This era marks a true epoch changing moment in filmmaking. Inspired by the political revolutions and social upheaval worldwide (click on 1968 and scan through the events of that year - it makes 2020 seem tame), the rise of a rebellious youth culture combined with new media representational forms, the falling of restrictive cultural prohibitions against certain types of representation (especially in Hollywood), and inspired by the New Wave movements, these films (for the most part) through their style/themes represent this moment of change and turmoil.
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (France: Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) [Criterion: "In 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle), Jean-Luc Godard beckons us ever closer, whispering in our ears as narrator. About what? Money, sex, fashion, the city, love, language, war: in a word, everything. Among the legendary French filmmaker’s finest achievements, the film takes as its ostensible subject the daily life of Juliette Janson (Marina Vlady), a housewife from the Paris suburbs who prostitutes herself for extra money. Yet this is only a template for Godard to spin off into provocative philosophical tangents and gorgeous images. 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her is perhaps Godard’s most revelatory look at consumer culture, shot in ravishing widescreen color by Raoul Coutard."]
Bonnie and Clyde (USA: Arthur Penn, 1967) [Rotten Tomatoes: "A paradigm-shifting classic of American cinema, Bonnie and Clyde packs a punch whose power continues to reverberate through thrillers decades later. IMDB: "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."]Cool Hand Luke (USA: Stuart Rosenberg, 1967) (Rotten Tomatoes: "When petty criminal Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison farm, he doesn't play by the rules of either the sadistic warden (Strother Martin) or the yard's resident heavy, Dragline (George Kennedy), who ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, even in the face of repeated stints in the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell, "the box," make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.")
The Dirty Dozen (USA: Robert Aldrich, 1967) (Rotten Tomatoes: "Amoral on the surface and exuding testosterone, The Dirty Dozen utilizes combat and its staggering cast of likable scoundrels to deliver raucous entertainment. ... IMDB: "A Major with an attitude problem and a history of getting things done is told to interview military prisoners with death sentences or long terms for a dangerous mission; To parachute behind enemy lines and cause havoc for the German Generals at a rest house on the eve of D-Day."]
The Graduate (USA: Mike Nichols, 1967) [Criterion: "One of the most beloved American films of all time, The Graduate earned Mike Nichols a best director Oscar, brought the music of Simon & Garfunkel to a wider audience, and introduced the world to a young actor named Dustin Hoffman. Benjamin Braddock (Hoffman) has just finished college and is already lost in a sea of confusion and barely contained angst when he becomes sexually involved with a friend of his parents’, the indomitable Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), before turning his attention to her college-age daughter (Katharine Ross). Visually imaginative and impeccably acted, with a clever, endlessly quotable script by Buck Henry (based on the novel by Charles Webb), The Graduate had the kind of cultural impact that comes along only once in a generation."]
In Cold Blood (USA: Richard Brooks, 1967) [Criterion: "Truman Capote’s best seller, a breakthrough narrative account of real-life crime and punishment, became an equally chilling film in the hands of writer-director Richard Brooks. Cast for their unsettling resemblances to the killers they play, Robert Blake and Scott Wilson give authentic, unshowy performances as Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, who in 1959 murdered a family of four in Kansas during a botched robbery. Brooks brings a detached, documentary-like starkness to this uncompromising view of an American tragedy and its aftermath; at the same time, stylistically In Cold Blood is a filmmaking master class, with clinically precise editing, chiaroscuro black-and-white cinematography by the great Conrad Hall, and a menacing jazz score by Quincy Jones."]
Le samouraï (France: Jean Pierre-Melville, 1967) [Criterion: "In a career-defining performance, Alain Delon plays Jef Costello, a contract killer with samurai instincts. After carrying out a flawlessly planned hit, Jef finds himself caught between a persistent police investigator and a ruthless employer, and not even his armor of fedora and trench coat can protect him. An elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool by maverick director Jean‑Pierre Melville, Le samouraï is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture—with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology."]
Marketa Lazarová (Czechoslovakia: František Vláčil, 1967) [Criterion: "In its native land, František Vláčil’s Marketa Lazarová has been hailed as the greatest Czech film ever made; for many U.S. viewers, it will be a revelation. Based on a novel by Vladislav Vančura, this stirring and poetic depiction of a feud between two rival medieval clans is a fierce, epic, and meticulously designed evocation of the clashes between Christianity and paganism, humankind and nature, love and violence. Vláčil’s approach was to re-create the textures and mentalities of a long-ago way of life, rather than to make a conventional historical drama, and the result is dazzling. With its inventive widescreen cinematography, editing, and sound design, Marketa Lazarová is an experimental action film."]
