Read George Clooney's List Of The Top 100 Films From 1964-1976
George Clooney may be among the most prominent of celebrities, a fabulously wealthy, incredibly successful man at the very top of the A-list. But it seems there's a side of him that isn't so very different from film geeks like us who watch his movies. (Yes, all of that was a long-winded way of saying "Clooney: He's just like us!")
For a recent interview about his upcoming Ides of March, which Clooney directed, produced, and starred in, Clooney revealed his top 100 films from 1964 to 1976, which he believes to be "the greatest era in filmmaking by far." The list is definitely cinephile-friendly, if not especially surprising: it includes tons of major classics and a handful of somewhat lesser known gems, all across a very wide variety of genres. Read the top 100 after the jump.
There were great filmmakers—Mike Nichols, Hal Ashby, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese—you go down the list of these insanely talented filmmakers all working at the top of their game and kind of competing with each other. Pakula, Sidney Lumet—I mean, you can just keep going down the list of these guys. And they were all doing really interesting films... That era [1964 to 1976] was a reflection of the antiwar movement, the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, the sexual revolution, the drug counterculture. All those things were exploding at the same time. And these films were reflections of it. Movies are really good when they do that. They give us a sense of what was going on in our psyche.
Parade's site requires you to click through all 100 films one by one. In the interest of saving you time, wrist pain, and the irritation of accidentally clicking on a rollover ad, we've pulled together the entire list of Clooney's top 100 films here. You're welcome.2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)Alfie (1966)Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)All The President's Men (1976)Alphaville (1965)American Graffiti (1973)The Bad News Bears (1976)Badlands (1973)Bang the Drum Slowly (1973)Blazing Saddles (1974)Blow Up (1966)Bonnie and Clyde (1967)Bound for Glory (1967)Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid (1969)Cabaret (1972)The Candidate (1972)Carnal Knowledge (1971)Cat Ballou (1965)Catch-22 (1970)Chinatown (1974)Clockwork Orange (1971)The Conversation (1974)Cool Hand Luke (1967)The Day of the Jackal (1973)Deliverance (1972)Dog Day Afternoon (1975)Don't Look Back (1967)Don't Look Now (1973)Dr. Strangelove (1964)Easy Rider (1969)The Exorcist (1973)Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex (1972)Fail-Safe (1964)Five Easy Pieces (1970)The French Connection (1971)The Front (1976)The Godfather (1972)The Godfather Part II (1974)The Graduate (1967)The Great Gatsby (1974)A Hard Day's Night (1964)Harold and Maude (1971)The Heartbreak Kid (1972)High Plains Drifter (1973)The Hot Rock (1972)I Am Cuba (1964)In Cold Blood (1967)In the Heat of the Night (1967)Jaws (1975)Jeremiah Johnson (1972)The King of Marvin Gardens (1972)Klute (1971)The Ladykillers (1955)The Last Detail (1973)The Last Picture Show (1971)The Last Tango in Paris (1972)Lenny (1974)The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972)Little Murders (1971)The Long Goodbye (1973)The Longest Yard (1974)A Man and a Woman (1966)Marathon Man (1976)MASH (1970)McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)Mean Streets (1973)Midnight Cowboy (1969)Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)Murder on the Orient Express (1974)My Fair Lady (1964)Nashville (1975)Network (1976)The Odd Couple (1968)The Omen (1976)One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)Paper Moon (1973)The Parallax View (1974)The Party (1968)The Passenger (1975)Patton (1970)The Pawnbroker (1964)The Producers (1968)Rosemary's Baby (1968)Serpico (1973)Seven Days in May (1964)Shampoo (1975)Sleeper (1973)Smile (1975)The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1975)The Sting (1973)Straw Dogs (1971)The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)Taxi Driver (1976)The Way We Were (1973)The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)Three Days of the Condor (1975)Wait Until Dark (1967)Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1968)Young Frankenstein (1974)Z (1969)
If you're interested in knowing more about Clooney as actor, producer, activist, and film buff, you can read the rest of Parade's Clooney story here.
Discuss: Do you agree with Clooney's assertion that 1964-1976 was "the greatest era in filmmaking by far"? If not, what years do you think were the best of cinema?