The Best of 1961
by riverman211179 | created - 11 Dec 2010 | updated - 07 Jan 2023 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. The Hustler (1961)
Not Rated | 134 min | Drama, Sport
An up-and-coming pool player plays a long-time champion in a single high-stakes match.
Director: Robert Rossen | Stars: Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, George C. Scott
Votes: 86,774 | Gross: $8.28M
2. The Misfits (1961)
Not Rated | 125 min | Drama, Romance, Western
A divorcée falls for an over-the-hill cowboy who is struggling to maintain his romantically independent lifestyle.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter
Votes: 23,402 | Gross: $8.94M
3. Splendor in the Grass (1961)
Not Rated | 124 min | Drama, Romance
The love of high school sweethearts Deanie and Bud is weighed down by the oppressive expectations of their parents and society in smalltown Kansas in 1928, threatening the future of their relationship.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Pat Hingle, Audrey Christie
Votes: 22,641 | Gross: $8.72M
4. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
Approved | 179 min | Drama, War
In 1948, an American court in occupied Germany tries four Nazis judged for war crimes.
Director: Stanley Kramer | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Marlene Dietrich
Votes: 85,437
5. Yojimbo (1961)
Not Rated | 110 min | Action, Drama, Thriller
A crafty ronin comes to a town divided by two criminal gangs and decides to play them against each other to free the town.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Eijirô Tôno, Tatsuya Nakadai, Yôko Tsukasa
Votes: 131,308
6. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Approved | 115 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A young New York socialite becomes interested in a young man who has moved into her apartment building, but her past threatens to get in the way.
Director: Blake Edwards | Stars: Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen
Votes: 192,084
7. Last Year at Marienbad (1961)
Not Rated | 94 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
In a strange and isolated chateau, a man becomes acquainted with a woman and insists that they have met before.
Director: Alain Resnais | Stars: Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoëff, Françoise Bertin
Votes: 24,882 | Gross: $0.06M
8. La Notte (1961)
Not Rated | 122 min | Drama
A day in the life of an unfaithful married couple and their steadily deteriorating relationship.
Director: Michelangelo Antonioni | Stars: Jeanne Moreau, Marcello Mastroianni, Monica Vitti, Bernhard Wicki
Votes: 24,030 | Gross: $0.04M
9. Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
Not Rated | 90 min | Drama
Recently released from a mental hospital, Karin rejoins her emotionally disconnected family in their island home, only to slip from reality as she begins to believe she is being visited by God.
Director: Ingmar Bergman | Stars: Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow, Lars Passgård
Votes: 27,374
10. One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
Not Rated | 141 min | Drama, Western
After robbing a Mexican bank, Dad Longworth takes the loot and leaves his partner Rio to be captured, but Rio escapes and searches for Dad in California.
Director: Marlon Brando | Stars: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Pina Pellicer, Katy Jurado
Votes: 13,262 | Gross: $9.37M
11. The Innocents (1961)
Not Rated | 100 min | Horror
A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.
Director: Jack Clayton | Stars: Deborah Kerr, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, Michael Redgrave
Votes: 33,054 | Gross: $2.62M
12. West Side Story (1961)
Approved | 153 min | Crime, Drama, Musical
Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.
Directors: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise | Stars: Natalie Wood, George Chakiris, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn
Votes: 121,155 | Gross: $43.66M
13. Paris Blues (1961)
Approved | 98 min | Drama, Music, Romance
During the 1960s, two American expatriate jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls.
Director: Martin Ritt | Stars: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier, Louis Armstrong
Votes: 3,959 | Gross: $1.30M
14. Il posto (1961)
Not Rated | 93 min | Drama
Bursting with big dreams and plans, an Italian teen goes to Milan to work in a big impersonal corporate office, where he becomes disillusioned and drained of all his individualism.
Director: Ermanno Olmi | Stars: Sandro Panseri, Loredana Detto, Corrado Aprile, Guido Chiti
Votes: 6,737 | Gross: $0.01M
15. The Guns of Navarone (1961)
Not Rated | 158 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
A team of Allied saboteurs is assigned an impossible mission: infiltrate an impregnable Nazi-held Greek island and destroy the two enormous long-range field guns that prevent the rescue of 2,000 trapped British soldiers.
