The full list of my favorite movies of each year (1920 - 2020)

Welcome to my extended love letter to movies! Click any year in the list below — from 1920 to 2020 — for stuff about my favorite movies from that year: videos, photos, quotes, and more.

• NEW: The French Connection — a tribute to Gene Hackman (1930 - 2025)
• Where to stream movies on this blog
• Which directors directed the most movies on this blog

Movies with an asterisk * were nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture, and movies with two ** won that award. The globe 🌍 emoji is for movies nominated for what’s now called the Oscar for Best International Feature Film, and movies with two 🌍 🌏 won that award. Movies with the plant 🌿 emoji won the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Here are “the rules” for my list.

2020	(1) The Father*
	(2) The Trip to Greece
2019	(1) Parasite** 🌍 🌏 🌿
	(2) Rocketman
	(3) Portrait of a Lady on Fire
	(4) Knock Down the House
2018	Burning (with in-depth notes)
2017	(1) Ingrid Goes West
	(2) The Trip to Spain
2016	Graduation
2015	Victoria
2014	(1) Gone Girl
	(2) They Came Together
	(3) Mitt
2013	(1) Blue Is the Warmest Color 🌿
	(2) Nebraska*
	(3) Before Midnight
2012	Wadjda
2011	(1) A Separation 🌍 🌏
	(2) Margaret (NEW)
	(3) Oslo, August 31st
2010	(1) The Trip
	(2) Certified Copy
	(3) The Social Network*
2009	Mother
2008	(1) Happy-Go-Lucky
	(2) Milk*
	(3) U2 3D
2007	(1) 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days 🌿
	(2) The Counterfeiters 🌍 🌏
	(3) Secret Sunshine
2006	The Lives of Others 🌍 🌏
2005	(1) Match Point
	(2) The Baxter
2004	(1) Napoleon Dynamite (NEW)
	(2) Before Sunset
	(3) Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
2003	The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara
2002	(1) About Schmidt
	(2) Spellbound
2001	Ghost World (with in-depth notes)
2000	Memento
1999	American Movie
1998	(1) Run Lola Run
	(2) Happiness
1997	Boogie Nights
1996	(1) Fargo*
	(2) The People vs. Larry Flynt
	(3) Secrets & Lies* 🌿
	(4) Hard Eight
1995	(1) Before Sunrise
	(2) Welcome to the Dollhouse
	(3) Living in Oblivion
1994	(1) Heavenly Creatures (NEW)
	(2) Crumb
	(3) Pulp Fiction* 🌿
	(4) What Happened Was …
	(5) The Shawshank Redemption*
1993	(1) The War Room
	(2) Red Rock West
	(3) The Scent of Green Papaya 🌏
1992	(1) The Player
	(2) Howards End*
	(3) Husbands and Wives
	(4) Single White Female (NEW)
1991	(1) Defending Your Life
	(2) Dogfight (NEW)
	(3) Terminator 2: Judgment Day (NEW)
1990	(1) Slacker
	(2) GoodFellas*
	(3) Back to the Future Part III
	(4) Life Is Sweet (NEW)
	(5) Misery
1989	(1) Back to the Future Part II
	(2) Crimes and Misdemeanors
1988	(1) Talk Radio
	(2) Heathers
	(3) The Unbearable Lightness of Being
1987	(1) Au Revoir les Enfants* 🌍
	(2) No Way Out
1986	(1) Something Wild
	(2) The Fly
	(3) Hannah and Her Sisters*
	(4) About Last Night …
1985	(1) Back to the Future
	(2) After Hours (with in-depth notes)
1984	(1) The Terminator
	(2) Paris, Texas 🌿
	(3) Stop Making Sense
	(4) Purple Rain
	(5) Broadway Danny Rose
1983	The Big Chill*
1982	(1) Fast Times at Ridgemont High
	(2) Tenebrae (NEW)
1981	My Dinner with Andre
1980	(1) The Shining
	(2) Atlantic City*
1979	Manhattan
1978	(1) Days of Heaven
	(2) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (NEW)
	(3) Girlfriends
1977	(1) Annie Hall**
	(2) A Special Day (NEW)
1976	Taxi Driver* 🌿
1975	(1) One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest**
	(2) Dog Day Afternoon*
1974	(1) The Conversation* 🌿
	(2) Chinatown* (NEW)
	(3) Young Frankenstein (NEW)
	(4) The Godfather Part II**
	(5) Lacombe, Lucien 🌍
1973	(1) American Graffiti*
	(2) Scarecrow (NEW)
	(3) Sleeper (NEW)
1972	(1) The Godfather**
	(2) The New Land 🌍
1971	(1) A Clockwork Orange*
	(2) The Last Picture Show*
	(3) The French Connection** (with in-depth notes) (NEW)
	(4) The Emigrants* 🌍
	(5) Bananas (NEW)
1970	Five Easy Pieces*
1969	(1) Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
	(2) Law and Order
1968	(1) Monterey Pop
	(2) Romeo and Juliet*
	(3) High School
	(4) Shame
