Some comments:
50. The Hole / Le Trou (Jacques Becker, 1960) [146]
49. Mary Poppins (Robert Stevenson, 1964) [150]
48. Elmer Gantry (Richard Brooks, 1960) [151]
47. Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick, 1960) [154]
My list. Kubrick begins flexing his muscles. Well he already had done the incredible Paths of Glory, significantly superior to this film. However, since I am a big fan of Greco-Roman history I love everything related to the ancients, specially when I get someone like Kubrick to direct
46. Goldfinger (Guy Hamilton, 1964) [155]
45. Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967) [157]
44. Z (Costa-Gavras, 1969) [158]
43. Last Year at Marienbad (Alain Resnais, 1961) [159]
Boring and pretentious. A movie that is really hard to swallow and I found it among the most boring things I ever watched, I felt very disconnected from it.
42. The Haunting (Robert Wise, 1963) [160]
41. Pierrot Le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965) [165]
Well, it appears to be the typical example of new wave French influence on modern cinema. I would think that many modern Hollywood movies have been directly influenced by it. Even a Cowboy Bebop episode is named after the movie (though it's actual style is very different).
40. My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964) [170]
39. Breakfast at Tiffany's (Blake Edwards, 1961) [178]
38. Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969) [178]
37. The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965) [185]
36. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964) [186]
35. Judgment at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer, 1961) [188]
34. The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer, 1962) [190]
33. Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960) [191]
32. The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961) [204]
31. Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967) [212]
That one was on my list (I think).
It's a very mechanical movie and I think it's rather unique in that sense among the movies I have watched. Truly impressive demonstration of the rapidly changing world of the 1960's as European society was transforming itself from a industrial society to a post-industrial post-modern society. This movie is a criticism of the elements of post-industrial society that we regard as natural.
30. The Great Escape (John Sturges, 1963) [221]
29. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Mike Nichols, 1966) [221]
28. West Side Story (Robert Wise, 1961) [222]
27. Harakiri (Masaki Kobayashi, 1962) [230]
My list. A tour the force showing of the power of Japanese cinema in terms of movies characterized by a strong sense of theatricality. It's a post-war (blunt) criticism of the Samurai mentality, so prevalent in Japan. It reflects the country's introspective observation of it's own cultural fabric after the disaster struck them in WW2: the once proud Japanese empire found out it was just a second rate third world country who was unable to defend itself against a fraction of the resources of a major western power. As a result to this shock Japan started to deconstruct it's own cultural identity and the concept of bushido, central to the culture of Japanese civilization, was itself put under attack by films such as Seven Samurai and this one.
26. The Hustler (Richard Rossen, 1961) [239]
25. La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960) [262]
Boring and overrated criticism of post-war Italian elites, reminds me of Playtime in the same sense but unlike Playtime it lacks the mechanical precision that appeals to me. IMO most Fellini movies feel a bit too "loose" and I prefer tight.
24. Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967) [269]
23. High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963) [281]
My list. This one is a winner. One of the classic Kurosawa movie, highly entertaining and precisely executed. Kurosawa is the kind of cinema as a storytelling medium and this movie is one of the supreme examples of the art.
22. For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965) [289]
My list. Incredible. An epic movie that heavily influenced pop culture. It contains many elements of entertainment that would be re-used in many later movies, TV shows, novels and manga. It's one of the few movies that left me completely absorbed in it's narrative.
21. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy Hill, 1969) [294]
I think it was an ok movie. Though it has been over a decade since I watched it with my family, at the time my tastes in movies were not the same as now so I guess I would need to re-watch it to see how it stands now.
20. Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968) [296]
I need to watch this movie. I never get to it but I still need to do so, it's a classic right? Has zombies and everything, I hope it is as good as the first season of The Walking Dead.
19. Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964) [310]
My list. This one is great. Pretty disturbing film as well, dude goes to the middle of nowhere finds a hole and it even comes with a women inside. Awesome dude.
18. The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963) [320]
Really funny comedy. While it was intended as a horror movie to me it was just funny and I appreciate it on a mostly sarcastic level: birds attacking humanity. Lol. That's so lame and laughable. But they outnumber us 50 to one, don't they? Well now with population growth and environmental degradation I guess the odds are closer to 10 to one. I think I can beat 10 pigeons, well, at least if I fight'en separately. Also contains some of the worst child acting of all time. Could have been on my list.
17. Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa, 1961) [320]
The classic spaghetti western that is actually a Japanese film set around the end of the Edo period and beginning of the Meiji period (something I learned when I watched Samurai X on cartoon network in the 5th grade
). Though I think it was very hard to find a gun in Japan at the time because the country was very closed to the rest of the world: it was the only case in history where guns were abandoned, due perhaps to the demands of the Samurai class whose sword skills were devalued with firearms.
16. 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963) [337]
My list, like in 3rd place. Now, this is an exceptional Fellini. Instead of being all loose and lazy, like a proper Italian, it is what you would imagine a Fellini film would look like if it were something tightly executed. In fact the only one of his movies which I found profoundly affecting and really cool. The only movie cooler than this one on my list was Japanese and animated, well, not really, this is the coolest movie in my list.
15. The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969) [339]
14. Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968) [384]
My list. Who yeah, the movie with monkeys. Really good, specially in the last scene: Dam you All to Hell. I wish I could say that with the same degree of conviction. One of the finest science fiction movies of all time indeed.
13. To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962) [386]
A bit tad melodramatic. I remember I watched it because I read on a review of Miyazaki's Spirited Away that it was one of the reviewer's favorite movies of all time alongside films such as To Kill a Mockingbird. So I decided to watch it, it was a disappointment. What I learned from that experience is that western movie fans do not really understand Miyazaki. Because their reaction to Miyazaki's anime is completely inconsistent with the actual creator's intentions, an outcome of their environment being culturally unrelated with the cultural environment in which anime springs forth: the fact that some western movie fans are even comparing the symphony of images, music and plot that constitutes Spirited Away with this simplistic melodrama is, well, rather dumb to be perfectly honest.
Sorry guys from posting this huge chunk of text.
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