Movies are a miracle. Like the power of human flight and John Voight’s genes producing the likes of Angelina Jolie: these are things that have happened when reason and logic dictate otherwise. If Eadweard Muybridge hadn’t photographed a horse to see if, indeed, it lifted all four legs off the ground running, where would we be with movies now? We might be a Michael Bay-less world, but we’d also miss out on a century of filmmakers hammering at and bending this malleable art form still in its infancy compared to hundreds of years of painting and erotic sculpting.

It wasn’t until I saw some old Lumiére short films from the late 1800s when I truly realized that 1) people must’ve been shitting their pants, and 2) we’ve come far in 100 years, from Buster Keaton silent flicks to The Lord of the Rings and computer generated battlefields. Even in these earlier pictures, you can see the same ambitious potential and imagination behind the stories of men traveling to the moon by cannon as you would for Kubrick’s hypnotizing spacecraft spinning slowly above the Earth. In this first century, these will be the movies we can salute to, the ones that best represent the road early filmmakers have paved for the movies to come. 

So strap on your film connoisseur hat and fire up your zoopraxiscope, super 8 projector, VHS player, or Blu-ray player: these are the movies that have defined the decades of filmmaking.

1900s – A Trip to the Moon (1902) – Otherwise known as Le voyage dans la luna, Georges Méliès was using special effects when James Cameron was just a speck in the gene pool. It’s a 15-minute film about a group of futuristic astronomers planning to travel to the moon via a spaceship-firing cannon (through trial and error, NASA confirmed that this was not the most practical mode for space flight). So with a “fuck logic” attitude, the astronomers launch their spacecraft into the moon, which happens to have a cream pie face with eyes and a mouth; thus a great fascination with and fear of the moon was born. The adventurers encounter moon monsters, but they escape in the nick of time, crash landing back to Earth. The short film is game changing because Méliès (who was also an illusionist) introduced filmmakers to the realm of possibilities behind special effects and editing. Other important movies to watch: The Great Train Robbery

1910s – Birth of a Nation (1915) – Despite its blatant racial problems and three-hour long running time, the Civil War epic Birth of a Nation should be commended for leading films out of the dark ages of 15-minute shorts and into the now standard 90-minute plus length. Besides the presence of people in black face and horny slaves chasing white women in forests, the film does have some very well-crafted, realistic battle scenes. D. W. Griffith was one of those directors who started during amateur hour as an actor and grew into a mad genius who took the Proustian route and developed a lengthy exposéon the Ku Klux Klan, partially inspired by his father’s role as colonel in the Confederate Army. Birth of a Nation, originally titled The Clansmen, encountered protestors at its premiere, and interestingly coincided with the second incarnation of the KKK in 1916. Its scandalous and groundbreaking role in this decade has made it one of the movies historians can point to that set the bar for films made afterwards. Other important movies to watch: Broken Blossoms, The Student of Prague

1920s – Hamlet (1921) –Hundreds of Shakespeare adaptations were made during the silent era, but only a few survived, including the unconventional Asta Nielsen version from 1921. A Danish, gender-bender silent film, this version of Hamlet allowed the talented Miss Nielsen to play the part in drag. The story is tweaked a bit: Hamlet is born a girl, but because her parents wanted a male heir to the thrown, decide to raise the princess as a boy. This might seem like a strange piece of slash fic (chock full of homoeroticism between Hamlet and Horatio), but Nielsen’s performance as Hamlet knocks Laurence Olivier out of the ballpark and foreshadows the menswear trend women of the Roaring Twenties would adopt. Other important movies to watch: City Lights, It Happened One Night, The Sheik

1930s – Duck Soup (1933) – In my opinion, Duck Soup is the Marx Brothers’ masterpiece. Known for their zippy one-liners and vaude-ville style sarcasm, Groucho, Harpo, and Chico (add Zeppo and Gummo, if you want to count the two lesser known brothers), became an integral part of American comedy. Duck Soup is about the fictional country of Freedonia, and one Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho) who has recently been appointed leader while neighboring country, Sylvania, plans to invade. As with any Marx Bro. film, this one is filled with slapstick and sporadic musical numbers, with classics like, “This Country’s Going to War.” Duck Soup, out of the Marxs’ catalog, synthesizes these elements the best and keeps your sides splitting at every turn. Other important movies to watch: Metropolis, The Blue Angel, Frankenstein

