The Best Hollywood Films of the 1960s

On the occasion of the criminally tardy Blu-ray release of 7 Women, I herewith offer my list of the ten greatest Hollywood films of the 1960s:

1. 7 Women (John Ford, 1966)
2. The Ladies Man (Jerry Lewis, 1961)
3. Petulia (Richard Lester, 1968)
4. Red Line 7000 (Howard Hawks, 1965)
5. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
6. Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967)
7. The Boston Strangler (Richard Fleischer, 1968)
8. Bye Bye Birdie (George Sidney, 1963)
9. Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969)
10. The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962)

I arrived at this top ten by asking a question on Facebook a few years ago:

"Hey fellow film dorks! Can you name an American feature-length narrative film from the 1960s better than any of these listed below? Caveats: 1. I want it as mainstream/Hollywood as possible. So no sexploitation, no avant-garde, no Russ Meyer, no indies, etc. 2. No other films by directors already listed. I know Hatari! and Marnie are great. 3. I’ll puke (and you’ll clean it up!) if you mention Best Picture Oscar winners or anything by Kubrick. 4. I hate Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and no to The Graduate.

Bonnie and Clyde (Penn)
Bye Bye Birdie (Sidney)
The Hustler (Rossen)
In Harm’s Way (Preminger)
The Ladies Man (Jerry Lewis)
The Legend of Lylah Clare (Aldrich)
The Manchurian Candidate (Frankenheimer)
Petulia (Lester)
Point Blank (Boorman)
Psycho (Hitchcock)
Red Line 7000 (Hawks)
Rosemary's Baby (Polanski)
7 Women (Ford)
Shock Corridor (Fuller)
Too Late Blues (Cassavetes)
Two Weeks in Another Town (Minnelli)"

The purpose was threefold: 1. to focus my viewing schedule 2. to discover if there were indeed any films greater than those I listed and 3. to gain the illusion that I was "done" with the Hollywood of the 1960s, a decade which seems to me (preposterously, I admit) manageable. Plenty of friends offered suggestions, all of which are below and most of which I managed to watch. Years later, I discovered only two titles to rank with the powerhouses listed above - The Boston Strangler and Midnight Cowboy, the latter of which I apparently saw far too young since it hit me much harder when I watched it again in 2022.

Given the arbitrary nature of years, decades, and even nations, it was silly for me to be a stickler for rules. But again, I longed for focus. So no Boom! (Joseph Losey, 1968) or Paradise Alley (Hugo Haas, released in 1962, but shot in 1958). The 1960s were notorious for runaway productions, a phenomenon skewered by Minnelli's Two Weeks in Another Town which itself got skewered by the very system it critiqued. So is it a Hollywood film or a meta Hollywood film or more Hollywood than any film listed on this page for how it perfectly traces the death of classical cinema? Is Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968) a Hollywood film or even American one? I wouldn't prevent anyone from top tenning it but I left it off my list. I would definitely find a spot for Bunny Lake is Missing (Otto Preminger, 1965) but in the end, I slotted it as a British film. 

To be clear, my top ten list would not comprise my list for the decade overall, not even close. For one, the avant-garde was really starting to whip up a storm in the 1960s; Andy Warhol's Drunk and Jack Chambers' The Hart of London are better films than anything above. For another, there's the rest of the world to manage which became downright torrential by 1960. And finally, there are beloved indies like Cassavetes' Faces, Juleen Compton's The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean, and Andy Milligan's Seeds. Nevertheless, the ten Hollywood baubles I come here to praise are sources of endless renewable energy and curiosity.


All Fall Down
BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER
Billie!
Blast of Silence
Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice
The Boston Strangler
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Cape Fear
CAPRICE
CHARADE
THE CHASE
The Collector
COMANCHE STATION
Cool Hand Luke
DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES
The Disorderly Orderly
Don’t Make Waves
DOWNHILL RACER
Elmer Gantry
Experiment in Terror
Gunn
The Haunting
HELL IS FOR HEROES
Hud
In Cold Blood
Inside Daisy Clover
The Killers
Kiss Me Stupid
Kitten with a Whip
Lonely Are the Brave
LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT
MADIGAN
The Magnificent Seven
Major Dundee
MARY POPPINS
The Masque of the Red Death
MEDIUM COOL
Mickey One
THE MISFITS
Mutiny on the Bounty
MY FAIR LADY
North to Alaska
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST
ONE-EYED JACKS
The Party
THE PAWNBROKER
PLANET OF THE APES
The President's Analyst
PRETTY POISON
THE PROFESSIONALS
RACHEL, RACHEL
THE RAIN PEOPLE
Reflections in a Golden Eye
RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY
ROME ADVENTURE
The Savage Innocents
Something Wild
THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD
THE SHOOTING
Strangers in the City
Support Your Local Sheriff
SUSAN SLADE
THE SWIMMER
Targets
TELL THEM WILLIE BOY IS HERE
That Cold Day in the Park
They Shoot Horses Don't They?
Two For the Road
WAIT UNTIL DARK
The Wild Bunch
Wild River
The World of Henry Orient
YOUNGBLOOD HAWKE