1. The Hustler
Year of Release: 1961
Overall Rating: 3.2 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Drama/Sport
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Robert Rossen
Actors: Paul Newman, George C. Scott, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, Michael Constantine, Myron McCormick
Plot: A young pool player challenges a long-time champion in a high stakes game of pool.
2. Yojimbo
Year of Release: 1961
Overall Rating: 3.2 out of 4 stars
Language: Japanese
Genre: Action/Drama
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Actors: Toshirô Mifune, Tatsuya Nakadai, Daisuke Katô, Yôko Tsukasa, Isuzu Yamada, Seizaburô Kawazu
Plot: A samurai enters a town where two families are feuding, as he develops
plan to play them against each other.
3. Breakfast at Tiffany's
Year of Release: 1961
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Comedy/Drama
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Blake Edwards
Actors: Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, Mickey Rooney
Plot: When a struggling writer moves into a New York apartment building, he becomes captivated by Holly Golightly. Her public persona as a sophisticated socialite is belied by her private life as a vulnerable woman.
4. Breathless ( À Bout de souffle )
Year of Release: 1961
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: French
Genre: Crime/Drama
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Actors: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Daniel Boulanger, Jean-Pierre Melville, Henri-Jacques Huet, Claude Mansard
Plot: Traditional cinematic form is cast aside to brilliant effect in his inaugural entry of the French New Wave, an homage to the gangster and crime films of 1930s/40s Hollywood.
5. The Innocents
Year of Release: 1961
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Horror/Thriller
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Jack Clayton
Actors: Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, Michael Redgrave, Martin Stephens, Pamela Franklin
Plot: Based on the classic short story "The Turn of the Screw" a governess in Victorian England arrives at an estate and is given full control in how to raise the two children there. However, soon after arriving, she becomes convinced the ghosts of the former governess and valet are possessing the children.
6. West Side Story
Year of Release: 1961
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Musical/Romance
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: Jerome Robbins
Actors: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, William Bramley, Tucker Smith
Plot: Two New York City rival gangs sing their way through battles and love as they duke it out in this 1961 best picture winner.
7. dolce vita, La
Year of Release: 1961
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: Italian
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Federico Fellini
Actors: Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée, Alain Cuny, Walter Santesso, Yvonne Furneaux
Plot: A serious journalist finds himself seduced by the decadent lifestyle of the hedonistic jet-setters of Rome, and attempts to make sense of it all.
8. Viridiana
Year of Release: 1961
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: Spanish
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Luis Buñuel
Actors: Silvia Pinal, Francisco Rabal, Fernando Rey, José Calvo, Margarita Lozano, Victoria Zinny
Plot: A novice visits her uncle shortly before taking her vows. Events lead her
to refuse her vows, and instead to stay on at her (now deceased) uncle's
manor with his son. The virtuous woman takes in beggars at the manor
until things get out of hand in Luis Bunuel's brilliant satire of
bourgeois values and the Catholic church.
9. Night, The ( notte, La )
Year of Release: 1961
Overall Rating: 3.1 out of 4 stars
Language: Italian
Genre: Drama
MPAA Rating: NR
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Actors: Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, Monica Vitti, Bernhard Wicki, Rosy Mazzacurati, Maria Pia Luzi
Plot: Taking place in Milan, we follow one couple over the course of the night - a relationship that is rapidly deteriorating.
10. The Guns of Navarone
Year of Release: 1961
Overall Rating: 3.0 out of 4 stars
Language: English
Genre: Action/Drama
MPAA Rating: PG
Director: J. Lee Thompson
Actors: Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn, Stanley Baker, Richard Harris, Anthony Quayle
Plot: A combined British and Greek is sent to take out a key German gun emplacement on the island of Navarone, which threatens British troops. Air support is out of the questions and the dangerous mission is made even more so as it appears the Germans may have support of their own.
