Many people find it difficult to name their favorite movie of the past year, let alone their favorite movie of all time. But I'm a man who loves his lists, and I decided to take things a step further.
What are my top 10 favorite movies of every year since the year I was born?
That was the initial premise of this, which then turned into also including a top "whatever I feel like doing" for an overall breakdown of each decade, as well.
Needless to say, I had a difficult task ahead of me—but one that I knew I could come back to time and time again once I did all the legwork, especially now that I also track my rankings as best as I can through Letterboxd instead of just Evernote. Go ahead and follow me there!
So that is what we're doing here. From 1987 onward, this post will have a top 10 list of my favorite movies with some extra detail, along with some other years just for fun, and a top #x per decade. At any point, if I watch a movie I feel deserves to be ranked on here, I'll go back into this post and edit it. Therefore, you never know if one day, I watch something from the mid-90s and put it high up on my list!
But before we get started, I want to lay out some notes and information for people to be aware of:
NOTE 1 - FAVORITE, NOT BEST
This is a list of my FAVORITE movies—not the BEST movies, necessarily. While there will certainly be some overlap in movies I think are legitimately amazing, well-made, Oscar-worthy production, it doesn't mean that these are the 10 movies per year that I think are the absolute finest films on a universal scale. You're going to see silly action movies, ridiculous comedies and flicks that I know are bad, but I can't help but enjoy. You're also not going to see some critically acclaimed films that I would agree are among the best for that particular year. But just because it is a good movie doesn't mean it is something I've ever felt like revisiting a single time, let alone multiple times.
NOTE 2 - THE HONORARY MENTIONS
Some years are just packed with too many that I love to fit into a top 10. To help illustrate better how the decades lists are formed, I'll mention a handful of those movies by extending the top 10 to further numbers so I can mention those films.
Yes, it sounds like a cop out. But the movies are still ranked in order, so you can still see what the true top 10 are.
Other times, there aren't even 10 that I really like that I can put on the list, so you'll see some filler candidates, as I couldn't think of anything else.
NOTE 3 - THE KEY TO RANKING
There are effectively four levels of ranking here:
- Movies in bold are movies I absolutely love.
- Movies in italics but not bold are the ones I like a lot, but aren't in the same league.
- Movies in gray are ones that I like, but I might have seen them once and don't quite feel like watching them a second film or anything of that sort.
Striked out movieson the list means I only have it there to fill out the list and will gladly bump it off the moment I find something to replace it, ranging from "it's not worthy of being on this list, but I still like it" to "I don't even actually like this."
The true way to judge my favorites will be the decade lists. That is where you see how these outliers actually place on whether I love them, like them, think they're okay, or think they're just not the worst.
NOTE 4 - FLEXIBILITY
At any moment, these lists can change. Not only will I obviously be watching more films as time goes on, but my tastes will change, too. If I had made this up when I was 10 years old, or 20 years old, certain movies would definitely rank higher and lower than they are at 35 (and beyond).
If you don't see a movie on this list, there could be two reasons why. The first is that I saw it and I'm not a big fan of it. The second would be that I just haven't seen it yet. There are plenty blind spot films that I need to watch. Hopefully, I'll get around to them. Some will even be called out specifically on this list because I know they're important or interesting enough to justify mentioning.
This page originally housed every year's list, but it became too big. To compensate, the decades have been broken down into individual posts.
Here is your table of contents for this series:
FAVORITE MOVIES LISTS - BY DECADE
1960s, 1970s, 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | 2010s | 2020s — MASTER LIST PAGE
Over time, this particular master list page may be adjusted to include any more information I decide to add. It may even become a place to house an ultimate all-time top 100 favorite movies ever list, or something else along those lines.
What are your favorite movies from every year?
Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
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