1960's
by sooutofoptions | created - 13 Sep 2012 | updated - 13 Sep 2012 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
PG | 95 min | Comedy, War
An unhinged American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 518,374 | Gross: $0.28M
Far and away the greatest film satire of all time, Dr. Strangelove shows what can happen when the fate of so many lays in the hands of an incompetent few. From Peter Sellers' bravura three-character performance to the abundantly quotable dialogue by Terry Southern, Kubrick never made a funnier, more biting work. While the Cold War issues the movie addresses have proven less relevant over time, the general targets of paranoia and abuses of power remain vital points of contention for those willing to question the people entrusted with their leadership and safety.
2. Psycho (1960)
R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin
Votes: 718,417 | Gross: $32.00M
Sure, like Norman Bates says, we all do go a little mad sometimes. But Norman's is a psychosis unlike any other in screen history. Hitchcock brilliantly subverts conventional narrative (taking a potboiler noir plot and dramatically shifting gears in midstream by killing off the lead character), serving up some of the most arresting images ever seen, perfectly complemented by Bernard Herrmann's unforgettably chilling score.
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
G | 149 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
After uncovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, a spacecraft is sent to Jupiter to find its origins: a spacecraft manned by two men and the supercomputer HAL 9000.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, Daniel Richter
Votes: 719,669 | Gross: $56.95M
Asks the really big question regarding humanity’s place in the cosmic scheme of things, and emphatically answers it: We’re in the embryonic stage, folks, utterly insignificant compared to the rest of the universe. From the awe-inspiring featured music of Richard Strauss to Douglas Trumbull’s landmark special effects, 2001 stands as Kubrick’s greatest achievement. Never a particularly humanist director, Kubrick gets to work against a backdrop that ideally suits his cool, detached style: The immense vastness of space. Beyond being a remarkable film, 2001 is a truly important work of ideas and the expectation of what our future holds.
4. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
PG-13 | 126 min | Drama, Thriller
An American POW in the Korean War is brainwashed as an unwitting assassin for an international Communist conspiracy.
Director: John Frankenheimer | Stars: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury
Votes: 79,836
One of the first and best political thrillers. John Frankenheimer directed an edge of your seat thriller with overtones of political satire and social commentary. The film also had many similarities to the Kennedy assassination which would happen a year later. Think of it as a more serious-minded complement to Kubrick’s apocalyptically farcical Dr. Strangelove.
5. The Producers (1967)
PG | 88 min | Comedy, Music
A stage-play producer devises a plan to make money by producing a sure-fire flop.
Director: Mel Brooks | Stars: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn, Kenneth Mars
Votes: 59,845 | Gross: $0.11M
6. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Approved | 218 min | Adventure, Biography, Drama
The story of T.E. Lawrence, the English officer who successfully united and led the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes during World War I in order to fight the Turks.
Director: David Lean | Stars: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Jack Hawkins
Votes: 314,435 | Gross: $44.82M
This epic cinematic masterpeice follows T.E. Lawerence, a WWI British military officer dispatched to Arabia. He decides to stay in the area and become a dessert warrior, who begins to break through century-old rivalries between the Arabs and unite them against the Turks. Peter O'Toole was spectacular playing the bleach blond, Messiah-like lead dressed in flowing white robes. He was backed by a who's who of top actors; Omar Sharif, Claude Rains, Anthony Quinn and Alec Guinness. Besides from the acting, David Lean's direction and cinematographer, Frederick Young, were able to photograph the beauty of the desert, the huge crowd scenes and massive battle sequences. This classic appears on AFI's list of best films at #5.
7. 8½ (1963)
Not Rated | 138 min | Drama
A harried movie director retreats into his memories and fantasies.
Director: Federico Fellini | Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimée, Claudia Cardinale, Sandra Milo
Votes: 125,211 | Gross: $0.05M
Fellini’s ode to the "beautiful confusion" that is the craft of filmmaking (or at least his unique method of same) stands as the director’s most personal work -- seamlessly moving through three divisions of time (past, present and speculative fantasy). Fellini challenges the viewer but never condescends, rather celebrating the wonder of his chosen profession and exorcising a few personal demons at the same time.
