What Was The Most Talked-About Film In The Year You Were Born?

Disney's fairytale princess par excellence waltzed her way to the top of the international box office in 1950, glass slippers and all.

Set in the infamous Barnum & Bailey's travelling circus and starring Charlton Heston and Betty Hutton, The Greatest Show on Earth also netted an Academy Award for Best Picture.

A sweeping historical drama set in ancient Rome during the final years of Emperor Nero, Quo Vadis was such a runaway success that it was credited with turning round the fortunes of the ailing MGM Studios.

Disney's version of the boy who never grew up captivated moviegoers in 1953.

Rear Window has all the classic Hitchcock hallmarks: obsession, voyeurism, claustrophobia and a glacial blonde leading lady in Grace Kelly.

Disney's canine romance won over film fans in their droves. Was it the spaghetti scene? Probably.

Fifties moviegoers loved a biblical epic, it seems: this one told the story of Moses (around 40 years before The Prince of Egypt...)

Loosely based on the true tale of Allied prisoners tasked with building the bridge of the title in Myanmar, this WWII drama won seven Oscars.

The screen version of Rogers and Hammerstein's hit musical tells the story of a nurse who falls in love with a French plantation owner while posted on an island in the (yep) South Pacific during WWII.

Still one of the biggest films of all time (15,000 extras were required for the famous chariot scene alone), Ben Hur is perhaps the most memorable epic of the 1950s.

A family is shipwrecked off the coast of Papua New Guinea in this second screen adaptation of a popular Swiss novel.

Pongo, Perdita and their many, many offspring, plus super-villainess Cruella DeVil, are still among Disney's most enduring cartoon creations today.

This Western epic follows four generations of the same family as they travel 'out west,' starring a veritable who's who of Hollywood's old guard: Henry Fonda, Gregory Peck, John Wayne and Debbie Reynolds.

Notorious for its troubled production, Cleopatra kick-started one of the most famous Hollywood romances of all time between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton (both of whom were married to other people at the time of filming...)

One of the best-loved films of all time, Mary Poppins didn't just top the world box office in 1964 - it was also the only Disney production to garner a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars during Walt's lifetime.

How do you solve a problem like Maria? By topping the international box office and winning the Best Picture Academy Award, probably.

Perhaps the lesser known film in this Julie Andrews hat trick, Hawaii sees her star opposite Swedish actor Max von Sydow as a missionary's wife.

Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera and co danced onto our screens in 1967, in what is still the definitive film version of Kipling's tale.

Barbara Streisand reprised her stage role as comedian Fanny Brice in Funny Girl opposite Omar Sharif as her con artist husband Nicky Arnstein.

Paul Newman and Robert Redford star as the titular pair of Wild West outlaws in this 1969 Western-slash-buddy-comedy.

'Love means never having to say you're sorry...' Just the opening notes of Francis Lai's theme from Love Story are enough to reduce us to tears.

In amongst the big hitters and the classics, the box office list still has a few surprises: one of them is this 1971 movie, starring, directed and co-written by Tom Laughlin.

The first installment of Francis Ford Coppola's three-part gangster saga (based on Mario Puzo's best-selling novel) earned $134 million at the box office.

Still as terrifying today as it was upon its 1973 debut, The Exorcist has been much-imitated but remains one of the all time classics of horror movie-making.

A satirical comedy by Mel Brooks, Blazing Saddles parodies all the classic elements of the Western genre, turning them on their head to anarchic effect.

Dun dun. Dunn dunnnnn. Jaws was the perhaps the first 'blockbuster': a nerve-shredding summer release with mass appeal that defined its own genre.

Sylvester Stallone was pretty much a Hollywood unknown before striking lucky with his script for Rocky, the underdog story of a small time boxer making a big comeback.

You had us at 'A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…' George Lucas' 1977 _Star Wars (_later given the suffix of Episode IV: A New Hope) laid the foundations for one of the most popular (and lucrative) franchises of all time.

