1960s Films

A 1960 Italian science fiction film directed by Antonio Margheriti (credited as Anthony Dawson), originally titled Space Men. In the 22nd century, reporter Ray Peterson (Rik Van Nutter) is assigned to cover events aboard an orbiting space station. When a malfunctioning spaceship controlled by a deranged electronic brain threatens to destroy Earth with its photon generators, Peterson joins a desperate mission to intercept it. Considered by many to be the best science fiction film from director Margheriti, distinguished by its almost-plausible plot and impressive special effects. Released in the U.S. as a double feature with The Phantom Planet (1961).

Sci-Fi

A 1960 Italian horror film directed by Anton Giulio Majano, originally titled Seddok, l'erede di Satana. When a singer named Jeanette Moreneau (Susanne Loret) is horribly disfigured in a car accident, scientist Professor Alberto Levin (Alberto Lupo) develops a serum called Derma 28 that restores her beauty. But the treatment is only temporary, and Levin — who has fallen in love with Jeanette — must kill young women to obtain the glandular transplants needed to make the cure permanent. Unable to continue killing without remorse, Levin uses his earlier failed serum Derma 25 to transform himself into a monstrous killer. Despite its American title, the film contains no actual vampire.

Horror · Sci-Fi

A college student travels to the New England village of Whitewood to research witchcraft for a paper, on the recommendation of her professor, played by Christopher Lee. She checks into the Raven's Inn, run by a mysterious woman who is in truth the reincarnation of a witch burned at the stake two centuries earlier, and the village proves to be in the grip of a coven. City of the Dead, released in the United States as Horror Hotel, is an atmospheric black-and-white horror film that relies on fog, shadow, and a genuine sense of dread. Its release happened to coincide with Psycho, and the two share a structural resemblance that was purely coincidental. The film is in the public domain and is regarded as a minor classic of British horror.

Horror

A 1960 West German horror film directed by Fritz Böttger, also known as Ein Toter hing im Netz and It's Hot in Paradise. Nightclub owner Gary Webster (Alexander D'Arcy) is interviewing dancers for his exotic troupe in New York and flies with several of them to Singapore. Their plane crashes into the Pacific, and the survivors reach a deserted island where they discover a dead man hanging in a giant spider's web. Gary is bitten by a mutant spider and transforms into a murderous spider-creature, terrorizing the women as they await rescue. The film was released in the US in 1962 and later featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Horror

A 1960 American science fiction film produced and directed by Roger Corman. Shady businessman Harold Gern (Antony Carbone), his wife Evelyn (Betsy Jones-Moreland), and his lawyer Martin Joyce (Robert Towne, in his screenwriting debut, credited as Edward Wain) are scuba diving off Puerto Rico when a mysterious temporary absence of oxygen kills everyone on the island — and possibly the world. When they surface, they find themselves the sole survivors of an unexplained apocalypse. As the three adjust to their new existence, the tension of being the last people on Earth — with only one woman — drives the two men into a deadly rivalry. Shot in Puerto Rico on a low budget, the film features an early screenplay by Robert Towne, who later won an Oscar for Chinatown (1974).

Sci-Fi · Drama

A 1960 American science fiction thriller directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, starring Marguerite Chapman in her final feature film. Ex-Army major Paul Krenner forces scientist Dr. Peter Ulof to develop a radiation-based invisibility machine, planning to create an invisible army to sell to the highest bidder. He busts safecracker Joey Faust (Douglas Kennedy) out of prison and forces him to undergo the invisibility treatment to steal more radium. But Faust discovers an unexpected side effect of the treatment and begins to pursue his own agenda. Shot back-to-back with Beyond the Time Barrier in Dallas, Texas on a combined two-week schedule with a budget of approximately $100,000.

Sci-Fi · Crime · Thriller

The debut episode of the NBC anthology series "The Dow Hour of Great Mysteries," broadcast live on March 31, 1960 and preserved as a kinescope. Hosted by Joseph N. Welch — the Boston lawyer famous for the Army–McCarthy hearings — this elaborately staged television version of the 1920 Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart play stars Helen Hayes as spinster Cornelia Van Gorder, who rents a rambling country mansion where a fortune in stolen securities is believed to be hidden. A sinister criminal known only as "The Bat" stalks the corridors, determined to find the money first. Jason Robards Jr. and Margaret Hamilton round out the cast of one of television's most lavish live productions of its era, adapted from one of the archetypal "old dark house" mysteries.

