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RESULTS

If you are reading this sentence, you are eligible to participate in our forum's latest decades list project exploring the films of the 1960s. If you know anyone adventurous enough--on or off the forum--that you think would also enjoy participating, feel free to invite them as well.

Please PM me your list of what you believe are the top 50 films from this decade toward the end of the project. I will send confirmation that I have received your list after I have tabulated it. If you haven't heard from me within a day, you should follow up with me to make sure that I received your list. You may feel that you could compile a list of 50 favorite films from this decade much earlier than the deadline, but it's still highly recommended that you engage in the discussions here. Don't keep your favorites a secret, and always be open to suggestions from others!


THE RULES

In the '60s, there were no rules. Thankfully now there are:

1) Each individual list is to comprise no more or less than 50 films, ranked in your order of preference (with no ties). If you haven't yet seen 50 films from this decade that you think are genuinely great (or even if you have), please take advantage of the resources listed below and participate in the ongoing discussions to find films that you can be proud to put on your list.

2) Anyone participating in this project should plan to submit a list by the Round 1 deadline. After this point, I will publish some preliminary results that will not reveal how each film has performed, but will at least make it apparent which films are orphans (i.e. those that have received only one vote, and so receive no points in the tabulation process). During the month that follows (Round 2) all those who are interested in participating further may seek out the orphaned films (or anything else they didn't fit in before the Round 1 deadline) and make revisions to their lists as they see fit, up until the Round 2 deadline. After this point, I will publish the results.

3) Any feature film, documentary, experimental film, short film, TV miniseries, TV movie, or TV special released in the 1960s (1960-1969) is eligible.

4) The date given on IMDb is the relevant date for determining a film's year of release, even when it's clearly wrong (unless a special case is made below). If the film is not on IMDb and you say it was released during the 1960s, I'll take your word for it.

5) In certain cases, it may be appropriate for films that are technically separate to be combined, or for films that are technically combined to be separated. In such cases, you may vote for either a part or the whole, but bear in mind that all votes will be competing against each other (e.g. a vote for only I Am Curious: Yellow will not count toward the vote for the two parts of I Am Curious combined). Generally, if multiple films are allowed to be combined for voting purposes, you should probably vote for them that way unless you are strongly opposed to doing so. The most common cases:

• Single-director multi-part films for which each segment was released separately (e.g. Feuillade's serials, Lang's two-part epics) may be considered as a single film. Films included in trilogies may not be combined.

• Variant edits: For films that exist in multiple versions (e.g. Welles' Mr. Arkadin, Rivette's Out 1), all votes that don't specify a "secondary" version will be counted toward the "primary" version.

• Portmanteau films: Each of the individual segments and the film as a whole are all separately eligible.

We may occasionally need to make a special case related to rule 4 or 5. If you are seriously considering including a film on your list that you have a question about in this regard, bring it up in this thread and we'll iron it out. However, I will not make any further exceptions during the last week of the project.

For more details about rules and procedures, please refer here.

Finally, though it is not strictly required, it is recommended that you include titles for films that you discuss in this thread in bold, as it will help the film titles stick out amidst all of the other information that will inevitably pile up in this thread. Images from films are also good at catching the eye.


ELIGIBILITY – REMINDERS / SPECIAL CASES

Larks on a String, Born in '45, and Symbiopsychotaxiplasm are eligible as 1960s films, even though IMDb lists them as '90s films.

Skolimowski's 1967 version of Hands Up/Rece do góry is eligible as a 1960s film. IMDb presently only lists the 1981 version with the same title, but these are two different films.

The Savage Eye was classified as a 1960s film when we did the 1950s list, so it is eligible now, regardless of what IMDb says.

The Human Condition, pt. 3 is not eligible, as the entirety of that multi-part film was eligible for our '50s project.

The following multi-part films count as one film for purposes of this project (this is just a reminder, not an exhaustive list): Dog Star Man, Scenes from Under Childhood, I Am Curious, Civilisation: A Personal View by Kenneth Clark

In some of these cases, you may feel strongly that you only want to vote for one part of the whole. You can do this, but again, just remember that all votes will be competing against each other (e.g. for all intents and purposes, I Am Curious: Yellow, I Am Curious: Blue, and both parts combined are three completely separate films).

