even Break
The Devil and Daniel Webster
49th Parallel (an underrated Powell & Pressburger film)
Major Barbara (unofficially David Lean's debut)
That Uncertain Feeling (an underrated Lubitsch film)
Man Hunt (an underrated Lang film)
47 Ronin (Mizoguchi's wonderfully frustratingly non-action-oriented samurai epic)

There are a few others that may fall short of genuine classic status, but are fun and interesting in other ways:

Shepherd of the Hills (a film that proved John Wayne could indeed act)
Meet John Doe
The Wolf Man
Suspicion
Dumbo
Ball of Fire
They Died With Their Boots On
Road to Zanzibar
The Sea Wolf (full of itself but worth seeing for Edward G. Robinson's outstanding performance)


I really do enjoy those films more than the ones made in 1939. The only major problem is that, for obvious reasons, it wasn't a good year for non-Hollywood studios.

Originally Posted by jeffkjoe

For me,

1989 had the best summer ever.