Mystery · Horror

Seymour works in a failing flower shop on Skid Row and raises a strange plant he found after a total eclipse. The plant will only drink human blood, and as it grows it demands more, so Seymour feeds it the people who get in his way. Roger Corman shot the film in two days and a night on leftover sets from another production, and it became a surprise hit that ran for years in midnight screenings. The script by Charles B. Griffith is full of oddball characters and black comedy, and a young Jack Nicholson has a small, memorable part as a masochistic dental patient. The film later inspired the off-Broadway musical and the 1986 film adaptation. The original entered the public domain due to a missing copyright notice.

Comedy · Horror

Bucky and Pepito tangle with a vexatious Texan who causes trouble in their frontier town, in this episode of the infamously low-budget Bucky and Pepito series. Directed by Reuben Timmins and Edwin Rehberg. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal.

Animation · Comedy · Western

The head of a cosmetics company, worried that her aging face is hurting sales, agrees to injections of an experimental wasp-enzyme serum from a discredited scientist. The treatment restores her youth, but the side effects turn her, at intervals, into a murderous wasp-like creature. Roger Corman directed The Wasp Woman quickly and cheaply, recycling the theme of beauty obsession and scientific hubris he had used in earlier films. Susan Cabot plays the lead with a brittle intensity that lifts the material above its budget. The film is in the public domain and has circulated widely on budget home video.

Horror · Sci-Fi

A 1960 American drama film directed by Harvey Berman, starring Jack Nicholson as Johnny Varron, a rebellious Beat Generation punk who spends his days as an amateur dirt track driver between partying and troublemaking. After forcing a motorcycle cop off the road, Johnny's escalating recklessness alienates his best friend Dave, who has found a new girlfriend named Nancy. When Dave decides to leave the gang, Johnny kidnaps Nancy in a desperate bid to maintain control, leading to a tragic conclusion. Executive produced by Roger Corman and released through Filmgroup as a double feature with The Girl in Lovers Lane. An early Nicholson role, made when he was 23.

Drama · Crime

A ghostly horror film directed by B-movie maestro Bert I. Gordon. Jazz pianist Tom Stewart (Richard Carlson) is about to marry his sweetheart when his former lover Vi confronts him at a lighthouse. During an argument, Vi falls to her death—and Tom does nothing to save her. Soon, her disembodied hand and floating head begin to haunt him, whispering accusations and appearing at the most inopportune moments. As the wedding approaches, Tom's guilt drives him to madness. Gordon's daughter Susan plays the little girl who befriends Tom and witnesses some of the hauntings. Joe Turkel, later famous as the bartender in The Shining, appears as a gangster. The film was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Thriller

A low-budget horror thriller written and directed by Ralph Brooke, based without attribution on Richard Connell's 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game." Four young adults boat to a remote tropical island, where they discover the estate of Dr. Albert Balleau (Wilton Graff), a sadistic hunter who has grown bored with stalking animals and now collects human trophies. Balleau gives his captives a head start before hunting them with bow and arrow through the jungle. Filmed in 1959 at Screencraft Studios but not released until 1961 on a double bill with The Devil's Hand, the film is a threadbare but atmospheric retelling of the oft-adapted story. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Thriller

A horror-comedy directed by Roger Corman, written by Charles B. Griffith. American agent XK150, using the alias Sparks Moran (Robert Towne, billed as Edward Wain), infiltrates a gang led by Renzo Capetto (Antony Carbone), who is transporting a Cuban general and a fortune in treasury gold out of Cuba. Capetto invents a sea monster to cover his murders, but a real creature from the haunted sea surfaces to complicate matters. Corman, exhausted by monster movie formulas, famously ended the film with the creature killing the entire cast and picking its teeth with their bones. Filmed in Puerto Rico in 1959, the film was released by The Filmgroup on a double bill with Devil's Partner. Robert Towne would go on to win an Academy Award for writing Chinatown (1974). The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Comedy

Country music legend Johnny Cash made his theatrical film debut in this low- budget neo-noir crime thriller directed by Bill Karn. Cash plays Johnny Cabot, a deranged bank robber who holds a housewife (Cay Forrester) hostage while his accomplice attempts to extort her bank manager husband (Donald Woods). Cash performs the title song, with a guitar solo by Merle Travis, who also appears in the film. A young Ron Howard co-stars as the couple's son. The film was rereleased in 1966 by American International Pictures as Door-to-Door Maniac. It is in the public domain.

