1963'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.

2004	3104	Something Different	Chytilová, Věra	1963	Czechoslovakia	85
2162	5272	Christmas on Earth	Rubin, Barbara	1963	USA	29
2189	1843	Fidanzati, I	Olmi, Ermanno	1963	Italy	77
2236	1641	Hud	Ritt, Martin	1963	USA	112
2362	2437	Organiser, The	Monicelli, Mario	1963	Italy	126
2377	1969	Billy Liar	Schlesinger, John	1963	UK	98
2390	1938	Cool World, The	Clarke, Shirley	1963	USA	106
2513	3931	Bay of Angels	Demy, Jacques	1963	France	85
2518	3799	Ro.Go.Pa.G.	Godard, Jean-Luc/Ugo Gregoretti/Pier Paolo Pasolini/Roberto Rossellini	1963	Italy	122
2566	7856	Notebook	Menken, Marie	1963	USA	10
2571	2767	Borom sarret	Sembene, Ousmane	1963	Senegal	20
2632	2347	Mostri, I	Risi, Dino	1963	Italy	87
2714	4427	Zapruder Film of Kennedy Assassination	Zapruder, Abraham	1963	USA	1
2725	2745	Cleopatra	Mankiewicz, Joseph L.	1963	USA	251
2770	3370	It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World	Kramer, Stanley	1963	USA	154
2783	2205	Raven's End	Widerberg, Bo	1963	Sweden	101
2810	2535	From Russia with Love	Young, Terence	1963	UK	115
3052	2991	How to Be Loved	Has, Wojciech	1963	Poland	97
3156	2493	Valparaiso	Ivens, Joris	1963	Chile	34
3233	2775	Rite of Spring	Oliveira, Manoel de	1963	Portugal	94
3234	8397	Twice a Man	Markopoulos, Gregory J.	1963	USA	49
3240	6856	Donovan's Reef	Ford, John	1963	USA	109
3570	2363	Love Eterne, The	Li Han Hsiang	1963	Hong Kong	126
3653	4475	Barnvagnen	Widerberg, Bo	1963	Sweden	95
3904	2845	Whip and the Body, The	Bava, Mario	1963	Italy	87
3937	3578	Matango	Honda, Ishiro	1963	Japan	89
4098	3895	X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes	Corman, Roger	1963	USA	80
4128	7745	Kiss	Warhol, Andy	1963	USA	55
4140	4686	Thirteen Assassins, The	Kudo, Eiichi	1963	Japan	125
4279	5607	Green Years, The	Rocha, Paulo	1963	Portugal	91
4300	4887	À tout prendre	Jutra, Claude	1963	Canada	99
4313	5945	Small World of Sammy Lee, The	Hughes, Ken	1963	UK	107
4346	6316	Lord of the Flies	Brook, Peter	1963	UK	90
4460	7768	Normal Love	Smith, Jack	1963	USA	105
4714	13037	Nose, The	Alexeieff, Alexandre & Claire Parker	1963	France	11
4749	4857	Irma la Douce	Wilder, Billy	1963	USA	142
4755	3091	Threshold of Spring	Xie Tieli	1963	China	109
4821	5521	Joseph (k*l*an)	Juracek, Pavel & Jan Schmidt	1963	Czechoslovakia	38
4895	4169	Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman, The	Okamoto, Kihachi	1963	Japan	103
4934	10002	Sword in the Stone, The	Reitherman, Wolfgang	1963	USA	75
4978	4753	Rabbia, La	Pasolini, Pier Paolo & Giovanni Guareschi	1963	Italy	104

Either Scorpio Rising or The Leopard; not that big on any part of The Birds without birds, find Contempt a bit of a struggle. My favourite for the year is Hud.

Voted for The Silence, over Contempt and High and Low.

I must've subconsciously saved this poll until the day Kenneth Anger's death was announced

First I've heard of that, wow. Saw him introduce some films 10-15 years ago.

The main actor in An Actor's Revenge distracted me for speaking in the Japanese version of a Winnie-the-Pooh accent.

Picks:

The Leopard
The Silence
High and Low
The Big City
Mothlight
The Nutty Professor
Muriel

Top 5:
THE BIRDS (Alfred Hitchcock; USA) [#180]
FLAMING CREATURES (Jack Smith; USA) [#720]
THE HOUSE IS BLACK (Forugh Farrokhzad; Iran) [#241]
MURIEL (Alain Resnais; France) [#342]
SCORPIO RISING (Kenneth Anger; USA) [#596]

(Much as I love Lewis, Professor ranks maybe 3rd or 4th among the six-film run between 1960 and 1965.)