The following films may be cited as 1960s releases in some places, but are not eligible for this list: Anticipation of the Night, Jazz on a Summer's Day, The Great War, The Law, The Wayward Girl, The Conformist, A Touch of Zen, The Wild Child, Le Vent d'est, Shadows, The Ear, La Rupture, Whity, Apotheosis, Hi Mom!, Adelheid, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, Sonnensucher, Window Water Baby Moving, Together, The Nightingale's Prayer, A la Mode, The Overcoat, Case for a Rookie Hangman, Du côté d'Orouët, Days and Nights in the Forest, Il rosso segno della follia, Patton, Black Panthers

The following films are eligible for this list, regardless of what any other source might say: Une histoire d'eau, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Cruel Story of Youth, Le Trou, The Savage Eye, Letter Never Sent, Eyes Without a Face, Breathless, The Virgin Spring, The Sorrow and the Pity, Kapò, The Testament of Orpheus, The End of Summer, Eros + Massacre, Walden, The Gladiators, Medea, Smoking, Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, The Night of Counting the Years, Kes, Burn!, My Night at Maud's, Le Signe du lion, Kustom Kar Kommandos, The Color of Pomegranates, The Honeymoon Killers, Bronco Bullfrog

RESOURCES

A list of all films that received votes during our prior 1960s project

or in Letterboxd form (compiled by Pavel)

Past Forum Discussions
Discussion from the Forum's Prior 1960s Project
Defending of Sad Pandas from the Forum's Prior 1960s Project
Discussion from the Forum's Genre List Projects
Discussion from the Forum's Shorts List Project

Guides Within This Thread
Do you feel you have an especially informed opinion about the work during this decade from a particular director, country, genre, etc.? Many people here would greatly appreciate your taking the time to prepare a guide for navigating through all that's available. (Though they do not necessarily need to be comprehensive.) Guides are especially welcome for extremely prolific directors/movements, or to summarize availability for films (such as shorts) that are often hidden away on releases for other films or only available on the web. Past examples: Director Guide, Country Guide, Genre Guide, DVD Availability Guide

therewillbeblus on Michel Deville, Ingmar Bergman

External Resources

AWAITING SUGGESTIONS

Recommended Reading

AWAITING SUGGESTIONS


THE MATRIX R. SCHMATRIX HONORARY SPOTLIGHT SECTION

Remember that part in the movie Spotlight where all the reporters sat around and said "Hey, you hold your nose and watch this movie that you wouldn't otherwise want to watch and I guess I'll do the same for you"? Oh wait, that's not how it happened at all. No, those reporters went out and put all their heart into their work and gave long important speeches about it. In honor of their garrulousness, this section is now reserved for links to any and all posts on a particular film that are 500 words or longer. Why 500 words? Because when I used to be in the biz, I remember my editor throwing that number around a lot. Sorry folks, but we're living in a post-Spotlight world now, and the old ways just aren't going to cut it anymore.

Cimarron (Anthony Mann, 1960) (therewillbeblus)
Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (Glauber Rocha, 1964) (therewillbeblus)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964) (therewillbeblus)
La dolce vita (Federico Fellini, 1960) (therewillbeblus)
The Happy Ending (Richard Brooks, 1969) (senseabove)
High School (Frederick Wiseman, 1968) (Red Screamer)
Hombre (Martin Ritt, 1967) (therewillbeblus)
Hud (Martin Ritt, 1963) (therewillbeblus)
The Intruder (Roger Corman, 1962) (knives)
Petulia (Richard Lester, 1968) (therewillbeblus)
Sergeant Rutledge (John Ford, 1960) (therewillbeblus)
7 Women (John Ford, 1966) (therewillbeblus)
Sex and the Single Girl (Richard Quine, 1964) (therewillbeblus)
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (Sydney Pollack, 1969) (therewillbeblus)

***Please PM me if you have any suggestions for additions to/deletions from this first post.***

It’s gonna be a groovy year

The 60s are gonna be tough. I might write more on some of these later, but while plenty of my list-contenders need no defending, there are some I’d like to promote as early as possible for folks to prioritize if they so desire:

The Flicker is the best experimental film of the 60s, a revolutionary picture of strobe lighting that may give you an epileptic seizure, but if so at least you’ll go out mesmerized with stimulation of all senses. This and Walden (aka Diaries, Notes and Sketches), the second-best Jonas Mekas film I've seen and quite distinct from Tony Conrad's structural work, will both be making my list.

