The Best Movies Turning 50 In 2021

As 1970 came to a close, it was time to move on from movies dealing with war ("Patton," "M*A*S*H) and ones with "love"... in their title ("Love Story," "Women in Love"). 1971 ushered in darker, grittier fare, chronicling bad futures riddled with ultraviolence, odd May-December romances, cops who shot first and asked questions later, and Blaxploitation heroes who broke racial barriers at the box office.

In 1971, Sean Connery had one last shaken martini before saying "never again," while Woody Allen became a revolutionary leader of a country just to impress a girl. William Friedkin circled "Dirty Harry" on his to-do list, before making "The French Connection" with a different street-smart police officer instead. Stanley Kubrick wanted to prove he could work fast and cheap and ended up creating a cinematic experience that is still haunting our eyes and psyche to this day. It was quite the 52 weeks at the local cinema.

Five decades have passed and now we can clearly see what the best movies turning 50 this year are. Let's reveal them in alphabetical order. 

The last rated X film to be nominated for Best Picture was Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange," which some consider to be the best film of the auteur's career. Shooting at modernist and brutalist locations in and around London, Kubrick was able to transform Anthony Burgess' 1962 dystopian novel of the same name, written in dense Nadsat slang, into an audiovisual spectacle. Beethoven's 9th and "Singing in the Rain" never sounded the same ever again!

Kubrick was awed by Malcolm McDowell's performance in 1968's "if...." and instantly knew he had found his Alex, our "humble narrator" for "Clockwork." The result is one of the single greatest performances in the history of film, and McDowell got his corneas scratched in the famous Ludovico treatment scene as a thank you for his hard work.

Everything about the Kubrick's "Clockwork" — the erotic set designs of John Barry, the bowled-over costumes by Milena Canonero, the one-eye-lashed make-up by Barbara Daly, the electronic score by Wendy Carlos —helped to make it of the more influential films of the 1970s, penetrating media well outside of film.

After 1967's "You Only Twice," Sean Connery was done with the life of 007, but James Bond wasn't done with him. After replacement George Lazenby suited up only once for 1969's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," Connery gave it one "last" go in "Diamonds Are Forever." He was paid handsomely for his services, but donated his entire salary to a charity he co-founded, the Scottish International Educational Trust, to help his talented fellow countrymen and women in the rough shine out.

While certainly not the best Bond film by any stretch of the imagination, the second Guy Hamilton-directed 007 feature is a time capsule of fantastical fun. It features the second Shirley Bassey theme song in the franchise. It is also Connery's true swan song as the secret agent, as we shouldn't really count his final outing, 1983's "Never Say Never Again." In "Diamonds," 007 kills multiple Blofelds, battles Bambi and Thumper (Trina Parks was the very first Black Bond girl), fights Crispin Glover's dad (Bruce Glover) and Captain Spaulding, drives a Mustang on its side through Vegas nightlife, and navigates a moon buggy, all while finding time to toss double entendres with Natalie Wood's "plenty"-ful sister Lana, and Natalie Wood's husband's future second wife, Jill St. John. Connery had an affair with Wood, and is rumored to have had one with St. John at the same time.

It's not often celebrated, but the third "Planet of the Apes" film, "Escape from the Planet of the Apes," is one of the more entertaining and thought-provoking ones of the entire series. Yes, the original 1968 film is a classic, but its follow-up was a disappointment, which put a lot of pressure on the directors of "Escape," Don Taylor and Paul Dehn, to keep the franchise going.

Reprising their roles as Cornelius and Zira, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunte, and Sal Mineo travel to earth's past (ie, 1970s earth) to try and save it, where they encounter Ricardo Montalbán, misunderstanding, and aggressive resistance. They supply social commentary and much-needed laughter (the image of our beloved apes in groovy 70s clothing is everything). The film's bleak ending seemed to close the door on more "Apes," but its successful monkey business ended up keeping that door open a little while longer, with the subsequent release of 1972's "Conquest" and 1973's "Battle."

In the history of movie May-December romances, the one in "Harold and Maude" may be one of its most unique we've seen. The love between Bud Cort's suicidal Harold and Ruth Gordon's life-affirming, much-older Maude didn't immediately win over audiences when released in the winter of 1971, but grew over time to be impossibly loved in the following year and ensuing decades that followed.

Director Hal Ashby, writer Colin Higgins (who adapted his own film school thesis screenplay), musician Cat Stevens, and a quirky game cast (including the sweet and sour Vivian Pickles) pack a lot of life, love, and even death into 91 minutes. "Harold and Maude" influenced the next generation of filmmakers, from Wes Anderson to Cameron Crowe, Alexander Payne, David O. Russell, and Judd Apatow, who even named his daughter Maude. 

Bud Cort said the role was both a "blessing and a curse," as he became so closely associated with playing Harold that he turned down every similar "crazy guy" role that he was offered thereafter. He didn't end up working for 5 years, and laid low at Groucho Marx's home.

Robert Altman, Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, and the soulful sounds of Leonard Cohen came together in 1971, becoming one of the more exemplary modern Westerns / anti-Westerns ever made, "McCabe & Mrs. Miller." The ensemble cast was rounded out by usual Altman suspects Shelley Duvall, Keith Carradine, Michael Murphy, and René Auberjonois.

The year is 1901, and Beatty's McCabe is a gambler who rolls into a mining town. With the help of Mrs. Miller (Christie, in a performance that got her an Oscar nod), McCabe establishes a successful brothel. While their business partnership thrives, they also forge a more intimate relationship with one another, although Mrs. Miller charges McCabe for her services. Eventually, they run afoul of outside interests, and it all leads to a snow-white shootout at dawn, captured magnificently by the lens of cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond.

This was Altman's second feature after his smash hit "M*A*S*H," which kickstarted a big decade for the director, followed with such brilliant films as "The Long Goodbye," "California Split," and "Nashville." Legendary actor/director John Huston, who knows a thing or two about the Western genre and filmmaking in general, was a big fan of "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" as well.

In a year fully loaded with violent films sparking controversies and making headlines, there may be none more graphic and disturbing than what takes place in Sam Peckinpah's sixth feature, "Straw Dogs." The title is taken from Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, which Peckinpah summarized: "...the straw dogs were treated with the greatest deference before they were used as an offering, only to be discarded and trampled upon as soon as they had served their purpose."

While Elliott Gould, Donald Sutherland, and Anthony Hopkins were considered for the role of mild-mannered academic straw dog David Sumner, it was Dustin Hoffman who perfectly became the broken and enraged husband who seeks point-blank revenge on the English country folk who belittled him and raped his wife. That traumatic latter scene endured by actress Susan George ensured that "Straw Dogs" was probably one of the worst films to take a date to in 1971.

The film was remade for no good reason in 2011, but didn't bother crossing the pond, relocating the action to the American South.

Longtime cameraman and cinematographer Nicolas Roeg made quite the debut as a solo director (he and Donald Cammell co-directed Mick Jagger a year prior in "Performance") with his rugged and heavenly picture "Walkabout," where Western civilization meets (as one of the film's poster states) "the world's last frontier."

"Walkabout" centers on a young girl (Jenny Agutter) and her even younger brother (Roeg's own son Luc) who are abandoned in the outback by their father (John Meillon, who Americans know best from the "Crocodile Dundee" pictures) and find much needed help and guidance in the hostile wilderness from an Aborigine (David Gulpilil in his debut).

The unforgettable journey "Walkabout" takes its audience on also made deep impressions on its young actors. Agutter recalled, "The whole thing was a sort of romance, a coming of age. Like my character, I was very much growing up in that little period of time." Luc Roeg added, "It really became our world, our community, our life. Coming home from Australia, everything felt completely alien. We'd all gone a bit feral."