Film (Napoleon's World)

The following is a list of films from different decades, starting in the 1890's with the Einschraft brothers' perfection of the moving film image. Due to the dominance of Hollywood

1930's
The 1930's are referred to often as the Golden Age of Hollywood - the first major studios were formed in the late 1920's and as a result the Thirties, alongside the booming economy nationwide, led to the exponential growth of Hollywood both as a center of entertainment, an economic driver in Los Angeles and the state of California, and as a source of crime, corruption and greed as financial power in the region gradually began to rest with the film studios and alliances were built with organized crime figures in LA.

1940's
The 1940's were the Age of Vision - the Big Four (United, Peterson-Maasch-Rigors/PMR, Pacific Print and Dooley Brothers) Studios produced more big-budget, mass-entertainment films that experimented with full color, a new epic scope, and the Walt Disney Animation Studio produced unheard-of big-budget animated feature films based on classic fairytales - for example, Walt Disney's Little Red Riding Hood was the highest grossing film of 1945. The end of the decade saw the emergence of film stars such as Jack Kennedy, Peter O'Neill, Grant Kerouac, and Don Sorenson, who would become known as "America's Favorite Gentlemen" during the 1950's.

1950's
After the studio power grew out of control in the 1940's and Hollywood became a political and criminal battlefield much like any monopolized institution, the 1950's saw the much-maligned Film and Motion Picture Regulation Act by the State of California in 1953. It resulted in several smaller studios folding and the Big Four actually only growing in power. This Age of Regulation was dominated by America's Favorite Gentlemen, whose films, combined throughout the decade, grossed the equivalent of the United States' GDP during some years. The war movie and the Western became staples of the film genre during this decade, especially starting in 1954 with Grant Kerouac's Scoundrels at Sea and Don Sorenson's ''Cheyenne. ''The French film industry also boomed during this decade, due to an easing of restrictions on creative artists by the Sebastienite regiem.

1960's
The 1960's are known as the Dark Age of Hollywood - the overregulation of the film industry was driving work out of California to places like New York, Texas, Cuba and the Pacific Northwest. Jack Kennedy's seminal work, Oahu, became the highest-grossing film of all time in 1962 and swept the Academy Awards, holding the record for ticket sales until 1978's Star Wars. Besides Oahu, however, the 60's were considered a bleak age in Hollywood and several studios grew desperate towards the end of the decade. The French and Japanese film industries continued to grow in the wake of Hollywood's decline, and these foreign films were often imported and either dubbed or subtitled in the United States.

