Timeline of Influential Milestones and Turning Points in Film History

Timeline of Influential Milestones and Important Turning Points in Film History

1960s

Herein is a detailed timeline of the key film milestones, important turning points, and significant historical dates or events (organized by decade) that have had a significant influence on the world body of cinema and shaped its development. For more detailed accounts of many items, also see this site's extensive narratives on Film History by Decade, Film Milestones in Visual and Special Effects, and a comprehensive History of the Academy Awards.

Index to Timeline of Greatest Film Milestones and Turning Points

(by decade)

Pre-1900s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s
1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s

1960s - Part 2

Year	Event and Significance
1966	Sweeping revisions were made in the Hays Code regarding the standards of decency for films, suggesting restraint in questionable themes, rather than forbidding them completely. In the new code of the Motion Picture Association of America, virtue and the condemnation of sin were still encouraged. However, it eliminated previous prohibitions of "lustful kissing" and "passion that stimulates the base emotions," and permitted certain films to be labeled "recommended for mature audiences."
1966	The ground-breaking UK Swinging 60s comedy film Georgy Girl became the first film to carry the label "suggested for mature audiences" - or M rating.
1966	After an appeal by Warner Bros., Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? became the first film containing profane expletives and frank sexual content (ie., "Hump the Hostess") to receive the MPAA's Production Code seal of approval, although the most extreme profanity was removed (i.e., "Screw you"). It was the first American film to use the expletive 'goddamn' and 'bugger'. It was also the first film to be released with an M-rating ("Suggested for Mature Audiences") warning. [The film was noted for its four acting nominations (one for every member of the four-person cast).] The second film to receive an MPAA exemption (and seal of approval) shortly afterwards was Alfie despite the use of the forbidden word "abortion." These exemptions marked the beginning of the breakdown of the existing system of industry self-regulation and censorship, and the relaxing of code standards.
1966	MGM distributed Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow Up, the director's first non-Italian feature, in defiance of demands that it make cuts. Jane Birkin and Gillian Hills, acting as teenaged groupies in the film, displayed glimpses of full-frontal female nudity, introducing American film audiences to their first view of pubic hair.
1966	Paramount's purchase by Gulf & Western marked the beginning of a trend toward studio ownership by diversified, multi-national conglomerates.
1966	The Legion of Decency changed its official name to the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures and, in respect to Pope John XXIII's policy of modernizing Catholic thought, announced a more progressive attitude.
1966	The 'Oscars' or Academy Awards ceremony was first broadcast in color.
1966	The first indigenous African (Senegalese) feature film was writer/director Ousmane Sembene's debut feature-length film Black Girl. It was also regarded as the first sub-Saharan African film from an African filmmaker to receive international attention and acclaim.
1966	The ABC-TV network paid a record $2 million for airing rights to The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) - the screening attracted over 60 million viewers, and set a precedent for higher fees for hit theatrical films sold to television.
1966	The Star Trek TV series had its debut on network television on September 8, 1966 -- this popular and most successful science-fiction series of its kind was extremely influential in future years for various other versions, including the release of a Saturday morning animated version from 1973-74, and the first of many big-budget theatrical feature films in 1979 (there were a total of eleven Star Trek-related feature films by 2009).
1967	The first "spaghetti western," Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, opened in the United States, starring Clint Eastwood as the "man with no name." It was the first screen collaboration between Leone and Eastwood. (The western had earlier premiered in 1964 in Florence, Italy.)
1967	Director Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde was promoted with the slogan for its anti-heroes: "They're young. They're in love. They kill people." The anti-establishment, violent film, originally criticized at the time of its release, was aimed at youth audiences by its American auteur and producer/star Warren Beatty.
1967	Mike Nichols became the first director to earn $1,000,000 for a single picture — for The Graduate (1967).
1967	Director/producer Roger Corman's visually-surrealistic The Trip (with a screenplay by actor Jack Nicholson), an American International Pictures (AIP) film, was the first Hollywood film to show the effects of taking psychedelic drugs (LSD). It was the ultimate late 1960s exploitation hippie film, with star Peter Fonda.
1967	Jack Warner, co-creator of Warner Bros., sold his remaining interest in the company to a Canadian corporation called Seven Arts Ltd. for $84 million. The company became known as Warner-Seven Arts.
1967	New Line Cinema was formed, marking its niche with films like director John Waters' Pink Flamingo and Polyester.
1967	The first contemporary music (rock 'n roll concert) industry film, Monterey Pop (1968), was filmed at the historic Monterey International Pop Festival in California, featuring such performers as Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Mamas and the Papas, Janis Joplin and more. It was the precursor to Michael Wadleigh's concert documentary of the late 60s rock fest, Woodstock (1970).
1967	In the Heat of the Night was the first Best Picture Oscar winner to be adapted into a regular prime-time television series, in 1988, with Carroll O'Connor as Sheriff Bill Gillespie and Howard Rollins as Virgil Tibbs. It was also the only true 'who-dun-it' detective story that won Best Picture.
1967	Sony introduced a portable (but bulky), expensive, out-of-studio, black-and-white video camera system (or video tape recorder - VTR) called the PortaPak -- it inaugurated the modern era of video.
1967	Two UK films were released in this year - both noted for the first use of the four-letter word 'f--k': director Michael Winner's film I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name and Ulysses.