The Fabulous Baron Munchausen is simply one of the most imaginative and entertaining films I’ve ever seen, certainly my favorite Zeman. Thérèse Desqueyroux might be the best French melodrama ever, a literary adaptation that is nothing short of engaging in every aspect. La cotta is a short, hilarious, and potent examination of youth vying for love like it’ll be the last. Le monte-charge, the first of two excellent Bluwals this decade (where did this guy go?!) is a Hitchcockian product in outcome, that dials-in as a distinct tonal accumulation of brooding anxiety and unexpected character beats born from noirish confusion refracted into narrative. More noirs should be this stressful and ooze distrust from the audience, as this film emulates the genre’s characters logical guardedness, responding honestly with mounting dread to the behavior of the stranger across from them.

Lilith is the best film Indicator has released thus far, and one of the best American films of the 60s. It’s also an astonishingly apt depiction of psychology interlocked and independent from the social spheres, and its broad reach across a variety of different personality types makes it all the more polarizing with extreme intimacy and despairing alienation in reflecting their individual traumas painfully coexisting. Dutchman is the play-adaptation to beat, a social-conscious twofer so intense that I placed it on my Horror list. Shirley Knight’s perf might be the best of the decade. One-Eyed Jacks is the western to beat, a gutting presentation of ungraspable emotional terrain transmitted into palpable anger reluctantly in despair as a last resort. It's the stateside mirror image of what Antonioni was doing over in Italy during the same early part of the decade (at least two of his films will make the top tier of my list, but they need no defense).

Warrendale will be my documentary to beat, as the most realistic depiction of residential life I’ve ever seen (Short Term 12 would land this slot over the documentary, since it’s so spot-on in nearly every way, if it weren’t for the awful wish-fulfillment B-plot that overtakes the A narrative and threatens to ruin the whole movie). It’s pretty amazing that a film shot so many decades before I worked in these environments captured the energy of a space ahead of its time. One can anticipate that some of the interventions are quite dated, but there’s enough right going on here as far as de-escalation techniques and physical restraints that when I hear co-workers who have been in the field just a few years before me talk about tackling clients in one-person face-down restraints in the aughts, I’m scratching my head and wondering why we didn’t get some experts down from Canada to show us a thing or two.

Bergman will feature strong, but Shame and The Passion of Anna will be two inclusions potentially neglected by others, and I highly suggest seeking them out (or returning to them) as some of his bleakest yet fervent works composed with a rare immediacy that recontextualizes hope for finding meaning with careful validation and stark desperation. Godard's 60s output could rule my list, but if I really need to champion one it's 2 or 3 Things I know About Her, which I recently wrote up but serves as an important and fearless connective tissue between the fading surrender of traditional narrative skeletons and the fresh essayist bridges between Godard's soulful drive to seek truth and the futility of reaching it. Pierrot le Fou and Masculin Feminin are his interchangeable best though, and a coin-flip for best movie ever made.

3) Any feature film, documentary, experimental film, short film, TV miniseries, TV movie, or TV special released in the 1960s (1960-1969) is eligible.

As you said, this isn't 'nam, there are rules, but I was thinking about Kenneth Clark's Civilization...

If anyone wants to use the previous list as a potential watchlist, here it is in Letterboxd form. I've added the also-rans, will add the orphans soon.

Breathless, L'Avventura, and Psycho premiered within 3 months of each other in 1960. I guess you could compare it to 1922 with the publication of Ulysses and The Waste Land.

Maltic wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 8:31 am

3) Any feature film, documentary, experimental film, short film, TV miniseries, TV movie, or TV special released in the 1960s (1960-1969) is eligible.

As you said, this isn't 'nam, there are rules, but I was thinking about Kenneth Clark's Civilization...

Yes, you can vote for that

Maltic wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 2:20 pm Breathless, L'Avventura, and Psycho premiered within 3 months of each other in 1960. I guess you could compare it to 1922 with the publication of Ulysses and The Waste Land.

... or the White Album, The Village Green Preservation Society, Astral Weeks and Beggars Banquet all being released in a two-week period in late 1968 (the first two on the same day), which I only recently realized.

I’m not a huge Fellini fan, but his two best films will feature in my top ten, and they’re appropriately polar opposite tonal exercises for a decade of segregated morals. Juliet of the Spirits’ cleansing of psychology through sensational phantasmagoria represents Fellini at his most playful, granting his wife the privileges and pains of a reflective crisis, delving into Narnia worlds to explore connotations via dream signifiers, and ultimately arriving at a serene declaration that Juliet is “life itself.” Conversely La Dolce Vita’s deadly serious vibe strikes us violently with reminders of our failures to truly connect and achieve happiness. For a film with such despicable characters, there is so much to relate to in this anti-biblical week-long (or as I prefer to think of it, timelessly sisyphean) escapade that lasts a lifetime; from the inescapable sober ennui wafting into every sea of would-be disinhibitions, to the literal inability to obtain Sylvia, the mythic faux-answer to our desperation for finding a tangible meaning of life to fill our spiritual vacancies.