8. Breathless (1960)
Not Rated | 90 min | Crime, Drama
A small-time crook, hunted by the authorities for a car theft and the murder a police officer, attempts to persuade a hip American journalism student to run away with him to Italy.
Director: Jean-Luc Godard | Stars: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Van Doude, Jean-Luc Godard
Votes: 87,945 | Gross: $0.34M
Self-consciously cool, Breathless stands as one of the hallmarks of the French New Wave. From Jean-Paul Belmondo’s amoral, blithe demeanor to the pop culture images and items liberally scattered throughout, Godard breaks every filmmaking rule imaginable, and gets away with it because beneath the shallow façade is a restlessly manic cry for help from a French nation still coming to terms with the trauma of the Second World War.
9. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
PG | 110 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
In 1890s Wyoming, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid lead a band of outlaws. When a train robbery goes wrong, they find themselves on the run with a posse hard on their heels. After considering their options, they escape to South America.
Director: George Roy Hill | Stars: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross, Strother Martin
Votes: 226,758 | Gross: $102.31M
The posse that relentlessly chases Butch and Sundance serves as the perfect metaphor for encroaching progress in the Old West. Simply one of the best written/acted/directed buddy movies of all time.
10. The Birds (1963)
PG-13 | 119 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette
Votes: 204,550 | Gross: $11.40M
Another modern Hitchcock thriller/masterpiece - his first film with Universal Studios. Loosely based upon a short story by Daphne Du Maurier, it is the apocalyptic story of a northern California coastal town (Bodega Bay) filled with an onslaught of seemingly unexplained, arbitrary and chaotic attacks of ordinary birds - not birds of prey. The dark film hinted that the bird attacks were punishment for the failings of the relationships between the main characters. This Technicolor feature came after Psycho (1960) - another film filled with 'bird' references. The film's technical wizardry was extraordinary, especially in the film's closing scene (a complex, trick composite shot) - the special visual effects of Ub Iwerks were nominated for an Academy Award (the film's sole nomination), but the Oscar was lost to Cleopatra (1963). Hundreds of birds (gulls, ravens, and crows) were trained for use in some of the scenes, while mechanical birds and animations were employed for others. The film's non-existent musical score was replaced by an electronic soundtrack (including simulated bird cries and wing-flaps), with Hitchcock's favorite composer Bernard Herrmann serving as a sound consultant.
11. The Hustler (1961)
Not Rated | 134 min | Drama, Sport
An up-and-coming pool player plays a long-time champion in a single high-stakes match.
Director: Robert Rossen | Stars: Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, George C. Scott
Votes: 86,805 | Gross: $8.28M
From Kenyon Hopkins’ hip, spare score to Eugene Schuftan’s masterfully lit photography, The Hustler inhabits its world of all-night pool halls and lonely bus depots with a hard-edged reality that underscores the adrift, broken lives of its characters. The acting, especially by Piper Laurie, is flawless, as are the direction and set design. The pool scenes might be what it's most famous for, but The Hustler endures because of the way it so expertly captures the arrogance and folly of human nature.
12. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
GP | 127 min | Crime, Drama
A laid-back Southern man is sentenced to two years in a rural prison, but refuses to conform.
Director: Stuart Rosenberg | Stars: Paul Newman, George Kennedy, Strother Martin, J.D. Cannon
Votes: 188,563 | Gross: $16.22M
13. The Graduate (1967)
PG | 106 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.
Director: Mike Nichols | Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross, William Daniels
Votes: 288,476 | Gross: $104.95M
This hilarious examination of the generation gap works as well as it does due to the fact that Dustin Hoffmann's character, Ben, is clueless as to where his future's headed. The final scene on the bus with Ben and arranged-wedding-liberated lady love Elaine giddily enjoying the moment, but bothered by the uncertainty of what tomorrow holds, perfectly reflects the ambiguity and concerns of '60s youth culture.
14. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Approved | 178 min | Adventure, Western
A bounty hunting scam joins two men in an uneasy alliance against a third in a race to find a fortune in gold buried in a remote cemetery.
Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffrè
Votes: 811,397 | Gross: $6.10M
The third and final installment (but actual a prequel) in under-rated Italian director Sergio Leone's The Man with No Name epic trilogy, this is perhaps the best-known "spaghetti western" of all-time. 'The Man with No Name' was Eastwood's star-making role, after appearances in the previous A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). Elements of his character can be found in his later anti-hero cop "Dirty" Harry Callahan character in Dirty Harry (1971). As with Leone's other westerns, this film is viciously violent and machismo in tone, but buoyed by the classic, instantly-recognizable, twanging Ennio Morricone score.
15. The Wild Bunch (1969)
R | 135 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them.
Director: Sam Peckinpah | Stars: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien
Votes: 90,382 | Gross: $12.06M
Sam Peckinpah directed this dramatic and violent tale set during the early 1900's about the dieing days of the cowboys and the Old West. It tells the tale of the "Wild Bunch", a group of aging outlaws who seem to have come to the end of the line because of their age and the changes in the West. The film opens with the bunch deciding to pull off one final bank heist, but during their attempt, they are ambushed and a huge battle takes place, the scale of which would be a normal climax for most films. The group is chased by the law until the film ends with another brutal battle with a Mexican warlord over a double-crossing arms deal. Taking a piece from "Bonnie and Clyde's" climatic, slow-motion massacre, Peckinpah used extremely graphic, slow-motion gun fighting to show the horrors that bullets can have on the human body. The continuous splatting of blood becomes a bizarre, aesthetic image and would set the standard for movie violence to follow. Nothing like this would ever be seen at the beginning of the decade. It also held the record for the most edits by any film up to this time. Considered one of the classics in the Western genre, it's a vastly different film from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" which was released the same year. It won no awards, but appears on AFI's list of best films at #80.
16. Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Approved | 137 min | Drama, Horror
A young couple trying for a baby moves into an aging, ornate apartment building on Central Park West, where they find themselves surrounded by peculiar neighbors.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer
Votes: 235,245
Polanski's first American film, from Ira Levin's best-seller - a convincing, creepy, psychological, Satanist horror/thriller about a young pregnant wife who suspects and has strange premonitions about diabolical forces (a witches' coven) threatening her unborn baby.
17. Yojimbo (1961)
Not Rated | 110 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Eijirô Tôno, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yôko Tsukasa
Votes: 131,381
18. In Cold Blood (1967)
R | 134 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
Two ex-cons murder a family in a robbery attempt, before going on the run from the authorities. The police try to piece together the details of the murder in an attempt to track down the killers.
Director: Richard Brooks | Stars: Robert Blake, Scott Wilson, John Forsythe, Paul Stewart
Votes: 29,150
"Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed." (Gen 9:6) Killer or victim, In Cold Blood powerfully illustrates the pointlessness of murder -- be it for meager profit or criminal justice. Conrad Hall’s stark, black-and-white photography and Quincy Jones’ spiky, minimalist jazz score add darkly poetic textures to this unflinchingly harrowing and tragic true crime tale.
19. The Apartment (1960)
Approved | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A Manhattan insurance clerk tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston
Votes: 196,875 | Gross: $18.60M
Perhaps only Billy Wilder could wring so many laughs from a film about morally bankrupt businessmen who use a lower-ranking worker's apartment for their philandering trysts. Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine walk an incredible acting tightrope between comedy and tragedy. A cracked gem.
20. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
R | 111 min | Action, Biography, Crime
Bored waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with an ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.
Director: Arthur Penn | Stars: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman
Votes: 120,626
Aside from the gorgeous leads, it’s the ugliness and hardship of Bonnie and Clyde’s Depression-era crime spree that stands out. A film that could easily have glamorized violence instead chooses to reveal the brutality and senselessness of killing for what it is, influenced, no doubt, by the disruptive times in which the film was made. There's certainly nothing glamorous about the way the titular outlaws died, which is one reason the film still holds up today.
21. Easy Rider (1969)
R | 95 min | Adventure, Drama
Two bikers head from L.A. to New Orleans through the open country and desert lands, and along the way they meet a man who bridges a counter-culture gap of which they had been unaware.
