Confession Time: best movie(s) of the 1960s.

first - the '60s was from Jan 1, 1961 to Dec 31, 1970. Sorry'bout that.

And I dont see either of the Robert Bolt Masterpieces on there: Man for All Seasons, and Lawrence of Arabia. Yes, Sir Thomas Moore was the worst kind of zealot, but he stood up to a tyrant. And the language!!
Perhaps it is worth noting that Bolt never attended church after age 16.

I'd include Midnight Cowboy and Night of the living Dead.

I'm not really good at coming up with favorite movies, but I thought of the following (in addition to some of those already mentioned):

The Great Race ("Push the button, Max")
2001: A Space Odyssey
The Pink Panther (the first one. A Shot in the Dark is also fun, but I don't see it very often).
The Magnificent Seven just barely fits in the timeframe.

Yojimbo and Sanjuro are also fun when I'm in the right mood.

Has no one mentioned Breakfast at Tiffany's? There must be too many guys around here.

What about the Zeffirelli production of Romeo & Juliet (1968, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey). That defined Shakespeare for me for a long time, until I really understood Shakespeare better. Sure the performances were somewhat overwrought, but at least there was some emotion!

The more you try to list "best movies of the 60s", the more you bring home how poor the selection was.

One Million Years B.C. - dinosaurs, great Hammer Films music, and Raquel Welch in that leather bikini - I'm pretty sure I entered puberty during the show

Fantastic Voyage - Asimov story, a cool submarine, 1963 Chrysler Imperials, breakthrough special effects, and Raquel Welch in that tight wetsuit (I'm sensing a trend here)

Planet of the Apes - the most beautiful spacecraft in movies, incredible sets and effects, and Raquel Wel -- er, uh, Linda Harrison in Raquel Welch's leather bikini...

It would be the animated ones. People just don't think that adults should like animation unless it's Pixar or Japanese. But I was happy to see at least one animated movie on the list Jim posted. I was sorry to realize that Peter Pan, which I saw again last night, is too early, but The Jungle Book and The Sword in the Stone are within the decade limit.

Among musicals of the era, I have always loved Mary Poppins for the way it mixed together all kinds of things, including fun animation. Love those penguins! There were so many great musicals made into movies in the 1960's, and musicals seem to be one of those polarizing genres: People love them, or people hate them.

For a true, "why on EARTH do you watch THAT movie?" answer, I will confess that I love The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!. Not sure why, since it is pretty predictable, and truly one of those trapped-in-amber films, but the way it all comes together in a way that anybody who has lived in a small town could actually see happening, it's great. Maybe for the 1960's it's a complete fantasy (I don't remember them to speak of), and you can tell where it's going to end from the opening scenes, so it's a true popcorn movie or a video version of a beach book. Light, fluffy, hardly worth remembering, but fun while you're there.

A semi-confessional, because the performances are really great even with the scenery-chewing (which seems to fit) and the deliberate anachronisms salted in by the playwright, is The Lion in Winter. Some people think that only medieval studies majors and people in the SCA should watch this movie. I think it's a great example of performance for anybody, students of theatre can learn from it and everybody else just enjoy it. OK, I am an unabashed fan of Katherine Hepburn. But with the exception of the unfortunately throwaway part of Alais, and John's one-note persona, the other characters are uniformly strong and well-played. Pity that all theatre performances of the play have had to be held up to this example for forty years, as all are wanting in comparison.

A favourite movie I hardly think I have to confess about is To Kill A Mockingbird. There is just something irridescently perfect about that movie, the performances, the atmosphere, everything. I've read the book, more than once, and it's one of the few movies that I recommend more, and don't suggest that people have to read the book to get anything more out of it.

Since Dr. Strangelove was taken I guess I'ld have to offer another Peter Sellers film, "The Party" (1968).

I prefer Lawrence of Arabia (1962) to Dr. Zhivago, probably just because I saw it first; Dr. Strangelove (1963) to 2001, because I connected more directly with the dark, apocalyptic humor than the mysticism of the latter; and of the Bond movies, my favorites are From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. The former was probably the most serious of the bunch, and the latter got more gadgety without losing the storytelling; after that, it got too gadgety for enduring pleasure.

I will also add The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for pushing the cowboy well beyond its usual comfort zone and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? for being very good as, to use the words of a friend, "one depressing-ass movie."

I'll also add the quirky, and probably unfamiliar to most people on this group, Greetings, very early Brian de Palma and Robert deNiro, about draft evasion. Very much of its time and, at the time to those of that age, very funny.

Frank Moorman, skeptic

The first thing that popped into my mind was The Graduate. I love the soundtrack from Simon and Garfunkel. (Side note: Neil Simon and Paul Simon: 2 totally different people.) I somewhat shame myself by having forgotten about 2001 until someone else mentioned it. I think that was because I was so focused on thinking about 60s-ish movies. The Graduate, in my mind, personifies the 60s whereas 2001 is really a timeless movie. Of course, I wasn't born yet, so I don't really know anything about the 60s except as history.

I define "classic" as anything released before I was born. Alien is a classic but Aliens isn't. Close Encounters is a classic but E.T. isn't. The Empire Strikes Back is a classic but The Return of the Jedi isn't. So in that vein, I have to give a shout out to Harold and Maude. It misses the 60s by a couple of years, but it's all the same to me. (Which is to say, old.)

--
"Ponies are atheists, you know, technically."
- Me

The original Ocean's 11 (1960). Sure, it's cheesy, sure it was mostly "Hey, dudes, let's make a movie together and have some laughs!" for the rat pack. Sure, it's sexist in a way that makes me cringe a little when I think about it. But it just oozes decadent class like only the rat pack could, and is hilarious to boot. Best. Ending. Evah.

... and I have to 'confess' to liking it because of the cultural bias against taking any movie seriously. Watching it is (for me) a meditation on man's role in the cosmos, on technology, on sentience and personhood. And because I deeply enjoy the visual spectacle. It is so much as I imagine space travel to be. Well, up until diving into a monolith full of stars and stuff. That probably hardly ever happens.

Cool Hand Luke. I'm glad to see The Hustler is on there as well. Even two of the Beatles movies are there, and they are certainly fun, but hand's down, Cool Hand Luke is my favorite.

Rob "Sayin' it's your job don't make it right, Boss" Miles
--
There are only 10 types of people in the world;
those who understand binary and those who don't.

That list was very useful and immediately produced my answer: Planet of the Apes.

I haven't watched that in years but I know I'd still be entertained by this stalwart bastion of cheesy SF.

Crap. I instantly thought of Silent Running and Jeremiah Johnson, but they're both from 1972. And then I thought of, ahem, Deep Throat, but THAT'S from 1972.

Um, um, um ...

Okay, first off, here's a helper site: 100 Greatest Movies of the 60s.

I'm going to say 2001, Dr. Zhivago, and To Kill a Mockingbird.