1940s – Citizen Kane (1942) –Whether or not you’ve seen Orson Welles’s early masterpiece, you probably know the significance behind Rosebud. Citizen Kane has been hammered into moviegoers’ minds as the unofficial “greatest movie ever made,” even though at the time of its release critics were hesitant over prodigy Welles’s break from Hollywood conventions of storytelling. Not to mention, newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst (whom Citizen Kane is said to be loosely based on) threw a hissy fit and banned any mention of the movie in his newspapers. Today, Citizen Kane often tops film lists, which begs the question: is it that big of a deal? Yes and no. The eyes of film students might glaze over as the image of Charlie Kane’s snowball drops from his dead hand, but what Citizen Kane did at the time was pretty damn groundbreaking, such as the deep focus cinematography that gave the film a sophisticated, diorama effect that would go on to influence other filmmakers to break from the one dimensional stage mould. Other important movies to watch: Casablanca, Arsenic and Old Lace

1950s – Rear Window (1954) - Hitchcock laid a lot of golden eggs in this decade, including Vertigo and North by Northwest. The master of suspense was known for instilling paranoia in his characters, and while he did this skillfully through Carey Grant and Eva Saint Marie, Rear Window captured that mixture of anxiety and voyeuristic obsession exceptionally well in wheel chair-confined James Stewart. This melded perfectly with the Communist investigations launched in 1947, when Joseph McCarthy picked up his torch and pitchfork and charged Hollywood in search of those scary Pinkos infiltrating America’s time honored entertainment industry. Rear Window exemplified that Peeping Tom aesthetic as Jimmy Stewart spies on his neighbors and ignores girlfriend Grace Kelly until she lands in a spot of trouble. Other important movies to watch: Some Like it Hot, All About Eve, On the Waterfront, The Seventh Seal

1960s – Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) – Before Full Metal Jacket and A Clockwork Orange, Kubrick perfected his knack for black comedy in this film which boldly satirizes the nuclear scare that dominated the Cold War. To get an idea, Dr. Strangelove opens with a sequence of aircrafts transporting missiles, which can only be described as soft porn with warheads. Peter Sellers steals each scene (literally – he plays three different characters) as the level-headed US President, the nervously polite British officer Lionel Mandrake, and lastly, Dr. Strangelove, the ex-Nazi scientist advising the President on the “ten women to every man” ratio in case they need to repopulate the world after nuclear attack. The comedy is dry, but excellently executed, and it makes you wish that, despite Kubrick’s impressive oeuvre, he had made more films like this. Other important movies: Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, 8 ½

1970s – Apocalypse Now (1979) – This movie, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, was kind of like the last shit storm of post-Vietnam era films shaking off the water droplets of war trauma, distrust, and anxiety. Even production was insane: 36-year old Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack, and the weather repeatedly ravaged their sets. The movie also took on Marlon Brando, who was considered box office poison at the time, and transformed him into the formative mad villain, Kurtz, buried deep within the jungle. Coppola didn’t necessarily strive for authenticity with Apocalypse Now, but used Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as the cornerstone in which to pave the insanity, the greed, and the power hungry indicative of the political fervor surrounding the war. The opening scene, played to the tune of The Doors’ “The End,” displays a Vietnamese jungle set aflame by choppers swooping in; this was the end of a war, but also the beginning of a country confined under PTSD. Other important movies to watch: Annie Hall, Taxi Driver, The Godfather

1980s – Labyrinth (1986) – After the angsty years of the 60s and 70s, the 1980s was like the fun grandparent who wears Hawaiian shorts and insistently talks about their one encounter with extraterrestrials. Even under the conservative Reagan administration, the 1980s was the decade that saw epic throwbacks like Indiana Jones and E. T. that made it fun to go to the movies again. Labyrinth, a Jim Henson and George Lucas production, did just that with glam rock icon David Bowie, furry puppets, and a magical world for teenage Jennifer Connelly to get lost in. They borrowed elements from The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, and the movie would go on to become a cult favorite amongst Jim Henson aficionados. The hodge-podge of fantastical creatures, jazz synth-drum musical numbers, and David Bowie in tight leather pants defined that departure from the dark and brooding cinema of decades before and into a period with a more eclectic style. And hair metal. Other important movies to watch: The Breakfast Club, Blade Runner, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