	(5) Planet of the Apes
1967	Le Samouraï
1966	Persona
1965	The Shop on Main Street 🌍 🌏
1964	(1) A Hard Day’s Night
	(2) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb*
1963	(1) The Fire Within
	(2) High and Low
1962	(1) Lolita
	(2) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (NEW)
	(3) Le Doulos (NEW)
	(4) What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (NEW)
1961	(1) West Side Story**
	(2) Through a Glass Darkly 🌍 🌏
	(3) Breakfast at Tiffany’s
	(4) Cash on Demand (NEW)
1960	(1) The Apartment**
	(2) Psycho
	(3) Zazie dans le Métro
	(4) The Time Machine
1959	(1) Some Like It Hot
	(2) The 400 Blows (NEW)
	(3) Anatomy of a Murder* (NEW)
	(4) Imitation of Life
1958	(1) Vertigo
	(2) The Music Room
	(3) Elevator to the Gallows
1957	(1) Paths of Glory
	(2) The Cranes Are Flying 🌿
	(3) Witness for the Prosecution*
	(4) Wild Strawberries
	(5) White Nights
1956	(1) The Wrong Man
	(2) The Killing
	(3) The Bitter Stems (NEW)
1955	(1) The Night of the Hunter
	(2) Rififi
	(3) All That Heaven Allows
	(4) Smiles of a Summer Night
	(5) The Big Combo
1954	(1) Rear Window
	(2) La Strada 🌍 🌏
	(3) Dial M for Murder
	(4) Human Desire
	(5) Sansho the Bailiff
1953	(1) Summer with Monika
	(2) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
	(3) From Here to Eternity** (NEW)
	(4) Stalag 17
	(5) Niagara
	(6) Sawdust and Tinsel
	(7) Dangerous Crossing (NEW)
	(8) The Big Heat
1952	(1) Sudden Fear
	(2) Singin’ in the Rain
	(3) Forbidden Games 🌍 🌏
	(4) Ikiru
	(5) Limelight
	(6) Don’t Bother to Knock
1951	(1) A Streetcar Named Desire* (NEW)
	(2) A Place in the Sun* (NEW)
	(3) Ace in the Hole
	(4) Strangers on a Train
1950	(1) The Asphalt Jungle
	(2) In a Lonely Place (NEW)
	(3) Sunset Boulevard*
	(4) All About Eve**
	(5) Rashomon 🌍 🌏
	(6) Harvey
	(7) The Man Who Cheated Himself
1949	(1) Gun Crazy
	(2) A Letter to Three Wives*
	(3) Thieves’ Highway
	(4) The Heiress*
	(5) Bitter Rice
	(6) Obsession
1948	(1) Unfaithfully Yours
	(2) Bicycle Thieves 🌍 🌏
	(3) Rope
	(4) The Big Clock
	(5) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre*
	(6) Road House
	(7) Pitfall
1947	(1) Out of the Past
	(2) Brute Force
	(3) Repeat Performance (NEW)
1946	(1) The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
	(2) It’s a Wonderful Life*
	(3) Notorious
	(4) The Best Years of Our Lives**
	(5) The Postman Always Rings Twice
	(6) Gilda (NEW)
1945	(1) Leave Her to Heaven
	(2) Scarlet Street
	(3) Hangover Square
	(4) The Lost Weekend**
1944	(1) Double Indemnity*
	(2) Laura (NEW)
	(3) Gaslight*
1943	(1) Meshes of the Afternoon
	(2) Stormy Weather
	(3) Shadow of a Doubt
1942	(1) Casablanca**
	(2) Cat People
1941	(1) Citizen Kane*
	(2) Sullivan’s Travels
	(3) The Sea Wolf
	(4) Suspicion* (NEW)
	(5) Love Crazy
1940	(1) Rebecca** (with in-depth notes)
	(2) The Great Dictator*
	(3) The Bank Dick
	(4) The Shop Around the Corner
1939	(1) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington*
	(2) The Wizard of Oz*
	(3) Gone with the Wind**
	(4) The Women (NEW)
	(5) Wuthering Heights*
	(6) Destry Rides Again
1938	Bringing up Baby
1937	(1) Confession
	(2) The Awful Truth* (NEW)
1936	(1) Modern Times
	(2) Dodsworth*
1935	(1) A Night at the Opera
	(2) Bride of Frankenstein
	(3) Top Hat (NEW)
	(4) The Whole Town’s Talking
1934	(1) It’s a Gift
	(2) It Happened One Night**
1933	(1) Duck Soup
	(2) The Story of Temple Drake
	(3) Design for Living
	(4) The Invisible Man
1932	(1) I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang*
	(2) Horse Feathers
	(3) Broken Lullaby (NEW)
	(4) Trouble in Paradise
	(5) Jewel Robbery (NEW)
	(6) Island of Lost Souls
1931	(1) City Lights
	(2) Frankenstein
	(3) Monkey Business
	(4) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (NEW)
	(5) M
1930	Animal Crackers
1929	Pandora’s Box
1928	The Wind
1927	(1) Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
	(2) Metropolis
	(3) The Unknown
	(4) The Kid Brother
1926	(1) The General
	(2) Ménilmontant
1925	The Gold Rush
1924	Girl Shy
1923	(1) Safety Last!
	(2) Our Hospitality
1922	Day Dreams
1921	The Kid
1920	Way Down East

