Hard to choose a best year but 1940 and 1953 have a lot of favourites. Among more recent years I'm quite partial to 2001.
The worst: again, difficult to narrow it down but it would almost certainly be something from the mis-1980s. Very possibly 1984 or 1985.
An easy thing to do is go to your ratings and one of the things you can do there is see a list of your average IMDb rating by year for every year you have voted more than 10 titles for. Going by that standard my top year is 2014 and worst is 2001. I've got under 2000 ratings total though and of years before 1980 only 1963, 1967 and 1973 have 10 or more titles (all years from 1980 do though) working my way through old classics though and 1963 is my second rated year and I have rated at least one title from every year starting at 1930 (not including 2017 which has no titles yet. I find that recent years tend to rank highly because they are dominated by good movies that I choose to see at the cinema, years tend to drop in average when I get into the more mediocre stuff that I didn't think was worth the cinema. I expect as more old years reach 10 they'll move near the top of the list because most old bad stuff has virtually disappeared it's only the new crap that now has a permanent life on DVD.
shareRecently I was looking through the years of some movies I rated and I basically rated nothing for 2005. Hardly anything that interested me came out that year.
In contrast, a really good few years for movies was 1980-85, then again in 1990-94.
I keep track of 7+ feature films I've seen by year ...
Number of Feature Films Rated 7+ (by year)
2017-00
2016-25
2015-23
2014-32
2013-41
2012-29
2011-26
2010-34
Decade=210
2009-31
2008-26
2007-21
2006-18
2005-14
2004-17
2003-12
2002-19
2001-17
2000-19
Deacade=194
1999-17
1998-15
1997-23
1996-15
1995-11
1994-16
1993-18
1992-12
1991-10
1990-08
Decade=145
1989-14
1988-08
1987-11
1986-03
1985-07
1984-08
1983-08
1982-05
1981-05
1980-08
Decade=77
1979-10
1978-06
1977-05
1976-11
1975-05
1974-10
1973-13
1972-06
1971-07
1970-07
Decade=80
1969-05
1968-11
1967-13
1966-06
1965-10
1964-10
1963-12
1962-11
1961-12
1960-06
Decade=96
1959-16
1958-14
1957-21
1956-09
1955-16
1954-16
1953-16
1952-09
1951-20
1950-21
Decade=158
1949-16
1948-23
1947-18
1946-20
1945-13
1944-15
1943-14
1942-15
1941-21
1940-21
Decade=176
1939-20
1938-21
1937-18
1936-24
1935-14
1934-12
1933-12
1932-11
1931-13
1930-02
Decade=147
1929-05
1928-03
1927-05
1926-03
1925-04
1924-01
1923-02
1922-01
1921-01
1920-02
Decade=27
1920-2017=1310 (total feature films rated 7+)
Total feature films seen 1920-2017 is 4560
Percentage of feature films rated 7+ is 28.73%
best - 1970
worst - 1984
No clue as to the worst year, but I believe the general consensus is that the best year was 1939:
Gone With The Wind
The Wizard of Oz
Stagecoach
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
The Women
Wuthering Heights
Of Mice and Men
Ninotchka
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
All of these films are rated 7.7 or higher on IMDB.
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