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Best Drama Movies of the 1960s, Ranked by IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and TMDB
384 drama films from the 1960s are in our catalog; the 50 best are ranked below. Top of the list is Harakiri (1962), at 8.6 on IMDb. The average IMDb score across this list is 8.1. Biggest split between audiences and critics: Judgment at Nuremberg, 8.3 on IMDb against 60 on Metacritic.
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| # | Movie | Genre | IMDb | Tomato | Meta | TMDB | Director |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Harakiri '1962 | Action / Drama | 8.6 | 100% | 85 | 8.5 | Masaki Kobayashi |
| 2 | Once Upon a Time in the West '1968 | Drama / Western | 8.5 | 96% | 82 | 8.3 | Sergio Leone |
| 3 | High and Low '1963 | Drama / Crime / Thriller / Mystery | 8.4 | 97% | 90 | 8.4 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 4 | The Apartment '1960 | Comedy / Drama / Romance | 8.3 | 94% | 94 | 8.2 | Billy Wilder |
| 5 | Judgment at Nuremberg '1961 | Drama | 8.3 | 93% | 60 | 8.0 | Stanley Kramer |
| 6 | To Kill a Mockingbird '1962 | Drama | 8.2 | 93% | 88 | 8.0 | Robert Mulligan |
| 7 | The Great Escape '1963 | Drama / War | 8.2 | 94% | 86 | 7.9 | John Sturges |
| 8 | Le Trou '1960 | Drama / Thriller / Crime | 8.5 | - | - | 8.2 | Jacques Becker |
| 9 | Yojimbo '1961 | Drama / Thriller | 8.2 | 96% | 93 | 8.1 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 10 | Woman in the Dunes '1964 | Drama / Thriller | 8.4 | 100% | - | 8.2 | Hiroshi Teshigahara |
| 11 | The Sound of Music '1965 | Drama / Musical / Romance | 8.1 | 83% | 63 | 7.7 | Robert Wise |
| 12 | The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer '1961 | War / Drama | 8.8 | - | - | 8.4 | Masaki Kobayashi |
| 13 | La Jetée '1962 | Drama / Romance / Sci-Fi | 8.2 | 90% | - | 7.9 | Chris Marker |
| 14 | The Battle of Algiers '1966 | Drama / War | 8.1 | 99% | 96 | 7.9 | Gillo Pontecorvo |
| 15 | The Graduate '1967 | Drama / Romance / Comedy | 8.0 | 87% | 83 | 7.6 | Mike Nichols |
| 16 | Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid '1969 | Western / Crime / Drama | 8.0 | 89% | 66 | 7.6 | George Roy Hill |
| 17 | Rosemary's Baby '1968 | Drama / Horror / Thriller | 8.0 | 97% | 96 | 7.8 | Roman Polanski |
| 18 | Rocco and His Brothers '1960 | Drama / Romance / Crime | 8.2 | 91% | 84 | 8.0 | Luchino Visconti |
| 19 | Planet of the Apes '1968 | Sci-Fi / Drama / Action | 8.0 | 86% | 79 | 7.7 | Franklin J. Schaffner |
| 20 | Cool Hand Luke '1967 | Drama / Crime | 8.0 | 100% | 92 | 7.7 | Stuart Rosenberg |
| 21 | Red Beard '1965 | Drama | 8.3 | 73% | 90 | 8.2 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 22 | 8½ '1963 | Drama | 8.0 | 97% | 93 | 8.1 | Federico Fellini |
| 23 | Persona '1966 | Drama | 8.0 | 91% | 86 | 8.1 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 24 | La Dolce Vita '1960 | Comedy / Drama | 8.0 | 95% | 95 | 8.0 | Federico Fellini |
| 25 | Inherit the Wind '1960 | Drama | 8.1 | 93% | 75 | 7.6 | Stanley Kramer |
| 26 | Z '1969 | Thriller / Crime / Drama | 8.1 | 94% | 86 | 7.8 | Costa-Gavras |
