Movies by Decade: Best of the Best

I originally was going to have a “Best of the 2020s” list, but it has been such a terrible decade of movies so far that I can’t justify even a Top 10.  Yes, there’s still 4 years to go, but I don’t have much hope for it to get better.  So instead, this is my comprehensive list, combining the decade lists that I had made, adding a couple of movies from the 2020s and one from the 1920s, and seeing how they all stack up.  I can’t say this is a perfect list, and even while making it there were a few times I wanted to make some changes within the decades, but I stuck to the lists as they were and went by that.  That’s also, perhaps, why you might see a run on movies from a certain decade.  I tacked on a few from the current decade at the end just to make it an even 100.

So, without added comments, my list of the Best of the Best, in order:

 

1.               Ben-Hur (1959)

2.               Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

3.               The Searchers (1956)

4.               Casablanca (1942)

5.               It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)

6.               Schindler’s List (1993)

7.               The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

8.               King Kong (1933)

9.               Rocky (1976)

10.           Jaws (1975)

11.           Star Wars (1977)

12.           Superman (1978)

13.           Apollo 13 (1995)

14.           Jurassic Park (1993)

15.           Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

16.           Saving Private Ryan (1998)

17.           The Passion of the Christ (2004)

18.           Alien (1979)

19.           Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

20.           Sense and Sensibility (1995)

21.           My Fair Lady (1964)

22.           Going My Way (1944)/The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)

23.           Black Hawk Down (2001)

24.           Rear Window (1954)

25.           Roman Holiday (1954)

26.           Spartacus (1960)

27.           E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

28.           The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

29.           Bringing Up Baby (1938)

30.           The Mission (1986)

31.           Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

32.           Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

33.           Back to the Future (1985)

34.           Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

35.           Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

36.           The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

37.           North by Northwest (1959)

38.           The Philadelphia Story (1940)

39.           The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

40.           The Wizard of Oz (1939)

41.           1917 (2019)

42.           The Field of Dreams (1989)

43.           The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

44.           The Fugitive (1993)

45.           West Side Story (1961)

46.           The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

47.           Fort Apache (1948)/She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

48.           The Quiet Man (1952)

49.           Sergeant York (1941)

50.           The Song of Bernadette (1943)

51.           Die Hard (1988)

52.           The Hunt for Red October (1990)

53.           The Great Escape (1963)

54.           The Sound of Music (1965)

55.           Toy Story 3 (2010)

56.           White Christmas (1954)

57.           The Thin Man (1934)

58.           Planet of the Apes (1968)

59.           Road to Perdition (2002)

60.           It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

61.           Gladiator (2000)

62.           To Catch a Thief (1955)

63.           A Day at the Races (1937)

64.           Stagecoach (1939)

65.           Red River (1948)

66.           Road to Morocco (1942)

67.           Alexander Nevsky (1938)

68.           Thirteen Lives (2022)

69.           The Natural (1984)

70.           Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987)

71.           12 Angry Men (1957)

72.           Patton (1970)

73.           Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

74.           Of Gods and Men (2010)

75.           La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (1929)

76.           The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)

77.           The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

78.           The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

79.           The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

80.           Finding Neverland (2004)

81.           13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016)

82.           Wind River (2017)

83.           Ford v. Ferrari (2019)

84.           Devotion (2022)

85.           Unbreakable (2000)

86.           True Grit (2010)

87.           The King’s Speech (2010)

88.           Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986)

89.           Paddington (2014)

90.           A Quiet Place (2018)

91.           Sound of Freedom (2023)

92.           Godzilla Minus One (2023)

93.           Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

94.           Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

95.           Cabrini (2024)

96.           The Thirty Nine Steps (1978)

97.           A Quiet Place Part II (2020)

98.           Fatima (2020)

99.           Dune: Part One (2021)

100.       F1 (2025)

 

Movies by Decade: 40s

Continuing my march through the decades with the 40s.

The 40s are somewhat similar to the 30s.  You’ve still got some Universal monster movies, some screwball comedies, and some great swashbucklers.  Bob Hope and Bing Crosby really dominate.  Then, of course, you have the emergence of the patriotic movies during WWII.  There’s also weirdly a lot of Christmas movies.

