Favorite decade/era for movies?

[Quorthon]

So what's your favorite decade or era for movies?

I'm going with the 80's. The greatest era for slasher/gore/horror films ever. Fantastic new special effects coupled with a slough of directors always willing to try to top one another.

The 50's (Science Fiction/Horror) era would be my second.

Never been much of a fan of movies from the early 60's to the mid 70's. Seventies "synth music" soundtracks offend me.

[frankenjohn]

80s: The deacade of gore.

[Pulpmariachi]

I went with the 70s. Come on, I mean look at the great films you've had there: Jaws, Star Wars, Taxi Driver, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Godfather (I and II), Alien, The Exorcist, Mean Streets, The Last Waltz, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Apocalypse Now, Last Tango in Paris, Superman, Dog Day Afternoon, The Deer Hunter, A Clockwork Orange...to just name a few.

Truthfully there's something from every decade I like and/or love, but I think the 70s were some of the greatest. It was age of the film director, wasn't it?

[Heineken Skywalker]

There you horror guys go again. Equating "gore" with "good movie".

The 70's, bar none, is the greatest film decade. Great stories, fantastic performances, a new generation of directors, most of whom continue to influence today's filmmakers. And I'm pretty sure I could find way more bad synth music in 80's movies than in 70's since that's when there was a ton of synth music dominating the pop charts as well.

Just off the top of my head. Some essential 70's films that shouldn't be missed, from every genre:
THE GODFATHER I & II, APOCALYPSE NOW, ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, JAWS, STAR WARS, ALIEN, ROCKY, ANIMAL HOUSE, BLAZING SADDLES, DAWN OF THE DEAD, THE LONGEST YARD, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, TAXI DRIVER, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, HALLOWEEN, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, CHINATOWN, MONTY PYTHON & THE HOLY GRAIL, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, ENTER THE DRAGON, PATTON, THE EXORCIST, SUPERMAN, DELIVERANCE, THE OMEN, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, DIRTY HARRY, THE DEER HUNTER and the list goes on and on.

A few actors who became really prominent in the 70's:
Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Ellen Burstyn, Gene Hackman, Clint Eastwood, Dustin Hoffman, Burt Reynolds, Faye Dunaway, Richard Dreyfuss, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, Harrison Ford, Sylvester Stallone, Martin Sheen, Bruce Lee, etc.

Some directors:
Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Brian DePalma, George Lucas, Robert Altman, Ridley Scott, John Carpenter, etc.

It seems that I was typing while Pulp was posting, therefore the repeating of a lot of stuff he already said.
Thumbs up, Pulp! ;D

[frankenjohn]

I do love the 70s. But horror will always come first.

[Quorthon]

I don't equate gore with "good movie." But the 80's was when horror, my favorite genre of course, really showed it's balls. The directors seemed to be trying to top each other, and the greats, John Carpenter, George Romero, Joe Dante, David Cronenberg, Wes Craven (when he was good), were putting out non-stop fresh, excellent, incredible, eye-popping films. Even their remakes felt fresh and new.

Also, the 80's is when Stephen Spielberg and Stephen King really shined. Let's not forget that it's also the decade of Indiana Jones and the birth of the Back to the Future series. Aliens, Predator, Willow, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, (sorry 'bout all the Lucasfilms!), the the creation of the "horror/slasher franchise!" Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Hellraiser, Child's Play, Critters, Gremlins, Robocop.

The 80's, for me, was a grand time of adventure and action movies, as well as horror's greatest era.

About the synth music--I prefer it's 80's incarnation over it's 70's style. But, then, I grew up in the 80's.

And finally, the 80's gave us the greatest animated film of all time: Transformers: The Movie!!!!!! 1986

[42ndstreetfreak]

I think we'd agree there are some truly classic, great indeed, titles in basically ever decade (though the 2000's are looking in serious trouble), from 30's/40's Gangster, Epic, Noir and comedy flicks, 50's/60's Westerns and dramas...etc etc.

But for me it has to be the 70's. NEVER has there been a decade where the two extremes of cinema...the underground and Hollywood...came out with such amazing product at the same time.
As well as that the real Indy cinema chains and locales (like my good old 42nd Street and of course the Drive-Ins) were still powering along, ensuring films that would barely see the light of day on a TV via DVD today got a release where they were meant to be...a big cinema screen.

It's a decade that gave us Hollywood product that was chock full of out and out classics, influential giants and just generally superbly crafter cinema:
"The Godfather", "Apocalypse Now", "Jaws", "Taxi Driver", "Easy Rider" (middle of '69. close enough), "The Wild Bunch" (middle of '69, 1970 release in the UK), "Alien", "The Deer Hunter", "The Last Picture Show", "Chinatown", "Midnight Cowboy" (middle of '69), "All the President's Men", "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three", "Raging Bull", "Deliverance", "Enter the Dragon", "Star Wars", "Patton", ""Annie Hall", "Dirty Harry".

And yet at the same time the Indy/Grindhouse/Foreign release circuit was dishing up such fare as "Deep Throat" (hell the 70's was the decade where porn became an after dinner event for people who would never normally been seen dead looking at it), "Behind the Green Door", "The Love Butcher", "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Dawn of the Dead", "Cannibal Holocaust", "Suspiria", "Thriller: A Cruel Picture", "The Street Fighter", "The Candy Snatchers", "Salon Kitty", "The Sinful Dwarf", "Forced Entry", "Gestapo's Last Orgy", "Deep Red", "Pink Flamingos", "Torture Dungeon", "Female Trouble", "Halloween","The Hills Have Eyes", "Thundercrack".

