Entertainment
The Best Movies Of The '60s
The 1960s were a great period for film. Some of the best and most memorable movies came out in the 1960s. The '60s saw the overlap of many of the iconic film directors and stars from Hollywood's Golden Age along with some of the young upstarts who came to define the next generation of stars and powerbrokers.
The best movies of the '60s spanned many genres as well. Famous thrillers like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate are considered classics as is Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, Dr. Strangelove, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. There were also musicals that were adopted to the big screen like West Side Story. If you are a fan of westerns, there plenty of great films in the genre made in the '60s. These tough guy movies, like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, introduced Clint Eastwood to the mainstream while Paul Newman and Robert Redford captured the hearts of audiences in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Movies like Midnight Cowboy and Easy Rider were gritty films that introduced Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson to the world. Hoffman was nominated for his role in The Graduate during the same decade. These films, which wouldn't even get made now, were actually popular movies of the 1960s.
The 1960s were a special period in film history and these are the decade's best movies. Vote for the movies you think are the best of the '60s and should be recognized as the best of the decade.
Ranked by
- Actors: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Charlie Condou, Gemma Jones, Jodie Whittaker
- Directed by: Sergio Leone, Vicente Amorim
In the Southwest during the Civil War, a mysterious stranger, Joe (Clint Eastwood), and a Mexican outlaw, Tuco (Eli Wallach), form an uneasy partnership -- Joe turns in the bandit for the reward ...more- Actors: Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough, Charles Bronson, James Donald
- Directed by: John Sturges
Imprisoned during World War II in a German POW camp, a group of Allied soldiers are intent on breaking out, not only to escape, but also to draw Nazi forces away from battle to search for fugitives. ...more- 1960
- Actors: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam
- Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Phoenix secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), on the lam after stealing $40,000 from her employer in order to run away with her boyfriend, Sam Loomis (John Gavin), is overcome by exhaustion during a ...more - Actors: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross, Strother Martin, Henry Jones
- Directed by: George Roy Hill
The true story of fast-draws and wild rides, battles with posses, train and bank robberies, a torrid love affair and a new lease on outlaw life in far away Bolivia. It is also a character study of a ...more- Actors: Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes
- Directed by: Robert Aldrich
As D-Day approaches, Colonel Breed hands the roguish Major Reisman (Lee Marvin) an important assignment: He must train a team of soldiers to parachute across enemy lines and assassinate German ...more- Actors: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, John Fiedler, Herbert Edelman, Monica Evans
- Directed by: Gene Saks
When fussy Felix (Jack Lemmon) becomes suicidal over his impending divorce, he accepts an offer to move in with his best friend, messy Oscar (Walter Matthau). Felix drives Oscar crazy with his ...more- Actors: Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, Glynis Johns, David Tomlinson, Ed Wynn
- Directed by: Robert Stevenson
When Jane (Karen Dotrice) and Michael (Matthew Garber), the children of the wealthy and uptight Banks family, are faced with the prospect of a new nanny, they are pleasantly surprised by the arrival ...more- Actors: Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volonté, Aldo Sambrell, Mario Brega, Benito Stefanelli
- Directed by: Sergio Leone
A Fistful of Dollars, titled on-screen as Fistful of Dollars, is a 1964 spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, alongside Gian Maria Volonté, Marianne Koch, ...more- Actors: James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O'Brien
- Directed by: John Ford
Questions arise when Senator Stoddard (James Stewart) attends the funeral of a local man named Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) in a small Western town. Flashing back, we learn Doniphon saved Stoddard, then ...more- Actors: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Quentin Dean, James Patterson
- Directed by: Norman Jewison
African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie (Rod Steiger), the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. ...more- 1968
- Actors: Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Jacqueline Bisset, Don Gordon, Robert Duvall
- Directed by: Peter Yates