1990s – Fargo (1996) – The Coen brothers made a name for themselves during the 1990s with films like The Big Lebowski, Barton Fink, and the Academy Award winning Fargo. The Coens borrowed from their Minnesota roots and love for Dasheill Hammett crime novels, and set Fargo around Brainerd and Minneapolis. Jerry Lundagaard pays a couple of hit men to kidnap his wife so that her rich father can pay the ransom; in turn, the hit men take off a few dollars richer, and Jerry can pay off his debt (although this last detail is never made entirely clear). Moments of startlingly brutal violence clash with Mid-West “don’t cha know/you betcha” accents. Frances McDormand as the determined pregnant police officer looking into the crimes is a strong female protagonist for a decade gradually rejecting the damsel in distress type. Sticking with their postmodernist intentions, the Coens represent violence as this unexplainable force that just happens, but it shouldn’t get in the way of living. Other important movies to watch:  Clerks, Trainspotting, Pulp Fiction

2000s – Up in the Air (2009) – While Jason Reitman’s other golden child (Juno) helped him rise to fame, Up in the Air provided a message that rang unfortunately true throughout this decade: unemployment. George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a fast-talking employee who jets around the country to different corporations in order to lay people off. He’s good at his job and smugly covets his frequent flyer miles. But his direction takes a different turn when young up-and-comer Natalie Keener arrives and introduces the idea to fire people via webcam. This brings into question, which is worse: sacking people in person or over the Internet? Personally, I’d like to see George Clooney in person if I was getting fired. It would numb the pain just a little. Some of the most heartfelt scenes come from the fired employees, who were people in real life reenacting their emotions upon their termination. The feelings are raw and devastating, and no movie could better portray the emotional disappointment of the Bush years than this one. Other important movies to watch: The Departed, Spirited Away, Lord of the Ring

The couch was my impenetrable fortress. Pillows, my shields to protect me from the cinematic nightmares on my TV. According to my parents, covering my eyes was the best way to defend myself from the violent, the lewd, and the monstrous. But you know who else did that? Danny Torrance from The Shining. And look at how well that turned out. 

So with a porous, crochet blanket over my head, I secretly watched the movies that would shape my tastes today:

Age 4: What was real and what was make believe? No surprise, I had trouble distinguishing one from the other. I was watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie on TV with my mom while my dad was on a business trip. I can’t remember which one. Guys in black leather jackets and guns were hunting the soon-to-be governor (I know this really narrows it down). After the movie, I settled into my mom’s bed and off-handedly made the comment: “I’m glad there aren’t any bad guys in the real world.” 

My mom’s snap judgment came into play, and she told me, “Oh no, there are people like that out there.” I don’t blame her for correcting me. This was something I would eventually learn when Scruff McGruff, the crime dog, would come into my first grade class and tell us about strangers with candy chasing kids in empty parking garages. However, knowing this fact shattered my reality. Was Jurassic Park real? Could I be eaten by dinosaurs? Did the pets from Homeward Bound really get lost in the woods? OH MY GOD is Jurassic Park real? Immediately, I started to have visions of bad guys shattering the glass of the bedroom window, wielding guns. Hunting me for no particular reason, but just because they could. On the other hand, this did wonders for my imagination.

Age 5: My fear of the real fractured happy movie memories. The beginning of Beauty and the Beast left me quivering behind the couch until the Beast’s awful roars subsided. Jurassic Park, despite my friends’ fascination with the realistic dinosaur CGI, was reduced to that terrifying moment when the mutilated goat leg smacks the windshield. Even some of the Mary Kate and Ashley detective series sent me racing into the kitchen (although to be fair, one could argue that the pre-teen Olsen twins were creepy).

Age 6: The dread that my parents would choose another film to spur more nightmares came to an end when we moved to New Mexico. Mostly because I was older and because my parents, depressed about leaving Montana, began falling back on films they enjoyed in their 20s and 30s. At the dinner table, my dad would reenact scenes from Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein and old Jack Nicholson movies, like Goin’ South. My kid brother and I would jump into these films looking for iconic moments: Peter Boyle desperately blowing out the flames on his finger, Jack Nicholson taunting the authorities at the Mexican border as his horse keels over dead. They’re the kind of movies that get me overly excited when I find them playing on TCM.

Age 8: I began setting myself up as a film dweeb amongst my friends. “Have you seen The Blues Brothers? There’s this song in there that’s really cool,” I’d say before getting pinched for liking old movies. This did not dissuade me from avidly watched the Academy Awards every year and trying to make an effort to see the nominated films.

