Travis McClain

Well, I voted 1990s because the question asked what my favorite movie decade was/is and not which I thought was the best. My reasoning is that the small town I live in finally got its first theater in 1995 and for the first time I was able to regularly go see movies. It got to a point in the late 90s that friends and I would go see movies knowing nothing more than the title, just to see something. It's harder to maintain that kind of movie-going when you're married, have Crohn's disease, etc., so I look back on the 1990s as a period when I could go see...

my first R-rated movie in a theater (Thunderheart)...

the debut of Pierce Brosnan as James Bond one week (Goldeneye), and the first completely CGI animated feature (Toy Story) the next...

the first time I ever saw two movies back-to-back (Down Periscope and Happy Gilmore)...

my first midnight screening (Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace)

and many other fond movie-going memories.

edstein

this

RagingBull80

I went with the '70s but it was a tough call.

hotsexyboi

it's the 80's for me...such classics in that era!

modfather

40's, 30's...then everything else...

hapgilmore

90's hands down:
Goodfellas
Forrest Gump
Casino
American Beauty

GoldenJCJ

Gotta be the 70's. It was slightly before my time so I don't have any bias toward the movies as loving them simply because I liked them as a kid. Jaws, French Connection, Annie Hall, Alien, Close Encounters, Apocalypse Now, Star Wars, Halloween, Texas Chansaw Massacre, The Godfather 1 and 2, etc, are all great films!

The 70's definitely had a harder edge to the action/drama films, and let's face it, horror has been on a steady decline ever since.


I love a lot of 80's movies but seeing as how a lot of crap movies are favorites simply due to nastagic purposes I can't really say that decade was the best. If Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Empire Strikes Back were made in the 70's this wouldn't even be a consideration.

mcnabb

I think we should distinguish between favorite and best decade. Alot of my favorite movies aren't necessarily the best movies, as I grew up in the 80's, so there are tons of movies that are my favorite from that time. But for pure film quality, the 70's is the best, and we won't see a decade of movies anymore because of the summer blockbusters, and how movies cater to a younger demographic these days. The 70's movies were gritty, realistic, catered to adults and just damn good when I look at some of the lists here.

Daytripper

Bump. Watching "Network" now on Blu. It's gotta be the 70's.

lamphorn

Very tough choice. I'm really fond of the 30's because of the pre-code movies but that's only a 4 year period... Love a lot of 80's stuff, but I almost voted for the 70's because a lot of fantastic movies were made then. That was the beginning of Woody Allen, Spielberg, Scorsese, and you can't go wrong when picking between Jack Nicholson films.

That said, I went with the 90's. On top of being full of fantastic movies, this was a time when the openings for new writing/directing talent was at it's most democratic. Someone could literally pick up a camera, spend a few thousand dollars, and realistically get it seen in THEATRES through one of the boutique or indie distributors. This lead to a lot of great talent from everywhere (rather than just L.A. and N.Y.) bubbling to the surface with some stellar results. Unfortunately these guys who broke in have shut the door behind them because this avenue for hopeful writers/directors is pretty much dead.

I assume, like with all things, this trend of children's 3D films dominating the industry will eventually flame out and leave the studios struggling for answers to their sagging popularity (this is historically the precursor to our past "golden ages", the 70's and 90's particularly), and looking for new talent again.

Ash Ketchum

I forget what decade I voted for when I first responded to the poll. And I could'a sworn I'd done a post or two for this thread. In any event, I've been watching a lot of stuff for the B-movie Challenge on the DVD Talk board (I'm up to #79 for the month) and I'm finding that the real gems are in the 1930s, '40s and '50s. If I had to vote again, I'd definitely go with the '40s, the decade of film noir.

RDR

The 40s for me although the 30s and 50s carry over a bit.

Abbott and Costello
The Marx Bros
Laurel and Hardy
Hitchcock
Sherlock Holmes (Rathbone/Bruce)
Karloff
Lugosi
Bogie/Bacall
Charlie Chan
Arsenic and Old Lace
Eastside Kids/Bowery Boys

It was a great era .

BambooLounge

I subconsciously added "movie decade in American history" for no reason and selected the 70s, which is my fav american movie decade followed closely by the 30s.

If I take into account worldwide releases, I'd go with the 60s for all the great Italian cinema.

Least favorite decade by a wide margin is the 80s...never good when a decade peaks in its first year (Raging Bull).