1964's Best Movies: 60 Years Later

What a year for absolutely beautiful colour films - Kwaidan, Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Red Desert

Mary Poppins even, tbh

1. Strangelove
2. Red Desert (but curious about Alfred’s reaction)
3. Gertrud / Umbrellas of Cherbourg

I like almost everything in the list that I’ve seen though. Stan Brakhage, I admit, I find hard to get into.

(xxp) OTM. Also Richard Harris reminds me of my dad in Red Desert.

Plenty I haven't seen here, but going with my favorite Godard.

Red Desert (but curious about Alfred’s reaction)

Sure, thanks. What I loved or at worst admired in its predecessors has curdled into vague atmospheric posing. I wish it were more lurid.

Eros is a little too sick

Speaking of beautiful color, what about Blood and Black Lace, down there in the supplementary list. That’s a pretty amazing and I would say influential film.

Agreed - it's better than bloody Goldfinger, that's for sure!

Agreed that Kwaidan is absolutely jaw-drop gorgeous ... there are a few pacing issues tho

Speaking of beautiful color, what about Blood and Black Lace, down there in the supplementary list. That’s a pretty amazing and I would say influential film.

― Josefa,

otm

RE: Kwaidan - didn't the original American release remove one of the stories entirely? Again, agreed that it's a little slow, but not sure that was the way to solve the pacing issues!

The word, people, is 'hypnotic'. Hope they removed the last story on the US release! It is the weakest.

Killers, The Siegel, Don 1964 USA

Not sure I've ever seen this, wonder if it holds up against the earlier version of the story?

It's punchy. Dickinson and Reagan were well-cast.

If not for Shirley Bassey, Goldfinger wouldn't have cracked the top 2000.

It wouldn't have had the range

Intentions of Murder is great, and Shohei Imamura is a very underrated director

Bump

It makes me unreasonably happy that Gertrud and A Hard Day's Night are from the same year.

Yearning for me. All the other directors in contention made as good if not better films, but that Naruse probably hasn't been topped.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

As glorious as Yearning is, I've seen a few other Naruses that are practically up to that level, and I haven't even seen that many of his yet.

yeah, same.

I've seen 19 of the 30 poll options, and like or love all of them except for The Naked Kiss, which I found ridiculous. I'm voting for Red Desert over Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. Diary of a Chambermaid and A Married Woman from the lower list are also favourites, I prefer the latter to Bande à part.
I've wanted to see more films by Rocha and Guerra ever since I read about them in a 1970 book called Second Wave: Newer Than New Wave Names in World Cinema, but I haven't seen these.

I always prefer the translation Woman of the Dunes but "in" is more common

Down at my local cinematheque we call it Woman o' the Dunes cos we don't like to put on airs.

It makes me unreasonably happy that Gertrud and A Hard Day's Night are from the same year.

It's a good thing that Dreyer and Lester exchanged scripts before shooting, Ringo would have really been taxed portraying a former opera singer in Stockholm in the early 20th century.

I get to vote for Kozintsev's Hamlet so I will. Smoktunovsky is outstanding.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I AM CUBA (Mikhail Kalatozov; Cuba) [#323]	0

Straight up negligence

Somehow I didn't see Dog Star Man. Impressed it got two votes!