A few days ago I published the final installment of the “One year, one film” series, where I’ve put the spotlight on one film from each year, 1925 through 1965, comparing my own praises for each film with contemporary newspaper and magazine reviews. As is common practice for special projects on TMP, today I’ll be sharing a wrap-up to look back on the 41 films featured in this series.

First, a list of all of the posts:

Of these 41 films, 24 were marked by me as “must-see” flicks, with 16 “highly recommended” and just one flat recommendation (1952’s Moulin Rouge).

Of course, this series has not only been about sharing my own film recommendations, but about seeing how contemporary critics reviewed these films. While writing the “One year, one film” series, I felt like the critics disagreed with my evaluations of these films quite often. In fact, the opposite is true: a majority of the posts showed my alignment with the critics, on reflection.

Twenty-three of the films received positive or generally favorable reviews from the contemporary newspapers and fan mags — about 56%. Fifteen of the films nabbed mixed reviews, the negative comments usually coming from Bosley Crowther, eternally grumpy New York Times critic. Much to my surprise, only three of the films I chose to highlight in this series found the critics in complete disagreement with me. These were The Wind (1928), Glorifying the American Girl (1929), and The Tall Target (1951) — a shockingly low 7% of the films featured!

As mentioned in the 1965 post, I plan on continuing a series like this, though it will have a different name than “One year, one film” and won’t run in chronological order. These posts will fall under the banner of “The Critical Eye” and will begin on a bi-weekly basis in September, since the Sundays of August will be occupied by TCM Summer Under the Stars recommendations.

Thanks for stickin’ with me through this lengthy project. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it!