PlayTime (France: Jacques Tati, 1967) [Criterion: "Jacques Tati’s gloriously choreographed, nearly wordless comedies about confusion in an age of high technology reached their apotheosis with PlayTime. For this monumental achievement, a nearly three-year-long, bank-breaking production, Tati again thrust the lovably old-fashioned Monsieur Hulot, along with a host of other lost souls, into a baffling modern world, this time Paris. With every inch of its superwide frame crammed with hilarity and inventiveness, PlayTime is a lasting record of a modern era tiptoeing on the edge of oblivion."]
The Producers (USA: Mel Brooks, 1967) [Rotten Tomatoes: "A hilarious satire of the business side of Hollywood, The Producers is one of Mel Brooks' finest, as well as funniest films, featuring standout performances by Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel. Down and out producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel), who was once the toast of Broadway, trades sexual favors with old ladies for cash contributions. Max's new accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), offhandedly muses that if Max found investors for a new production that turned into a flop, he could legally keep all the extra money. The duo begins to put together the worst play possible, titled "Springtime for Hitler", with a terrible director and a hippie-freak star."]
Weekend (France: Jean-Luc Godard, 1967) [Criterion: "This scathing late-sixties satire from Jean-Luc Godard is one of cinema’s great anarchic works. Determined to collect an inheritance from a dying relative, a bourgeois couple travel across the French countryside while civilization crashes and burns around them. Featuring a justly famous sequence in which the camera tracks along a seemingly endless traffic jam, and rich with historical and literary references, Weekend is a surreally funny and disturbing call for revolution, a depiction of society reverting to savagery, and— according to the credits—the end of cinema itself."]
2001: A Space Odyssey (UK/USA: Stanley Kubrick, 1968) [Rotten Tomatoes: "One of the most influential of all sci-fi films -- and one of the most controversial -- Stanley Kubrick's 2001 is a delicate, poetic meditation on the ingenuity -- and folly -- of mankind. An imposing black structure provides a connection between the past and the future in this enigmatic adaptation of a short story by revered sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke." IMDB: "After discovering a mysterious artifact buried beneath the Lunar surface, mankind sets off on a quest to find its origins with help from intelligent supercomputer H.A.L. 9000."]
Hour of the Wolf (Sweden: Ingmar Bergman, 1968) [Criterion: "The strangest and most disturbing of the films Ingmar Bergman shot on the island of Fårö, Hour of the Wolf stars Max von Sydow as a haunted painter living in voluntary exile with his wife (Liv Ullmann). When the couple are invited to a nearby castle for dinner, things start to go wrong with a vengeance, as a coven of sinister aristocrats hastens the artist’s psychological deterioration. This gripping film is charged with a nightmarish power rare in the Bergman canon, and contains dreamlike effects that brilliantly underscore the tale’s horrific elements."]
If .... (UK: Lindsey Anderson, 1968) [Criterion: "Lindsay Anderson’s If.... is a daringly anarchic vision of British society, set in a boarding school in late-sixties England. Before Kubrick made his mischief iconic in A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell made a hell of an impression as the insouciant Mick Travis, who, along with his school chums, trumps authority at every turn, finally emerging as a violent savior in the vicious games of one-upmanship played by both students and masters. Mixing color and black and white as audaciously as it mixes fantasy and reality, If…. remains one of cinema’s most unforgettable rebel yells."]
Night of the Living Dead (USA: George Romero, 1968) [MB: This film was a landmark in independent filmmaking and forever changed traditionally conservative American horror films bringing the genre into the new generation. The original is available for free on many streaming sites like Youtube and the new restored version is on Criterion, Kanopy, and Hulu. Criterion: "Shot outside Pittsburgh on a shoestring budget, by a band of filmmakers determined to make their mark, Night of the Living Dead, directed by horror master George A. Romero, is a great story of independent cinema: a midnight hit turned box-office smash that became one of the most influential films of all time. A deceptively simple tale of a group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse who find themselves fending off a horde of recently dead, flesh-eating ghouls, Romero’s claustrophobic vision of a late-1960s America literally tearing itself apart rewrote the rules of the horror genre, combined gruesome gore with acute social commentary, and quietly broke ground by casting a black actor (Duane Jones) in its lead role. Stark, haunting, and more relevant than ever, Night of the Living Dead is back."]