Senator Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) is aiming to take down mob boss Pete Ross (Vic Tayback) with the help of testimony from the criminal's hothead brother Johnny (Pat Renella), who is in ...more - Actors: Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Horst Bucholz, Charles Bronson
- Directed by: John Sturges
A Mexican village is at the mercy of Calvera, the leader of a band of outlaws. The townspeople, too afraid to fight for themselves, hire seven American gunslingers to free them from the bandits' ...more- Actors: Rod Taylor, Betty Lou Gerson, Cate Bauer, Lisa Daniels, Ben Wright
- Directed by: Wolfgang Reitherman, Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi
In a Disney animation classic, Dalmatian Pongo is tired of his bachelor-dog life. He spies lovely Perdita and maneuvers his master, Roger, into meeting Perdita's owner, Anita. The owners fall in love ...more- Actors: Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, Louis Prima, George Sanders, Sterling Holloway
- Directed by: Wolfgang Reitherman
In this classic Walt Disney animation based on Rudyard Kipling's book, Mowgli, an abandoned child raised by wolves, has his peaceful existence threatened by the return of the man-eating tiger Shere ...more- 1969
- Actors: John Wayne, Glen Campbell, Kim Darby, Jeremy Slate, Robert Duvall
- Directed by: Henry Hathaway
After hired hand Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey) murders the father of 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Kim Darby), she seeks vengeance and hires U.S. Marshal "Rooster" Cogburn (John Wayne), a man of "true grit," to ...more - 1963
- Actors: Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy
- Directed by: Stanley Donen
After Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) falls for the dashing Peter Joshua (Cary Grant) on a skiing holiday in the French Alps, she discovers upon her return to Paris that her husband has been ...more - Actors: Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Sergio Leone, Klaus Kinski, Gian Maria Volonté
- Directed by: Sergio Leone
For a Few Dollars More is a 1965 Italian spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Gian Maria Volonté. German actor Klaus Kinski also plays a ...more- Actors: John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Rod Steiger, Robert Ryan
- Directed by: Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki
In 1944, the U.S. Army and Allied forces plan a huge invasion landing in Normandy, France. Despite bad weather, General Eisenhower gives the okay and the Allies land at Normandy. General Norma Cota ...more- Actors: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Gladys Cooper
- Directed by: George Cukor
In this beloved musical, pompous phonetics professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) is so sure of his abilities that he takes it upon himself to transform a Cockney working-class girl into someone who ...more- 1961
- Actors: Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott, Piper Laurie, Myron McCormick
- Directed by: Robert Rossen
Story Fast Eddie Felsen (Paul Newman) and his adventures in the world of professional pool. Fast Eddie is a young hopeful on his way to challenging Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason) for his world ...more - Actors: Peter Sellers, David Niven, Robert Wagner, Capucine, Brenda De Banzie
- Directed by: Blake Edwards
In this first film of the beloved comic series, dashing European thief Sir Charles Lytton (David Niven) plans to steal a diamond, but he's not the only one with his eyes on the famous jewel known as ...more- 1964
- Actors: Sean Connery, Gert Fröbe, Honor Blackman, Shirley Eaton, Bernard Lee
- Directed by: Guy Hamilton
Special agent 007 (Sean Connery) comes face to face with one of the most notorious villains of all time, and now he must outwit and outgun the powerful tycoon to prevent him from cashing in on a ...more - Actors: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, Peter Bull
- Directed by: Stanley Kubrick
A film about what could happen if the wrong person pushed the wrong button -- and it played the situation for laughs. U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper goes completely insane, and sends his bomber ...more- 1962
- Actors: Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman, Jack Lord, Zena Marshall
- Directed by: Terence Young
In the film that launched the James Bond saga, Agent 007 (Sean Connery) battles mysterious Dr. No, a scientific genius bent on destroying the U.S. space program. As the countdown to disaster begins, ...more - Actors: Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Frank Wolff
- Directed by: Sergio Leone
There's a single piece of land around Flagstone with water on it, and rail baron Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti) aims to have it, knowing the new railroad will have to stop there. He sends his henchman ...more
