One question people always ask is what are the greatest films of all-time. There is a lot of different criteria that goes into coming up with a list and it all depends on your taste mainly due to all film being subjective and everyone liking or disliking the same/different things. I've decided to do a new series in which I try to decide what I think are the greatest films of all-time. One way to help do that is by deciding what the best films of each decade are. Each month until October I will choose what I think are the best films from each decade and in November I will take the number one films in each decade and put them into a top 10 greatest films of all-time list. Now the list will bot be based on scores or my own personal lists, but based off the popularity of each film and how much of an effect it has had or is having on film today. For example my favorite film of all-time is The Dark Knight, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I think it is the greatest film of its decade. For this month I'm going to bring you the top 10 films of the 1960's. So without further ado...
10. Midnight Cowboy
One rating that is never used for current films anymore is the X-rating. In the 60's it was big and lot of films used it until the 1980's until the MPAA changed it to NC-17 mainly due to the fact that films like Midnight Cowboy weren't as revealing as some X-Rated films so it was changed to NC-17 and since the film has now gotten an R-rating. As for Midnight Cowboy at the time of its release it was an X-Rated film and it also won Best Picture making it the first and only X-rated film to win Best Picture which is an achievement that can never be topped and for that it cements it's legacy. Also the unscripted scenes involving a Dustin Hoffman and a New York taxi driver is one of the most iconic scenes of all-time.
9. Breakfast at Tiffany's
Although Roman Holiday is the first film Audrey Hepburn was noticed for and won her only Oscar for, Breakfast at Tiffany's is her most iconic role. If it had been to the books author Truman Capote, the Hepburn would never have been in the leas role and the film and who knows what the film might've become. Another major thing that this film is known for is the highly controversial casting of Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi mainly because Rooney is an American actor wheres the character is Japanese.
8. A Fistful of Dollars
A trilogy is one of the hardest sets of films to make simply because they take so much time and effort because they have to be able to fit together nicely for everyone to understand. Now while this isn't a true trilogy with the likes of Lord of the Rings or Star Wars due to not having a connected story but it is a trilogy in the sense that Clint Eastwood essentially plays the same character in all three films whilst having different names, thus establishing the "Man with No Name" persona. While this wasn't Clint Eastwood's first film, it was his first film in the lead role thus establishing a career that has spanned over 60 years.
7. Mary Poppins
What can you say about Mary Poppins that hasn't already been said. It's music is catchy and iconic to the point where you listen to one song and it remains stuck in you head for a long time. It also created a word that people often mispell, but use often. It also is one of the first films to blend live-action and animation into the same film. Julie Andrews gives an amazing performance that can only be topped by her performance in The Sound of Music (which I'll get to later). It's just such an uplifiting film and thanks to a film like Saving Mr. Banks you can understand the entire backstory at how P.L. Travers was able to come up with such an amazing story.
6. The Sound of Music
When you make a musical film, the gold-standard is always and will always be The Sound of Music. The songs are just so iconic and each one of them are placed so strategically in the right spots of the film to keep you as an audience member in the film. As mentioned before this is Julie Andrew's best performance slightly edging out her performance in Mary Poppins. The film doesn't shy away from the events going on around it, but it does do a nice job of making you forget what the von Trapp family actually went through.
5. Dr. No
One of the most iconic characters in film history is James Bond. While this isn't technically the first live-action incarnation of 007 (that goes an adaptation of Casino Royale in 1954 on tv), but this is his feature film debut. It has a lot of iconic scenes such as the running on beach scene and a very memorable yet very underrated villain. It was the first use of the shooting Bond through a gun barrel and it is one of the best mixtures of action, comedy and romance ever seen in a film.
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey
Besides Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a crowning achievement in the brilliant career of Stanley Kubrick. It's a film that reached so many technical achievements that are still used and have influenced sci-fi films to this day. It's a film that tackles so many topics and questions about humans and our very existence. It deals with themes of evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life that at the time no film had ever even come close to tackling. The effects are spectacular and the ending of the film is one of the most debated endings of all-time and no matter what anyone comes up with, no one can truly answer it. It's influence on film and and technology just makes this film one of the all-time greats.
