Cinema Isn’t Dead, But It Still Hasn’t Topped 1999 (Or 2007) Yet

Well, cinema is certainly not dead. In the post-pandemic era, we’ve had some very weak years (2020, 2021, 2022) but 2023 kind of gave us some hope—and there were also some wonderful titles released in 2024 and 2025. Things seem to somehow be stabilizing.

Yet none reached the heights of the last truly great cinematic year: 2019. That’s when movies exploded one last time. Will we ever get another year like this one? “Uncut Gems,” “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” “The Irishman,” “Parasite,” “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”

That said, in this century, not one movie year has come close to what we witnessed in 1999.

I highly recommend Brian Raftery‘s book, Best. Movie. Year. Ever: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen, which has been in bookstores now for a few years, and I recently got around to reading it this month. It reignited a conversation around 1999—maybe the best year at the movies… ever? If you want a good idea of how the book reads, Vulture ran an entire  chapter from the book on “Eyes Wide Shut.”

And so, the inevitable question one must ask is this: Are we heavily overhyping 1999? The short answer is no.

Being John Malkovich, Election, The Matrix, Fight Club, American Beauty, The Limey, The Sixth Sense, Magnolia, The Straight Story, Eyes Wide Shut, Three Kings, The Insider, The Blair Witch Project, Bringing Out the Dead, Boys Don’t Cry, Go, The Iron Giant, Toy Story 2, South Park, Office Space, The Talented Mr. Ripley, American Pie, Bowfinger, Dick, 10 Things I Hate About You, Arlington Road, Man on the Moon, The Dreamlife of Angels, Romance, Payback.

The result was a highly influential set of films that would not only change filmmaking but also set the tone for the 21st century. You had directors making these highly inventive films, reshaping the language of cinema, and infusing some much-needed energy to the medium. It was a watershed moment, and people seem to forget that this was also the year The Sopranos—maybe the best series ever made—premiered on HBO.

Roger Ebert summed up the year pretty well that year:

The Telluride and Toronto festivals had already started lobbing in great new films, and by the time I saw “Being John Malkovich” and “Three Kings” early in October, it was clear that Hollywood’s hounds of creativity had been set loose and were running free. The last four months of 1999 were a rich and exciting time for moviegoers—there were so many wonderful films that for the first time in a long time, it was hard to keep up.

So, no, 1999 isn’t being overhyped. It truly is the bee’s knees. Best movie year ever? I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s certainly up there. Is there any other modern-era year that even came remotely close? I present to you the next best option: 2007.

No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Zodiac, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, The Assassination of Jesse James, Superbad, Michael Clayton, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Ratatouille, The Mist, American Gangster, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Sweeney Todd, Juno, Death Proof, Eastern Promises, Persepolis, The Bourne Ultimatum, The Darjeeling Limited, Black Book, Syndromes and a Century, Into the Wild, Knocked Up, The Host.

Hard to believe it’s already been 15 years since we got a seminal cinematic year like this one. Will we ever again? I’m —naively— hopeful. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but 2007, the final year of the long and never-ending nightmare that was the Bush administration, seemed to bring out very dark and unflinching statements from filmmakers.

One can legitimately claim that 2007 gives 1999 a run for its money. Remember, this was the year when Paul Thomas Anderson, Joel Coen, and David Fincher released perhaps the best films of their respective careers.

Ultimately, years like 1999 and 2007 now feel like anomalies. Whether we ever see another year like them is beside the point. What matters is that they happened at all—and that the movies are still chasing the standard they set.