MORE:

• Letterboxd list: my #1 favorite movie of each year from 1920 to 2020

• Which composers wrote the musical score for the most movies on this list?

• Which acclaimed movies did I see but leave off the list?

“One of the gifts a movie lover can give another is the title of a wonderful film they have not yet discovered.”            — Roger Ebert

my favorite movies of 2020:

(1) The Father

(2) The Trip to Greece

favorite of 2020:

The Father

(Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Olivia Williams, Mark Gatiss, Imogen Poots, Rufus Sewell. Directed by Florian Zeller.)

Anthony Hopkins won the Oscar for Best Actor at age 83 — and became the oldest person ever to win any acting Oscar — for playing a father with dementia (also named Anthony) in this daring and unsettling movie. Variety’s review summed it up:

“The Father” does something that few movies about mental deterioration in old age have brought off in quite this way, or this fully. It places us in the mind of someone losing his mind — and it does so by revealing that mind to be a place of seemingly rational and coherent experience. …

All the actors in “The Father” are vivid ([Olivia Colman] brings her role a loving vulnerability that warms you), but Hopkins is flat-out stunning. He acts, for a while, with grizzled charm and roaring certainty, but the quality that holds his performance together, and begins to take it over, is a cosmic confusion laced with terror. Anthony is losing more than his memory — he’s losing himself. The triumph of Hopkins’ acting is that even as he does, you’re right there with him.

(How to stream The Father.)

2nd favorite of 2020:

The Trip to Greece

(Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon. Directed by Michael Winterbottom.)

This movie and the earlier ones in The Trip series (which were some of my choices for 2010 and 2017 plus one that’s not on this list) all focus on comedic banter between the same two friends, Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon — British actors playing themselves. Each movie also brings up drama involving their families or relationships, but The Trip to Greece takes a darker turn than the earlier movies. The dramatic parts of these movies might feel unsatisfying, but you can appreciate them if you see them not as full-fledged plot arcs, but as rough sketching to add dimension to the two men and to contrast with the comic masks they wear when they’re around each other.