Before my list (remember this is “best,” not necessarily “favorite”), a few notable movies not mentioned, because I have not seen them: The Big Sleep, Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity, How Green Was My Valley, Mrs. Miniver, The Lost Weekend, Gentleman’s Agreement, Hamlet, All the King’s Men. Also missing is Citizen Kane, easily one of the most overrated movies of all time.

Honorable Mentions: We’ve Never Been Licked (okay it’s not great, but it’s Texas A&M), Miracle on 34^th Street, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, The Bishop’s Wife, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream Home, Holiday Inn, The Shop Around the Corner, Pinocchio, Shadow of a Doubt, The Pride of the Yankees, Meet John Doe, The Sea Hawk, The Mark of Zorro, Fantasia, Arsenic and Old Lace

Top 10 Countdown:

10. Road to Morocco (1942)

            This is really a stand-in for all of the Road movies, which are fantastic, but this one is probably the best.  Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, always a great time.

 

9. Red River (1948)

            Excellent John Wayne Western with a great performance also by Montgomery Clift.

 

8. The Song of Bernadette (1943)

            It’s almost criminal to have this so low, but again it’s a strong decade.  I always find it amazing that there was a time when Hollywood would nominate such a strongly Catholic movie for 11 Oscars, including Best Picture, and it would win 4 (just happened to be the same year as #1).

 

7. Sergeant York (1941)

            This was clearly made as a propaganda movie, to get Americans ready to enter WWII.  It remains an amazing story, and Gary Cooper shines as he usually does.  “Ma wants ya Alvin.”

 

6. Fort Apache (1948)/She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)

            I’m cheating a little bit this decade.  These two movies are so closely related it’s hard to keep them apart.  John Ford, John Wayne, an assembly of great character actors, it doesn’t get much better than this.  If I had to pick one, it would be Fort Apache, especially with Henry Fonda’s ability to make you absolutely hate him.

 

5. The Best of Our Lives (1946)

            Many people would have this higher, but it gets a bit long and extremely depressing.  But it’s also incredibly poignant and shows the horrors of war, something most movies were not ready to do at the time.

 

4. The Philadelphia Story (1940)

            You want to talk about star power?  Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, and James Stewart (who won an Oscar)!  It’s witty, fun, everything you want in a romantic comedy.  It’s hard to choose between this and the musical remake High Society with Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Grace Kelly.

 

3. Going My Way (1944)/The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)

            Again, cheating, but these movies are so tied together.  Going My Way is my favorite, and the better one, but both are absolute classics.  Crosby’s Fr. O’Malley is still my favorite movie priest.  To echo Song of Bernadette, it’s incredible that Going My Way won 7 Oscars, including Best Picture, Barry Fitzgerald is the only actor to be nominated for both leading and supporting actor (he won for supporting), and Crosby was the first actor to be nominated for best actor for the same role twice.

 

2. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

            I watch it every year around Christmas, and every year I get emotional.  James Stewart is breathtaking, especially since it was his first role after the war and he wasn’t sure if he could return to acting.  Not only is it one of the great Christmas movies of all time, it’s one of the greatest movies of all time.  It just so happened to come out the same decade as…

 

1. Casablanca (1942)

            The greatest screenplay of all time?  Maybe.  The most memorable dialogue of all time?  Probably.  There’s not much to say about Casablanca that hasn’t been said.  It’s basically perfect.  “I’m shocked, SHOCKED, to find that gambling is going on in here.” So good.

 

Extra fun: the best movie scores of the decade

 

The Sea Hawk (Erich Wolfgang Korngold)

Captain from Castile (Alfred Newman)

The Black Swan (Alfred Newman)

It’s a Wonderful Life (Dimitri Tiomkin)

The Best Years of Our Lives (Hugo Friedhofer)

 

Other music from the decade: Swing/big band is in full bloom.  Glenn Miller is the king: In the Mood, A String of Pearls, Chattanooga Choo-Choo, I’ve Got a Gal in Kalamazoo.  The Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby are always good.  Some of my favorite music of all time.