5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1966

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Siri, the strange lady who lives inside my phone and talks to me, is determined to make this series pretty easy for me - the past several times that I have asked her to pick me a number between 1 and 100 she has rarely strayed out of the latter half of the 20th Century, when movie-making was full tilt boogie and where I have many options from which to choose. I keep feeling self-conscious about this, like you're going to think I'm cheating and asking her several times before I get one from an easy year, but I promise you: I go with whatever one she says first. I haven't gotten a repeat year yet. 

So anyway this morning Siri told me 66, whether you believe me or not, so The Movies of 1966 it is. We did 1967 just three weeks back, which brings with it a complication - one of the movies I chose for my five favorite films of 1967 is Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-up, which had a weird release schedule that straddled the two years. I went with 1967 because I wanted it on my list then, but you need to know that if I hadn't used it for that earlier list it would have made this list. Blow-up is one of my favorite films of ever. (One of the films below also straddles the two years but I'm using it here, so tit for tat I guess.) So let's get to what did make it...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1966

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

(dir. Mike Nichols)

-- released on June 22nd 1966 --

Persona 

(dir. Ingmar Bergman)

-- released on October 13th 1966 --

Au Hasard Balthazar

(dir. Robert Bresson)

-- released on May 25th 1966 --

Cul-de-sac

(dir. Roman Polanski)

-- released on November 7th 1966 --

Seconds

(dir. John Frankenheimer)

-- released on October 5th 1966 --

(Note: It's weird that all of my picks from a year well into

 the 60s are shot in black and white, right? An atypical bunch!)

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Runners-up: Georgy Girl (dir. Silvio Narizzano),

Torn Curtain (dir. Alfred Hitchcock), 

Django (dir. Sergio Corbucci),

Fantastic Voyage (dir. Richard Fleischer),

Masculin Féminin (dir. Jean-luc Godard),

Chelsea Girls (dir. Morrissey/Warhol)

Never Seen: Chimes at Midnight (dir. Welles),

Daisies (dir. Chytilová), A Man and a Woman (dir. Lelouch)

What are your favorite movies of 1966?

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