Age 14: I fancied myself a director. And then my neighborhood friends turned on me like I was Mussolini when we filmed our low budget Moulin Rouge! with my Christmas camcorder. Cue me wearing a sad beret tilted to the side.

Age 18: Intense thrillers (The Departed), historical dramas (Braveheart), and anything Monty Python did began filling out my DVD collection. However, there was one movie with a strong enough foot to kick my Anthopology major to the curb: The Dark Knight. Christopher Nolan’s Batman sequel (although really, calling it a sequel feels inadequate) has been drooled over by many fanboys in dripping Joker makeup and ill-fitting suits, but this wasn’t why I liked it. The Dark Knight was released the summer after my high school graduation, and it took the midnight showing to make me realize that maybe I didn’t want to be digging around in the dirt for Roman bath houses. I didn’t know what I wanted to do in film. I just knew I had to be a part of the moviemaking process and send the same shivers down people’s spines as The Dark Knight did for me.

Age 21+: Graduating college and waiting to make thunderclap moments for other young, impressionable minds. And I don’t hide under the covers anymore.

Kate Winslet’s boobs are fantastic. Man, woman, gay, straight, bisexual, what have you: we should all be able to agree that their appearance on the big screen never hinders our enjoyment of a film. They made their first titillating (pun very much intended) debut in James Cameron’s Titanic, had a bit of fun in Little Children, and later co-starred in her Oscar winning role as former Nazi Hanna Schmitz in The Reader. While any boobage action from Miss Winslet adds instant charm and appeal to any film, her acting chops complete the package. And having someone both sexy and talented in film is something moviegoers of either gender like to see at the cinema.

While we can reach a positive consensus on Kate Winslet’s cleavage, men and women do desire different things in movies. In Titanic, for example, box office results claimed women made Cameron’s epic the hit that it was. With its romance-centric plot, it can be easy to assign that aspect of the movie as the major catnip that drew female viewers in. Women came for Leo the Lion, while men came for the ship’s death trap and the rumor of a nude sketching scene.            

These are obvious assumptions made by the media frenzy surrounding the film, but it can be difficult to generalize the entire female gender as heartthrob crazed fangirls dragged to the movies by their ovaries. As such, I’ve tried to compile a fair list of what women like to see in movies. Marvelous as Kate Winslet may be, some women don’t mind a little ass-kicking from a giant slab of ocean ice too.

1. Strong female protagonists. Okay, we’ll get the obvious out of the way. While there are films, like Alien and Silence of the Lambs, which exemplify independent women going against the odds to achieve their goals, there are not enough of these films in contemporary cinema. If we take a look at the Best Picture nominations of 2012, the only film containing prominent female roles is The Help, and even that movie has some problematic issues with its “white people solve racism” theme. The films in the Best Actress category, like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Iron Lady, carry the strong female elements that should be represented more. We’re not asking for every woman protagonist to be as extreme as Lisbeth Salander etching “I am a sexist pig” on her rapist’s chest. Just less Bella Swan.

2. Hot men. Or hot women, depending on your orientation. Just as guys like to salivate over Megan Fox fixing up a motorbike in Transformers, women like to have their cake and eat it too. Just look at the Leonardo DiCaprio testament for Titanic. My friend and I have been waiting impatiently for Shame to arrive at our local theaters because we heard Michael Fassbender has great…erm…talent.

3. Well-crafted comedy. I say well-crafted because I’d like to infer that most women do not like the gross-out genre men sometimes gravitate towards (although I do have some female friends that are not opposed to this brand of humor too). For me, I like the humor of Woody Allen, and even the sexist assholes Jack Nicholson often plays. Why? Because they master the art of writing appalling insults that deserve more claps and touchés than middle fingers.

4. Heart in the middle of the action.I don’t consider myself to be a huge “shoot ‘em up” buff, but I often list The Departed was one of my all-time favorite films. The Departed manages to balance the morbid violence of Irish mob gangs in present day Boston with the emotional implications behind the characters portrayed by Leo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. We don’t mind action if it’s justified by heart.

5. A little bit of romance. Just a dash. Titanic might have romanced the shit out of its viewers and got rich because of it, but most of the time us women don’t want a film to only be about star-crossed lovers. Even more so, we don’t want it marketed as being overwhelmingly sentimental, basically spelling out, “I gave that bitch romance. Bitches love romance.” Give us the romance to live through vicariously, but don’t make it the most important aspect of a movie.