We have previously reviewed the best movies of the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and the first two decades of the new millennium.  Until now I have hesitated to go further back in time; it did not seem to me that the 1960s was a particularly grand decade for film, at least not when compared to the remarkable artistic efflorescence that the 1970s represented.  I have now realized how wrong I was.  The 1960s laid the cinematic foundation for the 70s and 80s, and its influence is still felt today. Counterculture was only one aspect of the 1960s, perhaps not even its most important aspect. Conventions were being tested and revised, boundaries were being pushed and exceeded, and a new mood began to descend on the culture. It would take years for this new mood to find its full fruition. If we appreciate the movies of the 1970s and 1980s, we must thank the filmmakers of the 1960s for pointing the way to a new ethos.