Gold Diggers of 1933 - Best of 1933. Warner Home Video. Gold Diggers of 1933 was probably the best of Berkeley's 1933 entries. It is a Depression era send-up of the lost 1929 film "Gold Diggers of Broadway", and features a group of chorus girls in search of jobs in a show that won't fail.

Best of 1935. Warner Home Video. This Astaire/Rogers film probably has the best and most memorable combination of music, dancing, and comedy.

Best of 1937. Disney A classic tale is a landmark in animation history at a time when there were no computers to do the work for you.

* Best of 1939. It' lost some of its appeal over the years, but it's still the best of an extraordinary year in film.

Best of 1941. Warner Home Video This film has the snobs and the slobs constantly fighting. The Spotlight Reviewer of this film says it best - "Kane is a man with a great big NO TRESPASSING sign around his neck. Forget the camera angles and watch a film about the loneliest man who ever lived."

* Best of 1943. Obviously made to keep up morale on the homefront during WWII, this one has aged quite well with one of Bogey's best performances.

* Best of 1945. Universal Studios An unflinching look at a weekend in the life of an alcoholic on a binge. This alcoholic is not a bum in the technical sense. He looks perfectly respectable when sober, but he will stoop to anything to get a drink when he needs one.

Best of 1947. Robert Mitchum stars in perhaps the best film noir ever made.

Best of 1949. Criterion. Cynical pulp novelist Holly Martins arrives in shadowy Vienna to investigate the mysterious death of his old friend, black-market opportunist Harry Lime, and thus begins an ever-thickening web of love, deception, and murder that adds up to one of cinema’s most immortal treats, as well as one of its trickiest.

Best of 1951. CBS/Fox It's amazing that this classic pairing the best actor and best actress of the 20th century is not on DVD.

* Best of 1953. A great study in how quickly things change on an army base in a tropical setting once Pearl Harbor hits. A great study in the contrast of what seems important in peace-time army life and what really matters.

Best of 1955. Fonda played this role for years on the stage about the toll boredom takes on soldiers/sailers in non-combat assignments. Also features the dawn of Jack Lemmon, the last performance of William Powell, and a great performance by James Cagney just a few years prior to his initial retirement.

Best of 1957. I know I'm supposed to pick "Bridge Over the River Kwai" or "Paths of Glory" or some other serious film from that year. However, this is one of the best romantic comedies ever made. It's a serious romantic film for adults, plus it has something to say about the human touch versus automation in the workplace. Change automation to outsourcing and you really have a very modern film.

Best of 1959. With present Hollywood standards in comedy going down and down, Billy Wilder's black and white movie mixing gangsters, crossdressing, gender clichés, music and intelligence comes out as a real gem. The final dialogue between Jack Lemmon and Joe E.Brown is priceless.

Best of 1961. A raw drama about disposable people fighting against that classification and the people that use them.

Best of 1963. HUD is a chronicle of what killed the western ethos - it was done in by a man with a "barbed wire soul" driving a pink cadillac. Newman manages to play a man of hollow charm. When he flirts, we see the snake lurking behind his smile.

* Best of 1965. One of the best musicals ever made features great performances, great songs, and a compelling true story. What more could you want?

Best of 1967. The gangster film is reborn after the death of the motion picture code.

* Best of 1969. An academy award winner in spite of its X rating, this one has aged well. It captures the gritty sordidness of New York City, as it was in those days, with all its contrasts and inconsistencies. For example, there is a shot of a man lying on the sidewalk in front of an upscale jewelry store being ignored by pedestrians as they go about their lives.