I had been discussing movies with someone a little while back, and the conversation came around to favorites. I've always found it hard to pick my favorite movies, but it got me on the subject. At some point I decided it would be fun to try to pick my favorite movie from each year. Many days (and re-watches!) later, I came up with these. I changed quite a number of them before and after I finished the list, so I'm sure it'll continue changing in the future! These are at least high in the running though.

After finishing, I decided to post the list here instead of keeping it to myself. I'm guessing I don't have tastes too far outside the average, so I'm sure most have seen or at least heard of a lot of these already. I'm not going to claim I've seen a large number of movies in each of the listed years, but my general criteria was that it had to be something I would rate at 7/10 or higher. Then I tried to choose my favorite from those options!

I'm always looking for new ones to try, so feel free to suggest options based on these!

1926 The General
1927 Wings
1928 Street Angel
1929 Lucky Star
1930 All Quiet on the Western Front
1931 The Public Enemy
1932 Scarface
1933 The Invisible Man
1934 The Scarlet Pimpernel
1935 The 39 Steps
1936 My Man Godfrey
1937 Dead End
1938 Angels With Dirty Faces
1939 The Roaring Twenties
1940 The Great Dictator
1941 The Maltese Falcon
1942 The Pride of the Yankees
1943 Casablanca
1944 Gaslight
1945 Spellbound
1946 It’s A Wonderful Life
1947 Dark Passage
1948 Key Largo
1949 White Heat
1950 The Gunfighter
1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still
1952 Singin’ in the Rain
1953 Stalag 17
1954 Godzilla
1955 The Dam Busters
1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers
1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai
1958 Vertigo
1959 Anatomy of a Murder
1960 The Magnificent Seven
1961 El Cid
1962 Lawrence of Arabia
1963 The Great Escape
1964 A Fistful of Dollars
1965 For a Few Dollars More
1966 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
1967 Samurai Rebellion
1968 Bullitt
1969 The Italian Job
1970 Colossus: The Forbin Project
1971 Dirty Harry
1972 Solaris
1973 The Day of the Jackal
1974 Murder on the Orient Express
1975 Sholay
1976 Taxi Driver
1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind
1978 The Deer Hunter
1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture
1980 Breaker Morant
1981 Das Boot
1982 Blade Runner
1983 WarGames
1984 The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
1985 Witness
1986 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
1987 RoboCop
1988 Clean and Sober
1989 Batman
1990 The Hunt for Red October
1991 Europa
1992 A League of Their Own
1993 Schindler’s List
1994 Fresh
1995 Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge
1996 Mission: Impossible
1997 Starship Troopers
1998 Dark City
1999 Galaxy Quest
2000 Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
2001 61*
2002 Minority Report
2003 The Last Samurai
2004 The Aviator
2005 Serenity
2006 V for Vendetta
2007 No Country for Old Men
2008 The Dark Knight
2009 Moon
2010 Inception
2011 Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
2012 Looper
2013 Man of Steel
2014 Interstellar
2015 Ex Machina
2016 Arrival
2017 Dunkirk
2018 Mission: Impossible – Fallout
2019 Gully Boy
2020 Tenet
2021 Dune
2022 The Batman
2023 Godzilla Minus One
2024 Dune: Part 2
2025 Nuremberg