The Wild Bunch celebrates its 55th anniversary!
We’re ranking the 100 best movies of 1969 by Tomatometer, starting with Certified Fresh films like Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider, The Wild Bunch, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
With the women’s liberation movement, Vietnam War protests, and hippie counterculture, the late 1960s were a cocktail of social unrest that splashed into the movies. At that same time, censorship was loosening its grip on Hollywood. The Hays Code, the self-governing production rules that dictated what was acceptable on-screen, was abolished in 1968. Suddenly, there was an immediate uptick in depictions of violence, nudity, moral depravity, and scenes of hot explicit tax evasion.
Easy Rider best represents the first year of a new world, the road classic starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, acclaimed for its mainstream-rejecting authenticity. Yes, sir, that’s real par-tokin’ you see up there. Rider‘s spirit of freedom rang with American audiences, bringing home $41 million in ’70s-bucks on a $400,000 budget.
Urban tragedy Midnight Cowboy won the Best Picture Oscar, the first with an X rating to do so. It was up against Anne of the Thousand Days, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hello, Dolly!, and Z. Additionally, John Schlesinger won for directing Midnight Cowboy, and acting awards went to True Grit (John Wayne, Best Actor, in his only win ever), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith, Best Actress), They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (Gig Young, Best Supporting Actor), and Cactus Flower (Goldie Hawn, Best Supporting Actress).
We said good-bye with several bullets to the Western, as a big blast of glory unleashed True Grit, director Sam Peckinpah’s down-and-dirty The Wild Bunch (a revolution in the editing suite), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which would top the box office that year with $102 million.
The rest of 1969’s box office top 10 was filled out by The Love Bug, Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider, Hello, Dolly!, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Paint Your Wagon, True Grit, Cactus Flower, and Goodbye, Columbus.
From England, the sixth James Bond movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (seventh if you count the 1967 Casino Royale) released, and Lindsay Anderson had his searing take on youth in revolt with If…. Beyond, Costa-Gavras’s Z won the Best Foreign Film Oscar. Would things have looked differently if Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows had shown in America the same year, instead of its belated release 37 years later in 2006?
#1
Adjusted Score: 107916%
Critics Consensus: Originally made in 1969, this recently reissued classic is a masterful examination of the inner workings of the World War II resistance efforts.
#2
Adjusted Score: 100996%
Critics Consensus: Powerfully effective, this anti-fascist political thriller stands out as both high-conscience melodrama and high-tempo action movie.
#3
Adjusted Score: 100348%
Critics Consensus: The Wild Bunch is Sam Peckinpah’s shocking, violent ballad to an old world and a dying genre.
#4
Adjusted Score: 95907%
Critics Consensus: Incendiary, subversive, and darkly humorous, If…. is a landmark of British countercultural cinema.
#5
Adjusted Score: 106187%
Critics Consensus: John Schlesinger’s gritty, unrelentingly bleak look at the seedy underbelly of urban American life is undeniably disturbing, but Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight’s performances make it difficult to turn away.
#6
Adjusted Score: 97564%
Critics Consensus: With its iconic pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, jaunty screenplay and Burt Bacharach score, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid has gone down as among the defining moments in late-’60s American cinema.
#7
Adjusted Score: 95780%
Critics Consensus: True Grit rides along on the strength of a lived-in late-period John Wayne performance, adding its own entertaining spin to the oft-adapted source material.
#8
Adjusted Score: 91780%
Critics Consensus: Edgy and seminal, Easy Rider encapsulates the dreams, hopes, and hopelessness of 1960s counterculture.
#9
Adjusted Score: 90564%
Critics Consensus: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice isn’t as subversive as it thinks it is — but it is smart & sophisticated & funny & well-acted.
#10
Adjusted Score: 89250%
Critics Consensus: George Lazenby’s only appearance as 007 is a fine entry in the series, featuring one of the most intriguing Bond girls in Tracy di Vincenzo (Diana Rigg), breathtaking visuals, and some great ski chases.
#11
Adjusted Score: 104174%
Critics Consensus: A harrowing coming of age tale told simply and truly, Kes is a spare and richly humane tribute to the small pockets of beauty to be found in an oppressive world.
#12
Adjusted Score: 104017%
Critics Consensus: The Sorrow and the Pity narrates a painful chapter in France’s history through an impressively rich mosaic of testimonies and historical archives, giving a complex texture to the struggles of a people amid tragedy.
