My top ten films for each year of the 2010s. These are always up for revision as I watch more films, revisit ones I’ve seen before, and think about them over time. I don’t really believe in top “ten” lists, despite using the common nomenclature for the title of this page, nor do I hold fast to the order, though it’s generally from films I liked better to films I liked less well. This is going to be my top several films of each year, down to whatever point I feel is right. Might be eight one year, might be twenty-three another.

1969

  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  • Easy Rider
  • My Night at Maud’s
  • The Wild Bunch
  • On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
  • Z
  • Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice
  • Take the Money and Run

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Army of Shadows
Kes
The Italian Job
Fellini Satyricon
The Color of Pomegranates

1968

  • 2001: A Space Odyssey
  • Once Upon a Time in the West
  • Targets
  • The Producers
  • Planet of the Apes
  • The Graduate
  • Night of the Living Dead
  • The Lion in Winter
  • Funny Girl
  • Romeo and Juliet
  • Yellow Submarine
  • Bullitt
  • Rosemary’s Baby

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Hour of the Wolf
If…
Hang ‘Em High
The Bride Wore Black
Faces

1967

  • Bonnie and Clyde
  • Playtime
  • Le Samouraï
  • The Young Girls of Rochefort
  • Two for the Road
  • Belle de Jour
  • Bedazzled
  • Cool Hand Luke
  • Wait Until Dark

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Fireman’s Ball
Marketa Lazarova
La Chinoise
David Holtzman’s Diary
La Collectioneuse

1966

  • Persona
  • The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
  • Blow-Up
  • How the Grinch Stole Christmas
  • A Man for All Seasons
  • Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
  • The Battle of Algiers
  • Fahrenheit 451
  • Closely Watched Trains

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Andrei Rublev
Come Drink With Me
Au hasard Balthazar
Django
La collectioneuse

1965

  • Pierrot le fou
  • For a Few Dollars More
  • The Loves of a Blonde
  • A Charlie Brown Christmas
  • Repulsion
  • Made in USA
  • Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
  • Alphaville
  • The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
  • The Sound of Music
  • Doctor Zhivago

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
The Shop on Main Street
Chimes at Midnight
The Saragossa Manuscript
Red Beard
Tokyo Olympiad

1964

  • Band of Outsiders
  • Mary Poppins
  • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
  • Goldfinger
  • The Naked Kiss
  • A Hard Day’s Night
  • A Shot in the Dark
  • Fail-Safe
  • Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
  • A Fistful of Dollars
  • My Fair Lady

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Red Desert
Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte
I Am Cuba
Onibaba
Blood and Black Lace

1963

  • The Birds
  • Contempt
  • Charade
  • The Great Escape
  • High and Low
  • The Girl Who Knew Too Much
  • From Russia With Love
  • Tom Jones
  • The Haunting
  • Winter Light
  • 8 1/2

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Hud
The Silence
The Leopard
The Servant
The Fire Within

1962

  • Lawrence of Arabia
  • Vivre sa vie
  • Cleo from 5 to 7
  • What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
  • Sanjuro
  • Jules and Jim
  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
  • Le doulos
  • La jetée
  • The Exterminating Angel
  • Ride the High Country
  • The Trial
  • The Manchurian Candidate
  • To Kill a Mockingbird
  • Carnival of Souls

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Harakiri
L’eclisse
Lonely Are the Brave
An Autumn Afternoon
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

1961

  • West Side Story
  • Breakfast at Tiffany’s
  • A Woman is a Woman
  • Yojimbo
  • The Innocents
  • One, Two, Three
  • Last Year at Marienad
  • The Hustler
  • Through a Glass Darkly
  • The Misfits

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Lola
La Notte
Viridiana
Judgement at Nuremberg
One-Eyed Jacks

1960

  • Psycho
  • Breathless
  • L’Avventura
  • The Apartment
  • The Virgin Spring
  • Shoot the Piano Player
  • The Naked Island
  • La Dolce Vita
  • Village of the Damned
  • The Magnificent Seven
  • The Time Machine
  • Black Sunday
  • Peeping Tom
  • Eyes Without a Face

TOP FIVE YET TO SEE
Elmer Gantry
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
The Little Shop of Horrors
Rocco and His Brothers
Jigoku