In the UK, Horror (again launching from '69) extreme cinema and Exploitation was in full swing with some classic titles "The Wicker Man", "Blood on Satan's Claw", "Twins of Evil", "Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell", "House of Whipcord", "Hands of the Ripper", "Tower of Evil", "The Devils", "Straw Dogs", "A Clockwork Orange", "Frankenstein must be Destroyed"
Even UK hardcore sex and bloody violence in "Diversions". Hell even the Grand Old Gentleman of Horror, Peter Cushing made an out and out nasty with "Corruption".
It was a crazy decade!

Hell, even THE DUKE was turning out some of his finest work fro a long time with "The Cowboys", "Big Jake" and "The Shootist".

So my favourite time for cinema would be roughly 1967 - 1985.



Mind you, as anything remotely mainstream in Horror (the odd title aside) was going down the crapper (where, except for a few stand-out moments, it's still is) in the 90's, the 90's was a GREAT time for cool, intelligent, and just full-on entertaining thrillers!
With 1990 itself being a major highpoint.

"Fargo"
"King of New York"
"Bad Lt."
"Res Dogs"
"Pulp Fiction"
"Natural Born Killers"
"Con-Air"
"Wild at Heart"
"True Romance"
"Carlito's Way"
"Air Force One"
"Miller's Crossing"
"Die Hard 2"
"Freeway"
"Confessions of a Trickbaby"
"Casino"
"Goodfellas"
"Heat"

Just great!

[LivingDeadGirl]

Went w/ the 70's for all the reasons above. Can't argue with that. Also love the 80's for the above mentioned horror & also all the great cheesy teen flicks. ;D

[Heineken Skywalker]

quorthon said:

I don't equate gore with "good movie."

Maybe, but the first thing you guys said was:

quorthon said:

I'm going with the 80's. The greatest era for slasher/gore/horror films ever.

frankenjohn said:

80s: The deacade of gore.

So, what else was I supposed to think?
You did mention a lot of other good non-horror 80's films in your later post and if you had mentioned them in your first post I probably wouldn't have made that comment.
Like everyone has mentioned, there have been some great films in every decade, and also a lot of crap in every decade. Hell, 42nd posted a great list of 90's stuff, but overall, if I had to watch movies from only one decade for the rest of my life, it'd be the 70's hands down.

[Termination]

80's no doubt.

The 70's got the ball rollin' & then the stars & director's started to shine along with original material, laugh out loud comedies & packed f/x action flicks.

[slayrrr666]

80s for me. The decade of the gore, and so many of my favorite films came from here.

Again, 50s for me, because of Godzilla and all the giant monster movies, with the 70s and 60s trailing in the distance. 90s are okay, but with a few exceptions, fuck the 2000s.

[Quorthon]

heinekenskywalker said:

quorthon said:

I don't equate gore with "good movie."

Maybe, but the first thing you guys said was:

frankenjohn said:

80s: The deacade of gore.

So, what else was I supposed to think?
You did mention a lot of other good non-horror 80's films in your later post and if you had mentioned them in your first post I probably wouldn't have made that comment.
Like everyone has mentioned, there have been some great films in every decade, and also a lot of crap in every decade. Hell, 42nd posted a great list of 90's stuff, but overall, if I had to watch movies from only one decade for the rest of my life, it'd be the 70's hands down.

A gorehound will list the gore first, I guess!

I wonder how different the voting would be if the question was "What was the best decade for motion pictures?" instead of "Which is your favorite decade...?"

[Heineken Skywalker]

quorthon said:

I wonder how different the voting would be if the question was "What was the best decade for motion pictures?" instead of "Which is your favorite decade...?"

How are those two really different?
I think the voting would be exactly the same.
I think most people are going to vote for the decade that they were actually going to the movies in. Meaning with their friends and on dates. Not when their parents were taking them.
Now, for me that would be the 80's as well. I was 13 when the 70's came to a close. Wasn't yet driving, dating, none of that. And I actually caught a lot of the classic 70's movies later on TV, cable, vhs, etc., but I guess I could just see the quality in those movies.
I saw a shitload of movies in the theaters in the 80's. Sometimes my friends/girlfriends and I would see two or more movies in one weekend. Major movie freaks. We'd go see just about everything, action, drama, horror, comedy, fantasy, sci-fi, animation, remakes, sequels, didn't matter. Saw RE-ANIMATOR and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD at a drive-in (remember those?) with a couple carloads of friends. And I'll always remember that time fondly, but more for the social part of it than for the actual movies. Thanks to the box office success of 70's stuff like STAR WARS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, ALIEN & SUPERMAN and the advances they brought in special effects, there were a lot of great sci-fi & fantasy movies in the 80's.

[LivingDeadGirl]

heinekenskywalker said:

I think most people are going to vote for the decade that they were actually going to the movies in. Meaning with their friends and on dates. Not when their parents were taking them.

Exactly. If I were voting for nostalgic reasons I would've voted 80's. I didn't start watching a lot of 70's movies until I got older & saw them on tv or rented them.

[Quorthon]

heinekenskywalker said:

quorthon said:

I wonder how different the voting would be if the question was "What was the best decade for motion pictures?" instead of "Which is your favorite decade...?"

How are those two really different?
I think the voting would be exactly the same.
I think most people are going to vote for the decade that they were actually going to the movies in. Meaning with their friends and on dates. Not when their parents were taking them.

I meant for motion pictures, not personal reasons. Such as "Hollywood's first Golden Age." Offhand, I can't think if that was the 40's or 50's... I want to say 40's.

I started seeing movies without parents when I was pretty young--like when my brother and I saw Total Recall in a theater--with no parents. At about 10 & 11 years old.

Small town theaters need the money, man. Heh heh heh. Most movies I saw with my brother, and later with groups of friends. Now, it's just with the wife. We have no friends, apparently.