3. Psycho
If Nosferatu is the film that started the horror genre, then Psycho is the film that perfected it. Psycho is a brilliant masterpiece by Alfred Hitchcock and the way he was able to keep you as an audience member on the edge of your seat the entire time is remarkable. The way he shot certain scenes and being able to use the black and white color of the film to his ultimate advantage truly shows his adaptability which makes him one of the greatest filmmakers of all-time. Anthony Perkins gives one of the most insanely psychotic performances of all-time and the fact that Hitchcock had the guts to kill the main star in the first 20 minutes of the film truly shows what he was capable of. It was also a complete deviation from his previous films showing that he could master every genre and the ending twist is one of the best film twists of all-time.
2. Dr. Strangelove
If you have never seen this film, then I highly recommend that you stop reading and watch it immediately. Once you understand the context of the film and realize what was going on at the time, it makes the film feel so much more real. When you can make a film in 1964 at the time of the Cold War and just a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, then you have an iconic film. It also helps when you have Peter Sellers playing 3 different characters and you know Kubrick is ballsy to make the film a comedy when dealing with such a serious situation at a very serious time. It's just an all-time classic and it had so many things working against it, that those very things were what the film is making fun of and basically teased of an event that could've possibly happened.
1. Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia is the easy choice for the greatest film of the 1960's. It changed a lot of ways a film is told from a story perspective as it basically told in flashbacks or accounts from people who knew T.E. Lawrence. The way the film itself was filmed as it used inspiration from John Ford's The Searchers and as it used 70mm film and it was one of the few films to use Super Panavision 70/ Also the score by Maurice Jarre is just beautiful and if fits every scene of the film well. Peter O'Toole gave the best performance of his career and it was his best shot to win an Oscar and unfortunately he came up short and he would go on to never win an Oscar in his entire career which is just crazy to think. When directors such as George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese call a film a miracle and a revelation is a pretty huge compliment making it the best film of the 1960's
So ladies and gentlemen what do you think of the list, what films should be added or deleted and what do you think is the greatest film of the 1960's? Let me know in the comments section below and let your voice be heard.
Jonah Sparks
10. Midnight Cowboy
One rating that is never used for current films anymore is the X-rating. In the 60's it was big and lot of films used it until the 1980's until the MPAA changed it to NC-17 mainly due to the fact that films like Midnight Cowboy weren't as revealing as some X-Rated films so it was changed to NC-17 and since the film has now gotten an R-rating. As for Midnight Cowboy at the time of its release it was an X-Rated film and it also won Best Picture making it the first and only X-rated film to win Best Picture which is an achievement that can never be topped and for that it cements it's legacy. Also the unscripted scenes involving a Dustin Hoffman and a New York taxi driver is one of the most iconic scenes of all-time.
9. Breakfast at Tiffany's
Although Roman Holiday is the first film Audrey Hepburn was noticed for and won her only Oscar for, Breakfast at Tiffany's is her most iconic role. If it had been to the books author Truman Capote, the Hepburn would never have been in the leas role and the film and who knows what the film might've become. Another major thing that this film is known for is the highly controversial casting of Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi mainly because Rooney is an American actor wheres the character is Japanese.
8. A Fistful of Dollars
A trilogy is one of the hardest sets of films to make simply because they take so much time and effort because they have to be able to fit together nicely for everyone to understand. Now while this isn't a true trilogy with the likes of Lord of the Rings or Star Wars due to not having a connected story but it is a trilogy in the sense that Clint Eastwood essentially plays the same character in all three films whilst having different names, thus establishing the "Man with No Name" persona. While this wasn't Clint Eastwood's first film, it was his first film in the lead role thus establishing a career that has spanned over 60 years.