Crime · Thriller

The only film ever directed by Marlon Brando, who also stars as Rio, a bank robber betrayed by his partner Dad Longworth (Karl Malden) after a Mexican heist. Years later Rio escapes prison and tracks Dad to a California coastal town where the betrayer has reinvented himself as a respectable sheriff with a wife and stepdaughter (Pina Pellicer). Stanley Kubrick was originally set to direct before Brando took over himself, and the production became legendary for its cost overruns — but the result is a brooding, unusually psychological western shot in VistaVision along the Monterey coast. The film entered the public domain when its copyright was not renewed.

Western · Drama

A defecting Russian scientist, fleeing through the Nevada desert, is caught in a nuclear blast and transformed into a mindless, murderous creature. Tor Johnson, the Swedish wrestler best known for his work with Ed Wood, plays the beast, lurching through the flats and strangling anyone who crosses his path. The film is essentially a silent picture told through narration, with almost no dialogue between characters. Coleman Francis wrote and directed it for an estimated thirty-four thousand dollars, and it is widely regarded as one of the strangest and most incoherent films ever made. Its reputation was sealed by Mystery Science Theater 3000. It entered the public domain and circulates widely on budget labels.

Horror · Sci-Fi

Sam Peckinpah's feature directing debut, made after years of television westerns. When drifting gunfighter Yellowleg (Brian Keith) accidentally kills the son of dance-hall hostess Kit Tilden (Maureen O'Hara), he insists on escorting her across Apache country to bury the boy beside his father — a journey the whole town considers madness. Steve Cochran and Chill Wills play the outlaws who tag along for a bank payroll. The film already shows Peckinpah's fixations: guilt, obsession, and violence that solves nothing. Shot in CinemaScope on Arizona locations, it flopped on release but is now watched as the first chapter of one of the great western careers. The film is in the public domain after its copyright was not renewed.

Western

A 1961 American science fiction film directed by William Marshall, starring Dean Fredericks and Coleen Gray. American astronaut Capt. Frank Chapman is forced to land his spaceship on a mysterious asteroid after investigating the disappearance of a Pegasus rocket. Upon opening his space suit, he is miniaturized by the planet's atmosphere and captured by a race of tiny people ruled by Sessom. Chapman becomes entangled in their world — caught between the affections of Sessom's daughter Liara and the mute Zetha — while helping the tiny kingdom defend itself against the Solarites, an ancient enemy. The film features the first credited appearance of Richard Kiel as the Solarite monster. Released as a double feature with Assignment Outer Space (1960).

Sci-Fi

A 1962 American drama film written and directed by James Landis, starring Bobby Diamond. Eddie Slocum, a young Indiana farm boy, volunteers for the Army's Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, inspired by his uncle's World War II paratrooper service. During jump school training, he clashes with Rocky, a bullying recruit jealous of the attention Eddie gets from local beauty Jenny May. During their first parachute jump, Rocky's chute becomes entangled in Eddie's lines, and Eddie must hold onto his former enemy as they descend to the ground — a brush with death that transforms Rocky and bonds the platoon.

Drama · War

Mary Henry survives a car that plunges off a bridge into a river, dragged out hours later with no memory of how she escaped. She moves to a new town to start a job as a church organist, but she is drawn to an abandoned pavilion on the shore, and she keeps seeing a pale, grinning man no one else can see. Herk Harvey made the film for around thirty thousand dollars on weekends, with a crew borrowed from industrial film work. The organ score and the empty fairground imagery give it a dreamlike dread that influenced later horror. Mary keeps slipping out of the world entirely, becoming invisible and silent to the people around her, and the film never explains why in a neat way. The film was largely ignored on release and found its audience years later through television. It entered the public domain due to non-renewal of its copyright.

Horror · Mystery

A 1962 American horror film directed by Arch Hall Sr. (credited as Nicholas Merriwether) and starring his son Arch Hall Jr. and Richard Kiel. While driving through the California desert, Roxy Miller (Marilyn Manning) nearly hits a giant caveman named Eegah (Richard Kiel). Her father, a writer of adventure books, heads into the desert to find the creature, but is captured and trapped in Eegah's cave. When Roxy and her boyfriend Tom (Arch Hall Jr.) come to rescue him, Eegah grows fond of Roxy and follows them back to civilization, leading to tragedy. Made on a budget of $15,000, the film was later featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and became a cult favorite.