Starring:
#13
Adjusted Score: 103076%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#14
Adjusted Score: 102449%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#15
Adjusted Score: 101509%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#16
Adjusted Score: 100551%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#17
Adjusted Score: 100411%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#18
Adjusted Score: 100254%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#19
Adjusted Score: 100254%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#20
Adjusted Score: 94072%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#21
Adjusted Score: 94041%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#22
Adjusted Score: 75555%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#23
Adjusted Score: 78039%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#24
Adjusted Score: 78393%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#25
Adjusted Score: 99233%
Critics Consensus: Medium Cool merges a bracing cinéma vérité with deft drama to authentically chronicle a nation at odds with itself and a media struggling to get the story straight.
#26
Adjusted Score: 98763%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#27
Adjusted Score: 97293%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#28
Adjusted Score: 97293%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#29
Adjusted Score: 96976%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#30
Adjusted Score: 96979%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#31
Adjusted Score: 95822%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#32
Adjusted Score: 92881%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#33
Adjusted Score: 93606%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#34
Adjusted Score: 89180%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#35
Adjusted Score: 88254%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#36
Adjusted Score: 88254%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#37
Adjusted Score: 88254%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#38
Adjusted Score: 87195%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#39
Adjusted Score: 86098%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#40
Adjusted Score: 88233%
Critics Consensus: Downhill Racer plunges the viewer thrillingly into the action of the sport — and continues to hold the attention as a thoughtful drama.
#41
Adjusted Score: 87136%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#42
Adjusted Score: 86920%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#43
Adjusted Score: 85979%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#44
Adjusted Score: 85979%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#45
Adjusted Score: 85606%
Critics Consensus: A quartet of nuanced performances and Ken Russell’s off-kilter direction brings D.H. Lawrence’s battle of the sexes to tactile life.
#46
Adjusted Score: 78080%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#47
Adjusted Score: 78080%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#48
Adjusted Score: 86331%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#49
Adjusted Score: 83665%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#50
Adjusted Score: 82725%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#51
Adjusted Score: 85017%
Critics Consensus: The Italian Job is a wildly fun romp that epitomizes the height of Britannia style.
#52
Adjusted Score: 81352%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#53
Adjusted Score: 62431%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#54
Adjusted Score: 62715%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#55
Adjusted Score: 79538%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#56
Adjusted Score: 78411%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#57
Adjusted Score: 78411%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#58
Adjusted Score: 80331%
Critics Consensus: Episodic and strange, Satyricon offers a hedonistic tour through an ancient Rome that exists not in history books, but from Federico Fellini’s singular imagination.
#59
Adjusted Score: 77665%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#60
Adjusted Score: 76509%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#61
Adjusted Score: 75881%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#62
Adjusted Score: 74352%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#63
Adjusted Score: 73725%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#64
Adjusted Score: 73725%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#65
Adjusted Score: 73662%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#66
Adjusted Score: 70568%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#67
Adjusted Score: 70568%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#68
Adjusted Score: 73017%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#69
Adjusted Score: 70509%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#70
Adjusted Score: 67411%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#71
Adjusted Score: 63028%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#72
Adjusted Score: 63028%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#73
Adjusted Score: 63028%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#74
Adjusted Score: 64979%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#75
Adjusted Score: 63254%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#76
Adjusted Score: 63254%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#77
Adjusted Score: 63254%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#78
Adjusted Score: 62720%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#79
Adjusted Score: 57098%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#80
Adjusted Score: 55038%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#81
Adjusted Score: 50248%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#82
Adjusted Score: 47036%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#83
Adjusted Score: 48860%
Critics Consensus: Though Streisand charms, she’s miscast as the titular middle-aged widow in Gene Kelly’s sluggish and over-produced final directorial effort.
#84
Adjusted Score: 45725%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#85
Adjusted Score: 44411%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#86
Adjusted Score: 45293%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#87
Adjusted Score: 44195%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#88
Adjusted Score: 43097%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#89
Adjusted Score: 41351%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#90
Adjusted Score: 40568%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#91
Adjusted Score: 31357%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#92
Adjusted Score: 31266%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#93
Adjusted Score: 39038%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#94
Adjusted Score: 33403%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#95
Adjusted Score: 29098%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#96
Adjusted Score: 15663%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#97
Adjusted Score: 15679%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#98
Adjusted Score: 14098%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#99
Adjusted Score: 11411%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
#100
Adjusted Score: 10568%
Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.