What I’ve Seen
1960:
Pycho
Inheret the Wind
Spartacus
1961:
One Hundred and One Dalmation
Judgement at Nuremberg
1962:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Lawrence of Arabia
Dr. No
1963:
The Sword in the Stone
From Russia with Love
1964:
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Neindeer
Mary Poppins
Goldfinger
Dr. Strangelove
1965:
The Sound of Music
1966:
A Man for All Seasons
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
1967:
The Jungle Book
1968:
Yellow Submarine
Romeo and Juliet
Barbarella
2001: A Space Odyssey
1969:
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Age of Consent
24 Total
The Best of What I’ve Seen
5. Barbarella – Frankly, I’m not sure the phrase “so bad it’s good” does justice to this Franco Zefrelli gem. More like so horrible it’s awesome. Barbarella is totally nonsensical, exploitive, poorly written, confusingly directed, and altogether fantastic. What a great movie. (For the record, if one wanted to disqualify this kind a movie from a top five list—a totally defensible position—than number five here would be To Kill a Mockingbird).
4. Judgment at Nuremburg (top 100) – The opposite of the over-the-top silliness of the previous entry, Judgment couldn’t be a more serious film. As sophisticated an analysis of the holocaust as we’re likely to get in fictional form, Judgment presents a number of very difficult questions without clear answers. Spencer Tracy leads a very talented cast, which included a young William Shatner in a minor role. Although not quite as hard to watch as something like Schindler’s List, this is still an uncomfortable movie that uses some real-life footage from Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
3. Psycho (top 100) – The ur-example of a slasher movie, Psycho has the advantage of being directed by the very best at this sort of thing. While at least one of the film’s several twists is almost certain to be known to a modern viewer, it is still a tense and scary movie. Hitchcock’s use of black and white was a stroke of genius.
2. Dr. Strangelove (top 100) – Even forty years after its release, Stanley Kubrick’ masterpiece remains our best example of film satire. An effective satire is two things: smart and funny. Dr. Strangelove is both of those, and then some. It isn’t easy for a movie to be both hilarious and thought provoking, but this one sure makes it look so.
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey (top 100) – 2001 is a difficult movie to describe, or to compare to just about anything ever done. It defies film conventions in dozens of ways, and in some ways feels more like visual poetry. But that isn’t quite right either. Whatever it is, Kubrick (other) masterpiece is a mesmerizing accomplishment, and an incredibly unique piece of cinema history.
What I Haven’t Seen
As always, this is very much a partial list:
8 ½
Advise and Consent
The Apartment
Army of Shadows
The Birds
Bonnie and Clyde
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Cleopatra
The Dirty Dozen
Doctor Zhivago
La Dolce Vita
Easy Rider
A Fistful of Dollars
For a Few Dollars More
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Graduate
The Great Escape
The Guns of Navarrone
How the West Was Won
The Hustler
The Italian Job
Lolita
The Man who Shot Liberty Valence
Midnight Cowboy
The Miracle Worker
Planet of the Apes
Il Posto
Purple Noon
Ocean's 11
Once Upon a Time in the West
Rosemary's Baby
Le Samourai
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
Viva Las Vegas
West Side Story
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
The Wild Bunch
Yojimbo
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