10 Essential Movies From The 1960s

1967 is most often acknowledged as the beginning of the new age of American cinema (with titles like Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate), an era that extended to the end of the 1970s. If 1967 was the catalyst year, 1969 was the year this new style of movies really began to take off, and Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch was at the forefront of this bold new world.

The legacy of the movie focuses primarily on its violent images, especially in its concluding moments, but this is largely indicative of the drive of the entire movie, which is fascinated by presenting the unsavory parts of the Western cinematic and historical landscape that was glossed over by classical, perhaps somewhat sugarcoated takes on the genre in the past.

Of the important movies of the 60s, this one may be one of the more dated, its aesthetic qualities feeling more like those of the decades preceding it than the more contemporary feels of some others on this list. And yet its influence on movies by Quentin Tarantino other 90s directors who pushed the boundaries of popular cinematic violence is abundantly clear.

Continue reading on the next page…