Empire - The 30 Films That Define The Last 30 Years

Black Panther for 2018? Wasn't even the best black superhero film of the year

I see a bunch of reaches on this list, even though I like a number of the movies involved.

Scream in 1996? Blade in 1998? American Psycho in 2000? Shaun Of The Dead? Bridesmaids? Black Panther?

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Scream in 1996?

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Was huge and redefined the horror genre.

Scream is absolutely an important film of the last 30 years.

Blade? I don't know what the frick it contributed to film history to be included in the Top 10.

Is their only angle that it was a black superhero and that's super important...like movies didn't have black heroes before?

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I agree with this. Sure...Superman was the first mainstream comic book film that had box office success. But it was Batman that really got the ball rolling on comic book films.

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Surprise!

It's a great film, but it isn't 30-year defining, and it's too Burton-esque to be influential on the medium as a whole. Batman was the result of the Superman years, not a kick-off of the modern trend. It was X-Men that kicked the modern trend off.

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2000 I think X-Men or Memento could be argued

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I would say the most iconic, defining film from 2000 has to be Gladiator. People still regularly talk about that film today.

Knew before I clicked the link BP would be on it.

List just confirms how awesome the 90s were for movies.

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It's a great film, but it isn't 30-year defining, and it's too Burton-esque to be influential on the medium as a whole.

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It is easily the defining film of 1989.

It was the highest-grossing movie of the year, had the highest-grossing opening weekend of all-time at that particular time, and it was the first film in Hollywood history to reach $100 million in just 10 days in release. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Back to the Future Part II, and Ghostbusters II were all big films that summer, Batman just happened to be bigger.

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It was X-Men that kicked the modern trend off.

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Who said anything about modern trends? Batman made over $400 million worldwide in 1989 - a HUGE chunk of change for the time and almost $1 billion adjusted for inflation. It was the first comic book film that could truly be called a blockbuster and showed the various studios that these properties could make a shite ton of money.

Hence why I won’t fight on Batman, as it pretty much kicked the “summer blockbuster” trend into next gear, only to be surpassed by T2 about three years later.


I’d love to hear a coherent argument for some of the other stuff.

For example, why Bridesmaids (2011) when the real trend maker, The Hangover (2009), doesn’t even make the list? Yes, Avatar (2009) was huge because it set box office records but it doesn’t seem to have had a lot of lasting influence.

What is so influential about American Psycho as opposed to other films in 2000? I legitimately ask this and I’m a big fan of the film. Gladiator, X-Men, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon all have better arguments.

Instead of criticizing... try and make your own list. And remember, quality matters, but we're not really looking for the best movie of each year, we're looking for the era-defining films

1989 Do The Right Thing. Probably the most influential movie of the 80s.
1990 GoodFellas. It now goes down as THE great Oscar snub.
1991 Point Break. Launched the career of perhaps the greatest action movie hero ever... Keanu Reeves.
1992 Reservoir Dogs. Indie didn't break in 92, but it was about to.
1993 Sleepless in Seattle. The peak of the Hanks-Ryan rom com machine.
1994 Clerks. Indie had gone so mainstream that a black and white film shot on shoddy stock of nothing but people talking became a sensation.
1995 Toy Story. A small studio called Pixar takes the world by storm.
1996 Scream. Almost single handedly saves the horror genre
1997 Titanic. An era defining movie.
1998 American History X. Boy, was this movie ahead of the political times.
1999 The Matrix. I want to vote Fight Club, but The Matrix is the beginning of the next era of filmmaking.

2000 Requiem for a Dream. Indie directors go mainstream, but the mainstream comes to them, not vice versa.
2001 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. A bang up year, but dominated by the birth of the Cinematic Universe, we just didn't know it yet.
2002 City of God. A great movie in its own right, but US audiences start to warm up to foreign films.
2003 X2. The true birth of the superhero era. The first great superhero movie that wasn't an origin story.
2004 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The rom com morphs into something... else. Postmodern love stories?
2005 40 Year Old Virgin. and so begins the reign of Apatow, but also the aughts were awesome for all sorts of comedies
2006 Children of Men. Action movies no longer require action heroes.
2007 No Country for Old Men. People notice the sandbox the Coens have created.
2008 The Dark Knight. Superhero films become art. The Nolan cult reaches fever pitch.
2009 Inglorious Basterds. Tarantino grows up and makes his magnum opus.

2010 Social Network. Fincher finally finds the mainstream success that has unfairly eluded him.
2011 Cabin in the Woods. The golden age of horror begins.
2012 Avengers. Marvel makes a comic book come to life.
2013 Frozen. The Disney renaissance hits high gear with an unexpected smash
2014 Whiplash. Damien Chazelle announces his presence with authority
2015 Mad Max Fury Road. The greatest action movie ever made.
2016 Arrival. On the vanguard of the sci fi resurgence.
2017 The Last Jedi. Someone is going to earn the doctorate diving into how the reaction to this movie explains 2010's America
2018 Crazy Rich Asians. Representation doesn't have to be boring... it can also be lifestyle porn. And fun.