Throughout the summer, an admin on the r/movies subreddit has been leading Reddit users in a poll of the best movies from every year for the last 100 years called 100 Years of Yearly Cinema. The poll concluded three days ago, and the list of every movie from 1914 to 2013 has been published today.
Users were asked to nominate films from a given year and up-vote their favorite nominees. The full list includes the outright winner along with the first two runners-up from each year. The list is mostly a predictable assortment of IMDB favorites and certified classics, but a few surprise gems have also risen to the top of the crust, including the early experimental documentary Man With a Movie Camera in 1929, Abel Gance’s J’Accuse! in 1919, the Fred Astaire film Top Hat over Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps in 1935, and Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing over John Ford’s masterpiece The Searchers 1956.
The list’s top directors were Hitchcock and Kubrick with five films a piece out of the 100. Charlie Chaplin, Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino all had four, and Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Jackson, Martin Scorsese and Billy Wilder each had three. Only 12 films are foreign, and several of those are silent. Perhaps not surprisingly, both Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings trilogies were completely represented, and The Godfather, Indiana Jones and Man With No Name trilogies each had two films on the list.
The full list is below, but you can also view it along with the admin’s comments here. And see the individual lists full of nominees here.
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Yearly Cinema Results
1914: Gertie The Dinosaur (Cabiria, The Kid Auto Races At Venice)
1915: The Birth Of A Nation (Les Vampires, The Tramp)
1916: Intolerance (Judex, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea)
1917: The Immigrant (The Poor Little Rich Girl, Easy Street)
1918: The Outlaw And His Wife (The Bell Boy, A Dog’s Life)
1919: J’Accuse! (Broken Blossoms, The Doll)
1920: The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (The Golem, The Mark Of Zorro)
1921: The Kid (The Phantom Carriage, Destiny (Der Mude Dod))
1922: Nosferatu (Dr. Mabuse The Gambler, Nanook Of The North)
1923: Safety Last! (Our Hospitality, The Ten Commandments)
1924: Sherlock Jr. (The Thief Of Bagdad, The Last Laugh)
1925: Battleship Potemkin (The Gold Rush, The Phantom Of The Opera)
1926: The General (Faust, The Adventures Of Prince Achmed)
1927: Metropolis (Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans, Wings)
1928: The Passion Of Joan Of Arc (Steamboat Willie, The Circus)
1929: Man With A Movie Camera (Un Chien Andalou, Pandora’s Box)
1930: All Quiet On The Western Front (Animal Cracker, L’Age D’Or)
1931: M (City Lights, Frankenstein)
1932: Scarface (Freaks, Trouble In Paradise)
1933: King Kong (Duck Soup, The Invisible Man)
1934: It Happened One Night (The Thin Man, L’Atalante)
1935: Top Hat (The 39 Steps, The Bride Of Frankenstein)
1936: Modern Times (My Man Godfrey, The Petrified Forest)
1937: La Grande Illusion (Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, Make Way For Tomorrow)
1938: Bringing Up Baby (The Lady Vanishes, The Adventures Of Robin Hood)
1939: The Wizard Of Oz (Gone With The Wind, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington)
1940: The Great Dictator (Fantasia, Pinocchio)
1941: Citizen Kane (The Maltese Falcon, Dumbo)
1942: Casablanca (Bambi, To Be Or Not To Be)
1943: Shadow Of A Doubt (The Life And Death Colonel Blimp, The Ox-Bow Incident)
1944: Double Indemnity (Arsenic And Old Lace, Laura)
1945: The Lost Weekend (Rome, Open City, Brief Encounter)
1946: It’s A Wonderful Life (The Big Sleep, Notorious)
1947: Miracle On 34th Street (Black Narcissus, Out Of The Past)
1948: Bicycle Thieves (Rope, The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre)
1949: The Third Man (White Heat, Kind Hearts And Coronets)
1950: Sunset Blvd. (Rashomon, All About Eve)
1951: A Streetcar Named Desire (Strangers On A Train, The African Queen)
