The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever

Tristan Ettleman

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever features experts and enthusiasts and, well, their favorite films of every year ever. Host Tristan Ettleman sits down with a new guest every week to dive into the history and beauty of some of the best movies to ever come out of the cinematic medium.

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106 episodes
Updated Wednesday
Explicit

Episodes106

Newest first

Oct 22, 2025 · 1 hr 1 min
1908 E3 - Don McHoull
Don McHoull is the creator of https://bsky.app/profile/silentmoviegifs.bsky.social, first on Twitter and now Bluesky. He has found viral success with striking images throughout silent film history, and with his picks, he similarly finds comedy,...
Oct 15, 2025 · 1 hr 2 min
1908 E2 - Tracey Goessel
Author and preservationist Tracey Goessel is the founder of https://www.filmpreservationsociety.org/ and is in the thick of restoring all of the D.W. Griffith Biograph films. So it makes sense that she selects two films he made in his first year of...
Oct 8, 2025 · 6 min
1908 E1 - Yes, Griffith Is Here
The beginning of D.W. Griffith’s directorial career looms large for 1908, with past seasons referring to the upcoming “Griffith era” and behind-the-scenes conversations with potential guests featuring requests to reach back out around this period of...
Oct 1, 2025 · 5 min
1907 E7 - Old Styles Reign Supreme
Some already old-school genres, from the chase film to the vaudeville recreation to the traveling actuality, made a good showing in the most selected films for this 1907 season. But the unique array of picks, among the most diverse list of films for...
Sep 24, 2025 · 1 hr
1907 E6 - Randy Haberkamp
Film historian Randy Haberkamp just recently retired as the Executive Vice President of the Library, Archive and Sci-Tech for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where he held various positions for 23 years. With that experience in film...
Sep 17, 2025 · 49 min
1907 E5 - Agata Frymus
Agata Frymus, Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Monash University Malaysia, selects mostly comic films to represent 1907. But by rounding out her selections with an (only maybe regrettably?) lost historical drama and the first Japanese...
Sep 10, 2025 · 50 min
1907 E4 - Sean Guinan
Filmmaker and musician Sean Guinan has an eye for the surreal, as exhibited by his TikTok channel https://www.tiktok.com/@misterdobbs. With that in mind, his selections cover a lot of topical and aesthetic ground, from eroticism and over-the-top...
Sep 3, 2025 · 57 min
1907 E3 - Liz Clarke
Three of Associate Professor at Brock University Liz Clarke’s picks are defined by a sort of morbid delight. But with a cuddlier creature and the colonizing gaze represented in her other two selections, the conversation reveals more layers of the...
Aug 27, 2025 · 1 hr 22 min
1907 E2 - Matt Page
Film historian Matt Page has been researching film adaptations of the Bible for over 20 years. And yet only one of his picks for 1907 stems from that source and this wide-ranging conversation also reaches chases, tricks, and more. Matt is the author...
Aug 20, 2025 · 6 min
1907 E1 - Studios, Legal Battles, Criticism, Oh My!
1907, somewhat unlike the past couple years covered on this show, is chock-full of historical developments with details that are fun to plumb. But exploring the legal battles, studio foundings, and trade journal publications of the year just sets up...
Aug 13, 2025 · 5 min
1906 E7 - A Trip Down History Lane
Maybe it’s just Tristan who is surprised by the film that topped this season’s collective list. But its inclusion at all, and its ubiquity in submitters' lists, reflects that the balance of narrative and actuality is not quite as heavily weighted in...
Aug 6, 2025 · 52 min
1906 E6 - Coraline Refort
Most of the picks from Coraline Refort, postdoc fellow at University of Sassari, offer exciting readings through the lens of feminism. But she also examines an animation milestone and a microcosm of film tricks up to 1906. At University of Sassari,...
Jul 30, 2025 · 1 hr 17 min
1906 E5 - Joshua Yumibe
Michigan State University professor Joshua Yumibe has spent much of his research career examining color in silent film (and beyond). Having that particular lens, it makes sense that all of his picks contain some aspect of color, most of them quite...
Jul 23, 2025 · 1 hr
1906 E4 - Oliver Gaycken
Oliver Gaycken, Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, has a particular interest in early cinema and popular science. That perspective is brought to bear on most of his five picks, including both fiction and nonfiction films....
Jul 16, 2025 · 55 min
1906 E3 - Mario Slugan
Mario Slugan, Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, has literally written https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/fiction-and-imagination-in-early-cinema-9781350115682/. With that background and research in mind, he selects four films that may fit...
Jul 9, 2025 · 46 min
1906 E2 - Carl Bennett
Carl Bennett, publisher and editor of http://silentera.com, has run the crucial resource covering the first decades of film since 1999. He selects five films reflecting the growing trend of narrativization of cinema, with one notable exception in his...
Jul 2, 2025 · 3 min
1906 E1 - Firsts and Finance
From changes in distribution and exhibition to formal firsts (with caveats), 1906 carries just a few pieces of oft-cited film history. But this season, on a year that is still very much part of cinema's earliest growth spurts, illustrates the...
Jun 18, 2025 · 5 min
1905 E7 - The Experiments Continue
While the “nickelodeon boom” began in the United States and the global film industry was standardizing certain production elements, many of the conversations for this 1905 season turned to how wide the modes of moviemaking still were, resulting in...
Jun 11, 2025 · 41 min
1905 E6 - Mary Mallory
Film historian and author Mary Mallory has written five books about cinematic yesteryear. With her research of past traditions and underappreciated figures in mind, Mary selects some films that reflect the intermediality of early film and its basis in...
Jun 4, 2025 · 47 min
1905 E5 - Chris O'Rourke
Chris O’Rourke, Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick, explores the early history of film acting, stardom and fandom in Britain up to the end of the silent era in his book...

The 5 Best Films of Every Year Ever

1908 E3 - Don McHoull

1908 E2 - Tracey Goessel

1908 E1 - Yes, Griffith Is Here

1907 E7 - Old Styles Reign Supreme

1907 E6 - Randy Haberkamp

1907 E5 - Agata Frymus

1907 E4 - Sean Guinan

1907 E3 - Liz Clarke

1907 E2 - Matt Page

1907 E1 - Studios, Legal Battles, Criticism, Oh My!

1906 E7 - A Trip Down History Lane

1906 E6 - Coraline Refort

1906 E5 - Joshua Yumibe

1906 E4 - Oliver Gaycken

1906 E3 - Mario Slugan

1906 E2 - Carl Bennett

1906 E1 - Firsts and Finance

1905 E7 - The Experiments Continue

1905 E6 - Mary Mallory

1905 E5 - Chris O'Rourke