Horror · Sci-Fi

The series premiere of The Beverly Hillbillies, one of the most popular sitcoms of the 1960s. Jed Clampett, a poor Ozark mountaineer, strikes oil on his land and becomes a millionaire overnight. A banker from Beverly Hills convinces him to move his family to California, where their rural ways clash spectacularly with high society. The episode introduces the iconic Clampett family: Jed, Granny, Elly May, and Jethro, and sets up the fish-out-of-water premise that would drive the series for nine seasons. The show was an instant hit, drawing 60 million viewers and becoming the #1 show in America within weeks. The episode is in the public domain due to copyright non-renewal.

Comedy · TV Series

Episode 2 of The Beverly Hillbillies. The Clampetts arrive at their new Beverly Hills mansion and begin settling in, with predictably comic results. Granny is convinced they've moved to a haunted house, Jethro explores the mansion's modern conveniences with bewildered fascination, and Jed tries to make sense of his new surroundings. The episode establishes the running gag of the Clampetts misinterpreting every aspect of modern life, from the kitchen appliances to the swimming pool. The episode is in the public domain due to copyright non-renewal.

Comedy · TV Series

Episode 3 of The Beverly Hillbillies. While the Clampetts adjust to life in Beverly Hills, Granny struggles with homesickness for the Ozarks and threatens to return to the old cabin. The episode showcases Irene Ryan's brilliant comic performance as Granny, whose stubborn resistance to modernity provides much of the series' humor. Meanwhile, banker Drysdale schemes to keep the Clampetts happy so they won't withdraw their fortune from his bank. The episode is in the public domain.

Comedy · TV Series

Episode 4 of The Beverly Hillbillies. The Clampetts meet Mrs. Drysdale, the banker's snobbish wife, and the culture clash escalates. Mrs. Drysdale is appalled by her new neighbors' rustic ways, while the Clampetts interpret her haughty disdain as friendly eccentricity. The episode introduces the recurring dynamic between the Clampetts and the Drysdale household, with the banker caught between his wealthy clients and his embarrassed wife. The episode is in the public domain due to copyright non-renewal.

Comedy · TV Series

Episode 5 of The Beverly Hillbillies. Jed decides to try his hand at the stock market, with predictably chaotic results. His innocent questions about "buying stock" are misinterpreted by Wall Street professionals, and his down-home wisdom somehow produces better investment results than the experts can manage. The episode satirizes the world of high finance through the eyes of a man who measures wealth in terms of land and livestock rather than paper certificates. The episode is in the public domain.

Comedy · TV Series

Episode 6 of The Beverly Hillbillies. It's Halloween in Beverly Hills, and the Clampetts' rustic ways take on a spooky dimension. Granny's mountain superstitions and the family's ignorance of Halloween customs lead to a series of comic misunderstandings with their fancy new neighbors. The episode is a classic holiday-themed installment that showcases the series' talent for finding humor in cultural clashes. The episode is in the public domain.

Comedy · TV Series

Episode 7 of The Beverly Hillbillies. The Clampetts' mansion comes with a full staff of servants, and the culture clash between the hired help and their new employers provides rich comic territory. The servants are bewildered by the Clampetts' country ways, while the family can't understand why anyone would need help with simple tasks. The episode explores the class dynamics that made the series both funny and socially pointed. The episode is in the public domain.

Comedy · TV Series

Episode 8 of The Beverly Hillbillies. Jethro decides he needs an education to succeed in Beverly Hills, and his attempts to navigate the school system produce predictably chaotic results. His overconfidence and lack of formal learning clash with the structured world of education, while the family tries to figure out which grade he should be in. The episode showcases Max Baer Jr.'s comic talents as the lovably dim-witted Jethro, whose ambition always exceeds his abilities. The episode is in the public domain.

Comedy · TV Series

A surgeon crashes his car and saves his fiancée by keeping her severed head alive in a tray of fluid in his laboratory. While she grows increasingly unhinged and telepathically commands a monstrous experiment locked in the closet, he scours the city's nightclubs and back alleys for a body to attach to her. The Brain That Wouldn't Die is a sleazy, low-budget cult film that became a staple of late-night television and was later mocked on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Its mix of mad-science horror and exploitation is pure early-1960s B-picture. The film entered the public domain through non-renewal of its copyright.

Horror · Sci-Fi

A 1962 American low-budget science fiction film directed by Fredric Gadette, produced at the height of the Cold War. Deputy Sheriff Dan Colter (Seamon Glass) receives orders to block a rural road leading into an unidentified city as a nuclear attack appears to be underway. He detains a group of motorists — an elderly man and his granddaughter, a newly rich man and his alcoholic wife, a trucker, and a hitchhiker who turns out to be a psychotic murderer. As the countdown to the missile attack continues, the group desperately tries to convert a supply truck into an impromptu bomb shelter while civility and the deputy's sanity unravel. A genuinely disturbing film whose low-budget ineptitude unintentionally conveys the helplessness of facing atomic annihilation.

