Favorite Movie of the Year

This morning, I decided it would be fun to make a list of my favorite feature film from each calendar year starting in 1922 (the earliest year from which I've seen a feature, according to my database of every movie I've ever seen). I recognize that this is a fool's endeavor to some degree. There's no real reason to compare The Wizard of Oz and Ninotchka, say, or Beauty & the Beast and Terminator 2. All of those films are wonderful.

But I had fun doing it, so here we are. I've not saying that these are objectively the best movies from each year. Lord knows I haven't seen enough movies to make an informed statement about that. These are simply my personal favorites out of the films I've seen so far. Regardless of quality, these are my favorite. I thought about putting A Clockwork Orange for 1971, for example, but my heart wouldn't let me put anything other than Willy Wonka. Some years, obviously, were harder to choose than others. Some of them would likely be different if I sat down to do this on a different day. But for right now, here they are:

1922 - Grandma’s Boy (Fred Newmeyer & Sam Taylor)

1923 - Our Hospitality (Buster Keaton)

1924 - Girl Shy (Fred Newmeyer & Sam Taylor)

1925 - The Gold Rush (Charlie Chaplin)

1926 - Metropolis (Fritz Lang)

1927 - The General (Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman)

1928 - I HAVE APPARENTLY SEEN NO MOVIE FROM 1928

1929 - The Love Parade (Ernst Lubitsch)

1930 - Animal Crackers (Victor Heerman)

1931 - Frankenstein (James Whale)

1932 - Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch)

1933 - Duck Soup (Leo McCarey)

1934 - The Thin Man (W. S. Van Dyke)

1935 - Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale)

1936 - My Man Godfrey (Gregory La Cava)

1937 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand)

1938 - The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz & William Keighley)

1939 - The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming)

1940 - His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks)

1941 - The Lady Eve (Preston Sturges)

1942 - To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch)

1943 - Casablanca (Michael Curtiz)

1944 - Arsenic and Old Lace (Frank Capra)

1945 - Christmas in Connecticut (Peter Godfrey)

1946 - It’s a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)

1947 - Black Narcissus (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)

1948 - Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston)

1949 - Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Hamer)

1950 - Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder)

1951 - Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock)

1952 - Singin’ in the Rain (Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen)

1953 - Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder)

1954 - The Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa)

1955 - Marty (Delbert Mann)

1956 - Giant (George Stevens)

1957 - 12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)

1958 - The Hidden Fortress (Akira Kurosawa)

1959 - North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock)

1960 - The Apartment (Billy Wilder)

1961 - One, Two, Three (Billy Wilder)

1962 - To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan)

1963 - From Russia With Love (Terence Young)

1964 - Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick)

1965 - Help! (Richard Lester)

1966 - The Fortune Cookie (Billy Wilder)

1967 - The Firemen’s Ball (Milos Forman)

1968 - The Producers (Mel Brooks)

1969 - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill)

1970 - Patton (Franklin Schaffner)

1971 - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart)

1972 - The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola)

1973 - American Graffiti (George Lucas)

1974 - Young Frankenstein (Mel Brooks)

1975 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Milos Forman)

1976 - Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese)

1977 - Annie Hall (Woody Allen)

1978 - Superman: The Movie (Richard Donner)

1979 - The Muppet Movie (James Frawley)

1980 - Airplane! (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams & Jerry Zucker)

1981 - Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg)

1982 - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (Nicholas Meyer)

1983 - A Christmas Story (Bob Clark)

1984 - Amadeus (Milos Forman)

1985 - Brazil (Terry Gilliam)

1986 - Little Shop of Horrors (Frank Oz)

1987 - The Princess Bride (Rob Reiner)

1988 - My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki)

1989 - Say Anything (Cameron Crowe)

1990 - Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton)

1991 - Beauty & the Beast (Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise)

1992 - The Muppet Christmas Carol (Brian Henson)

1993 - Army of Darkness (Sam Raimi)

1994 - The Hudsucker Proxy (Joel Coen)

1995 - Toy Story (John Lasseter)

1996 - That Thing You Do! (Tom Hanks)

1997 - Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino)

1998 - Rushmore (Wes Anderson)

1999 - The Iron Giant (Brad Bird)

2000 - Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe)

2001 - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (Peter Jackson)

2002 - In America (Jim Sheridan)

2003 - Big Fish (Tim Burton)

2004 - The Incredibles (Brad Bird)

2005 - Thank You for Smoking (Jason Reitman)

2006 - The Prestige (Christopher Nolan)

2007 - Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright)

2008 - The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan)

2009 - Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)

2010 - Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)

2011 - Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman)

2012 - Safety Not Guaranteed (Colin Trevorrow)

2013 - Wadjda (Haifaa al-Mansour)