70's...oh well then..
The 50's was a great era...sort of something very significant ending in Holywood, with those massive american soul searching novels (like 'mockingbird) being replaced by the 60's NEW of movies like The graduate. Still for me it was still an exploration into who we are. John Wayne again appears as my unlikely hero in that role, this time in 'The Searchers', and whilst that and '12 angry men' have the USA looking to see if they know what this world is about to bring and who they are, the new generation then launched James Dean in 'Rebel without a cause'. 3 Films that everyone might see to help put that decade in perspective.
Then ofc the 60's landed.
Since that was 'my time' ofc I am biased but so many timeless and brilliant films came out of the 60's that picking a few classics is near impossible, but...
'IF'. Just watch it for Malcolm McDowell.
'True grit'. Not for John Wayne this time but his female teen co-star who shines through all the big names around her. Kim Darby.
'Hombre' with Paul Newman. Brilliant end to the cowboy era.
Jack Lemmon's best film IMO. 'The apartment'. How did this happen in the same decade as 'The graduate'? Sometime in the mid 60's Hollywood
shifted!
'Breakfast at Tiffany's'.
Dustin H again. 'Midnight Cowboy'.
And then in '67, but feels like it should have been '57, 'Look who's coming to dinner'.
And as for the 70's...
For me, 70's was the start of the violence era. Taxi Driver, Apocolypse Now, The Deerhunter, Clockwork Orange.
We'd never seen so much blood and gore
Anyway this was less to my taste so I sifted the decade for a bit of enduring subtlety!
'Harold and Maude'. Possibly in my top 5 films of all time.
'Annie hall'. Allen's best film for me.
'The life of Brian'. had to be.
'The french connection'. Perfect cop movie. Brilliant performance by Gene Hackman.
'Clockwork Orange'. What you can do when censorship rules loosen.
and, one of the best films of all time IMO. 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest'. How brilliant is Jack Nicholson when he cares about the film he's in?