Top 10 Lists

When I first started this blog, I decided to immediately keep tabs on the best (and worst) films from each year covered here and thus my ever-changing Top Ten Lists were born. Now they're about ten years old and have been a bit more fine tuned than they originally were. Still have a lot more first time views left to go, but with each new one I get checked off my list, these get closer to my set-in-stone favorites for each year. The lists are pretty cut and dry for the most part. The Top 5 best films from each year are at the top, followed by the next five just missing out, followed by a discard pile of films that I've seen but haven't made the cut. While the discard pile may sound a bit negative, there are still a lot of good (sometimes even great) films that ended up down there due to the year being stacked with good titles. I added the star rating next to each to spare some three star films the indignity of sitting right next to a NO STAR movie. In addition, I'm trying to write a brief overview of highlights from each year to include with the lists. So it's pretty simple, just select a year below to find out which titles have made the cut.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    

____________________________________________________________________

A few comments and rules about these lists.

- Not eligible for Top 10 lists: documentaries (including mondo films), TV specials and feature-length television episodes that were released as separate features on home video (i.e. episodes of Hammer House of Horror, Thriller, etc.)

- Eligible: Made-for-TV films. Right now, also short films running 40 minutes or less, though I'm torn on including them. If I do it's because it's damn good and rated higher than every feature-length title listed beneath it, or it's because I haven't seen enough films to otherwise fill up a Top 10.

- Exact release years have been known to change on most film websites as new information is uncovered. I'll make adjustments accordingly. If I've overlooked a year change and haven't moved the film yet, let me know and I will. I'm using IMDb's release years for these lists unless I know them to be wrong.

- Even though I may love certain films doesn't mean I'll necessarily include them on my Top 10 lists. Why? Because I may not feel it's actually horror and its genre is debatable. I use both reference books (Creature Features, Psychotronic Encyclopedia, Terror on Tape, etc.) as well as many film websites, to come up with the horror lists. Some (but not many) of the films I've included simply aren't horror by my own personal standards. We all have those, right? Either way I don't feel it's my place to tell others what is and is not a horror film, so I've decided to utilize different opinions on what should be classified as horror. That doesn't necessarily mean I think it's appropriate for my personal Top 10 horror lists.

- Certain years, 1950 for example, are dry when it comes to horror. Sometimes I won't be able to actually do a complete Top 10 because there aren't ten horror films from that year. In those cases, I may throw on the closest things to horror that are available (sci-fi, noir, thrillers) to pad it out. There are also a few times where I simply haven't seen ten yet, or barely ten, so some less-than-great films may be Top 10 for the time being until they get bumped off by something better.