The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

74. 1952 - Singin' In The Rain

Singin In The Rain
MGM

Honourable Mentions: High Noon, Ikiru, The Quiet Man

Singin' in the Rain exemplifies pure joy - the cinematic equivalent of a warm blanket draped around your shoulders on a crisp spring day. Gene Kelly co-directed, choreographed and starred in the film about silent movie stars transitioning into the talkie era, and birthed arguably the definitive Hollywood musical in the process.

It's thoroughly resplendent viewing - an ode to expression and happiness at a time of dour conformity. Its technical merits alone make it essential viewing, but placed within that historical context, Kelly and Stanley Donen's film makes for as much of a spirited refutation of the times as Stanley Kramer's High Noon.

 
Posted On: 
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.