Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens
10 Years
For better or worse, in 2015 the newest era of Star Wars kicked off under Disney’s supervision. I’m not going to tell anyone how to feel about Disney’s stewardship of Star Wars in the near-decade since (y’all can argue that in the comments, which I will not be reading), but I still remember the excitement of a new beginning for this long-running series back then.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
15 Years
Despite underperforming at the box office, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World has become an object of cult fascination for geeks everywhere. The cult for this film has grown so much in 15 years that in 2023 Netflix commissioned a new animated take on the material called Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, which starred many of the same actors as the 2010 live-action film.
Most of all though is how the film represented a major upgrade in visuals and budget for its director, Edgar Wright. His previous films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz were great, but they had nowhere near the budget of a film like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which allowed Wright to push his trademark style to extreme heights.
Batman Begins
20 Years
It’s funny to look back on Batman Begins from a strictly contemporary perspective. In 2005, it cost $150 million and made $375 million, making it a profitable venture but hardly a super-hit. For additional context, Batman Begins was the 10th highest-grossing film of 2005 worldwide, beaten by Hitch, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, King Kong, Madagascar, War of the Worlds, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Yet, Batman Begins was the moment that Christopher Nolan got his foot into the door of blockbuster-level filmmaking, a moment that has changed the 20 years of mainstream movies since.
(Also, yes, all of the other movies that beat Batman Begins are also turning 20 years old, consider all of those as bonus entries.)
X-Men
25 Years
Pinpointing the exact moment that comic book movies took hold of popular culture is an impossible task, but X-Men is absolutely part of that history. Besides establishing Hugh Jackman as a movie star, all X-Men movies in the 25 years since have been living in the shadow of casting Ian McKellen as Magneto and Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier too. These three actors have become the defacto live-action castings for these characters, and it’s going to be a while before anyone can replace them.
To the credit of Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, they did a great job playing younger versions of Magneto and Professor X, but who knows who’s ever going to take the impossible job of playing another version of Wolverine.
Se7en
30 Years
Besides inspiring three decades of “What’s in the box” jokes, Se7en was also the movie that truly established David Fincher as a heavyweight director. Sure, this wasn’t his first movie, that would be Alien 3, but Se7en was the first movie Fincher made where he was able to fulfill his perfectionist vision of filmmaking. People still imitate the aesthetics of Fincher films, and I doubt that’ll change at all in 2025.
Heat
30 Years
When Heat was released in 1995, it was mainly marketed on the fact that it was the first time Robert De Niro and Al Pacino faced off in a movie together. Sure, they’d been in The Godfather Part II together, but in different timelines where they never met. Heat ended up being a lot more than just an actor match-up, but a sprawling crime epic whose centerpiece heist and aftermath of urban combat has influenced every single crime movie made in its wake.
Michael Mann made great movies before Heat and after Heat, but none of his movies have become part of pop culture DNA the way Heat has.
Toy Story
30 Years
Get ready for a lot of people born in the 1990s to have their brains melted by the fact that Toy Story is turning 30 years old in 2025.
Toy Story is arguably one of the most historically significant films in this entire lineup, it is definitively the first computer-animated feature-length film ever made. It also made sure that the name “Pixar” wasn’t just a division of Industrial Light and Magic that George Lucas sold off in the 1980s while going through box office flops and a divorce, but an animation studio that changed the world of entertainment as we know it.
Back to the Future
40 Years
Two major cinematic legacies were forged here. One is obviously Michael J. Fox, whose transition from TV star to movie star was meteoric. The other though was director Robert Zemeckis. While Zemeckis had already directed at least one box office hit with Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future gave him the freedom to pursue some of the most ambitious blockbuster movies ever made.
Sure, that freedom led Zemeckis to do his damnedest to tarnish his legacy with motion-capture abominations in the 2000s and 2010s, but before that,t we got some truly great films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit too.
The Goonies
40 Years
The sheer number of talented people who worked on The Goonies is goddamn ridiculous when you list it all out. You have a screenplay from Chris Columbus and Steven Spielberg, you have Richard Donner as the director, and you have Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Corey Feldman, Joe Pantoliano, and Ke Huy Quan in the cast. It’s no wonder that this odd bit of alchemy was a smash hit in its time and one that’s maintained a following 40 years later.
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure
40 Years
This might seem like an odd movie to include in a “cinematic anniversary” post, but don’t forget that Pee-wee’s Big Adventure was the feature-length film debut of Tim Burton. Without the success of this film, you don’t get Beetlejuice, the 1989 Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, and so much more that’s echoed out into film history. Plus, this movie is still a madcap blast of creativity that’s still a joy to watch.
