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There are many more
film features by Bill Harry
on these pages:
The
Top 80 Films Of The Sixties by
Bill Harry
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Here is a list of the 80 most popular films of the 60s, based on
American audience figures and listed in order of popularity. They
do not reflect the fact that the decade was a significant one for
British films, with the trend of ‘kitchen-sink’ dramas such as ‘A
Kind of Loving’ and ‘Saturday Night, Sunday Morning’ and the popularity
of Hammer
horror films which were so successful internationally that
they earned the company a Queens Award for Industry.
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However, there is a strong British presence in the chart, including the 'James Bond' series of films, epics such as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and ‘Dr Zhivago’, the science-fiction classic ‘2001, A Space Odyssey’ and historical dramas such as ‘A Man For All Seasons.’ An analysis of the trends of the decade show the largest category of films represented is that of the big-scale musical. The Fifties had seen an upsurge of major epics to lure viewers away from the burgeoning television influence. That fight seems to have been abandoned during the Sixties, although a handful of epics are present. The 60s also saw the final round of movies using the Second World War as their theme. Interest in that particular war waned during the succeeding decade and the 80s saw the large-scale introduction of films concerning the war in Vietnam. The traditional American Western also declined in the Sixties, despite a short burst of interest in the 'spaghetti western' and virtually vanished in the following decades. Film-going tastes were to change and future audiences were fed a diet of action-adventure, science-fiction and cops-and-robbers movies.  |
1. The Sound of Music 2. Love Story 3. Airport 4. The Graduate 5. Dr Zhivago 6. Mary Poppins 7. M.A.S.H. 8. Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid 9. Thunderball 10. Patton 11. Cleopatra 12. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? 13. Funny Girl 14. Goldfinger 15. Bonnie & Clyde 16. 2001: A Space Odyssey 17. The Love Bug 18. It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World 19. The Dirty Dozen 20. Valley of the Dolls 21. The Odd Couple 22. West Side Story 23. To Sir, With Love 24. Bullitt 25. You Only Live Twice 26. The Longest Day 27. Tom Jones 28. Easy Rider 29. Oliver! 30. Lawrence of Arabia 31. Midnight Cowboy 32. Hawaii 33. The Carpetbaggers 34. The Bible: In The Beginning 35. Planet of the Apes 36. Rosemary’s Baby 37. Hello, Dolly! 38. Little Big Man 39. Thoroughly Modern Millie 40. Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice |
41. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 42. Romeo and Juliet 43. Paint Your Wagon 44. Woodstock 45. True Grit 46. Tora! Tora! Tora! 47. The Sand Pebbles 48. Ryan’s Daughter 49. The Guns of Navarone 50. The Jungle Book 51. A Man For All Seasons 52. 101 Dalmatians 53. Camelot 54. Catch-22 55. How the West Was Won 56. Irma La Douce 57. El Cid 58. My Fair Lady 59. Cactus Flower 60. Yours, Mine & Ours 61. The Owl & The Pussycat 62. The Parent Trap 63. The Absent-Minded Professor 64. The Great Race 65. In the Heat of the Night 66. Goodbye Columbus 67. Casino Royale 68. Mutiny on The Bounty 69. The Russians Are Coming...... 70. The Green Berets 71. That Darn Cat 72. Joe 73. Cat Ballou 74. Grand Prix 75. From Russia With Love 76. Son of Flubber 77. Barefoot in the Park 78. The Lion in Winter 79. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service 80. Five Easy Pieces |
