The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

93. 1933 - King Kong

King Kong 1933
RKO

Honourable Mentions: Baby Face, Duck Soup, The Invisible Man

King Kong was a revolutionary picture when it premiered in 1933, and the technical effects wizardry on display still doesn't fail to impress almost a century later. In fact, even with a further two US remakes in mind, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack's original still stands out as the eeriest and most atmospheric (give or take the occasional meat-loving herbivore that picks off our wayward expedition).

The use of miniatures, stop motion, and rear projection conjures a version of Skull Island that is totally uncanny - a monochrome vision of primordial peril that pushed the boundaries of how far the movies could go in transporting us to complete fantasy. Many filmmakers have tried with great affection to replicate that sense of discovery and fear, but the original is the only true eighth wonder of the world.

 
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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.