I’ve said it before, but La Dolce Vita is the perfect encapsulation of the Western individualist’s existential plights of perpetual longing for elusive contentment, and certainly the best captured on film (with Wenders’ Kings of the Road posturing at this compulsion with a more abstract canvas of triggers). There’s some wisdom spouted by the poet at Steiner’s party, yet nobody can practice such idealistic rhetoric, impotent to achieve its mirage of value as every individual, alone, is swallowed by the prisons of both culture and self. Steiner denounces “peace” as the most unnerving state, while it’s all Marcello seeks, bearing the question: Can Western man achieve satisfaction? La Dolce Vita is, without hyperbole, the greatest modern tragedy captured on film.

The voices that talk to Juliet may be partially reinforcing her solipsism, but that fantastical isolation could be the preferable mode of existence given La Dolce Vita’s psychological breakdown as the result of man attempting to traverse his milieu by futilely morphing it to his own terms. Nevertheless, Juliet desperately wants to engage with the world as a self-actualized individual, and her dreams don’t exactly help her in that process, at least not directly. They are defense mechanisms that profess that, perhaps, they’re safer than the impotence she experiences in reality- like Marcello’s eventual ambiguous ‘choice’ to remain in a subconscious state of safety, which is depressing for the failure to take risks, but deserves empathy for how challenging it is to trudge through life in such depressions from strong-willed desires left unfulfilled. Juliet ends her story by besting her suffocating mental imagery through being comfortable with herself alone, in solitude, not obsessing over her husband’s philandering or any other externally-contingent stimuli to induce her serenity. That’s self-actualization, or at least the beginnings of it.

In Juliet of the Spirits she remembers wisdom proclaimed by her in a play as a child (“I don’t care about the salvation you offer me, but about the salvation of my soul”) and finally reaches this theoretical idea in practice after running the gamut with her own apparitions (or internal ‘parts’ of her, as I like to think of them- this is another great film operating within the IFS therapeutic modality) who ignore, slyly pretend to validate but really redirect, or derail her aspirations, though some pierce her with uncomfortable truths toward the end. And what an intelligent analogy for how we seek God in the roles carved out for us, when perhaps parting from these external messianic influences and becoming singular self-aware people is the best way to find God within ourselves.

La Dolce Vita, on the other hand, seems to doubt we can access any salvation within our soul when we cannot escape from the desire to get salvation from our surroundings. It’s one of the most influential warning signs I’ve seen, and within its cynicism I find hope that through choosing the path of confrontation in uncomfortable self-reflection, we can turn out differently than Marcello. There’s something optimistic about the scene where Marcello stops working on his novel to engage with the waitress, Paola, and admire her beauty (physically but not sexually, he is attending to her potential and the profound essence of her soul). He’s incapable of focusing on one task, but in that moment he achieves an ethereal serenity, authentically meditating on what matters most to him: Potential, beauty, the inspiration that comes from stopping to really look and take in the energy around you. This scene seems to contain the meaning of life, as fleeting and enigmatic as it is. As for the ending,

Spoiler

as tragic as Marcello’s apathy is, Paola’s validation of his worth remains, her smile never faltering. He may be lost, but her fixed stare, care, and energy remind me of an earlier line when Steiner tells Emma that she will only be happy when she realizes she loves Marcello more than he loves himself. Paola gives unconditional love, her affection and interest in Marcello remains divorced from his own investment and reciprocity. He has made an impact on her life, and she sees him and in that instant authenticates his existence. Paola becomes a form of God in that moment, and significantly turns her head to face us, the audience, seeing us now and reminding us that we too are loved, dignified, and capable of receiving that love.

Simply put, Juliet is one of the most imaginative exercises of the medium’s possibilities I’ve ever seen, and La Dolce Vita is one of the most grounding, but both inspire me to engage with myself through the screen in novel avenues that enhance my relationship with my soul. Sounds corny, but how else do you describe the impact of your favorite films on yourself?

Pavel wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 1:24 pm If anyone wants to use the previous list as a potential watchlist, here it is in Letterboxd form. I've added the also-rans, will add the orphans soon.

