25 Best Movies of the 1960s, Ranked (original) (raw)
Updated Feb 16, 2024, 8:30 PM EST
Jeremy has more than 2500 published articles on Collider to his name, and has been writing for the site since February 2022. He's an omnivore when it comes to his movie-watching diet, so will gladly watch and write about almost anything, from old Godzilla films to gangster flicks to samurai movies to classic musicals to the French New Wave to the MCU... well, maybe not the Disney+ shows.
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Every decade since cinema's inception has seen the release of numerous classic films, but even so, the 1960s feel particularly special within the medium's history. There was a certain level of freedom technologically, given factors like the adoption of wide-screen formats that had taken off in the 1950s and more freedom to shoot in color or black-and-white. There were also fewer restrictions when it came to content, particularly in the American film industry, with the winding down of the oppressive Hays Code.
Add to that how various film industries outside Hollywood - like those in Italy, France, Sweden, and Japan especially - were starting to get even more international recognition than they'd had in the 1950s, and you've got all the necessary ingredients for a great decade of movies. The 1960s saw the release of so many fantastic films that often hold up surprisingly well all these decades later, with some of that decade's very best being ranked below, starting with the great and ending with the greatest.
25 '8½' (1963)
Director: Federico Fellini
Marcello adjusting his shades in 8 1/2
Image via Cineriz
Federico Fellini was behind some of the best Italian movies of all time, and the 1960s might well have been the decade when he was at his artistic peak as a filmmaker. This is demonstrated by something like 8½, which sees the filmmaker at his most introspective, making a movie about the creative process and the hardships of filmmaking.
It's easy to see 8½ as a film that at the very least is semi-autobiographical, with the lead character here - a director played by frequent Fellini collaborator Marcello Mastroianni - being a stand-in for the filmmaker himself. It's a movie that provides personal drama in its story and a level of inventive surrealism with its presentation, making it overall unique and capable of leaving quite the impression.
Release Date
February 14, 1963
Runtime
139 minutes
Director
Federico Fellini
24 'The Sound of Music' (1965)
Director: Robert Wise
Julie Andrews opening song the sound of music
Image via 20th Century Fox
The Sound of Music is undoubtedly among the most popular and critically acclaimed musicals of the 1960s, which was a time when the genre was overall very popular. It was a Best Picture winner and also something of an epic, (additionally, the fact it was based on a true story can make it qualify as a biopic of sorts), running for almost three hours and combining family drama, romance, and even a little by way of war themes into one large-scale movie.
It's about a young woman becoming a carer for the seven children of a widower, and takes place in Austria shortly before the start of World War II. Those who don't like traditional musicals might not be crazy about The Sound of Music, but it's a classic for a reason, and does ultimately remain beloved by many to this day.
Release Date
March 2, 1965
Runtime
174 minutes
Director
Robert Wise
23 'Peeping Tom' (1960)
Director: Michael Powell
Peeping Tom (1960)
Image Via Universal
For its time, Peeping Tom was certainly shocking and provocative, and it still has something of an impact today. It follows a particularly disturbed young man named Mark Lewis, and depicts his confronting hobbies and obsessions, principally revolving around fear and death, including capturing such things on film.
Anyone fond of what Alfred Hitchcock was capable of making when he was at his most mean-spirited and gutsy will find plenty to like in Peeping Tom. It functions well as an uneasy horror movie with a slow but absorbing pace, and can certainly be admired for the provocative places it was willing to go way back in the early 1960s. And while certain thrillers and horror movies in the years since have gone further, Peeping Tom was bold for its time and can still be appreciated/enjoyed as a result.
22 'The Hustler' (1961)
Director: Robert Rossen
Paul Newman as Eddie playing pool in The Hustler
Image via 20th Century Fox
Paul Newman might not have won an Oscar until he starred in this movie's sequel (The Color of Money, directed by Martin Scorsese), but The Hustler remains his most iconic performance to many. Newman plays the titular hustler, with the film's plot revolving around a high-stakes match of pool he challenges a well-known player to.
It's a film that's very straightforward as a sports drama, but it's a well-oiled machine of a movie that stays compelling and expertly acted throughout its entire duration. It helped further solidify Paul Newman as one of the decade's best actors, as well as one of the coolest, and stands as a movie worth watching for his lead performance alone... though it should also be noted that there are some excellent supporting performances in The Hustler, too, notably from the likes of George C. Scott and Piper Laurie.
Release Date
September 25, 1961
Runtime
134 minutes
Director
Robert Rossen
Main Genre
21 'Yojimbo' (1961)
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Toshiro Mifune doing some hard thinking in the Akira Kurosawa movie Yojimbo (1961)
Image via Toho
An excellent samurai film that's more about building tension than delivering explosive action, Yojimbo is one of the best movies in this genre directed by Akira Kurosawa. It's about a charismatic wanderer wandering into a town that's being torn apart by a gang war, with said lone wolf adopting a novel strategy for improving the way of life for the people living there.