Director: J. Lee Thompson | Stars: David Niven, Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Quayle
Votes: 55,368 | Gross: $28.90M
16. Accattone (1961)
Not Rated | 117 min | Drama
A pimp with no other means to provide for himself finds his life spiraling out of control when his prostitute is sent to prison.
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini | Stars: Franco Citti, Franca Pasut, Silvana Corsini, Paola Guidi
Votes: 10,158
17. Two Rode Together (1961)
Passed | 109 min | Drama, Western
A corrupt marshal is pressured by his army friend into negotiating the release of white captives of the Comanches, but finds that their reintegration into society has its consequences.
Director: John Ford | Stars: James Stewart, Richard Widmark, Shirley Jones, Linda Cristal
Votes: 6,950
18. The Young Savages (1961)
Not Rated | 103 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A district attorney investigates three white teenagers accused of murdering a blind Puerto Rican kid.
Director: John Frankenheimer | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Dina Merrill, Edward Andrews, Vivian Nathan
Votes: 2,935
19. Paris Belongs to Us (1961)
Not Rated | 120 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Anne Goupil is a literature student in Paris in 1957. Her elder brother, Pierre, takes her to a friend's party where the guests include Philip Kaufman, an expatriate American escaping ... See full summary »
Director: Jacques Rivette | Stars: Betty Schneider, Giani Esposito, Françoise Prévost, Daniel Crohem
Votes: 2,716
20. One, Two, Three (1961)
Not Rated | 104 min | Comedy
In West Berlin during the Cold War, a Coca-Cola executive is given the task of taking care of his boss' socialite daughter.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin, Arlene Francis
Votes: 22,961
21. Viridiana (1961)
Not Rated | 91 min | Drama
Viridiana, a young nun about to take her final vows, pays a visit to her widowed uncle at the request of her Mother Superior.
Director: Luis Buñuel | Stars: Silvia Pinal, Francisco Rabal, Fernando Rey, José Calvo
Votes: 26,122
22. The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961)
Not Rated | 190 min | Drama, History, War
His ideals challenged by life as a conscript in war-time Japan's military, a pacifist faces ever greater tests in his fight for survival.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi | Stars: Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Tamao Nakamura, Yûsuke Kawazu
Votes: 7,322
23. A Raisin in the Sun (1961)
Approved | 128 min | Drama
A substantial insurance payment could mean either financial salvation or personal ruin for a poor black family.
Director: Daniel Petrie | Stars: Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee, Diana Sands
Votes: 9,565
24. Divorce Italian Style (1961)
Not Rated | 105 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A married Sicilian baron falls in love with his cousin and vows to wed her, but with divorce illegal he must concoct a crime of passion to do away with his wife.
Director: Pietro Germi | Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Daniela Rocca, Stefania Sandrelli, Leopoldo Trieste
Votes: 14,171
25. One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)
G | 79 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy
When a litter of Dalmatian puppies are abducted by the minions of Cruella De Vil, the owners must find them before she uses them for a diabolical fashion statement.
Directors: Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, Wolfgang Reitherman | Stars: Rod Taylor, Betty Lou Gerson, J. Pat O'Malley, Martha Wentworth
Votes: 182,170 | Gross: $144.88M
26. The Comancheros (1961)
Approved | 107 min | Drama, Western
Texas Ranger Jake Cutter arrests gambler Paul Regret, but soon finds himself teamed with his prisoner in an undercover effort to defeat a band of renegade arms merchants and thieves dealing with the Comanches known as Comancheros.
Directors: Michael Curtiz, John Wayne | Stars: John Wayne, Stuart Whitman, Ina Balin, Nehemiah Persoff
Votes: 10,002
27. Whistle Down the Wind (1961)
Unrated | 99 min | Crime, Drama
When an injured wife murderer takes refuge on a remote Lancashire farm, the owner's three children mistakenly believe him to be the Second Coming of Christ.
Director: Bryan Forbes | Stars: Alan Bates, Bernard Lee, Hayley Mills, Norman Bird
Votes: 3,750
28. The Children's Hour (1961)
Not Rated | 108 min | Drama, Romance
A rebellious student at a girls' school accuses two teachers of lesbianism.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner, Miriam Hopkins
Votes: 18,388
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