#11 — A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester, 1964) Is there another movie that is as inherently likable as A Hard Day’s Night Under most circumstances involving a film centered on a single rock ‘n’ roll act, I’d be inclined … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Eleven
#12 — Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) I had a professor in college who took the highly contrarian position of criticizing Lawrence of Arabia. Already ensconced firmly in the cinematic canon as a paragon of epic filmmaking, David Lean’s venerated … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Twelve
#13 — 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963) I have an aversion to dreamlike story structures, or even dream sequences in films, largely because they are often done so poorly. Never mind the frequency with which they’re little more than a fake-out, structured to set a character bolting upright in bed over whatever wicked turn just glimpsed in dreamland, an supposedly unnerving headspace depicted with essentially the same tone and approach as every other part of the film, all the better to deke the viewer. The real problem is that the depiction usually doesn’t resemble a dream all that much, instead … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Thirteen
#14 — Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969) Periodically as I track through these decade-centered countdowns, I feel compelled to offer the reminder that I arrived at the order by combining critical assessments of aesthetic value … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Fourteen
#15 — Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1962) From 1956’s The Killing on, every one of Stanley Kubrick’s films was drawn from a novel, many of them the sort of prickly, complicated tomes that are tagged as “unfilmable,” a term the director … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Fifteen
#16 — Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa, 1961) There’s an automatic cachet that comes with celebrating an Akira Kurosawa samurai film, but sometimes the prevailing sense of coolness–whether from the classic nature of the film or the hipsterish reclaiming of primacy … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Sixteen
#17 — Jules and Jim (François Truffaut, 1962) And so here it is: not necessarily the best film to burst out of the French New Waves, but perhaps the quintessential example of the revolutionary movement and all the possibility it held, … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Seventeen
#18 — The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961) It’s helpful that Paul Newman eventually paired famously with Robert Redford onscreen, a teaming that was so renowned and beloved that it obscures the little detail that it only happened twice, in 1969’s Butch … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Eighteen
#19 — Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965) Repulsion is the first film in what is loosely termed as director Roman Polanski’s “apartment trilogy,” a series that continued with 1968’s Rosemary’s Baby and culminated with The Tenant, release in 1976. Connecting the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Nineteen
#20 — Pierrot Le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965) I suspect the average French New Wave classic is exactly the sort of thing a casual moviegoer pictures when considering the sorts of painfully arty fare that film critics usually champion, the material … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 60s — Number Twenty
Coffee for Two 