Obsolete: The greatest film of each decade?

[dig]

of course I'm not really at all knowledgable about decades earlier than the fifties, and we've still got a half decade left. Anyway, what do you guys think?

My preliminary picks are probably;

40s - Citizen Kane
50s - 12 Angry Men
60s - The Good, the Bad and The Ugly
70s - Godfather II
80s - Blade Runner
90s - Pulp Fiction
00s - City of God

These aren't necessarily my favourites, e.g Toy Story is my favourite of all time, but the ones that I think are the most important.

 

[Olive]

The key to this is to find the movie of the decade that shifted the accepted tone of the film industry, be it with regards to editing, story-telling, or some other factor. Here are my choices. Each one, in my view anyway, was revolutionary for its time.

1900s – The Great Train Robbery
1910s – The Birth of a Nation
1920s – Metropolis
1930s – Gone with the Wind
1940s – Fantasia
1950s – Vertigo
1960s – Lawrence of Arabia
1970s - A Clockwork Orange
1980s – Airplane
1990s – Unforgiven
2000s – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2010s – Boyhood

 

[Tactician Karina]

I'll go with my picks for 40's onward, as I have not seen movies (I probably have but I just don't remember) from the 30's, 20's, etc.

1940's - Casablanca
1950's - The Searchers
1960's - Psycho
1970's - Grease
1980's - Stand by Me
1990's - Pulp Fiction
2000's - Requiem for a Dream
2010's - Zero Dark Thirty

Of course these are my opinions, everyone will have a different view on which movies they think is the greatest for each decade.

 

[The Thin White Duke]

Right, here goes.
1900s: I'd say Méliès' 'A Trip To The Moon'
1910s: 'The Birth Of A Nation' is a visual spectacle. Once you get past the explicit racism, it's quite enthralling.
1920s: 'Metropolis'. It's no contest.
1930s: Oh dear. This is tough. I'd go with 'Gone With The Wind'.
1940s: 'Citizen Kane', surely.
1950s: Hmm. Either 'Sunset Boulevard', 'Singin' in the Rain' or 'Seven Samurai'.
1960s: I haven't seen many films from the 60s, but 'West Side Story' is pretty damn awesome.
1970s: There are so many great films from this period! I'd love to say 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' but it's gotta be 'The Godfather'. Or maybe 'Taxi Driver'.
1980s: 'Ran'. Easily.
1990s: 'Shawshank'. Always 'Shawshank'.
2000s: 'Toy Story 2'.
2010s: 'Room'. So far it's 'Room'.

And that's that