This link doesn't work for me

swo17 wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 4:45 pm

Pavel wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 1:24 pm If anyone wants to use the previous list as a potential watchlist, here it is in Letterboxd form. I've added the also-rans, will add the orphans soon.

This link doesn't work for me

It works for me on Chrome on both my comp and mobile- do you not have a Letterboxd account, swo? Not sure if that could be it

I do not, though I'm usually able to view Letterboxd links that people post

Hm, I dunno. How about now?

Yep, that works, thanks

Great! Also, the list has now been updated to include all 597 films that received votes (except one which I couldn't find on Letterboxd)

Pavel wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 6:04 pm Great! Also, the list has now been updated to include all 597 films that received votes (except one which I couldn't find on Letterboxd)

... and still no Jerry Lewis! And no Dragon Inn!

Maltic wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 6:21 pm ... and still no Jerry Lewis!

The Family Jewels is there

Oddly enough, a Bulgarian film got in last time. I'm curious if that'll repeat this year

Pavel wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 6:24 pm

Maltic wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 6:21 pm ... and still no Jerry Lewis!

The Family Jewels is there

Oh right

dustybooks wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 3:41 pm

Maltic wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 2:20 pm Breathless, L'Avventura, and Psycho premiered within 3 months of each other in 1960. I guess you could compare it to 1922 with the publication of Ulysses and The Waste Land.

... or the White Album, The Village Green Preservation Society, Astral Weeks and Beggars Banquet all being released in a two-week period in late 1968 (the first two on the same day), which I only recently realized.

That's astonishing, especially considering the time frame, since I guess you could argue those albums weren't quite the earthquakes within an art form that the films and books in question were. Nor would, say, The Birds + Contempt + L'Eclisse be comparable (though they may or may not be better films), or Ash Wednesday + Finnegan's Wake.

Btw, I mistakenly thought Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Six Characters in Search of an Author had first been published/performed in 1922, but apparently the former was published in German the year before, while Pirandello's play premiered in Rome also in 1921 (I can't find the exact dates).

Pavel wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 1:24 pm If anyone wants to use the previous list as a potential watchlist, here it is in Letterboxd form. I've added the also-rans, will add the orphans soon.

Thanks for the posters list, it's really helpful. Is there a link to the forum thread for the past votes too? That would be great.
This is a more interesting list than the Sight&Sound decade canon I think. Yet there are certain titles that deserve better positions...
From a cursory glance at the also-rans list there are underrated candidates that should be in the Top100 like :
Fail Safe; Loves of a Blonde; The Naked Island; Mouchette; Two for the Road; A Man Vanishes; Gare du Nord; The Passion of Anna; Night and Fog in Japan; Blind Beast; Fahrenheit 451; Diary of a Chambermaid; Letter Never Sent; The Saragossa Manuscript; The End of Summer; La Notte; Sanjuro; Dilinger is Dead; The Hour of the Furnaces; Titicut Follies; Testament of Orpheus; Yojimbo; Hamlet; Late Autumn; The House is Black; Hour of the Wolf; Memories of Underdevelopment; Naked Childhood; The Big City; The Cow; Red Beard; Il Posto; Devi; The Executioner; Kes; Black Girl; Knife in the Water...
But I realise I just listed nearly 40 films and there is no 40 spots available in the top100 full of masterpieces... Still, these should be higher in the ranking in my opinion.
And there are also many I should discover from the orphans list.

Here's the thread, which also shows how many points and votes a given film received (plus discussion, etc.)

Now you have to name 40 films that should be lower

BenoitRouilly wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 7:51 pm

Pavel wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 1:24 pm If anyone wants to use the previous list as a potential watchlist, here it is in Letterboxd form. I've added the also-rans, will add the orphans soon.

Is there a link to the forum thread for the past votes too?

Already answered, but see also the "Resources" section of the first post

Maltic wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 6:21 pm

Pavel wrote: Sat May 29, 2021 6:04 pm Great! Also, the list has now been updated to include all 597 films that received votes (except one which I couldn't find on Letterboxd)

... and still no Jerry Lewis! And no Dragon Inn!

I fear I won't have room for any Jerry Lewis this round (as wrong as that feels, too many masterpieces will wind up on the cutting room floor), though Dragon Inn stands a chance. It's my favorite King Hu film and one of the best-paced accumulations of suspense that dually functions as narrative unraveling across an initial setpiece that takes up like half the film. It's so much fun, and seems to have inspired a few of Tarantino's more amusing setpieces/narrative strategies as much as the influences he's candid about.