I've seen surprisingly few of these. Going with The Birds.

Would've been really fun if Christmas on Earth had gotten into the top 2,000

'Christmas on Earth' has an astonishing classical beauty, it's one of my favorite films. Pity i can't vote for it.

Hope you both were able to see the Barbara Rubin documentary from four or five years ago--loved it.

Going with The Silence even though I was literally watching Scorpio Rising when I opened this thread. Seems like kind of a weird year for films.

Just noticed this:

2714 4427 Zapruder Film of Kennedy Assassination Zapruder, Abraham 1963 USA 1

That is extremely interesting.

lol

i haven't seen the doc, was involved in a couple of Christmas on Earth things, had my ear talked off by Rosebud Pettit, caught the text exhibit at Boo Hooray in 2012, all Barbara Rubined out.

still love the actual film tho.

An Actor's Revenge - Good. Japan's international reputation is of such reserve and sophistication that I always get a kick out of art focusing on its earthy, working class aspects - like this is an ode to Tokyo that portrays its inhabitants as being as feisty as any I'm Walkin' Heah Ben Grimm types.

The Big City - Probably voting for this? Saw it on the big screen last year. It's a bit difficult to write about its greatness because there's nothing showy about it, it's just a truly great traditional film, has that same effortlessly entertaining vibe of classic Hollywood. First and so far only time I've seen an Anglo-Indian character portrayed in Indian cinema.

Charade - It's fine, great cast of course.

8 1/2- Have mentioned on other threads I think there's more self-awareness to Fellini's indulgence than he's given credit for. Enjoyed the Uncle Scrooge comic shout out, love to imagine Cardinale sinking her teeth into some Carl Barks. Def most of the films inspired by it are dire tho.

The Great Escape - Not my fav Sturges.

Hands Over The City - Pretty great, fun OTT Steiger perf.

The Haunting - Lesbian content from the novel surprisingly intact in the film I thought.

Jason & The Argonauts - Skellingtons.

Judex - This is a lot of fun, kind of a throwback to the age of French pulp serials. Watched it with a friend who laughed out of delight at many moments and got angry stares from an old guy, felt like we were going to be remembered as the annoying hipsters who laugh at old movies :(

I watched Scorpio Rising for the first in forever after a buncha Tina Turner videos. It belongs on my list. So does Charade, which I missed yesterday.

Throw that dreary Charade away, it bores me

Slow curtain. The end.

I voted for An Actor's Revenge straight away but shdve considered Scorpio Rising maybe

Shock Corridor, The Leopard, or Insect Woman ...

honorary mention: Blow Job

I may have posted this elsewhere but my favorite part of the birds is suzanne pleshette being cast as an undesireable spinster schoolmarm

top bird

I don't doubt that, to Hitchcock, Pleshette was basically undesirable

I know she's less than cool these days, but has anyone read Paglia's monograph on The Birds?

It's one of the very best in that series (or worst, definitely the most)

I love Flaming Creatures, Mothlight and Scorpio Rising, but my heart is really pulling me to vote for The Haunting, gahhh.

Really love Le Doulos, High and Low, and the Great Escape. The latter is the best kind of Hollywood big budget '60s all star cast film.

Still got love for Camille P

Still got love The Birds

Still got love for the streets

This Sporting Life is on my top ten films of all time. Really turns kitchen sink machismo on its head. Richard Harris & Rachel Roberts both incredible in it.

I feel like 1963 is the year that international film really started to loosen up, a lot of conventions were now being regarded as optional (and, sure, a lot of pretensions were now able to be indulged). I think you can see this, for example, even in the distance between the beginning of the Bergman trilogy and its culmination here. It's a cusp year, like 1966 in rock.
This list contains my favourites by Malle, Kurosawa, Imamura, Resnais, and Demy on the secondary list. Machorka-Muff by Straub/Huillet didn't make the top 5000 but is a very interesting debut short film. Wish I could remember anything about Barren Lives or The Organizer.
I couldn't not vote for Le Mépris here, but I would hope that Les Carabiniers receives more than the zero votes I expect.

It's a cusp year, like 1966 in rock

Lot of that same mojo in A-G cinema in '63, especially glancing over the runners-up list above

Based on what I’ve seen: Contempt. (Which is screening locally this summer!)