The 60s Arthouse movie – depending on who you are, that means experimentally interesting, or eye rollingly pretentious: for me, it’s the former – international explosion has helped fortify many of these top 10 lists, especially the early 60s. 1962 certainly has a healthy representation of world cinema, and when infused with some great American epics, result in a deep, solid year.
Before the MCU, there was James Bond. The minute Sean Connery saunters onscreen, debonair and wisecracking, you know your in for an entertainment thrill ride. Lots of franchise tentpoles were established with the first Ian Flemming adaptation, including the gorgeous Ursula Andress playing doubly entendre named Honey Ryder.
Sidney Lumet directed this adaption of Eugene O’Neill’s semi-autobiographical Broadway play. This 4 hander has all the actors at their best, but special props to Katharine Hepburn, who came out of retirement to play the drug addicted matriach of a damaged family, and Jason Robards, playing the Salieri to his younger brother’s Mozart.
And here’s Kurosawa, filming the sequel to Yojimbo. We see Toshiro Mifune’s wandering warrior taking on more responsibility now, training younger samurai for an upcoming fight. This one is funnier than you expect, with Mifune eye rolling at how innocently naive his apprentices are, and some nice little subtle nods at how appearances can be deceiving.
The lesser of the 1962 war epics is still compelling, gigantic cinema. Boasting a cavalcade of acting giants (Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, and John Wayne adamantly not walking), the movie is a fascinating look at the moments leading up to and including D-Day. Despite the magnitude of acting talent, The Longest Day is more a plot driven delight, as we see the cat and mouse game from both sides the Nazis and Allies play as both sides prep for an inevitable Allied invasion. This all leads to a series of great set pieces: a botched paratrooper landing, a siege on a Normandy French town, the Omaha beach landing, I could go on and on.
The concept of a sleeper agent wasn’t too well known in 1962, so this film was a revelation to many, starring Laurence Harvey as a potentially brainwashed hero, and Frank Sinatra as the man who tries to stop him from murdering a US political leader. John Frankenheimer wanted this to be a parable about the Cold War, but even today its themes remain pertinent and potent.
Possibly Agnes Varda’s best film. The talented French director tells a real time story of an anxious pop star awaiting test results form a doctor. Each little thing she does during that time, normally meaningless, takes on extra resonance as we see a self absorbed nervous wreck try to find some peace and perspective as she awaits life altering news.
Of the French New Wave filmmakers, Francois Truffaut is one of my favorites, because he isn’t as self indulgent as his French contemporaries. This one is one of his best: Oskar Werner and Henri Serre play best friends who fall in love with the same woman, Catherine (played by the excellent Jeanne Moreau). I might also like Truffaut because his films start light and then unexpectedly hit you emotionally like a sack of bricks. This one also has proven adept with its progressive look toward love and passion.
Kurosawa has said he was influenced by the Western’s of John Ford, and here Ford gets the best of his protege. It’s a who’s who of Western titans, as Lee Marvin’s titular character is a menace on a small town. The only people that might stand up to him are Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, who have to figure out how to pull of what the title suggests.
Harper Lee’s mandatory Junior High School reading material is translated to this Junior High mandatory movie adaptation. Gregory Peck gives one of the performances of his career as the noble Atticus Finch, defending Brock Peters’s black man accused of rape in a place that already thinks he’s guilty. Robert Duvall is also wonderful as the enigmatic Boo Radley in his feature debut.
Of all the films that need to be seen on the big screen, this is far and away at the top of the list, containing some of the most majestic imagery ever captured on film. David Lean’s masterpiece contains more than one performance for a career: Omar Sharif is excellent as an Arab leader in the rebellion against the Turks. But Peter O’Toole became a super duper star playing TE Lawrence, the British general leading the Arab rebellion, who endures several lifetime’s worth of experience as the movie reaches it’s conclusion.
