Movie Years

As most of you will, I’ll be watching the Academy Awards tonight. I can’t say I have any favorites among the contenders for best picture, best actor/actress, or best director. In truth, I think 2011 was a rather mediocre film year, perhaps one reason moviegoing attendance hit a 16 year low.

Contrast last year’s menu with that of 1939, considered by many to be the penultimate movie year, a period that gave us such classics as Gone With the Wind, Gunga Din and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Here’s my list of 22 exceptional movies from 1939. I could have easily added another dozen. If you haven’t seen any of these flicks, do yourself a favor and order them from Netflix, or see them on Turner Classic Movies when they appear:

Destry Rides Again
Drums Along the Mohawk
Each Dawn I Die
The Four Feathers
Gone with the Wind
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
Gunga Din
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Little Princess
Love Affair
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Ninotchka
Of Mice and Men
Only Angels Have Wings
The Roaring Twenties
Stagecoach
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle
The Wizard of Oz
The Women
Wuthering Heights
Young Mr. Lincoln

As good as 1939 was, a case can be made that 1962 provided equally engrossing film fare.

Here are 19 must-see films from 1962:

Advise and Consent
Birdman of Alcatraz
Cape Fear
David and Lisa
Days of Wine and Roses
Gypsy
Lawrence of Arabia
Lolita
Lonely Are the Brave
The Longest Day
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
The Manchurian Candidate
The Miracle Worker
The Music Man
Mutiny on the Bounty
Requiem for a Heavyweight
Ride the High Country
To Kill a Mockingbird
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

The pageantry of tonight’s Oscars telecast, red carpet walk and the coverage of the after-parties might be far superior to 1939 and 1962, but any objective view of filmmaking would find 2011 a mediocre year, not, to borrow the name of a film from 1982, my favorite year.