Once Upon a Time in the West (Italy: Sergio Leone, 1968) [Juli Norwood aka Naughty on Letterboxd: "A true masterpiece in every sense of the word! The opening scene takes the mundane (sweaty gunslingers with weathered faces, dripping water, pesky fly and a rusty old windmill) and literally turns it into a work of art! A western that's so real you can almost see the beard stubble grow by the minute and the sweat trickling from your screen! Gorgeous cinematography with a soundtrack ranging from glorious, to thrilling, to haunting! An all star cast as magnificent as the film itself! Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, and Claudia Cardinale!
As lusty as it is gutsy! A place and time when guns and grimaces did all of the talking! Naughty approved!"]
As lusty as it is gutsy! A place and time when guns and grimaces did all of the talking! Naughty approved!"]
Planet of the Apes (USA: Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968) [Rotten Tomatoes: "Planet of the Apes raises thought-provoking questions about our culture without letting social commentary get in the way of the drama and action." Letterboxd: "An U.S. Spaceship lands on a desolate planet, stranding astronaut Taylor in a world dominated by apes, 2000 years into the future, who use a primitive race of humans for experimentation and sport. Soon Taylor finds himself among the hunted, his life in the hands of a benevolent chimpanzee scientist." MB: This very successful film spawned three sequels, and, in the 21st Century was remade twice, spawning more sequels.]
Profound Desires of the Gods (Japan: Shohei Imamura, 1968) [IMDB: "An engineer from Tokyo arrives on a drought-ridden tropical island to drill a well to power a nearby sugar mill. He meets the inbred Futori family, hated by the locals for breaking religious customs." MB: This film is troubling and breathtaking. It is almost anthropological in its perspective, yet mythological in its scope. Long unavailable in the USA, perhaps because of its taboo subject matter, it is available on Criterion Channel. Edgar Cochran on Letterboxd: "Extraordinary images and allegorical representations of the human condition and its fragility abound in Imamura's first color metaphysical mammoth. Extraordinary in its ability to be absorbing at its core, and with a haunting fusion of cinematic styles that range from surrealism to images of nature that mimic a documentary style, Imamura's analysis of the invasion of civilization over a secluded tropical island pervaded with Pantheistic philosophy is a truly entrancing juxtaposition of themes, rhythms and styles as varied as the unpredictability of life itself. Illusion and reality are combined but exclusively through the eyes of the Futori family, rather than the engineer, who symbolizes the side that announces "rationality" as the medicine for modernity, despite the fact that there is an inherent irrationality in declaring rationality as entirely proper in its application over all life areas, dismissing the undeniable emotional human component.
Painting primitiveness with tones of aggression and beauty, placing the camera as an omniscient god capable of adopting multiple perspectives, from an eagle-eye judging divine presence to subtly and coldly calculated invasive minimalism, Profound Desire of the Gods is an entrancing examination of reality vs. fantasy, beauty vs. ugliness, rationality vs. emotional impulse, tradition over modernity, and superstition vs. psychological atheism. Epic in its ambition and duration, this is potentially the director's best film, as well as his most complex reflective dissertation of life."]
Painting primitiveness with tones of aggression and beauty, placing the camera as an omniscient god capable of adopting multiple perspectives, from an eagle-eye judging divine presence to subtly and coldly calculated invasive minimalism, Profound Desire of the Gods is an entrancing examination of reality vs. fantasy, beauty vs. ugliness, rationality vs. emotional impulse, tradition over modernity, and superstition vs. psychological atheism. Epic in its ambition and duration, this is potentially the director's best film, as well as his most complex reflective dissertation of life."]
Rosemary's Baby (USA: Roman Polanski, 1968) [Criterion: "Horrifying and darkly comic, Rosemary’s Baby was Roman Polanski’s Hollywood debut. This wildly entertaining nightmare, faithfully adapted from Ira Levin’s best seller, stars a revelatory Mia Farrow as a young mother-to-be who grows increasingly suspicious that her overfriendly elderly neighbors (played by Sidney Blackmer and an Oscar-winning Ruth Gordon) and self-involved husband (John Cassavetes) are hatching a satanic plot against her and her baby. In the decades of occult cinema that Polanski’s ungodly masterpiece has spawned, it has never been outdone for sheer psychological terror."]
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (USA: George Roy Hill, 1969)
With its iconic pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, jaunty screenplay and Burt Bacharach score, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has gone down as among the defining moments in late-'60s American cinema. The true story of fast-draws and wild rides, battles with posses, train and bank robberies, a torrid love affair and a new lease on outlaw life in far away Bolivia. It is also a character study of a remarkable friendship between Butch - possibly the most likeable outlaw in frontier history - and his closest associate, the fabled, ever-dangerous Sundance Kid." MB - Just FYI, no fictional film is "true."]
