For many people, the Golden Age of Hollywood is the 1930's through 1950's.
Different people have different tastes. For me, the greatest era in the history of Hollywood is 1977-1984.
The age of Star Wars, E. T. Star Trek, and all the movies that are my primary influence as an author.
Modern-day mythmaking on an incredible level.
"Use the Force, Luke."
"E.T. phone home"
"To Boldly Go where No One has Gone Before"
The movies of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Jim Henson, and Star Trek from this era don't have as much of an intellectual image as the 30's-50's 'Golden Age' movies because they are catchy and easy to understand, fun, and don't limit themselves to ordinary life but rather take part in the expansive imagination of fantasy and science fiction.
But these are all strengths and not weaknesses, and the ideas and emotions are at least as sophistocated as those in the finest 30's-50's 'Golden Age' movies. You could live your life by the lessons learned in the original Star Wars trilogy, or E.T., or Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. And it would be a life well lived.
That is not to dismiss the 30's-50's 'Golden Age' and the late 60's-early 70's experimental era. Those were great eras in movies, and both of them paved the way for the 1977-1984 era. This era of movies would not exist without the great David Lean war epics, the great B movies of the 30's-50's Golden Age, Humphrey Bogart classics like Casablanca and The African Queen, the proto-feminist career of Katherine Hepburn, Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, other experiments by the likes of Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, and Francis Ford Coppola, the experiments on television that were the original Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, and innumerable other precedents from the 1920's to the mid-1970's.
And so here, I will give my list for the greatest films of this, Hollywood's greatest era.
The greatest films from Hollywood from 1977-1984, according to the personal taste of David S. Annderson:
The original Star Wars trilogy
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
E.T.
Star Trek: the Motion Picture
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Raiders of the Lost Ark
The Muppet Movie
The Muppets Take Manhattan
The Dark Crystal
The Secret of NIMH
All in no particular order.
Honorable Mentions from the late 80's and from television (before the Grunge 90's):
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Star Trek IV through VI; but especially Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek: The Next Generation (leading into the brightest light in the Grunge 90's, the Golden Age of science fiction television!)
Star Trek: The Original Series
Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird
Fraggle Rock and classic Sesame Street (anything Sesame Street through 1990, going back to long before 1977)
Any Muppets Christmas special or special with John Denver (again, going back to 1977-1984 as well)
Feel free to disagree with me and make your own list!
(Please note that this list consists solely on American movies and television; or otherwise Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind would definitely be on the list!)
(But I am not knowledgeable enough on Anime and other non-American film and television to make such lists! (and in any case such lists would definitely not stop with the Grunge 90's!))
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson