1966 in film.

Top ten box-office films of 1966:

1. Hawaii
2. The Bible: In the Beginning...
3. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
4. The Sand Pebbles
5. A Man for All Seasons
6. The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming
7. Grand Prix
8. The Professionals
9. Alfie
10. Georgy Girl

What are your top three films for 1966? We will keep a running tally and eventually have some sort of bracket. For me it would be:

1. Au Hasard Balthazar
2. Masculin Feminin
3. The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly

What are some of the forgotten gems from the year? What is overrated? What did you discover at a young age and what did you discover later?

YEARS IN FILM • forum.chorus.fm

 

This is by far the hardest year. In addition to the three masterpieces that came out that year, I could have just as easily included Persona, Andrei Rublev, or The Battle of Algiers.

Au Hasard Balthazar has been my default pick for greatest film of all time for a while now. Naming any film the greatest of all time is inherently hyperbolic, but the reason I pick it is that it is the ultimate expression of human suffering, except it is conveyed through a donkey. Because of the limited agency of a farm animal, we can more easily empathize with its suffering, whereas with a human character we will always frame our understanding of someone's silent suffering with out own opinions about what we would do or say.

 

This is absolutely when we get into the years where there are too many worthy candidates and ranking is basically impossible. Easily a contender for top five film years ever for me.

Persona and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? have to be my one and two. Both were hugely influential when I first started getting into movies, and my love and appreciation has only grown over the years. Bergman and Nichols are top five if not top three directors for me and those two are perfect examples why.

Not sure where to go after that. Andrei Rublev and Au Hasard Balthazar are both worthy options, but there are countless others that could just as easily go there and might make more sense based on how often I’ve watched them.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is one of my favorite musical comedies that I still go back to a lot. Endlessly quotable and ridiculous with so many comedic geniuses together.

Seconds is a wonderful thriller/satire/otherwise hard to categorize sci-fi story where Rock Hudson gives an incredible performance that’s very much against type. It’s gotten more attention in recent years but still deserves more love and discussion.

Torn Curtain is one of my favorite lighter Hitchcocks. Having Paul Newman and Julie Andrews on screen together was almost too much beauty to look at, and the story is a fun ride. Maybe not the height of his work, but it’s great to throw on for an afternoon spy story.

The Group is worth checking out for the sheer amount of talent in one film. The debut for a lot of amazing people and early starring roles for others. It was a few years ahead of its time as far as some of the subject matter was concerned as well, pushing the envelope like Virginia Woolf, although that one obviously had a much greater effect.

I’m sure I’m missing tons of others. May have to think some more. Love it so much.

Plus Manos: The Hands of Fate came out this year, so it’s truly the pinnacle of what the world of film can offer. Incredible selection.

 

1. The Good the Bad the Ugly
2. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf
3. Persona

fucking banger of a year. GBU might be the best movie I've ever seen? the final 30 minutes are the definition of gripping

 

1. Persona
2. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
3. The Battle of Algiers

Persona is one of my all time favourites and probably my favourite Bergman film. Really blew me away when I first watched it. Virginia Woolf is just so engaging and entertaining, I love the drama. The Battle of Algiers is one I just watched and was really impressed by, some intense stuff.

Seconds and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly are also fantastic and either could have taken the third spot.

 

Au Hasard Balthazar was great at making me sad and mad. Poor donkey.

 

An incredible year, where just three picks doesn't do it justice.

1. Persona
2. The Battle of Algiers
3. Woman of the Lake

Woman of the Lake, and director Yoshishige Yoshida, was a recent discovery for me, as I saw it a few months ago and was blown away. Part of what I suppose would be the Japanese New Wave, it's one of the most visually arresting and beautiful films I've ever seen. In black and white, and full of contrasts between light and dark, there are so many fantastic staging and shot compositions, that it took my breath away. Would love to see this projected on film in a cinema one day, though I imagine that's not likely to happen. In reality, it's probably not better than some of the films that didn't make the top 3 here, but I imagine they'll do fine without me.

So many great films that would make the top 3 in other years here (The Good The Bad and the Ugly, Blow Up, Andrei Rublev, Au Hazard Balthazar, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Black Girl, Tokyo Drifter, Come Drink With Me) etc, it was an incredible year for cinema around the world.

One I do need to see is Masculin Feminin - been on my to watch list for a while. I may have watched it with my Dad when I was like 14, but I can't recall anything specific about it. Will hopefully get around to that soon.

 

1. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
2. Daisies
3. Persona

like others have said, extremely hard year to choose and rank. Black Girl and Battle of Algiers were extremely tough to leave off. Masculin Feminin was in my original top 3 but I changed my mind at the last second.

 

Whole bunch of personal favorites in 1966 for me:

1. The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming
2. What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?
3. The Group

 

1. The Good the Bad the Ugly
2. Blow-Up
3. The Battle of Algiers

Kind of cheating cause I haven't seen GBU or Algiers in years but whatever.