The Color of Pomegranates (Soviet Union: Sergie Parajanov, 1969)
["A breathtaking fusion of poetry, ethnography, and cinema, Sergei Parajanov’s masterwork overflows with unforgettable images and sounds. In a series of tableaux that blend the tactile with the abstract, The Color of Pomegranates revives the splendors of Armenian culture through the story of the eighteenth-century troubadour Sayat-Nova, charting his intellectual, artistic, and spiritual growth through iconographic compositions rather than traditional narrative. The film’s tapestry of folklore and metaphor departed from the realism that dominated the Soviet cinema of its era, leading authorities to block its distribution, with rare underground screenings presenting it in a restructured form. This edition features the cut closest to Parajanov’s original vision, in a restoration that brings new life to one of cinema’s most enigmatic meditations on art and beauty."]Easy Rider (USA: Dennis Hopper, 1969)
["This is the definitive counterculture blockbuster. The down-and-dirty directorial debut of former clean-cut teen star Dennis Hopper, Easy Rider heralded the arrival of a new voice in film, one pitched angrily against the mainstream. After the film’s cross-country journey—with its radical, New Wave–style editing, outsider-rock soundtrack, revelatory performance by a young Jack Nicholson, and explosive ending—the American road trip would never be the same."]
Medium Cool (USA: Haskell Wexler, 1969)
["It’s 1968, and the whole world is watching. With the U.S. in social upheaval, famed cinematographer Haskell Wexler decided to make a film about what the hell was going on. Medium Cool, his debut feature, plunges us into the moment. With its mix of fictional storytelling and documentary technique, this depiction of the working world and romantic life of a television cameraman (Robert Forster) is a visceral cinematic snapshot of the era, climaxing with an extended sequence shot right in the middle of the riots surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. An inventive commentary on the pleasures and dangers of wielding a camera, Medium Cool is as prescient a political film as Hollywood has ever produced."]Midnight Cowboy (USA: John Schlesinger, 1969)
["One of the British New Wave’s most versatile directors, John Schlesinger came to New York in the late 1960s to make Midnight Cowboy, a picaresque story of friendship that captured a city in crisis and sparked a new era of Hollywood movies. Jon Voight delivers a career-making performance as Joe Buck, a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy city women; he finds a companion in Enrico “Ratso” Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida, played by Dustin Hoffman in a radical departure from his breakthrough in The Graduate. A critical and commercial success despite controversy over what the MPAA termed its “homosexual frame of reference,” Midnight Cowboy became the first X-rated film to receive the best picture Oscar, and decades on, its influence still reverberates through cinema."]
They Shoot Horses Don't They (USA: Sidney Pollack, 1969)
["In the midst of the Great Depression, manipulative emcee Rocky (Gig Young) enlists contestants for a dance marathon offering a $1,500 cash prize. Among them are a failed actress (Jane Fonda), a middle-aged sailor (Red Buttons), a delusional blonde (Susannah York) and a pregnant girl (Bonnie Bedelia). Days turn into weeks as the competition drags on and people either drop out or expire. Rocky, however, will do anything for publicity and initiates a series of grueling derbies." Maricov on Letterboxd: "I’m lost for words. This movie is truly is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.In lesser hands, this brazenly unique response to the Great Depression could have fallen flat, but Sidney Pollack’s assured direction pulls no punches, throwing an ensemble of desperate socialites into a high-concept nightmare to reveal each contestants psychological breaking point as they scramble for a second chance at life following that dark time in history. At once both devastatingly real and harshly poetic, the underlying sense of collective panic felt throughout the narrative suggests that Pollack’s film is less about the effects of political turmoil than it is about the inescapable, crushing weight of being human.An absolutely outstanding landmark in crucial, symbolic cinema. "][""When you side with a man, you stick with him. If you can't, your like some animal" - Pike Bishop in The Wild Bunch. IMDB: "An aging group of outlaws look for one last big score as the "traditional" American West is disappearing around them." Silent Dawn on Letterboxd: "The clashing cathartic depths of violence in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch eventually settles into the aftermath of rage and personal selfishness. Never have I seen such carnage celebrated and relished in until the buzzards fly in and the women come out to pray. Every character is battling the slowly-fading lifestyle of their bravado nature, and Peckinpah lets every character dwell not in nostalgia but in remembrance. The final 15 minutes lets loose in its purity and its depravity, but in an honest way that recalls why such stories are told."]
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