Airplane!
45 Years
There were parody films before Airplane!, but parody films were not the same after Airplane!. This is a movie that changed comedy filmmaking forever and also established Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker as moviemaking legends who built up their comedy legacies to greater and greater heights.
Jaws
50 Years
Movies can change the world, even movies that have come out in the last few years can change the world for a while, but how long does that change last? How far does a movie’s legacy reach beyond its release?
A movie that doesn’t have to ask itself these questions is Jaws. 50 years ago, Jaws changed the world, and the changes it brought have not been undone in half a century. Steven Spielberg ascended the ladder to become one of the most important directors in film history, people still have hangups about swimming in the ocean thanks to Jaws, and its financial success rewired the entire international filmmaking business. Simply put, there are few American films as important to the world as Jaws.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
50 Years
The cult film to end all cult films is turning 50 years old in 2025. The midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show didn’t begin in 1975, but by 1976 it became a midnight classic.
I think about the fact that any time I hear about a movie getting a cult following and persistent screenings, those films are always compared to Rocky Horror, without fail. When The Room was becoming a cult hit, people compared those screenings to Rocky Horror. When Cats became an object of in-theater ridicule and fascination, people invoked Rocky Horror. When people think of a cult movie you dress up to see in a theater, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is still the movie people mention. That’s how you know a movie has a true legacy, when its name essentially becomes terminology for how we understand entertainment.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
50 Years
When I was a kid, during summers my parents took up my time by having me participate in a theater program run by our city’s parks and recreation department. This was when I met other kids who’d seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and I’m not exaggerating when I say we would all reenact scenes from this film, line-for-line, word-for-word, all without missing a single beat. I’d guess that between all of the kids in that summer program, we could have recited the entire movie.
That’s what Monty Python and the Holy Grail does, it is so infinitely quotable and memorable that it instantly buries itself in your brain. It’s no wonder it’s continued to do this 50 years later.
Rashomon
75 Years
We’re jumping farther into the past to commemorate a great movie you may not have heard of, but you should.
Rashomon is a Japanese film from Akira Kurosawa, one of the greatest directors who ever lived. His film Seven Samurai is one of the most influential films made anywhere in the world, and so is Rashomon. If you’ve ever watched a movie or a TV show that’s about multiple perspectives on a crime, then you’ve felt the influence of Rashomon. But Rashomon’s imitators often breeze past this bleak samurai story’s dark ambiguity and willingness to straight-up lie to its audience. I feel lucky to live in a world where Rashomon wasn’t lost to history and can celebrate 75 years of influencing films.
Fantasia
85 Years
Fantasia is my personal favorite film of all time. I truly have no idea how Walt Disney thought it was a good idea to make a two hour animated movie mostly free of dialogue set to classical music, but I’m sure glad he did. I’ve had the joy of seeing Fantasia twice in theaters now, and even when I watch it at home I’m awestruck by its beauty and creativity in every single thing it attempts. If you asked me to only preserve one film from the history of Disney, I wouldn’t even blink in picking Fantasia. It is by far the most artistically ambitious film in its entire history, even 85 years later.
Bride of Frankenstein
90 Years
Any true fan of the Universal monster films of the 1930s knows a dark truth: That Bride of Frankenstein is a better movie than the 1931 film it’s a sequel to. While the 1931 film absolutely has its place in history, Bride of Frankenstein had the freedom to make up its own story while still retaining the talents of the 1931 film’s director, James Whale, and much of the 1931 film’s cast as well.
The end result is a sequel that’s playful while still maintaining some of the 1931 film’s darkest ideas. If you’ve never seen this film, then 2025 is the year to correct that mistake.
Battleship Potemkin
100 Years
Before anyone points it out, yes, Battleship Potemkin is absolutely a propaganda film produced by the Soviet Union.
It is also one of the most important and influential movies ever made by anyone in the world. Director Sergei Eisenstein is often credited with the concept of the “montage.” Let that sit for a moment, a concept as common to us now as a montage had to be invented by someone, and Eisenstein was undoubtedly one of its pioneers, and it’s certainly present in Battleship Potemkin.
That’s all without mentioning the legendary Odessa Steps massacre sequence, which has been parodied for decades and decades since 1925. Battleship Potemkin’s legacy cannot be erased, it is one of the films of the silent era that the entirety of film history rests upon. It’s truly incredible that this film will be a century old by December of 2025.
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