 

1. Persona
2. Black Girl
3. The Face of Another

Echoing everyone else that '66 is a particularly strong year - although some of these still pale compared to how I feel about some of the films that made my other lists. Andrei Rublev, Daisies, Blow Up, Seconds, and The Battle of Algiers could all equally have made their way onto my list. 1966 was also the year of Obayashi's Emotion, probably his first really significant work (everyone should watch more Obayashi, there's way more to him than House). Varda's The Creatures is a really fascinating film - the blend of sci-fi and Nouvelle Vague always works wonders for me. Luc Moullet's first feature Brigitte et Brigitte is criminally underseen film from this year (and one that might pair well with the absurdity of Daisies).

 

I have shamefully not seen any Yoshida yet (although I've had the Arrow boxset on my shelf for a few months now) but I am always so excited to see people bring in stuff from the Japanese New Wave, especially the stuff from after they broke off from the major studios. There is this company called Art Theatre Guild that produced a bunch of films with these filmmakers (Yoshida included) that I would call the most radical, formally audacious, and politically engaged narrative cinema that I've ever come across.

 

Most of the movies mentioned are streaming right now on Criterion, Kanopy, or HBO Max and that makes me so happy.

 

rewatched GBU in early quar. just insanely good.

 

I've been reticent to join these threads bc I only really started getting into movies after the pandemic started and I have an immense amount of catching up to do (especially on the classics) but I just wanted to stick my head in here and say I watched GBU for the first time recently and it whips hard

 

What films of his are in the Arrow boxset? I still need to get to Eros + Massacre, which is I believe his most highly regarded, but a little bit daunted by the nearly four hour run-time of it. His wife, Mariko Okada, has been in all the films I've seen from Yoshida so far, and she's an absolutely captivating screen presence, incredibly photogenic.

That Art Theatre Guild stuff looks great - I didn't recognise the name, but looking up the films, and apart from the Yoshida ones, they also did Funeral Parade of Roses and Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets, both of which I love. Lots of their filmography that are completely unknown to me though, so will mark a few out to check out further!

I find sometimes with these explicitly specific political films, particularly non-British or American ones, that sometimes they miss for me, as I have no real clue on the specific cultural context that sometimes is needed. I recently watched a Masao Adachi film, who was an incredibly radical person and filmmaker (he fled Japan to Lebanon for 28 years, and joined a radical communist militia group), called Gushing Prayer, that left me completely nonplussed and baffled.

 

1. Blow-up
2. Masculin Feminin
3. Persona

Honorable mentions: Au Hasard Balthazar, GBU, Andrei Rublev

Battle of Algiers is high on my watch list. I recently saw Made in USA (Godard) and man, that was a little tough to grasp personally. I guess that was the point, but it seems less cohesive than the rest of his films I've seen.

 

The Arrow set is Eros + Massacre, Heroic Purgatory, and Coup d'Etat. Eros has been at the top of my list for ages but the 3.5 hour runtime is definitely daunting. Hoping to finally get to it soon since I'll actually have the time to do so.

I agree with you on certain specific political cinema. It's hard to engage if you don't have much grounding in it. I always struggle with the more revolutionary Latin American cinema. I find that a lot of the later Japanese New Wave filmmakers are operating in an aesthetic mode that really resonates with me, so it makes the content a little easier, even when its more obscure. Haven't seen any Adachi films myself, but I've seen a couple directed by Koji Wakamatsu that he wrote and they're some of the ones I've had the hardest time with. But he also wrote Oshima's Diary of a Shinjuku Thief, which I think is absolutely incredible.

One filmmaker from this period I highly recommend is Akio Jissoji, especially his film This Transient Life. I find it a bit more accessible because it's basically merging politics, religion, and sex into elevated melodrama. Pretty much every image in that film is unlike any other I've seen.

 

Never seen Blow-Up or Persona... I need to fix that.

1. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
2. War and Peace
3. How to Steal a Million

 

1. Au Hasard Balthazar
2. Masculin Feminin
3. Persona

Au Hasard Balthazar is an all time great. Christ as a donkey is still by far the best telling of a Jesus story on film or maybe even in literature (apologies to the gospels). Masculin Feminin is just everything I love about Godard. Honestly I’m not still not sure if I like Persona more than The Good the Bad and the Ugly but it’s excellent and the tie breaker was the fact that The Good the Bad and the Ugly is my least favorite of the trilogy, even if that says more about how much I like the other two.

 

Not seen all that much from this year which I would consider all that great but these three are instantly memorable when thinking of 1966 with Grand Prix, in particular, coming across as being underrated. It is though notable for me personally as being one of the stronger years for kaiju films as the Daimajin series, The War of the Gargantuas, Gamera vs. Barugon and Ebirah, Horror of the Deep managed to be some of the better entries in the genre.

1. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
2. Grand Prix
3. Nevada Smith

 

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly takes it with 19 votes. Persona was very close with 16 votes. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly will move on to the bracket.

 

Too late to vote but fuck it:

1. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
2. The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming
3. The Battle of Algiers

Almost picked ‘em:
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf
Blow-Up
Gambit
The Professionals

 

Don’t be reticent. It’s always awesome to open that door. Everybody in this thread had just started at some point.

 

Balthazar babyyyyy