It's the film that's inspired many ill-advised karaoke choices and filled many wedding dance floors: Grease was definitely the word in 1978, when the world fell in love with Olivia Newton John's Sandy and John Travolta's Danny.

Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep play a divorcing couple locked in a custody battle in Kramer vs. Kramer, for which Meryl won her first Oscar (for Best Supporting Actress).

Responsible for one of the most iconic (and misquoted) lines in film history (that's 'No, I am your father' in case you hadn't guessed), Empire Strikes Back is darker and more sophisticated than the first Star Wars installment.

Everyone's favourite Nazi-fighting archaeologist burst onto the big screen in 1981. In this first installment, Indy is tasked with hunting down the Ark of the Covenant before German agents get there first...

One of the most enduring images in movie history? A bike silhouetted against the moon as it soars through space, ET safely ensconced in the basket.

1983In this post-Phantom Menace world, the Ewoks don't seem quite so egregious, do they? Endor's teddy-bear guerillas might have got sneered at, but they shouldn't blind us to Jedi's assets: the explosive team-re-gathering opening; the crazily high-speed forest chase; and that marvellously edited three-way climactic battle that dextrously flipped us between lightsabers, spaceships and a ferocious (albeit fuzzy) forest conflict.Read Empire's review of Return Of The JediBuy the film here

Who you gonna call? Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Dan Ackroyd - New York's least likely team of supernatural exterminators - apparently...

Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) takes an accidental trip back to 1955 courtesy of a time-travelling DeLorean: cue attempts to retcon his parents' marriage (and a faintly creepy sub-plot involving his mom...)

Tom Cruise cemented his star status with his role as US pilot Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell - and sparked a trend for aviator sunglasses in the process...

The title says it all: three blokes (as played by Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg and Ted Danson) have their lives turned upside down when a baby arrives on their doorstep.

Dustin Hoffman won the Best Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of a man with Asperger's Syndrome; while pop culture representations have become more nuanced since 1988, Rain Man was hailed as ground-breaking at the time.

Michael Keaton goes head to head with Jack Nicholson's Joker in his first outing as Gotham's caped crusader, directed by Tim Burton.

How did we inaugurate the festive season before Home Alone came along? Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals...

With enchanting animation and songs courtesy of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, Beauty and the Beast became the first animated feature to earn a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards.

Disney topped the international box office for the second year running with Aladdin, featuring a scene-stealing turn by Robin Williams as the all-singing, all-dancing Genie.

Spielberg again, still with big toothy beasties, but this time tackling Michael Crichton's thriller about genetic tinkering and dinos run amok. Another winner that boils the book down to a thrill ride that also has memorable characters.Buy the book at Amazon****Buy the movie at Amazon

With its Shakespeare-stealing plot (a devious Uncle, the death of a beloved father - this is Hamlet with lions), Elton John songs and lovable cast of characters, The Lion King is encapsulates the best of Disney's '90s renaissance.

Pixar's debut full-length film and the first ever computer animated feature, Toy Story was a game-changer on its release in 1995. Since then, it's inspired two critically acclaimed sequels, with another in the pipeline.

Just Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum teaming up to save the world from an extra-terrestrial invasion on the Fourth of July, no big deal.

Near, far, wherever you are, we believe that you've probably sat through all three hours of Titanic approximately 4,965 times - and sobbed your way through each and every one of those viewings.

Spielberg's war epic dramatised the D-Day landings in Normandy. Praised for its harrowing but realistic depiction of WWII, it lost out on the Best Picture to Shakespeare In Love, in what's considered one of the biggest Oscar snubs of recent years.

Yes, it's arguably the weakest (read: most wooden and borderline incomprehensible) of the Star Wars canon, but that didn't diminish The Phantom Menace's box office power upon its release in 1999.

Starring a green and furry Jim Carrey as the Christmas-hating Grinch and a pre-'Little J' Taylor Momsen as Cindy Lou Who, this adaptation of Dr Seuss's rhyming tale stole the box office top spot in the first year of the new millennium.