100 Years of Cool: The Coolest Movie By Decade Challenge

Going back 100 years, what do you think are the coolest movies of each decade? Movies that were ahead of their time or had a lasting cultural impact--not necessarily the most popular or critically celebrated?

1920s - Metropolis

Lang's tirelessly duplicated vision of dystopian future with a generous heaping of German Expressionism. Re-released to a Giorgio Moroder synth soundtrack in the 1980s, it only got cooler.



1930s - Bringing Up Baby

The archetype for the screwball comedy. Cary Grant in drag and off-color humor. Katherine Hepburn, the original boss babe (sorry, Jennifer Lawrence).

Honorable mention: The Golddiggers of 1933, The Public Enemy



1940s - Pick-a-Bogart.

Could go with any number, but the Maltese Falcom best exemplifies film-noir cool.

Honorable Mention: My Darling Clementine



1950s - Rebel Without a Cause

Gonna go cliche here if just for Dean's early Method performance.

Honorable Mentions: In a Lonely Place, Touch of Evil



1960s - Breathless, 8 1/2 (Tie)

Both too cool AF to separate. You'll feel like a square even watching these movies today. Jean-Paul Belmond verbally sparring with Jean Seberg is an acting masterclass. And if you want to see where Tarantino got his inspiration for the Pulp Fiction dance scene, look no futher than Fellini's 8 1/2.

Honorable Mentions: The Wild Bunch, The Virgin Spring





1970s - Husbands

Cassavette's Killing of a Chinese Bookie is an overall cooler movie, but his Husbands contains individual scenes cooler than anything else--particularly the post London casino hotel scenes, which PT Anderson would later try to duplicate in his films.

Honorable Mentions: The Conversation, Lady Snowblood, The Bird With The Crystal Plummage



1980s - Thief

Synth before synth was cool. Michael Mann at his coolest. Caan gives one of the coolest af performances in cinema history (see: the diner scene, one of the best in cinema history). Nicholas Winding-Refn would later pay homage with 2011's Drive, which kicked off a synth/retrowave movement still building today.



Honorable Mentions: Blade Runner, 9 1/2 Weeks, Raising Arizona

1990s - Pulp Fiction

We've come full circle from the 1960s and 70s with Tarantino's masterpiece. In the 1990s, Tarantino schooled kids as to why the '60s and '70s were the coolest.



2000s - American Psycho

A lot of competition here and getting tough to discriminate, but Bale's peformance and the pop culture references triumph.



Honorable Mentions: The Dark Knight, Memento, The Departed, Lost in Translation

2010s - Inception

Like Cassavettes, Tarantino, Bogart, et al, any number of Nolan films could top a decades best list; however, Inception remains Nolan's masterpiece, working in perfect hamrony among all facets.



2020s - Malignant

This was the toughest. Only a third of the way through the decade while trying to determine what film will have lasting cultural significance. While Malignant is technically a "bad" movie (even intentionally so), it transcends bad into "awesomely bad" territory. I firmly believe its popularity and appreciation will only increase with time. And the fact that it turns the knob to 11 makes it the coolest af movie so far this decade. That's saying something.



Honorable Mentions: The Green Knight, Gaia


Ultimate Cool Grand Champion - 8 1/2