1962's Best Movies: 60 Years Later

In keeping with previous polls, I've gone with the contenders in the top 2,000 films, but they now offer the entire starting spreadsheet. Here are the titles that carry through through the top 5,000 films ever.

2231	Dr. No	Young, Terence	UK
2579	Valparaiso	Ivens, Joris	Chile
2619	Adieu Philippine	Rozier, Jacques	France-Italy
2810	Heaven and Earth Magic/No. 12	Smith, Harry	USA
2857	Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam	Alvi, Abrar	India
2992	Intruder, The	Corman, Roger	USA
3039	Damned, The	Losey, Joseph	UK
3259	His Days Are Numbered	Petri, Elio	Italy
3317	Sanjuro	Kurosawa, Akira	Japan
3378	Lonely Are the Brave	Miller, David	USA
3408	Mondo Cane	Jacopetti, Gualtiero	Italy
3415	Love, Thy Name Be Sorrow	Uchida, Tomu	Japan
3544	Assault on the Paytrain	Farias, Roberto	Brazil
3674	Cosmic Ray	Conner, Bruce	USA
3691	4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The	Minnelli, Vincente	USA
3726	Given Word, The	Duarte, Anselmo	Brazil-Portugal
3766	Nine Days in One Year	Romm, Mikhail	USSR
3928	Longest Day, The	Annakin, Ken/Andrew Marton/Bernhard Wicki	USA
4248	Mutiny on the Bounty	Milestone, Lewis	USA
4318	Two Weeks in Another Town	Minnelli, Vincente	USA
4325	Long Day's Journey Into Night	Lumet, Sidney	USA
4471	Antoine et Colette	Truffaut, François	France
4535	Chushingura	Inagaki, Hiroshi	Japan
4618	Hum Dono	Amarjeet	India
4713	Chapman Report, The	Cukor, George	USA
4731	Elusive Corporal, The	Renoir, Jean	France
4833	Tale of Zatoichi, The	Misumi, Kenji	Japan

Mine:

The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer)
Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean)
L’Eclisse (Michaelangelo Antonioni)
Advice & Consent (Otto Preminger)
Jules et Jim (Francois Truffaut)
Lolita (Stanley Kubrick)
The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel)
Ride the High Country (Sam Peckinpah)
Lonely Are the Brave (David Miller)
An Autumn Afternoon (Yasujiro Ozu)
The Trial (Orson Welles)
My Life to Live (Jean-Luc Godard)
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Sidney Lumet)
Knife in the Water (Roman Polanski)
La Jetée (Chris Marker)

Advice & Consent, L'Eclisse, and The Manchurian Candidate might earn my vote, but I'm feeling The Trial this morning, which I recorded off TCM a few nights ago for a third viewing.

1. Advise and Consent
2. Vivre Sa Vivre
3. Manchurian Candidate
4. L'eclisse
5. La Jetee
6. Winter Light

Only saw the last once, ages ago.

My vote is clearly going to La Jetee here, but the rest of my top 10 is as good as pretty much any other year I can think of...

La Jetée (Chris Marker, France)
Cléo from 5 to 7 (Agnès Varda, France)
L’eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, Italy)
An Autumn Afternoon (Yasujirō Ozu, Japan)
The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, Mexico)
Confessions of an Opium Eater (Albert Zugsmith, USA)
Advise and Consent (Otto Preminger, USA)
The Trial (Orson Welles, France/West Germany/Italy)
Thanatopsis (Ed Emshwiller, USA)
Cosmic Ray (Bruce Conner, USA)

Need to rewatch Hatari! because it's clearly some kind of four-alarm auteurist masterpiece.

1. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
2. Jules et Jim
3. The Trial
4. Lolita
5. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane
6. Cléo from 5 to 7
7. The Exterminating Angel
8. The Manchurian Candidate
9. Winter Light
10. To Kill a Mockingbird

Don't feel right assessing Lawrence of Arabia because I've still never seen the whole thing in one sitting. I should probably give Knife in the Water another shot; it did nothing for me when I watched it for an undergrad film class way back when. And I promise I will get to Advise and Consent some day soon.

This is the year that the type of filmmaking I most enjoy really flowered. I've seen 22 from the top list and three from the lower. Ozu's final, Polanski and Tarkovsky's debuts, and Godard's first "mature" film (and arguably Bergman's).

Worst film: Carnival of Souls
Underrated: Cronaca Familiare, AKA Girl With a Suitcase
Most egregious blackface musical number: The Eclipse
Best film not on either list: Bertolucci's debut The Grim Reaper
Film I'd most like to see: Salvatore Giuliano
Voted for: The Eclipse (if only for the moment in the credits where the music segues from "Eclipse Twist" to Giovanni Fusco's strings)
Best SCTV sketch based on one of these films:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d761xyZ_aA

Most egregious blackface musical number: The Eclipse

It seems inprobable to me that Mondo Cane wouldn't have had one of those.

There's a blueface number in that if I recall correctly.

Lawrence of Arabia's is the sine qua non of the epic style of cinema. Fabulous script, excellent acting, score and cinematography. The only sour note in the entire film is Anthony Quinn's arab chieftain which descends to shameful caricature. Too bad most people can't see it in CinemaScope any more. It would be overwhelming on the big screen in ways that Marvel can't begin to touch.

Cléo From 5 to 7
Jules et Jim
Mamma Roma
Salvatore Giuliano
Winter Light
L’Eclisse
An Autumn Afternoon
The Exterminating Angel
La Jetée
Ivan’s Childhood

1961 and 1962 featured three of my favorite films ever, Last Year at Marienbad, Vridiana, and Cléo From 5 to 7

Knife In the Water was pretty great for a first film

Lots of solid choices.... unfortunately I went with Baby Jane instead.

I think the first half of Lawrence of Arabia is fun and I rewatch it from time to time

The second half is a slog and I don't think I ever need to see it again

thxbye

also there will never be a good movie of Lolita; the book is not filmable for at least two reasons

Strongly disagree. The Kubrick adaptation has laugh-out-loud stuff, though it's about 15 minutes too long.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

watched David and Lisa (1962), Frank Perry’s first film, with Keir Dullea and Janet Margolin. It missed this list at 5683. It’s surprising to see that it was nominated for Oscars for best director and adapted screenplay, it’s pretty weird

It was a year when there was only 2/5 overlap between the director/picture Oscar nominations (Lawrence of Arabia won both of course)

like a lot of these, but voted for Cléo from 5 to 7

Strongly disagree. The Kubrick adaptation has laugh-out-loud stuff, though it's about 15 minutes too long.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, April 8, 2022 3:23 PM (four weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

And Kubrick let Peter Sellers run amok with the film.

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

Baby Jane is a camp classic, but not the best film of 1962

I really dislike 2+ hour movies these days but i still love LoA

I think I basically hate LoA.

Buñuel gets screwed again!

more champagne!

I voted for A&C, dear. Herr Otto kept me in line.

I guess I forgot to actually vote then, as I often do--Advise and Consent should have gotten two votes.