wow... This was ridiculously hard and took way longer than I expected. I should have just done my favorites from every year since YOU were born. I'm getting old. There are some ties in here, and many amazing ones left out. 1975 - Barry Lindon/Holy Grail
1976 - Taxi Driver
1977 - A New Hope
1978 - Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (so bad it's good)
1979 - Being There/Mad Max/Breaking Away
1980 - Empire Strikes Back
1981 - Clash of the Titans (since thenewgreen already chose Raiders)
1982 - Blade Runner (honorable mentions, but not ties - TRON and Fast Times at Ridgemont High)
1983 - The Outsiders
1984 - Red Dawn (duh)
1985 - Breakfast Club
1986 - Big Trouble in Little China/Jean De Florette & Manon of the Spring (two movies - one long tragic french story)
1987 - The Last Emporer/Full Metal Jacket/Princess Bride
1988 - Die Hard/Cinema Paradiso
1989 - Dead Poets Society
1990 - Joe Versus the Volcano
1991 - Raise the Red Lantern
1992 - Stricly Ballroom/Reservoir Dogs
1993 - Benny & Joon
1994 - The Shawshank Redemption/Eat Drink Man Woman/The Hudsucker Proxy
1995 - Heat
1996 - Trainspotting/Bottle Rocket
1997 - Gattaca/The Fifth Element
1998 - Ronin/Waking Ned Devine
1999 - Magnolia
2000 - The Million Dollar Hotel/Drowning Mona
2001 - Moulin Rouge!
2002 - In America
2003 - Love Actually
2004 - Napolean Dynamite/Layer Cake
2005 - Serenity/Brick
2006 - Children of Men/This is England
2007 - There Will Be Blood (Control was amazing - but not quite a tie)
2008 - The Dark Knight
2009 - Everybody's Fine/The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series
2010 - Inception/Biutiful
2011 - The Intouchables
2012 - Moonrise Kingdom
2013 - ………
I like that you've got Die Hard holding its own with Cinema Paradiso. -I had a teacher play Cinema Paradiso for us in High School. The film had zero bearing on what we were discussing in class but he knew it would have a positive impact on us. -Great teacher! He opened up a love of foreign films for me that had previously not existed. Cinema Paradiso was the first non-english film I ever saw and I absolutely loved it. Still, John McClain was pretty bad ass too. Though Alan Rickman stole the show.
I think it's easy to write Die Hard off as "an action movie". But truly, Willis, Rickman, VelJohnson, and even Gleason do amazing work. I think Die Hard was a reset button for action movies. The plot was more than skin deep with enough suspense and twists to keep you guessing. The writing was clever, intelligent, and full of enough one-liners to keep generations of people chuckling. I love me some Die Hard. Cinema Paradiso... is.... otherworldly. The University I attended had "International Cinema" once or twice a week. I went to the 10am showing of CP and was so moved that I went three more times just to let it wash over me. It's a simple. lovely, and beautiful film. There are a few movies that got me interested in becoming a filmmaker, and Cinema Paradiso is one of the major players there. As an aside, I was super excited back in 2002 when they restored some footage that was initially cut for the 1988 release in the US. I went to the local art house theater in Denver with my wife to see it... and I left a little non-plussed. Not giving anything away here - some of the longing, some of the open ended questions and storylines from the original film are included. So you find out what happens to people, places, and things... and I guess my heart and my head liked filling in those blanks. The re-release took away some of the magic for me. It's still a great film. I still love it. And perhaps it's time I give the re-release another chance...