7. Mary Poppins
What can you say about Mary Poppins that hasn't already been said. It's music is catchy and iconic to the point where you listen to one song and it remains stuck in you head for a long time. It also created a word that people often mispell, but use often. It also is one of the first films to blend live-action and animation into the same film. Julie Andrews gives an amazing performance that can only be topped by her performance in The Sound of Music (which I'll get to later). It's just such an uplifiting film and thanks to a film like Saving Mr. Banks you can understand the entire backstory at how P.L. Travers was able to come up with such an amazing story.
6. The Sound of Music
When you make a musical film, the gold-standard is always and will always be The Sound of Music. The songs are just so iconic and each one of them are placed so strategically in the right spots of the film to keep you as an audience member in the film. As mentioned before this is Julie Andrew's best performance slightly edging out her performance in Mary Poppins. The film doesn't shy away from the events going on around it, but it does do a nice job of making you forget what the von Trapp family actually went through.
5. Dr. No
One of the most iconic characters in film history is James Bond. While this isn't technically the first live-action incarnation of 007 (that goes an adaptation of Casino Royale in 1954 on tv), but this is his feature film debut. It has a lot of iconic scenes such as the running on beach scene and a very memorable yet very underrated villain. It was the first use of the shooting Bond through a gun barrel and it is one of the best mixtures of action, comedy and romance ever seen in a film.
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey
Besides Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a crowning achievement in the brilliant career of Stanley Kubrick. It's a film that reached so many technical achievements that are still used and have influenced sci-fi films to this day. It's a film that tackles so many topics and questions about humans and our very existence. It deals with themes of evolution, technology, artificial intelligence, and extraterrestrial life that at the time no film had ever even come close to tackling. The effects are spectacular and the ending of the film is one of the most debated endings of all-time and no matter what anyone comes up with, no one can truly answer it. It's influence on film and and technology just makes this film one of the all-time greats.
3. Psycho
If Nosferatu is the film that started the horror genre, then Psycho is the film that perfected it. Psycho is a brilliant masterpiece by Alfred Hitchcock and the way he was able to keep you as an audience member on the edge of your seat the entire time is remarkable. The way he shot certain scenes and being able to use the black and white color of the film to his ultimate advantage truly shows his adaptability which makes him one of the greatest filmmakers of all-time. Anthony Perkins gives one of the most insanely psychotic performances of all-time and the fact that Hitchcock had the guts to kill the main star in the first 20 minutes of the film truly shows what he was capable of. It was also a complete deviation from his previous films showing that he could master every genre and the ending twist is one of the best film twists of all-time.
2. Dr. Strangelove
If you have never seen this film, then I highly recommend that you stop reading and watch it immediately. Once you understand the context of the film and realize what was going on at the time, it makes the film feel so much more real. When you can make a film in 1964 at the time of the Cold War and just a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, then you have an iconic film. It also helps when you have Peter Sellers playing 3 different characters and you know Kubrick is ballsy to make the film a comedy when dealing with such a serious situation at a very serious time. It's just an all-time classic and it had so many things working against it, that those very things were what the film is making fun of and basically teased of an event that could've possibly happened.
1. Lawrence of Arabia
Lawrence of Arabia is the easy choice for the greatest film of the 1960's. It changed a lot of ways a film is told from a story perspective as it basically told in flashbacks or accounts from people who knew T.E. Lawrence. The way the film itself was filmed as it used inspiration from John Ford's The Searchers and as it used 70mm film and it was one of the few films to use Super Panavision 70/ Also the score by Maurice Jarre is just beautiful and if fits every scene of the film well. Peter O'Toole gave the best performance of his career and it was his best shot to win an Oscar and unfortunately he came up short and he would go on to never win an Oscar in his entire career which is just crazy to think. When directors such as George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese call a film a miracle and a revelation is a pretty huge compliment making it the best film of the 1960's
So ladies and gentlemen what do you think of the list, what films should be added or deleted and what do you think is the greatest film of the 1960's? Let me know in the comments section below and let your voice be heard.
Jonah Sparks
No comments:
Post a Comment