1970's
When California Robert Redford deregulated the film industry in 1972, within years Hollywood was booming again in the Hollywood Renaissance - the 1970's produced more legendary films than any other decade. France and Japan benefitted from this as well, and the English film industry began to develop due to the contributions made in studio infrastructure by American-based Crown Pictures' Martin Jones series, which began production in the mid-1970's. Dirty Boys, Star Wars and Thieves are all iconic films born out of the Hollywood Renaissance that are still popular culture favorites today.
 * An Average Citizen (1973): The third film directed by Jack Kennedy, An Average Citizen would be the first of many films to explore the race tensions in Covenant, Ark., the so-called "Negro Capital of America." Set in Covenant in the late 1940's and early 1950's, the film details the struggle between rival crime groups "more powerful in their ethnic community than Chicago's greatest mafiosos and Havana's most entrenched padrons." A rare black FBI investigator (played by Douglas Carter in his breakout role) is assigned to inflitrate the larger of the two groups, the mighty Foster Family that predated Boss Bobby in the late Twenties. Carter's character, Sam, is seduced by the underworld of Covenant's black community, and the film plays off of his loyalty to his African-American heritage and his loyalty to the FBI, which is clearly a racist organization. The film won Best Picture, Best Director and Carter became only the second black actor to ever win the Best Actor award.
 * Thieves
 * Showdown L.A. (1975): A surprisingly successful action comedy about a martial arts-oriented cop in '60s Los Angeles. Starring Kim Jong-il as Const. Johnny Lee, the movie was about the troubles of containing L.A.'s gangs. The titular showdown is a massive gang fight between African-American and Hispanic gangs. Lee is part of a special police force chosen to suppress this. Showdown L.A. was noted for its huge fight scenes and demonstrations of free-running and acrobatics. It won Kim his first Best Actor and the Best Comedy awards at the Oscars. Despite its comedic preset, the movie dove into much deeper themes. It explored corruption in the L.A.P.D., gang violence, the drug trade, and racism in the lower classes.
 * Dirty Boys
 * Saturday Night Fever (1977): In the role that launched John Travolta into stardom, it's the story of a Brooklyn boy who wants to escape Brooklyn to Manhattan and experience a new life, for which Travolta was nominated for an Academy Award. The film was notable for its stark portrayal of working-class urban realities in what was otherwise called the "Sunny Seventies," an era when everyone was thought to be swimming in expendable cash. The film is also memorable for its disco scenes and soundtrack, making it a popular culture staple.
 * Star Wars (1978): Breaking what was thought to be the insurmountable box-office ceiling set by Oahu for sixteen years, George Lucas' Star Wars became the highest grossing movie of all time, earning nearly a billion dollars worldwide - a gross that would itself not be broken until 1993's Jurassic Park. Starring John Travolta as the young protagonist Luke Skywalker, Carrie Fisher as the Princess Jia and then-unknown Chevy Chase as the daring adventurer Han Solo, the film follows the exploits of the Luke and Solo as they try to save Jia from the Galactic Empire (which was blatantly modelled after the French Empire), with the wise old Robert Evans playing Ben Kenobi, Luke's mentor. The film set a new industry standard for special effects and was nominated for nine Academy Awards, and cemented not only Travolta's role as an international superstar, but jettisoned Fisher and Gere into stardom as well.

1980's
With the Brazilian War and economic depression marking the beginning of the decade, Hollywood fared surprisingly well, and by the time the war ended in 1984 and the economy began to recover the same year, Hollywood was back to normal, although it was also feeling the backlash of deregulation - studios that had started up in the 1970's were collapsing due to the oversaturation of competition, and PMR actually closed and was divided up six ways, effectively ending the age of the Big Four. The '80's also featured the return of the long declining Edison Company to prominence after it purchased United Studios and the largest portion of PMR. The late 1980's were known for their "every man for himself" lifestyle, which did not really end until the stability of the industry in the ensuing decade. In Japan, it is considered the Golden Age of Osaka, the city from which the Japanese film industry is primarily based, driven by action film directors such as Hiro Hasuke and Kinechi Aso, dramatic director Hitoshi Nobunaga (whose films won five straight Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film from 1982-86) and Japanese animation (anime) director Hayao Miyazaki. France experienced a renaissance of its own film industry as the culture libre dominated the culture of the decade, and Hawaii's film industry burgeoned as Hollywood and Osaka studios filmed pictures in the islands due to low cost and existing infrastructure, and Turkey began developing a serious film industry as well.
 * Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
 * Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
 * Shogun (1983): Based on the James Clavell epic, the four-hour long film was shot entirely on location in Japan and helmed by Japanese director Kinechi Aso, and included English actor Roger Moore as the chief protagonist Blackthorne, and most of the most well-known actors in Japan at the time. It even included Korean-American actor Kim Jong-Il, best known for his martial arts films, in a medium-sized role. Shogun won eight Academy Awards, including Best Actor (Moore), Best Director (Aso), Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.
 * The Jungle
 * The Vicar and the Virgin
 * Death Train
 * Screen
 * The Story of America Trilogy: The "Story of America" series is regarded as not only the best three crime films ever made, but some of the best American films ever made. Directed by Hollywood legend George Deacon, the trilogy concerns three generations of the Scariane family - from the patriarch, Carmine, who builds an empire in the violent immigrant ghettoes of the early 1900's in Coming to America, to his son Alphonse who is trying to balance an ever-entangled web of crime in the 1930's through 50's in An American's Story, and with the conclusion in The American Dream, following the collapse of the Scariane crime family during the excesses of the late 1960's and 1970's, headlined by Carmine's grandson, Vincent. The first two films both won Best Picture and the third film, while considered a strong ending to the series, only netted Best Director. During the 1980's, the series launched the career of dozens of actors and cemented the place in cinematic history for actors already established in the field. The 1982, 1985 and 1989 films were considered the high point of moviemaking in the 1980's - when later asked why the 80's were so good, critic Roger Ebert responded: "Because that's when the Story of America was filmed." The first and second entries in the trilogy are ranked as the #2 and #5 best American films ever made, and the third part is ranked at #20 by Film Magazine, the most prestigious film periodical in the world.

