The 1950s saw the release of many brilliant works of cinema from around the world but the 1960s increased that quality substantially. The 1960s is the decade when the words 'World Cinema' truly came to fruition. Some of my all-time favourite films come from this decade so trying to narrow down a list to just 30 titles was a very difficult task.
When it comes to co-productions, Italy and France rule this
list with 53% of all titles (16/30) being either an Italian or French
production: 8 co-productions involve both France and Italy; 13 productions
involving Italy and 3 productions involving France. Of course, when it comes to
those co-productions, many are perceived as belonging to only 1 country such as
La Dolce Vita is considered an Italian film while Playtime
as being French.
Interestingly, Italy dominates the top 10 with 5 titles
including the first 4 spots. Safe to say, Italian films never hit such highs in
any of my other decades list. So the 1960s were easily my favourite decade when
it came to Italian cinema.
Top 30 films of the 1960s:
1. The Battle of Algiers (1966,
Italy/Algeria, Gillo Pontecorvo)
2. Hands over the City (1963, Italy/France,
Francesco Rosi)
3. Il Posto (1961, Italy, Ermanno Olmi)
4. La Dolce Vita (1960, Italy/France, Federico
Fellini)
5. Mahanagar (The Big City, 1963, Satyajit
Ray)
6. Bandits of Orgosolo (1961, Italy, Vittoria
De Seta)
7. Playtime (1967, France/Italy, Jacques
Tati)
8. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, UK/USA,
Stanley Kubrick)
9. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, UK/USA, Stanley Kubrick)
10. Soleil Ô (1967, Mauritania/France, Med Hondo)
11. Black
God, White Devil (1964, Brazil, Glauber Rocha)
12. Army
of Shadows (1969, France/Italy, Jean-Pierre Melville)
13. An
Autumn Afternoon (1962, Japan, Yasujiro Ozu)
14. L'Avventura (1960,
Italy/France, Michelangelo Antonioni)
15. Le samouraï (1967, France/Italy, Jean-Pierre Melville)
16. Le Trou (1960, France/Italy. Jacques Becker)
17. Z
(1969, France/Algeria, Costa-Gavras)
18. Cléo
from 5 to 7 (1962, France/Italy, Agnès Varda)
19. My
Life to Live (1962, France, Jean-Luc Godard)
20. Aimless Bullet (1961, South Korea, Yu Hyun-mok)
21. El
Verdugo (The Executioner, 1963, Spain, Luis García Berlanga)
22. Change
of Life (1966, Portugal, Paulo Rocha)
23. The
Sound of Music (1965, USA, Robert Wise)
24. A
Married Couple (1969, Canada, Allan King)
25. When
a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960, Japan, Mikio Naruse)
26. Blow-Up (1966,
UK/Italy, Michelangelo Antonioni)
27. The
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966, Italy/Spain, Sergio Leone)
28. Memories
of Underdevelopment (1968, Cuba, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea)
29. The
Exterminating Angel (1962, Mexico, Luis Buñuel)
30. Meghe
Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star, 1960, India, Ritwik Ghatak)
Tough to leave out many films. Here are 11 that shouldn’t
have missed out (in no particular order):
Psycho (1960, USA, Alfred Hitchcock)
Last Year at Marienbad (1961, France, Alain Resnais)
The Housemaid (1960, South Korea, Kim Ki-young)
Breathless (1960, France, Jean-Luc Godard)
Ikarie
XB1 (1963, Czechoslovakia, Jindrich Polák)
Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, Italy/USA, Sergio
Leone)
Closely Watched Trains (1966, Czechoslovakia, Jirí
Menzel)
Noite Vazia (1964, Brazil, Walter Hugo Khouri)
The Round-Up (1966, Hungary, Miklós Jancsó)
The House is Black (1963, Iran, Forugh Farrokhzad)
La Jetée (1962, France, Chris Marker)