Director: Dennis Hopper | Stars: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Antonio Mendoza
Votes: 116,965 | Gross: $41.73M
Widely considered a generation-defining, youth-oriented classic, this film still engrosses those nostalgic for 60's era wanderlust - seeking inspiration for the next road trip. Two motorcyclist biker outlaws (drug-dealers) (Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper) embark on a coast-to-coast odyssey across America in this landmark counter-culture road drama/travelogue, searching for the 'real' America.
22. A Man for All Seasons (1966)
G | 120 min | Biography, Drama, History
The story of Sir Thomas More, who stood up to King Henry VIII when the King rejected the Roman Catholic Church to obtain a divorce and remarry.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Robert Shaw, Leo McKern
Votes: 37,167 | Gross: $28.35M
Paul Scofield brings a quiet, intense dignity to the role of Sir Thomas More that elevates this film (based on Robert Bolt's play) beyond mere costume drama fare. Historical quibbles on the factual basis of More's impeccably noble bearing aside, A Man for All Seasons takes the matter of honor, oath and duty to one's God and country very seriously at a time when such hot button issues were confronting contemporary audiences.
23. Playtime (1967)
Not Rated | 155 min | Comedy
Monsieur Hulot curiously wanders around a high-tech Paris, paralleling a trip with a group of American tourists. Meanwhile, a nightclub/restaurant prepares its opening night, but it's still under construction.
Director: Jacques Tati | Stars: Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek, Rita Maiden, France Rumilly
Votes: 25,949
It’s the incredible rhythms of Playtime that truly stand out (opening and closing doors; honking horns; noisy shoes). And that’s saying quite a lot considering the intricately staged, yet minimally executed sight gags Tati instigates in this hilarious send-up of modern life and conveniences. From the beauty of silences to the chaotic exuberance of human interaction, Playtime is a marvel of understated observation.
24. Point Blank (1967)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
After being double-crossed and left for dead, a mysterious man named Walker single-mindedly tries to retrieve the money that was stolen from him.
Director: John Boorman | Stars: Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor
Votes: 23,227
Lee Marvin plays a restless ghost -- an implacable revenant who can't rest until he gets the money that was stolen from him during a robbery betrayal that went down within the shadowy, abandoned pens of Alcatraz. Incredibly evocative camerawork and an almost surreal examination of the dark heart of the criminal element power this fascinating examination of revenge, loss, and hollow redemption.
25. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Approved | 129 min | Crime, Drama
Atticus Finch, a widowed lawyer in Depression-era Alabama, defends a Black man against an undeserved rape charge, and tries to educate his young children against prejudice.
Director: Robert Mulligan | Stars: Gregory Peck, John Megna, Frank Overton, Rosemary Murphy
Votes: 332,936
Wonderfully told from the eye level of children forced to confront the evil that all-too often emanates from our own backyard. A film about bigotry that reveals its truths with a staggering, emboldened and unwavering confidence.
26. Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
PG-13 | 166 min | Western
A mysterious stranger with a harmonica joins forces with a notorious desperado to protect a beautiful widow from a ruthless assassin working for the railroad.
Director: Sergio Leone | Stars: Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards
Votes: 349,141 | Gross: $5.32M
27. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Not Rated | 131 min | Drama
A bitter, aging couple, with the help of alcohol, use their young houseguests to fuel anguish and emotional pain towards each other over the course of a distressing night.
Director: Mike Nichols | Stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis
Votes: 79,921
Nichol's debut film as director - of an adaptation of Edward Albee's scathing, dark, and vitriolic play - with a bold use of expletives. Real-life married couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor portray a dysfunctional couple's abusive, sado-masochistic, deteriorating marriage - as a weary, tortured, disillusioned academic professor George and his frumpy, alcoholic, foul-mouthed, seductive and abrasive wife Martha. The two invite a young teacher Nick (George Segal) and his mousy wife Honey (Sandy Dennis) to their home for a bitter and relentless evening of brutal, acerbic, verbal games that increase the hateful intensity of their mismatched, love-hate relationship.
