And here we are again, nary a breath drawn after the completion of one foolhardy countdown and its time to readjust the settings of the Wayback Machine and start over. In introducing the equivalent countdown for the nineteen-seventies, I noted that it was the first venture into films that I largely saw detached from their context, or rather in the context of retrospective adoration (or scorn) heaped upon them. I was forced to meet the films’ respective reputations at the same time I encountered the actual work for the first time. Take that sentiment and multiply it, and that brings us to the nineteen-sixties.

Not that I was a discerning cineaste as a toddler, but at least the films of the seventies came out during my lifetime. Now we’re venturing into an era for which I have no earthly way to understand the the impact of the individual works at the time. Imaginary reconstruction is the best I’ve got. I find this an especially intriguing aspect of weighing the films of the sixties because it was a time of tremendous change. The Motion Picture Production Code that had guided content for over three decades was officially discarded in 1968, coming after years of steady erosion to its stuffy guidelines. This shift happened in part because far more permissive international cinema was making enormous headway in U.S. movie houses, led by the regular astonishments of the French New Wave. It’s nice to think it was a high-minded, cultural revolution, but it’s far more likely that the foreign films were raking in eye-opening box office dollars because they included naughty bits. I Am Curious (Yellow) didn’t make more at the U.S. box office than Barefoot in the Park and Cool Hand Luke because American audiences suddenly had a deep craving for Swedish deconstructionist cinema.

Considering the uneasy evolution taking place, it’s fascinating to look at the films of the sixties as a group. Traditional Hollywood was beset by welling counter-culture interlopers from all sides, and one of them occasional got a foot in the door or at least took a swipe that left a mark. And the French New Wave auteurs and other offshore filmmakers pushed back against established narrative norms like formerly beholden offspring asserting their independence, sometimes a touch too rashly. That all of this coexisted successfully and profitably–a defiantly odd movie like The Graduate wasn’t just a hit, it was a sensation–is sort of mind-boggling in our current Marvel superhero world is amazing. Sure, they had foreign film hits, but we’ve had Bruce Willis playing John McClane for twenty-five years. Fifth installment coming soon!

As always, my list is purely mine, and filled with potentially egregious omissions. Much as I’d like to profess an unassailable completeness to my viewing, I shamefully know that my DVR and Netflix queue are both filled with titles that were intended to be part of my last-minute cramming. But at a certain point it’s time to just close the textbooks and take the damn test. That’s where I’m at. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I’ve included any fare that doesn’t belong on this sort of a list, resorting to some mid-range junk just because, hey, I’ve seen it. I like what’s there. I just acknowledge my shortcomings. After a few more years of slowly but surely filling in gaps in my knowledge (you know how many freakin’ movies Jean-Luc Godard made during the sixties?), I may come to different determinations about what belongs in this grouping. This is where I’m at now, though.

There’s one caveat to the the assertion of proud cinematic quality of all the films that reside on this list, and that is positioned at number fifty. As per my tradition, the film that starts the countdown probably doesn’t really belong there, ranked ahead of far more sterling efforts. But it is my cheat, a film I love all out of proportion to its inherent quality. If I didn’t already have this rule, I’d have to create it for the film I’ve placed at fifty on the nineteen-sixties list.

Anyway, that’s tomorrow.