Listomania! A Decade-by-Decade Spectacular!

It all started on Tuesday morning when I noticed the #90sTen hashtag on Twitter. So I chimed in. A couple of hours later I spotted #30sTen. Then last night around midnight I thought I’d fill in the gaps to appease my thirst for symmetry.

I don’t sleep much.

So here are those Lists of Movies I Love in their entirety. The usual don’t-argue-with-me caveats apply: lists are subjective / personal / meaningless / idiosyncratic / a bit silly / subject to change at any moment. And they aren't ranked - it’s just ten per decade (with a Bonus Round of five for Our Decade In Progress) - don’t read anything into the order I've placed them in. Here we go...

The 1930s

The Edge of the World (1937 - Michael Powell)
It Happened One Night (1934 - Frank Capra)
M (1931 - Fritz Lang)
Ninotchka (1939 - Ernst Lubitsch)
Nothing Sacred (1937 - William A. Wellman)
Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (1933 - Fritz Lang)
The Thin Man (1934 - W.S. Van Dyke)
Topper (1937 - Norman Z. McLeod)
Vampyr (1932 - Carl Theodor Dreyer)
The Wizard of Oz (1939 - Victor Fleming)

The 1940s

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948 - Charles Barton)
L'assassin habite au 21 (1942 - Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Ladri di biciclette (1948 - Vittorio De Sica)
The Big Sleep (1946 - Howard Hawks)
It Happened Tomorrow (1944 - René Clair)
The Lady from Shanghai (1947 - Orson Welles)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946 - Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)
Out of the Past (1947 - Jacques Tourneur)
The Red Shoes (1948 - Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)
The Set-Up (1949 - Robert Wise)

The 1950s

Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (1958 - Louis Malle)
Les Diaboliques (1955 - Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 - Don Siegel)
The Killing (1956 - Stanley Kubrick)
Rififi (1955 - Jules Dassin)
Rio Bravo (1959 - Howard Hawks)
Le Salaire de la peur (1953 - Henri-Georges Clouzot)
Some Like It Hot (1959 - Billy Wilder)
Tokyo Story (1953 - Yasujirô Ozu)
Touch of Evil (1958 - Orson Welles)

Additional Reading Material - that’s the second appearance of Orson Welles so far, which seems like the perfect opportunity to share once more one of my favourite pieces of Welles frippery - the cantankerous majesty of his Findus Frozen Peas recording session outtakes.

The 1960s

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968 - Stanley Kubrick)
Branded to Kill (1967 - Seijun Suzuki)
Cool Hand Luke (1967 - Stuart Rosenberg)
In the Heat of the Night (1967 - Norman Jewison)
Night of the Living Dead (1968 - George A. Romero)
Once Upon A Time in the West (1968 - Sergio Leone)
Psycho (1960 - Alfred Hitchcock)
Le Samouraï (1967 - Jean-Pierre Melville)
The Wild Bunch (1969 - Sam Peckinpah)
and Leone's Dollars Trilogy (yeah, that’s right, I’m totally cheating)

Additional Reading Material - My 4,000 word piece on Seijun Suzuki’s hazy hitman masterwork Branded to Kill.

The 1970s

Alien (1979 - Ridley Scott)
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976 - John Carpenter)
Chinatown (1974 - Roman Polanski)
Dirty Harry (1971 - Don Siegel)
Enter the Dragon (1973 - Robert Clouse)
The Exorcist (1973 - William Friedkin)
Saturday Night Fever (1977 - John Badham)
Shaft (1971 - Gordon Parks)
Superman (1978 - Richard Donner)
Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971 - Mel Stuart)

The 1980s

48 Hrs. (1982 - Walter Hill)
Back to the Future (1985 - Robert Zemeckis)
Blood Simple (1984 - Joel and Ethan Coen)
The Blues Brothers (1980 - John Landis)
Body Double (1984 - Brian De Palma)
Die Hard (1988 - John McTiernan)
Down By Law (1986 - Jim Jarmusch)
Midnight Run (1988 - Martin Brest)
The Thing (1982 - John Carpenter)
Trading Places (1983 - John Landis)

Additional Reading Material - The highlights of a John Landis Q&A session at the BFI Southbank back in 2010.

The 1990s

Boogie Nights (1997 - Paul Thomas Anderson)
Cop Land (1997 - James Mangold)
Galaxy Quest (1999 - Dean Parisot)
Groundhog Day (1993 - Harold Ramis)
Hard Boiled (1992 - John Woo)
Léon (1994 - Luc Besson)
Miami Blues (1990 - George Armitage)
The Mission (1999 - Johnnie To)
Pulp Fiction (1994 - Quentin Tarantino)
Toy Story (1995 - John Lasseter)

The 2000s

28 Days Later (2002 - Danny Boyle)
Battle Royale (2000 - Kinji Fukasaku)
Black Snake Moan (2006 - Craig Brewer)
Exiled (2006 - Johnnie To)
Ichi the Killer (2001 - Takashi Miike)
Infernal Affairs (2002 - Wai-Keung Lau and Alan Mak)
The School of Rock (2003 - Richard Linklater)
Shaun of the Dead (2004 - Edgar Wright)
Monsters, Inc. (2001 - Pete Docter)
WALL-E (2008 - Andrew Stanton)

Additional Reading Material - From the same publication as my piece on Branded to Kill, here is my article on Battle Royale. This one is super lucky!

2010 to 2015 

Killer Joe (2011 - William Friedkin)
The Lone Ranger (2013 - Gore Verbinski)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010 - Edgar Wright)
Under the Skin (2013 - Jonathan Glazer)
Wreck-It Ralph (2012 - Rich Moore)

Additional Reading Material - William Friedkin visited London’s BFI Southbank for an on-stage Q&A to coincide with the release of Killer Joe - you can read the highlights here. And I really, really love The Lone Ranger - if you want to know why, click here.