We conclude our back-fill of best-of lists here with a review of 1968. To review our bucket-load of qualifications regarding the folly of such lists, please see our discussions of 1967 and 1969. Reviewing those entries ourselves, we note that although we come to praise the ten films below without reservation (and winnowing down from a longer list of candidates), it would seem that, to our eyes, 1968 was not quite as strong, at least at the top, compared to the years immediately before and after. (Only two appear on our “top twenty five from the sixties” list, as always, they are noted with a star.) But to quote Albert Brooks in Taxi Driver, let’s not fight—here they are, in alphabetical order, our Top Ten of 1968:
2001 Actually not one of our top five Stanley Kubrick films, but nevertheless a masterpiece that pushed the envelope regarding the possibilities of cinematic storytelling. (Makes you think those other five must have been something.) Roger Ebert’s Great Movie essay on this one is especially fine.
Bullitt* Peter Yates directs peak Steve McQueen – no other film captured more purely what Renata Adler described as his “special kind of aware, existential cool.” Like 2001, it could easily be appreciated as a silent movie (that’s high praise). And as we have argued previously, the movie, made famous for a car chase, endures fifty years later for those passages when it slows things down.
L’Enfance Nue Let’s just say that director Maurice Pialat had a reputation of being . . . shall we say . . . a difficult man. This, his debut feature, is unflinching and uncompromising, and can be seen as an icy rebuke of Truffaut’s more sentimental masterpiece The 400 Blows. (Truffaut, it should be noted helped make it possible for L’enfance nue to achieve production).
Faces Once again, not one of our top five Cassavetes (we’re bringing The Killing of a Chinese Bookie and Opening Night to the desert island). And when watching this bitter marital struggle that makes Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf seem charming, I can hear my mother-in-law saying “why do I need to see such things?” But to quote Richard Brody, “It also inaugurated a new era in the history of cinema, opening possibilities that most directors have yet to confront or even admit.”
If…. Lindsay Anderson’s best film, featuring Malcolm MacDowell in his big-screen debut, would probably not find mainstream distribution today. But it was in accord with his bracing 1956 polemic published in Sight and Sound, “Stand Up, Stand Up,” which film critic Adrian Turner described as “unquestionably the single most influential piece of British film criticism ever written.”
Petulia Our favorite film by Richard Lester (shot by Nicholas Roeg), remains an underappreciated gem. A brilliant George C. Scott – surely one of the finest actors of his generation – leads a strong cast that includes Julie Christie, Shirley Knight, Pipa Scott and Mr. Joseph Cotton. Think of it as a version of The Graduate that was about the older generation.
Planet of the Apes Perhaps you were unaware that there was a time when Charlton Heston was a great fighting liberal, bravely ahead of the curve on things like the Civil Rights Movement. This helps explain his presence in Orson Welles’ spectacular Touch of Evil, and here in Planet of the Apes, each a major statement in defense of liberal civilization (which is currently on the ropes, in case you haven’t noticed). Don’t be thrown by this movie’s popularity and status as a pop culture touchstone—this is a great film.
Rachel, Rachel This small gem – an introspective character study directed by Paul Newman (and edited by Dede Allen) – is exactly the sort of film the New Hollywood made possible. Featuring (Newman’s spouse) Joanne Woodward, both director and star won top awards from the New York Film Critics circle, for a movie Time Out described as capturing “the quiet desperation of enforced life in sleepytown America.”
Rosemary’s Baby Jon Cassavetes wasn’t just a great director—he was an actor of uncommon charisma and intensity, both of which are on display here, in Roman Polanski’s tight, impeccably shot thriller, with a marvelous cast and great New York City locations.
Shame* Ingmar Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf would have made our best of 1968 list, but for this staggering masterpiece, which is unlike anything else our beloved Iggy B ever put on screen. Max von Sydow, Liv Ullmann and Gunnar Björnstrand deliver outstanding performances in what Pauline Kael lauded as “a flawless work and a masterly vision.”
Steve McQueen with Robert Vaughn in Bullitt
George C. Scott in Petulia
The Measure of a Man — Planet of the Apes
Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann in Shame