The Greatest Movie of Every Year of the 1960s

The 1960s sparked a sig­nif­i­cant shift in Amer­i­can cul­ture that ulti­mate­ly influ­enced the movie indus­try, ush­er­ing in a col­lec­tion of exper­i­men­tal and risk-tak­ing films. The rev­o­lu­tion­ary decade intro­duced movie-goers to an array of tran­scen­dent clas­sics, includ­ing 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alfred Hitch­cock’s Psy­cho, as well as icon­ic hits like In the Heat of the Night, West Side Sto­ry, and To Kill a Mock­ing­bird that sparked cru­cial social nar­ra­tives among audi­ences

Although the 1960s marked the release of some of the most pro­found films of all time, there are still cer­tain titles, such as Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Wor­ry­ing and Love the Bomb, Ser­gio Leone’s The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and The Great Escape, that stood out from oth­er films released the same year. From The Mas­ter of Sus­pense’s sig­na­ture thriller, Psy­cho, to the essen­tial bud­dy West­ern, Butch Cas­sidy and the Sun­dance Kid, star­ring Robert Red­ford and Paul New­man, these are the best movies of every year of the 1960s.

Alfred Hitch­cock rede­fined the psy­cho­log­i­cal hor­ror thriller with Psy­cho, which stars Janet Leigh as a real estate sec­re­tary, Mar­i­on Crane, who, after steal­ing thou­sands of dol­lars from her employ­er, quick­ly skips town with a plan to run away with her boyfriend (John Gavin). As Crane grows tired and is over­come by a thun­der­storm, she decides to stop for the night and checks into the Bates Motel, where she meets the odd but kind Nor­man Bates (Antho­ny Perkins), who har­bors a dark secret that changes the course of Crane’s life for­ev­er

Psy­cho is based on Robert Bloch’s 1959 nov­el and is known for its tedious­ly slick direc­tion, intense atmos­phere, unfor­get­table per­for­mances, and, of course, the infa­mous show­er scene. At the time, the hor­ror genre was known for its stereo­typ­i­cal mon­ster movies, but Psy­cho ignit­ed a cre­ative shift with­in the genre, lead­ing to a rise in more twist­ed thrillers, mak­ing it an influ­en­tial sta­ple in the genre. Despite its ini­tial mixed reviews, Psy­cho was the sec­ond-high­est-gross­ing film of 1960, and today, it is con­sid­ered one of the great­est movies of all time, as well as one of Hitch­cock­’s most cel­e­brat­ed mas­ter­pieces.

‘West Side Sto­ry’ (1961)

Robert Wise’s West Side Sto­ry is a mod­ern­ized ver­sion of Romeo and Juli­etset against the back­drop of New York City’s Upper West Side, where two rival gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, are in an intense turf war. When a for­mer mem­ber of the Jets, Tony (Richard Beymer), falls in love with the leader of the Sharks’ sis­ter, Maria (Natal­ie Wood), their rela­tion­ship inevitably adds fuel to the already blaz­ing fire between the two gangs, result­ing in sense­less blood­shed and a trag­ic end to the cou­ple’s blos­som­ing romance.

The 1961 Oscar-win­ning musi­cal film, West Side Sto­ry, is an adap­ta­tion of the 1957 hit Broad­way show and is rec­og­nized as a pow­er­ful piece of cin­e­ma due to its heavy focus on key social issues, such as gang vio­lence and racial ten­sions, as well as its col­lec­tion of mem­o­rable songs and musi­cal num­bers. West Side Sto­ry was the high­est-gross­ing film of the year and ulti­mate­ly won ten of its eleven Acad­e­my Award nom­i­na­tions, includ­ing Best Pic­ture and Best Direc­tor, becom­ing the first musi­cal film to win the most Oscars. Rita Moreno also went on to win the Acad­e­my Award for Best Sup­port­ing Actress, mak­ing her the first His­pan­ic actress ever to win the pres­ti­gious award.

