’69 at 50: A Look Back at the Legacy of Nine Movies From 1969

On the 50th anniversary of this watershed year for cinema, we take another look at nine seminal films that shaped America’s cinematic future. (Of course, we couldn’t capture all the worthy films in this limited list. Could-have-been-included films include Z, The Sorrow and the Pity, Army of Shadows, among others.)

What’s notably missing from our list are happy endings. At least one protagonist dies in six of our nine films—including both protagonists in the “feel-good” Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. In the other three, a broken child’s pet is killed, a broken salesman is on the edge of an existential abyss, and, in the only comedy, the inept criminal protagonist is sentenced to 800 years in prison.