28. A Hard Day's Night (1964)
G | 87 min | Comedy, Musical
Over two "typical" days in the life of The Beatles, the boys struggle to keep themselves and Sir Paul McCartney's mischievous grandfather in check while preparing for a live TV performance.
Director: Richard Lester | Stars: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr
Votes: 48,097 | Gross: $13.78M
Captures the spirit of Beatlemania, and our ongoing fascination with pop stardom, better than any other work. Lester simply staged the Fab Four being themselves, and the immediacy and zaniness of the group shines through in every scene. A manic, deliriously fun trip through a period in music history when the inmates, more so than the corporations, ran the asylum.
29. Inherit the Wind (1960)
Passed | 128 min | Biography, Drama, History
Based on a real-life case in 1925; two great lawyers argue the case for, and against, a Tennessee science teacher accused of the crime of teaching Darwin's theory of evolution.
Director: Stanley Kramer | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, Gene Kelly, Dick York
Votes: 32,780
30. Elmer Gantry (1960)
Approved | 146 min | Drama
A fast-talking traveling salesman with a charming, loquacious manner convinces a sincere evangelist that he can be an effective preacher for her cause.
Director: Richard Brooks | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Jean Simmons, Arthur Kennedy, Dean Jagger
Votes: 12,823 | Gross: $11.34M
31. West Side Story (1961)
Approved | 153 min | Crime, Drama, Musical
Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.
Directors: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise | Stars: Natalie Wood, George Chakiris, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn
Votes: 121,216 | Gross: $43.66M
An energetically-choreographed, Best Picture-winning musical that is loosely based on Shakespeare's tale of ill-fated lovers, Romeo and Juliet. A landmark, highly-honored, ground-breaking Broadway musical transposed to the big screen and set on location in 1950s New York on the Upper West Side. With a memorable musical score from Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.
32. Cape Fear (1962)
Passed | 106 min | Drama, Thriller
A lawyer's family is stalked by a man he once helped put in jail.
Director: J. Lee Thompson | Stars: Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum, Polly Bergen, Lori Martin
Votes: 31,891
33. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Approved | 123 min | Drama, Western
A senator returns to a Western town for the funeral of an old friend and tells the story of his origins.
Director: John Ford | Stars: James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin
Votes: 82,315
Another B/W Ford film about the passing of the Old West, one of the master's last westerns. In 1910, respected but timid Senator Ransom Stoddard (James Stewart) from the East journeys westward by train with his wife Hallie (Miles) and returns to the city of Shinbone to attend the funeral of his old friend Tom Doniphon (John Wayne). Told in flashback to a local newspaper editor, he remembers his life and career in the wild town and how he was reputedly known as "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."
34. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Passed | 134 min | Drama, Horror, Thriller
A former child star torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion.
Director: Robert Aldrich | Stars: Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Victor Buono, Wesley Addy
Votes: 61,904 | Gross: $4.05M
A great psychological thriller, black comedy, and over-the-top camp classic is this great trashy melodrama - with the bizarre (and sole) pairing of two legendary -- and rival -- screen legends in a gothic, macabre, Grand Guignol horror film.
35. My Fair Lady (1964)
G | 170 min | Drama, Family, Musical
In 1910s London, snobbish phonetics professor Henry Higgins agrees to a wager that he can make crude flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, presentable in high society.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White
Votes: 101,827 | Gross: $72.00M
One of the best and most popular musicals of all-time, a Best Picture-winner from Lerner and Loewe - based on George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play Pygmalion. Arrogant, fastidious, linguistics Professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison repeating his Tony Award-winning performance on Broadway) wagers fellow linguist Colonel Hugh Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) that he can transform a Cockney flower-selling, street urchin Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) - a 'guttersnipe' - into a proper lady with prescribed diction/elocution lessons.
36. The Pawnbroker (1964)
Approved | 116 min | Drama
A Jewish pawnbroker, victim of Nazi persecution, loses all faith in his fellow man until he realizes too late the tragedy of his actions.