‘To Kill a Mock­ing­bird’ (1962)

Gre­go­ry Peck stars in one of his most essen­tial films, To Kill a Mock­ing­bird, as a lawyer and father, Atti­cus Finch, who lives in Alaba­ma with his two chil­dren, Jem (Philip Alford) and Scout (Mary Bad­ham), dur­ing the Great Depres­sion. When an African Amer­i­can man, Tom Robin­son (Brock Peters), is wrong­ful­ly accused of assault­ing a white woman, Finch defends the inno­cent man not only because of his sense of moral­i­ty and jus­tice, but also to set an exam­ple for his chil­dren about stand­ing up against prej­u­dice

To Kill a Mock­ing­bird is a mov­ing legal dra­ma based on Harp­er Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-win­ning nov­el and bold­ly con­veys the impor­tance of nev­er judg­ing a book by its cov­er through themes of racism, injus­tice, and humil­i­ty. The film was both a finan­cial and crit­i­cal suc­cess and was main­ly praised for its grasp of social con­scious­ness and over­all riv­et­ing per­for­mances, notably Peck, whose per­for­mance earned him the Acad­e­my Award for Best Actor. To Kill a Mock­ing­birdreceived eight Acad­e­my Award nom­i­na­tions, includ­ing Best Pic­ture, Best Direc­tor, and Best Sup­port­ing Actress for Bad­ham, and went on to also win for Best Adapt­ed Screen­play and Best Art Direc­tion.

‘The Great Escape’ (1963

Steve McQueen stars in John Sturges’ epic war adven­ture movie, The Great Escape, as Cap­tain Vir­gil Hilts, who is deter­mined to break out of a Ger­man POW camp dur­ing World War II. When Hilts real­izes he can’t escape alone, he and sev­er­al oth­er Allied pris­on­ers secret­ly con­struct a mass prison break by dig­ging three tun­nels under the camp. As they set their grand plot in motion, they soon learn that their mis­sion comes with more dan­gers and com­pli­ca­tions than they ini­tial­ly expect­ed.

The Great Escape is a fic­tion­al­ized account of the mass escape of British sol­diers from the Ger­man POW camp, Sta­lag Luft III, and fea­tures an ensem­ble cast includ­ing James Gar­ner, Richard Atten­bor­ough, and Charles Bron­son. Unlike oth­er films at the time, The Great Escape stands out for fore­go­ing com­mon ele­ments such as ser­mo­niz­ing and sex­u­al con­tent, and instead focus­es on basic human nature and thrilling action, mak­ing it a defin­i­tive clas­sic of pure cin­e­mat­ic escapism. Despite heavy com­pe­ti­tion, The Great Escape was one of the high­est-gross­ing movies of 1963 and earned gen­er­al­ly pos­i­tive reviews from crit­ics as well as an Oscar nom­i­na­tion for Best Film Edit­ing.

‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Wor­ry­ing and Love the Bomb’ (1964

Stan­ley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Wor­ry­ing and Love the Bomb is a polit­i­cal black com­e­dy that pro­vid­ed a bit of com­ic relief to the wide­spread fear of a nuclear war erupt­ing dur­ing the Cold War, pre­sent­ing a humor­ous sce­nario of what would hap­pen if the wrong peo­ple in charge made the wrong call. When an unhinged U.S. Air Force Gen­er­al (Ster­ling Hay­den) sends his crew to bomb the Sovi­et Union, the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States (Peter Sell­ers) and sev­er­al oth­er offi­cials do every­thing in their pow­er to stop the attack and pre­vent a nuclear war

The Sound of Music’ (1965

Julie Andrews stars in the 1965 hit musi­cal film, The Sound of Music, as the spir­it­ed Maria, who is prepar­ing to become a nun when she is sent to work as a gov­erness for the chil­dren of a retired Naval offi­cer, Cap­tain Gre­gor von Trapp (Christo­pher Plum­mer). At first, the von Trapp chil­dren try to scare Maria off like the oth­ers before her, but her gen­uine warmth and patience even­tu­al­ly win them over. As Maria brings a sense of love and hap­pi­ness to the strict­ly run home, she begins to grow on Cap­tain von Trapp, whose ini­tial grat­i­tude for her help and care grad­u­al­ly turns into an unex­pect­ed romance between them

‘The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly’ (1966)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is one of the most time­less West­erns star­ring Clint East­wood in his final appear­ance in his icon­ic role as The Man With No Name, who forms an unlike­ly part­ner­ship with an out­law, Tuco (Eli Wal­lach), involv­ing a lucra­tive scheme, but when one job goes astray, the pair decides to call it quits. Before they can go their sep­a­rate ways, they find a dying Con­fed­er­ate sol­dier who tells them about a gold­en for­tune buried in a grave­yard. With one know­ing the grave­yard’s loca­tion and the oth­er know­ing the grave where the gold is buried, the for­mer part­ners real­ize that if they ever expect to find it, they must search for it togeth­er