High points of The Trip to Greece include Bergman-esque black and white dreams Coogan has while his father is ill, and Coogan and Brydon’s ad-libbed vocalizing to imitate Gregorian chant while floating through caves which ancient Greeks believed were pathways to the underworld — you can see a bit of that at the beginning of this trailer:

We’ve not got much time left. You gonna miss me?

Oh, yes … and no!

Yes and no?

I find you very entertaining … but you can be exhausting.

Exhausting? Me? Good God, you should meet you!

Stream it on these sites.

Click here for the full list of my favorite movie(s) of each year from 1920 to 2020.

my favorite movies of 2019:

(1) Parasite

(2) Rocketman

(3) Portrait of a Lady on Fire

(4) Knock Down the House

favorite of 2019:

Parasite

[Korean: Gisaengchung]    기생충  

(Song Kang-ho, Lee Jung-eun, Choi Woo-shik, Cho Yeo-jeong, Lee Sun-kyun, Park So-dam, Jang Hye-jin, Park Myung-hoon. Directed by Bong Joon-ho.)

This dark-comedy thriller is the only movie in any language other than English that’s ever won the Oscar for Best Picture in over 90 years. That’s at once a great honor and a great absurdity. As director Bong Joon-ho said while accepting the Oscar for Best Director: “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you’ll be introduced to so many more amazing films.”

You know what kind of plan never fails? No plan … because life cannot be planned.

Stream it on HBO Max, Netflix, or these sites. I also recommend the Criterion blu-ray (or DVD), which has a lot of bonus features including a black and white version of the movie — I enjoyed it more than color. All Criterion discs are 50% off in the Barnes & Noble sale every July and November. (Amazon might lower some of its prices in response.)

2nd favorite of 2019:

Rocketman

(Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas Howard. Directed by Dexter Fletcher.)

Elton John’s story comes to life in dizzying fantasy and sobering reality.

You gotta kill the person you were born to be in order to become the person you wanna be.

(How to stream Rocketman.)

3rd favorite of 2019:

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

[French: Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu] 

(Noémie Merlant, Adèle Haenel, Luàna Bajrami. Directed by Céline Sciamma.)

In solitude, I felt the liberty you spoke of. But I also felt your absence.

Stream it on HBO Max or these sites.

4th favorite of 2019:

Knock Down the House

(Documentary. Directed by Rachel Lears.)

This is on Netflix, which has also put the whole movie on YouTube, free for non-subscribers:

A documentary about a political campaign is the opposite of most movies: we the viewers know from the beginning what’s going to happen, and we know that the people on screen didn’t know at the time. That reversal of the norm is particularly striking in this documentary about upstart candidates who challenged Democratic incumbents for Congress in 2018, leading to one of America’s biggest electoral shocks in a long time.

Some of the best parts are future Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez behind the scenes — goofing around with her boyfriend, mocking her opponent’s campaign leaflet, giving herself a pep talk before a debate, etc.

I wish every American would watch Knock Down the House along with Mitt (the documentary about Romney that’s one of my favorite movies of 2014), and realize you can go to a place on the political spectrum that’s far from where you live and still find good people.

In the beginning, the fundamental question is: “Why you? Why do you think you can do this?” The reason why: because nobody else would. So literally anybody could! Because the alternative is no one.

Click here for the full list of my favorite movie(s) of each year from 1920 to 2020.

my favorite movie of 2018:

Burning

[Korean: Beoning]    버닝  

(Yoo Ah-in, Jeon Jong-seo, Steven Yeun. Directed by Lee Chang-dong.)

Here are my in-depth, scene-by-scene notes on Burning.

This movie isn’t for everyone. It’s long and slow — at times you feel like the movie is daring you not to be bored. You’ll go away from it not being sure exactly what happened, and you might spend a long time thinking about it afterwards. This Rolling Stone review said:

This stunning, slow-build thriller from South Korean director Lee Chang-dong sizzles with a cumulative power that will knock the wind out of you. … Lee has crafted a hypnotic and haunting film that transcends genre to dig deep into the human condition. You won’t be able to get it out of your head.

Stream Burning on Tubi (free with ads) or these sites. And again, see my extensive notes on Burning.

Click here for the full list of my favorite movie(s) of each year from 1920 to 2020.