1967	The first major (commercially-released) US studio film to include the word 's--t' in its dialogue was Richard Brooks' In Cold Blood. It was also said a year later in Boom! (1968, UK) (spoken by actress Elizabeth Taylor as Flora 'Sissy' Goforth: "S--t on your mother!" Note: Taylor was the first actress to say 's--t' in a major motion picture).
1967	French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard's chaotic and apocalyptic experimental film Weekend told about a weekend car trip involving a massive traffic jam symbolizing the collapse of the modern consumeristic society, including one of the longest dolly shots in cinematic history.
1968	A new voluntary ratings system was developed and went into effect in late November by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) - it was announced by its President Jack Valenti. The new system classified films according to their suitability for viewing by young people, in four categories: "G" for general audiences; "M" for mature audiences; "R," no one under 16 admitted without an adult guardian (later raised to under 17 years of age); and "X," no one under 17 admitted. The four criteria used in the ratings included theme, language, violence, and nudity and/or sexual content. Many parents thought films rated M contained more adult content than those that were rated R; this confusion led to its replacement in 1969 by the rating of GP (or General Public, or General Audiences, Parental Guidance Suggested). In 1970, the GP (or earlier M) rating was changed to PG: Parental Guidance Suggested, and the age limit was increased to 17. [The PG ratings category would again be revised in 1984.]
1968	Brian De Palma's draft-dodger comedy Greetings, (Robert DeNiro's debut film), was the first film in the US to receive an X rating by the MPAA for nudity and profanity (in its original release), although it was reduced to an R rating.
1968	Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey reinvented the science fiction genre. It introduced the character of HAL, a computer that could see, speak, hear, and think like its human colleagues aboard the spaceship, and fantastic special effects of outer-space by Douglas Trumbull.
1968	The flesh-eating zombie sub-genre of films was given a boost with George A. Romero's cheap, stark black and white horror flick, Night of the Living Dead.
1968	The classic science fiction film, Planet of the Apes was one of the pioneering, modern multimedia marketing blockbusters, spawning not only four sequels and two television series spinoffs, but merchandising, such as action figures. It provided both solid entertainment value, and an effective, politically-charged message of social commentary.
1968	The German film Maedchen in Uniform (1958) (first filmed in 1931) was the only lesbian film seen publicly in the US --- until the release of Robert Aldrich's X-rated The Killing of Sister George.
1968	Peter Bogdanovich was the first critic and film scholar to become a Hollywood writer-director, with his directorial debut for Targets, made for American International Pictures. He deliberately revered past American directors in his own work which extended into the 70s.
1968	Writer/director John Cassavetes' Faces was the first independently-made and distributed American film to reach mainstream audiences. Cassavetes himself has been considered to be "the father of independent cinema in America." The stark and grainy look of this amateurish-looking, non-studio, ragged film about infidelity (over two hours long, and made with a hand-held camera in 16mm) was told as an improvisational character study. It was a highly-influential, low-budget independent cinema verite film that had a highly individualistic style (with unscripted and often inaudible dialogue).
1969	Midnight Cowboy, starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, became the only X-rated picture to ever win an Oscar for Best Picture (the rating was later changed to an R). More and more mainstream films contained sexual content that was unacceptable only a few years earlier.
1969	ABC-TV programmer Barry Diller created "The Movie of the Week." By 1971, ABC was airing Tuesday and Wednesday night versions.
1969	Sony introduced a new device -- the videocassette recorder (VCR) for home use.
1969	Kinney National Company, a New York conglomerate whose interests included parking lots and funeral homes, acquired Warner-Seven Arts and in 1972 renamed the company Warner Communications Inc.
1969	After her last film, Fox's Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949), former child star Shirley Temple entered politics after raising a family - she was appointed U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Later, she served as U.S. ambassador to Ghana (1974-1976) and Czechoslovakia (1989), and during the late 70s was the U.S. Chief of Protocol.
1969	A new wave of independent film-making in Hollywood (dubbed "The New Hollywood") was signaled by Dennis Hopper's anti-Establishment release of the low-budget Easy Rider. Its phenomenal success shook up the major Hollywood studios. This movement was termed Hollywood's New Wave (fashioned after the earlier French New Wave), and would last through the next decade. Hopper's next experimental film The Last Movie (1971) was less successful, both commercially and critically, and sounded a death-knell for his own ambitious film-making efforts.
1969	Sam Peckinpah's ultra-violent western The Wild Bunch was exceptional for its non-glorification of bloodshed, and its slow-motion, heavily-edited, stylized views of multiple deaths -- it was influential for other filmmakers ranging from Martin Scorsese to John Woo to Quentin Tarantino in years to come. Due to its violence, the film was originally threatened with an X-rating by the newly-created MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), but an R-rating was its final decision. A so-called 'director's cut' version of the film, threatened with an NC-17 rating when submitted to the MPAA ratings board in 1993 prior to a re-release in 1994, held up the film's re-release for many months.
1969	African-American film-maker and cinematographer Gordon Parks directed his own autobiographical The Learning Tree, and became the first black director of a major feature film for a major US studio. This laid the groundwork for Parks' next film -- the landmark blaxploitation action film Shaft (1971) with Richard Roundtree - a very successful cross-over film.
1969	A three-day rock music festival, dubbed Woodstock, occurred in a large farming field in upstate New York, attracting 400,000 young people for an outdoor concert marked by drug use, nudity, food shortages and profanity, as well as superb performances by the rock stars of the era. The landmark concert was captured in director Michael Wadleigh's successful widescreen (and split-screen) rockumentary Woodstock: 3 Days of Love & Music (1970) - winning the Best Documentary Academy Award.