1952: Singin’ In The Rain (Ikiru, The Quiet Man)
1953: Tokyo Story (Roman Holiday, The Wages Of Fear)
1954: Rear Window (Seven Samurai, On The Waterfront)
1955: Rebel Without A Cause (The Night Of The Hunter, East Of Eden)
1956: The Killing (The Searchers, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers)
1957: 12 Angry Men (Paths Of Glory, The Bridge On The River Kwai)
1958: Vertigo (Touch Of Evil, The Hidden Fortress)
1959: North By Northwest (Some Like It Hot, Anatomy Of A Murder)
1960: Psycho (The Apartment, Breathless)
1961: Breakfast At Tiffany’s (West Side Story, The Hustler)
1962: Lawrence Of Arabia (To Kill A Mockingbird, Dr. No)
1963: 8 1/2 (The Great Escape, The Birds)
1964: Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb (A Fistful Of Dollars, Goldfinger)
1965: For A Few Dollars More (The Sound Of Music, Dr. Zhivago)
1966: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (Persona, Blow-Up)
1967: The Graduate (Bonnie And Clyde, Cool Hand Luke)
1968: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Once Upon A Time A West, Planet Of The Apes)
1969: Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy)
1970: Patton (M.A.S.H., Five Easy Pieces)
1971: A Clockwork Orange (The French Connection, Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory)
1972: The Godfather (Solaryis, Aguirre, The Wrath Of God)
1973: The Exorcist (The Sting, Badlands)
1974: The Godfather Part II (Chinatown, The Conversation)
1975: Monty Python And The Holy Grail (Jaws, Dog Day Afternoon)
1976: Taxi Driver (Rocky, Carrie)
1977: Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (Annie Hall, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind)
1978: The Deer Hunter (Animal House, Dawn Of The Dead)
1979: Apocalypse Now (Alien, Life Of Brian)
1980: Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (The Shining, Raging Bull)
1981: Raiders Of The Lost Ark (Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, An American Werewolf In London)
1982: Blade Runner (The Thing, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial)
1983: Star Wars: Episode VI – Return Of The Jedi (Scarface, The King Of Comedy)
1984: The Terminator (Ghostbusters, Once Upon A Time In America)
1985: Back To The Future (The Breakfast Club, Brazil)
1986: Aliens (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Blue Velvet)
1987: Full Metal Jacket (The Princess Bride, Robocop)
1988: Die Hard (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Big)
1989: Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (Do The Right Thing, Back To The Future Part II)
1990: Goodfellas (Miller’s Crossing, Total Recall)
1991: The Silence Of The Lambs (Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Barton Fink)
1992: Reservoir Dogs (Unforgiven, Glengarry Glen Ross)
1993: Jurassic Park (Groundhog Day, Schindler’s List)
1994: Pulp Fiction (The Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump)
1995: Se7en (Toy Story, The Usual Suspects)
1996: Fargo (Trainspotting, Independence Day)
1997: Good Will Hunting (Boogie Nights, L.A. Confidential)
1998: Saving Private Ryan (The Big Lebowski, The Truman Show)
1999: Fight Club (The Matrix, American Beauty)
2000: Memento (Gladiator, O Brother, Where Art Thou?)
2001: Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (Monsters Inc, Donnie Darko)
2002: Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (Catch Me If You Can, City Of God)
2003: Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (Lost In Translation, Kill Bill Vol. 1)
2004: Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (Shaun Of The Dead, The Incredibles)
2005: Batman Begins (Sin City, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang)
2006: The Departed (Children Of Men, The Prestige)
2007: No Country For Old Men (There Will Be Blood, Hot Fuzz)
2008: The Dark Knight (In Bruges, Wall-E)
2009: Inglorious Basterds (District 9, Moon)
2010: Inception (The Social Network, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World)
2011: Drive (50/50, Moneyball)
2012: Django Unchained (Moonrise Kingdom, Silver Linings Playbook)
2013: Her (The Wolf Of Wall Street, Prisoners)