1990's
The Age of the Action Movie began as the action genre emerged in the 1990's. Along with this, Hollywood saw a significant increase in the amount of dramatic films being released, and an animated film won Best Picture for the first time. Jurassic Park set the all-time box office record in 1993, computer-generated effects advanced rapidly and Hollywood's leading stars began to attract a larger and larger celebrity and tabloid following than ever before, cultimating in the 1997 blockbuster, Titanesque, directed by James Cameron, based on the infamous disaster of the ship by the same name. The film, staring Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt, as an American immigrant an a upper-French class passenger, respectively, would not beat Jurassic Park, but would earn $1.2 Billion dollars anyway, and win 10 Academy Awards, out of a possible 14 nominations, and make it one of the most acclaimed movies of all time.
 * Jurassic Park
 * The Lion King
 * Business
 * Welcome to Hollywood
 * Sebastien
 * Titanesque
 * The Matrix

2000's
The 2000's saw several notable shifts in Hollywood filmmaking - first, there was an increasing reliance on CGI in films, as computer-generated technology advanced to previously unseen levels. Due to changing technology, the "experimental art" genre ballooned from its niche status in the mid-1990's, and independent film studios boomed in the early and middle parts of the decade. Foreign films, particularly in France, began to grow in their internal markets, but the 2000's re-established Hollywood's dominance as the major studio system enjoyed its highest-grossing decade since the 1950's.
 * Batman vs. Superman: A 2002 ensemble superhero film that revived interest in the genre by taking a more realistic, serious approach the medium. Starring Nick Gross, John Cusack and Natalie Weaver, the film was directed by Jake McCoy and Jurassic Park director Pat Alden and was the highest grossing film of 2002, and helped push the success of similar films during the 2000's, including 2005's Batman Begins and 2006's Superman Returns.
 * The Matrix Reloaded
 * The Matrix Revolutions
 * The Watchers
 * Burrard
 * Blood and Money: Michael Stern earned his third Best Director award and directed his third Best Picture winner in his dark 2007 film about the battle for supremacy in Covenant between two rival black gangs following Boss Bobby's death in the 1930's, while a powerful group of Russian immigrants attempt to stake out their own claim, all whilst a predictably racist Southern police force does battle against all three. It was headlined by actors such as Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donovan McNabb, Barry Obama, Michael Douglas, Timothy Dalton, Tom Brady, Ryan Curran, Shep Shumacher, Jasmine Petrie, and Nancy Fulton. The film also won Best Actor (Ejiofor), Best Supporting Actor (McNabb), Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Costume Design, and Best Cinematography. The film was the third-highest grossing film of 2007 and the only one of the top six grossing films released in the winter, and was also a major milestone as the first time that black actors had won both Best Actor awards in the same year.
 * Avatar

2010's

 * Alice in Wonderland-
 * Inception- A Science Fiction film starring Tom Brady as Dominic Cobb, a thief who specializes in stealing secrets from his victims by infiltrating their dreams. Cobb must perform one final job for a wealthy Japanese businessman - infiltrate the dreams of a competitor and plant an idea, as opposed to extracting one: this process, known as 'inception,' is regarded as impossible, although Cobb insists he has achieved it before. Cobb gathers an international team of extractors to embark on the one final mission, but he must battle his own memories of his dead wife just as much as the dangers of his mark's subconscious.