[anton_tarasenko]

I once plotted the TSPDT Top 1000 movies by year. That's an all-time ranking voted by critics. The distribution plot peaks around the 1970s and declines since then. For one, post-war European cinema was really great and influenced the American industry.

Now all major movies originate in the same place. The last fresh blood had come mostly from Latin America, Mexico in particular.

And the place for experiments changed. Now it's TV series. If the concept works, they make another season. Two-hour feature films are reserved for proven concepts. For moviegoers, it turns to be more like a social experience, not an arty one.

[beat]

The movie industry has eras, marked by certain production styles. In Hollywood at least, the 1970s was the era of the auteur director. A wave of directors (and actors) who had apprenticed under the famed B-movie master Roger Corman came to power on the strength of a series of absolute masterpieces. It started with Easy Rider, which was shot on a very low budget, and received massive box office success and critical acclaim. It ended with Heaven's Gate, an outrageously expensive disaster that has never even been properly released (I've seen one of the medium-length edits of it, and yes, it stinks).

The real end of the New Hollywood era, though, was the release of Star Wars in 1977. It paved the way for the sci-fi/fantasy blockbuster. It turned into a successful trilogy, and overlapped team-wise with Spielberg's fantastically successful Raiders of the Lost Ark. Hollywood, and movie fans, lost interest in the more intellectual fare of New Hollywood, in favor of kid-friendly, cross-marketing-friendly entertainment.

So it's not surprising that there was a dropoff in critical darlings after the 1970s. Movies got a lot worse - they really did. Even directors who carried on the New Hollywood traditions, like David Lynch and the Coen brothers, couldn't see the kind of success the 1970s directors had.

Of course, before the New Hollywood era, Hollywood kinda stunk, big expensive extravaganzas. Critical attention then turns to the French New Wave, and other post-WWII European film with small budgets and big emotional punches (who makes a movie like Wages of Fear these days?).

I wonder how our current era will fare? I'm thinking about the sort of epic-story serialization that the Marvel franchise and the reinvigorated Star Wars franchise is doing. How will that be viewed?

[sien]

Easy Rider, Raging Bull by Peter Siskind is a great read about all this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_Riders,_Raging_Bulls

[TheOtherHobbes]

The late 60s/70s were an exceptionally creative time. But you need relative economic security to take creative risks, and there's not much of that around at the moment.

[yahna]

Do they limit it only to contemporary impressions of the films, or do they let the idea that something is a "classic" cloud it?

[jmcgough]

It's an aggregate of lists created by critics, so there's certainly bias towards older films.

[irrational]

Art? I always thought movies were about entertainment.