My Top Ten Films of 1968

This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog. The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.

2001: A Space Odyssey - For context, I like to point out that Stanley Kubrick's film came out a year before the 1969 moon landing, and images of space travel in the wider culture were still very rudimentary. So the arrival of "2001," with its lovingly lensed, scientifically accurate spaceships, space flight, and zero gravity was a total revolution in how everyone conceived of outer space on film. With its highly abstract epic narrative, slow pacing, and magnificent light show special effects, "2001" was all about delivering a totally new experience - and it's still the ultimate trip.

Planet of the Apes - Yes, it has one of the most famous tragic plot twists of all time, but the preceding two hours contain some of the finest science-fiction filmmaking of the decade. Even before we get to the ape society, the opening scenes are wonderfully strange and suspenseful. Then come revelation after revelation, all designed to provoke the viewer to question their own assumptions about evolution, human nature, and the natural order. It was designed to be an anti-proliferation fable, but the film's larger warnings about human hubris still ring true today.

Romeo and Juliet - I never found the Shakespeare play all that engaging, believing the melodrama too extreme when I was younger, but the Franco Zeffirelli adaptation made me think twice. He creates a Verona where the social order is drastically different from the present day, where our tragic young lovers, played by actual teenagers for once, credibly face life and death situations as part of their daily lives. So, naturally, their love is equally fraught with risk and danger. It's all terribly convincing, and terribly moving. And I absolutely fell in love with it.

Funny Girl - Every time I think about Barbra Streisand starring in the '70s "A Star is Born" remake, I always mistakenly think of her in this film. "Funny Girl" is one of William Wyler's last masterpieces, and it made Streisand a household name. She's stunning as the Golden Age entertainer Fanny Brice, and arguably the prototype for an entirely different breed of comedic heroine that would become popular in the '70s. Frankly, I don't know why Streisand did "A Star is Born" when she had made a perfect version of the story already in "Funny Girl."

Head - The Monkees made a movie as a follow-up to their popular television show. This movie was not, however, interested in maintaining the cuddly, popular image of the Monkees, but was more interested in subverting and dissecting it. As a result, "Head" is a weird piece of counter-culture psychedelia where the Monkees keep clashing with bits and pieces of their own onscreen personae, sometimes doing battle with them, sometimes sending them up, and always looking for a way to escape. Energetic song numbers, chase sequences, and cameos abound.

Hour of the Wolf - My favorite Ingmar Bergman film, the one I felt got the closest to full scale horror. He depicts madness and insomnia and plenty of existential dread in more straightforward terms here than he usually does, going so far as to actually put some of the protagonist's disturbing visions onscreen. However, the most moving images are of the characters simply relaying their thoughts to the audience in a darkened frame, alone on the edge of the abyss. Liv Ullman gives one of her best performances, and is center stage for the devastating final shot.

The Lion in Winter - I do so love it when older actors get a chance to really seize the screen and show that they're not finished yet. And so it is with Katherine Hepburn, who at sixty is still holding her own against a passel of actors half her age, in a delicious dark comedy about the deeply dysfunctional family of King Henry II. There's a modern humor and irony to how they interact and provoke each other that's so electrifying, and the dynamics of the different relationships is fascinating to see explored. It's a small film, and very theatrical, but impossible to deny.

Oliver! - Splashy musicals were definitely on their way out by the late 1960s, but there were plenty of good ones still being made. Carol Reed's "Oliver!" - based on the popular stage musical - stands out as an old fashioned charmer with a lot of good performances and a lot of good, hummable music. Ron Moody is the clear MVP as the conniving Fagin, and the kids are treated with unusual sensitivity. Though the spectacle is staged wonderfully, it's Carol's facility with the thrills and the stirring melodrama that really make this adaptation memorable.

The Swimmer - Though the behind-the-scenes clashes resulted in Frank Perry losing control of the film, this is one of the best things that he and partner Eleanor Perry ever made. It's a strange, absorbing allegorical fable about a man discovering his true nature via a series of swimming pool encounters. Burt Lancaster is fantastic as the curious Ned Merrill, but it's the vicious satire of the suburban set that really gives the film an edge. It's a hard one to categorize, but "The Swimmer" provides a valuable look at the dark side of the American psyche.

The Thomas Crown Affair - Where to begin? The cat-and-mouse games with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunway at their most personable and charming? The dazzling split screen action sequences? The Michel Legrande score? "The Windmills of Your Mind"? Roger Ebert complained that the film was too much style over too little substance, but the style is so much fun. The movie is endlessly indulgent of everyone involved in its creation - and it's irresistible.


Honorable mention:
The Love Bug

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