Not sure about the dates, but here goes.
Sunrise: 1927
City Lights: 1931
All Quiet on the Western Front: 1931
The Public Enemy: 1932
King Kong: 1933
It Happened One Night: 1934
Swing Time: 1936
A Night at the Opera: 1936
Only Angels Have Wings: 1939
The Hunchback of Notre Dame: 1939
The Grapes of Wrath: 1940
Citizen Kane: 1941
The Lady Eve: 1941
Casablanca: 1942
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon: 1947
How is it that so many more great movies were made prior to 1950 than after? Is it just me?
A Night at the Opera: 1936
How could I have forgotten that one? Probably one of my top 5 all-time favorites!
My grandfather played a German officer in that movie. I am ashamed to say that I have never seen it. I really need to buy it.
1939 was probably the best year for so many excellent movies.
Because TV was starting to ruin movies. Before TV, all of the talent and money went into movies. As TV grew, things got dispersed.
It is just you, IMO, as great as many pre-1950 movies were. If I made a list of my most favorite films of all, it would be dominated by post-1950 films (but with a large minority of pre-1950 films from the like of Welles, Chaplin, Keaton, Hitchcock, Ford, Huston, etc.). Andrei Tarkovsky believed that the best and most interesting films would be made after the first half of the 20th century. I can’t imagine A Clockwork Orange, 8 1/2, Eraserhead, Brazil, or Fargo made in the thirties or forties.