He becomes an ally of both gangs, using knowledge of each to play them against each other in the hope that doing so will wipe everyone out. Watching this plan develop and then play out is immensely satisfying, and it of course helps that two Kurosawa regulars - Toshiro Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai - are here playing the protagonist and antagonist respectively.
Release Date
April 25, 1961
Runtime
110 minutes
Director
Akira Kurosawa
Main Genre
20 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (1962)
Director: Robert Mulligan
Gregory Peck and Brock Peters
Image via Universal Studios
You can't talk about great courtroom dramas without bringing up the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, which certainly does the iconic novel of the same name justice. It's about a lawyer defending a Black man in court in Alabama, set at a time when racism was prevalent, meaning few people in town seem willing to entertain the notion that the accused is innocent.
It succeeds for numerous reasons, but Gregory Peck's commanding and pitch-perfect performance as the lawyer, Atticus Ross, might be the principal one among those. It's a moving and expertly paced film, and one of those particularly great 1960s movies that seems to have lost none of its impact with age. Additionally, it could well go without saying that To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the very best courtroom drama movies of all time.
Release Date
December 25, 1962
Runtime
129 minutes
Director
Robert Mulligan
Main Genre
Crime
19 'War and Peace' (1966)
Director: Sergei Bondarchuk
Battle scene from 'War and Peace'
Image via Mosfilm
Of the numerous War and Peace film and TV adaptations out there, few can claim to be quite as epic as this version released in four parts throughout the mid-1960s. It's a Russian adaptation that uses its seven-hour runtime to get a decent amount of Leo Tolstoy's iconic novel in one film (though it can't get everything, given the book's 1000+ pages).
Following numerous characters over many years, War and Peace is a sweeping epic that combines larger-than-life romantic drama and even larger war sequences into one epic. The battle scenes in particular are on a scale that's never been matched, at least when it comes to the pre-CGI era (and even then, the number of extras involved in War and Peace rivals the computer-generated armies seen in many big Lord of the Rings battles).
18 'Breathless' (1960)
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel Poiccard and Jean Seberg as Patricia Franchini walking side by side in Breathless (1960)
Image via StudioCanal
Jean-Luc Godard was always a rule-breaking and provocative filmmaker, with these qualities making him both loved and disliked by different viewers for differing reasons. Breathless is far from his only noteworthy movie, but for better or worse, stands as his most famous. This is perhaps because Breathless was an early French New Wave film and therefore ended up being undeniably influential, as well as unabashedly boundary-pushing.
It's a suave and stylish film, following a thief who's on the run from the law, and the way he tries to convince a young woman to join him as he flees. It's uninterested in being conventional in just about any way, though its influence on films that followed it now means certain things may not feel as jarring or unusual nowadays. Nevertheless, Breathless is still very easy to appreciate and enjoy.
17 'Bonnie and Clyde' (1967)
Director: Arthur Penn
Image via Warner Bros.
Breathless was a crime drama that broke certain rules before Bonnie and Clyde did, which might suggest the American film industry took a little while to catch up to the French one. But that doesn't negate Bonnie and Clyde's impact when it comes to things like its abrasive yet confident editing, its shocking bursts of violence, and its willingness to make the titular bank robbers/criminals rather likable and endearing.
Bonnie and Clyde has an excellently told story and one with the kind of pacing and brazenness that gives it a sort of timeless quality. Also commendable are the performances; not just Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in the titular roles, but also the strong supporting cast that includes Gene Hackman and even a brief cameo (of sorts) from Gene Wilder.
Release Date
July 18, 1967
Runtime
111 minutes
Director
Arthur Penn
Main Genre
Biography
16 'In the Heat of the Night' (1967)
Director: Norman Jewison
Detective Virgil Tibbs and Police Chief Bill Gillespie work the case in 'In the Heat of the Night'.
Image via United Artists
In the Heat of the Night came out during a great year for cinema, and ended up taking home the top prize at the Oscars, winning Best Picture. It's a crime/drama/mystery movie that deals with racial issues of the 1960s, given its premise sees a Black police detective (played by Sidney Poitier) investigating a murder in a Mississippi town.
Some aspects of it have aged a little, compared to some other groundbreaking movies of the late 1960s, but it remains a historically significant movie and an engaging one. It's one of Poitier's most celebrated roles for a reason, with co-stars like Rod Steiger and Lee Grant turning in strong performances, too. In the Heat of the Night is also noteworthy for being a Best Picture Oscar winner that's also a crime movie, given its narrative focus on the solving of a crime.
Release Date
August 2, 1967
Runtime
109 minutes
Director
Norman Jewison
Main Genre
Crime