The Best of the Nighthawk Awards: The 1940′s

the dancing mushrooms in Fantasia - the best animated film of the 1940's

Well, before I go into 1949, I’ll cover the decade as a whole.  Bear in mind the decade awards cover films by their original release date, so you might find films that haven’t shown up in individual years yet.

1940  -  1949

Total Films I’ve Seen:  617

Films That Make the Top 5 in a Category:  42

Best Film Not to Make the Top 5 in any Category:  The Best Years of Our Lives

Film of the Decade:  Children of Paradise

Worst Film of the Decade:  King of the Zombies

Worst Best Picture Nominee of the Decade:  All This and Heaven Too

Worst Film of the Decade Made by a Top 100 Director:  Under Capricorn

 

The History of the Academy Awards: Best Picture – 1946

The amazing reunion scene in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) between Myrna Loy and Frederic March

The 19th Academy Awards, for the film year 1946.  The nominations were announced on February 9, 1947 and the awards were held on March 13, 1947.

Best Picture:  The Best Years of Our Lives

• It’s a Wonderful Life
• Henry V
• The Yearling
• The Razor’s Edge

Most Surprising Omission:  Brief Encounter

Best Eligible Film Not Nominated:  Children of Paradise

Best Eligible English-Language Film Not Nominated:  The Big Sleep

Rank (out of 82) Among Best Picture Years:  #41

 

The Year in Film: 1946

My Top 10:

Les Enfants du Paradis (1945) - as Children of Paradise, the #1 film of 1946

1. Children of Paradise
2. The Best Years of Our Lives
3. It’s a Wonderful Life
4. Brief Encounter
5. The Big Sleep
6. Notorious
7. Henry V
8. The Spiral Staircase
9. My Darling Clementine
10. Open City

 

The Myth of 1939

Kirk Douglas in Kubrick's Paths of Glory, one of the best films from 1957

A little note before my article: I have a new article appearing on CinCity2000.com on Tuesday. It’s a response to a New York Times article about the lack of decent women’s roles in summer movies.

The Myth of 1939

We are so fond of anniversaries. Just look at everything we celebrated last year. The 80th anniversary of the Academy Awards. The 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love and Sgt Pepper’s. The 30th anniversary of Star Wars and the Summer of Sam. But did we forget the best anniversary from last year? Isn’t the big number supposed to be 50 (“not to fifty” Christopher Guest shouts as that classic turned 20)? Shouldn’t we have been looking back to 1957? For movies, after all, it might have been the peak of artistic creation, both on the national and international front.