1981 is seemingly accepted as being the worst year in film since 1914 which gave foreign films a great chance. No less than 50% of the films that made it are foreign; 3 French and 2 German.
Rank. Title (Director) - Points/Votes/#1s
1. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg) - 422/14/4
2. Das Boot (Wolfgang Petersen) - 274/8/2
3. Mad Max 2 (George Miller) - 215/8/0
4. Diva (Jean-Jacques Beineix) - 178/7/1
5. Coup De Torchon (Bertrand Tavernier) - 135/4/0
6. The Decline of Western Civilization Penelope Spheeris) - 119/5/0
7. Escape From New York (John Carpenter) - 119/4/2
8. Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo [We Children from Bahnhof Zoo] (Uli Edel) - 114/5/0
9. Gregory's Girl (Bill Forsyth) - 104/5/1
10. Garde à Vue [The Inquisitor] (Claude Miller) - 99/3/1
A surprising and interesting top 10. The RYM 1981 positions for these films are not better than 3, 1, 7, 37, 23, 4, 14, 46, 34, 45. I think we did a good job though.
Oops, forgot to post my own list. It's actually quite similar to the final list due to the fact that I have seen 4-5 films per year from the '80s and I use people's list to chose my films.
1. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg)
2. Das Boot (Wolfgang Petersen)
3. Blow Out (Brian De Palma)
4. Mad Max 2 (George Miller)
5. Coup de Torchon (Bertrand Tavernier)
6. Diva (Jean-Jacques Beineix)
7. Escape From New York (John Carpenter)
8. The Evil Dead (Sam Raimi)
9. The Decline Of Western Civilization (Penelope Spheeris)
10. Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (Uli Edel)
I've got five films to watch from this year. Hopefully they're conveniently available on Netflix.
I'm surprised to see so much love for Escape From New York. It's one of those action films where the protagonists win without really ever doing anything.
I'm finding differing release dates for films back then. TSPDT has stuff listed as 1926 that another source had as 1927.
I feel though in the 20s that, the best films were fantastic, but once you get past the greats (Murnau, Chaplin, Eisenstein, Lang, etc) it slopes down a lot quicker. There are fewer great films today, but a whole lot more good films.