Director: Sidney Lumet | Stars: Rod Steiger, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Brock Peters, Jaime Sánchez
Votes: 10,716
37. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
Approved | 108 min | Comedy, Drama
A couple's attitudes are challenged when their daughter introduces them to her African-American fiancé.
Director: Stanley Kramer | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton
Votes: 48,938 | Gross: $56.70M
One of the most important issues that marked the 60's decade was the civil rights movement and this movie, far ahead of it's time, tried to tackle a small sample of this topic. When a young, white woman arrives home to introduce her new fiance to her parents, she has yet to inform them that he's black. The film follows the young couple revealing this important fact to both sets of parents and the dinner party that follows as all the characters try to deal with the issues of interracial marriage.
38. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Approved | 110 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A black Philadelphia police detective is mistakenly suspected of a local murder while passing through a racially hostile Mississippi town, and after being cleared is reluctantly asked by the police chief to investigate the case.
Director: Norman Jewison | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant
Votes: 83,578 | Gross: $24.38M
An intense whodunit detective story thriller, and Best Picture-winning film, set in the little town of Sparta, Mississippi during a hot summer, with an innovative score by Quincy Jones and title song sung by Ray Charles. Norman Jewison masterfully directed this murder melodrama from a screenplay by Stirling Silliphant that was based on John Ball's novel. The film's posters proclaimed: "They got a murder on their hands. They don't know what to do with it." The liberal-minded film, realistically-filmed by cinematographer Haskell Wexler (who had just filmed Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and would later go on to Coming Home (1978)), was a milestone for the racially-divided mid-60s because it forced the odd-couple collaboration of a bigoted but shrewd, redneck Southern sheriff named Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger) and a lone, intelligently-clever black homicide expert from Philadelphia named Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier). The film, with a non-white actor in a lead acting role, was so controversial that it couldn't be filmed in the Deep South, so the sets were recreated in various small towns in two states: Sparta, Freeburg, and Belleville, Illinois, and Dyersburg, Tennessee.
39. Wait Until Dark (1967)
Approved | 108 min | Thriller
A recently blinded woman is terrorized by a trio of thugs while they search for a heroin-stuffed doll they believe is in her apartment.
Director: Terence Young | Stars: Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
Votes: 33,731 | Gross: $17.55M
40. Bullitt (1968)
M/PG | 114 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A nonconformist San Francisco cop is determined to find the underworld kingpin who killed the witness under his protection.
Director: Peter Yates | Stars: Steve McQueen, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Vaughn, Don Gordon
Votes: 75,853 | Gross: $42.30M
41. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Not Rated | 96 min | Horror, Thriller
A ragtag group of Pennsylvanians barricade themselves in an old farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls that are ravaging the Northeast of the United States.
Director: George A. Romero | Stars: Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman
Votes: 139,172 | Gross: $0.09M
ost important and influential horror films of all time - George Romero's ultra-low budget debut film shot in grainy black-and-white with an unknown cast reinvented the genre. The film was actually improved by its crude "drawbacks," since they lent a documentary feel and reality that made the film all the more horrific. The screenplay was taken from an unpublished short story Romero had written called Anubis, so-named after the Egyptian god of the dead. In the simple yet brutally relentless plot of claustrophobic horror, the 'living dead' (re-animated corpses) mysteriously rise from the grave for no known reason (though there are vague references to radiation from a fallen satellite), forcing a group of seven strangers to take refuge from the shuffling, hungry, flesh-eating zombies in an isolated Pennsylvania farmhouse.
42. Planet of the Apes (1968)
G | 112 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi
An astronaut crew crash-lands on a planet where highly intelligent non-human ape species are dominant and humans are enslaved.
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner | Stars: Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans
Votes: 193,314 | Gross: $33.40M
43. The Sound of Music (1965)
G | 172 min | Biography, Drama, Family
A young novice is sent by her convent in 1930s Austria to become a governess to the seven children of a widowed naval officer.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Richard Haydn
Votes: 261,113 | Gross: $163.21M
44. Persona (1966)
Not Rated | 83 min | Drama, Thriller
A nurse is put in charge of a mute actress and finds that their personae are melding together.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Margaretha Krook, Gunnar Björnstrand
Votes: 130,946
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