50 movies that shaped the baby boomer generation - from "A Summer Place" to "Summer of '42"

I was born in 1956. Baby boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964 according to U.S. Census definition. Most of the films listed are Hollywood produced. During this period, movies reflected changing mores and social change.

This film listing is from 1959 to 1972

My coding is as follows:

B = Big Box Office popularity
G = Ground breaking movies, taboos broken - sex/violence/language on the screen
A = Art house, new trends, political/social comments


1959 "A Summer Place" G
"Some Like It Hot" B, G
"Pillow Talk" B
"Imitation of Life" B
"North By Northwest" B

1960 "Psycho" G
"The Magnificent Seven" B
"The Apartment" G
"Spartacus" B

1961 "West Side Story" G, B
"La Dolce Vita" A, G

1962 "The Manchurian Candidate" G
"Lolita" G
 "To Kill A Mockingbird" G
"Lawrence of Arabia" B

1963"The Great Escape" B
"Tom Jones" G
"Dr No" B
"8 1/2" A

1964 "Dr Strangelove, Or: How I learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb" A
"A Hard Day's Night" G, B
"Goldfinger" B

1965 "For a Few Dollars More" G
1966 "A Man and a Woman" A

1967 "Bonnie and Clyde" G, A
"The Graduate" G, B
"Blow Up" G, A
"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" G
"In the Heat of the Night" G

1968 "Bullitt" G
"Rosemary's Baby" G
"Planet of the Apes" G
"2001: A Space Odyssey" G, A
"Midnight Cowboy" G
"The Producers" G
"Night of the Living Dead" G

1969 "The Wild Bunch" G
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" B
"Easy Rider" G
"Alice's Restaurant" A, G

1970 "Woodstock" G
"M*A*S*H"  G, B
"Five Easy Pieces" A

1971 "Dirty Harry" G
"The French Connection" G, B
"Shaft" G
"A Clockwork Orange" G, A
"The Last Picture Show" G
"Summer of '42"  B

1972 "The Godfather" B, G

Warner Bros. movies - guilty pleasures

I will start from 1960, when I was four because I reckon from that age you can absorb and remember the film.

Copyright TimeWarner Company/tvtropes.org

• 1960 Ocean's Eleven; The Sundowners (Robert Mitchum does a passable Aussie accent)
• 1961 Splendour in the Grass (Warren Beatty + Natalie Wood)
• 1962 Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?; The Music Man; Gypsy (a good year)
• 1963 Critic's Choice (Bob Hope&Lucille Ball)
• 1964 My Fair Lady
• 1965 The Great Race (too long but great production and superb Mancini score)
• 1966 Inside Daisy Clover; Harper/The Moving Target; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (another good year
• 1967 Hotel, Bonnie and Clyde
• 1968 Bullitt
• 1969 The Illustrated Man
• 1970 Trog (cringeworthy, Joan Crawford must have been skint)
• 1971 Dirty Harry, The Omega Man (vengeful mutants to a lovely Ron Grainer score)
• 1972 What's Up Doc?
• 1973 The Last of Sheila; O Lucky Man
• 1974 Blazing Saddles; The Towering Inferno (both comedies)
• 1975 The Yakusa (check out the talent: Mitcham, Paul Schrader, Robert Towne, Sydney Pollack)
• 1976 The Ritz
• 1977 The Late Show
• 1978 Capricorn One; Movie Movie; Superman
• 1979 A Little Romance (really sweet movie, old ham Lawrence Olivier, a teenage Diane Lane)
• 1980 Altered States (Ken Russell doing what Ken Russell used to do, Paddy Chayefsky was pissed off with adaptation)
• 1981 Body Heat; Excalibur (2 dynamite movies)
• 1982 Blade Runner
• 1983 The Right Stuff (remember when Hollywood blockbusters could still be intelligent and not comic/video game driven?)
• 1984 Razorback (giant pig demolishes house, lounge TV showing Don and Bert's Wheel segment - great first scene, Mr Mulcahy)
• 1985 Spies Like Us;  Mishimi
• 1986 Little Shop of Horrors (Steve Martin is sublime, great film adaptation)
• 1987 The Lost Boys; Innerspace