Given how many films are released these days, it’s understandable that many of them go under the radar and end up becoming completely forgotten. For every box office hit or critical success of the 2000 to 2009 era, there are tons of movies that died at the theatres and received an often unfair kicking from the film critics. Like any other decade, the 2000s were full of such films, movies that speedily saw themselves get lost in the vast cinematic library of our time. Readers will no doubt have their own favourites from this time period, and I myself could have easily listed dozens more, but f ..read more

Every champion must die and every empire must fall; the inevitability of decline after incredible success is part of nature’s course correction. Look no further than the recent diminishment of superhero cinema or the collapse of the musical in the last few decades of the 20th century. The Western, an endlessly reliable source of income for both US and Italian filmmakers in the 1950s and 1960s, wilted into its twilight zone in the 1970s. The rebellious young filmmakers who pioneered the Hollywood New Wave turned to the themes of the time to define their work: paranoia, anti-establishment ideol ..read more

The 1980s were a lucrative, glorious time for the movies. The blockbuster ruled the box office, and cinema-going was at its highest for decades. Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Back to the Future dominated popular culture, with sequels and franchises ensuring fans kept coming back to the theatre to see their favourite stars up on the big screen. But for every sci-fi mega hit and breathtaking adventure flick, there were dozens of more understated films which, though making some mark at the time, have faded somewhat as the decades have gone by. Below are ten more great overlooked films of the 1980 ..read more

You either love ’em or hate ’em, but the Oscars are virtually impossible to ignore altogether. That remains as true today as it was back in the 1980s, a transformative decade for Hollywood that saw the movie industry pivot away from the high-risk, high-reward auteur-driven business model of the ’70s towards the current one with the rise of family-friendly blockbusters, serialized franchises, spin-offs, and remakes that completely took over at the box office as must-see theatrical events. Meanwhile at the Oscars, ten lucky films throughout the decade cemented their place in movie history and e ..read more

It feels strange that, despite two Westerns taking home the Best Picture Oscar in the 1990s, the genre has few other entries in that decade that stand tall and proud. Perhaps the reason for this is that those two films, Dances With Wolves and Unforgiven, set such a high bar that other directors steered away so as not to seem detrimental. Moreover, the 1990s was getting increasingly enamoured with making long historical epics, shifting the timeline away from America’s 19th century and deeper into the past. To this extent, these ten Westerns, largely released in the first half of the decade, ga ..read more

The 1970s is still regarded today as one of the strongest eras for American filmmaking for many reasons. On the heels of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal, Hollywood witnessed a banner decade marked by the arrival of a new generation of auteurs with a strong authorial stamp that burst onto the scene and churned out a bounty of boundary-pushing masterpieces that reflected the distinct mood of the time and still hold up 50 years later. With big studios pouring truckloads of money into bold and experimental projects steeped in cynicism, a swathe of different genres thrived at the box off ..read more

The 1990s were the age of the mega blockbuster and the movie star as larger than life idol. From Will Smith to Harrison Ford, this was the era of the brave hero fighting against all odds, facing and indeed tackling a problem that was much bigger than him, and more often than not bigger than the world itself. There were aliens, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, dinosaurs, giant lizards and a host of other grandiose horrors threatening to take us out, and it was always up to the stars to save the day. That said, there was much more to the 90s than large scale disaster flicks and adventure epics ..read more

Cinephiles love to nitpick whether the Academy “got it right” every year, but we’re now closing in on a century of Academy ceremonies, and the eight-and-a-half-pound gold statuette known as the Oscar for Best Motion Picture remains the most prestigious and coveted award in world cinema. Today, we’re turning the clock back to the final stretch of the 20th century to take stock on every Oscar recipient that took home the top prize from 1990-1999 to see how they stack up against each other. Some of the following titles were considerably well-received at the time but have since lost their luster ..read more

It’s not the golden age anymore and western films are no longer the major box office hits they used to be but still, the 1970s was a good enough decade for the genre. Clint Eastwood was still a major star and was delivering classics like “The Outlaw Josey Wales” and if we wanted to have a laugh, Mel Brooks was there with his “Blazing Saddles”. However, it was the era of the new groundbreaking filmmakers who preferred to make films in contemporary settings with relevant social messages. That’s just one of the reasons why Westerns got overlooked, especially the traditional ones. Here are ten fi ..read more

The “snub” might not be the right word here and it’s probably overused these days but it’s the popular term to describe the buzzy performances that don’t get the nomination in the end. Every year is full of great performances but some just come out at the right time and then generate certain buzz, then get awards attention. Sometimes critics push them, sometimes strong campaigns launched by the studios bring them to attention and in the end, some of those get nominated for the biggest award of the season: the Academy Awards. Each year, some films get underseen or some just don’t appeal to AMP ..read more