| 27 | Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? '1966 | Drama | 8.0 | 96% | 75 | 7.7 | Mike Nichols |
| 28 | Army of Shadows '1969 | Drama / Thriller | 8.1 | 97% | 99 | 7.9 | Jean-Pierre Melville |
| 29 | Le Samouraï '1967 | Crime / Thriller / Drama | 8.0 | 92% | 90 | 7.8 | Jean-Pierre Melville |
| 30 | Ivan's Childhood '1962 | Drama / War | 8.0 | 100% | - | 7.8 | Andrei Tarkovsky |
| 31 | Sanjuro '1962 | Drama / Action / Comedy | 8.0 | 100% | 83 | 7.9 | Akira Kurosawa |
| 32 | Andrei Rublev '1966 | Drama | 8.0 | 96% | - | 7.9 | Andrei Tarkovsky |
| 33 | Spartacus '1960 | Drama | 7.9 | 90% | 87 | 7.5 | Stanley Kubrick |
| 34 | The Miracle Worker '1962 | Drama | 8.1 | 96% | 83 | 7.9 | Arthur Penn |
| 35 | Il Sorpasso '1962 | Drama / Comedy | 8.2 | - | - | 8.2 | Dino Risi |
| 36 | The Virgin Spring '1960 | Drama | 8.0 | 88% | - | 7.8 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 37 | Samurai Rebellion '1967 | Drama | 8.3 | 100% | 90 | 8.2 | Masaki Kobayashi |
| 38 | The Manchurian Candidate '1962 | Thriller / Drama | 7.9 | 96% | 94 | 7.5 | John Frankenheimer |
| 39 | The Hustler '1961 | Drama / Romance | 7.9 | 94% | 90 | 7.7 | Robert Rossen |
| 40 | Viridiana '1962 | Drama | 8.0 | 97% | - | 7.7 | Luis Buñuel |
| 41 | In the Heat of the Night '1967 | Crime / Drama / Mystery | 7.9 | 96% | 76 | 7.7 | Norman Jewison |
| 42 | Doctor Zhivago '1965 | Drama / Romance / War | 7.9 | 82% | 69 | 7.6 | David Lean |
| 43 | Winter Light '1963 | Drama | 8.0 | 77% | - | 7.9 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 44 | The Exterminating Angel '1962 | Comedy / Drama / Fantasy | 7.9 | 94% | - | 7.9 | Luis Buñuel |
| 45 | Fail Safe '1964 | Thriller / Drama | 8.0 | 93% | 75 | 7.8 | Sidney Lumet |
| 46 | Midnight Cowboy '1969 | Drama | 7.8 | 89% | 79 | 7.5 | John Schlesinger |
| 47 | I Am Cuba '1964 | Drama | 8.2 | 100% | 91 | 7.9 | Mikhail Kalatozov |
| 48 | The Leopard '1963 | Drama | 7.9 | 100% | 100 | 7.7 | Luchino Visconti |
| 49 | Through a Glass Darkly '1961 | Drama | 7.9 | 100% | 84 | 7.8 | Ingmar Bergman |
| 50 | La Notte '1961 | Drama / Romance | 7.9 | 84% | - | 7.9 | Michelangelo Antonioni |
Our catalog covers roughly the 8,800 most-rated films on TMDB, so lesser-known titles may be missing. Order uses a confidence-weighted IMDb score so a perfect score from a handful of votes does not beat a well-established classic; the scores shown are the raw ones.
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Other genres in the 1960s
Action of the 1960s Animation of the 1960s Comedy of the 1960s Crime of the 1960s Fantasy of the 1960s Horror of the 1960s Mystery of the 1960s Romance of the 1960s Sci-Fi of the 1960s Thriller of the 1960s War of the 1960s Western of the 1960s
Directors on this list
Masaki Kobayashi Sergio Leone Akira Kurosawa Billy Wilder Stanley Kramer John Sturges Jacques Becker Robert Wise Mike Nichols George Roy Hill Roman Polanski Luchino Visconti
Actors on this list
Tatsuya Nakadai Claudia Cardinale Henry Fonda Toshirō Mifune Jack Lemmon Shirley MacLaine Spencer Tracy Richard Widmark Gregory Peck Steve McQueen James Garner Julie Andrews