Sci-Fi · Drama

An episode of Calvin and the Colonel, the 1961-1962 ABC animated sitcom created and voiced by Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll of Amos 'n' Andy fame. Colonel Montgomery J. Klaxon, a shrewd fox, and Calvin T. Burnside, a dimwitted bear, propagate an insurance scam: after the Colonel breaks his nephew's car, they try to buy auto insurance and cash in on the damage after the fact. The plot would have been right at home in Amos 'n' Andy, transplanted into a cartoon animal format to sidestep the controversy that had ended the live-action show. Aired February 3, 1962. The episode is in the public domain.

Animation · Comedy · Family

Audrey Hepburn's husband is murdered and she discovers he was involved in a wartime gold theft. Several men who were his accomplices are after the gold, and they think she knows where it is. Cary Grant keeps turning up and helping her, but his identity keeps shifting. The film is often called the best Hitchcock film Hitchcock never made. The screenplay by Peter Stone has a good ear for banter. Henry Mancini wrote the score. The film failed to include a copyright notice on its prints, which put it in the public domain immediately upon release.

Thriller · Romance · Comedy

Francis Ford Coppola's feature directorial debut, produced by Roger Corman with leftover money from another shoot. A woman conceals her husband's death and travels to his family's Irish castle to secure a share of the inheritance, only to find the household haunted by the drowning of a young daughter years before. Then an ax-wielding killer begins picking off members of the family. Coppola shot the film in Ireland on a tiny budget, and Corman later added a prologue by Monte Hellman to pad the runtime. The result is a rough but atmospheric black-and-white horror picture that hints at the talent Coppola would soon develop. It entered the public domain and has circulated widely on budget labels ever since.

Horror · Mystery

A 1963 American exploitation drama directed by John Hayes, starring Rue McClanahan (later of The Golden Girls) as Poochie, a woman living in a junkyard. A young couple, Ben and Edna, are traveling to California with their baby when their car breaks down. Ben walks to a nearby junkyard for a spare part, where the seedy owner Harry frames him for selling stolen auto parts. When Ben fails to return, Edna goes looking for him and is chased around the junkyard by Harry's strange, dim-witted friend Blowhard. The film was critically lambasted and later picked up by exploitation filmmaker Kroger Babb. Also known as The Rotten Apple, Junk Yard Love, and It Only Takes Five Minutes.

Drama · Crime · Thriller

A 1963 American Western comedy film directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. Loosely based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, the film follows aging cattle baron George Washington McLintock, the richest man in the territory, as he navigates numerous personal and professional crises. His estranged wife Katherine (O'Hara) returns seeking custody of their daughter Becky, while government officials, land-grabbers, and corrupt Indian agents all want a piece of his empire. The film features a famous mudhole fight scene and a memorable chase through town. Produced by Wayne's company Batjac Productions and co-starring Patrick Wayne, Stefanie Powers, Yvonne De Carlo, and Chill Wills. The film is marked Public Domain on Archive.org.

Western · Comedy

A 1963 American science fiction horror film also known as Monstrosity, directed by Joseph V. Mascelli. A wealthy elderly woman, Mrs. March (Marjorie Eaton), funds the experiments of Dr. Otto Frank (Frank Gerstle), who uses an atomic reactor in her basement to transplant brains between bodies. Mrs. March wants her brain transplanted into the body of a beautiful young woman, and three European girls are lured to the mansion as candidates. The experiments go horribly wrong — one woman receives a cat's brain, another becomes a zombie — and the film culminates in the destruction of the laboratory. The film was shot in 1958 but not released until 1963 after the production company went bankrupt. It was later featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Sci-Fi · Horror

The Sadist is a 1963 American thriller written and directed by James Landis, starring Arch Hall Jr. as a psychopathic spree killer patterned after Charles Starkweather. Three teachers driving into Los Angeles for a Dodgers game break down at a remote gas station and find themselves held hostage by Charlie Tibbs, a cheerful, remorseless killer, and his girlfriend Judy, who toys with the captives while Charlie torments them. Made for about sixty-nine thousand dollars and distributed by Fairway International Pictures, the film is a lean, genuinely unsettling piece of exploitation that benefits from the feature debut of the future Academy Award-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, whose handheld 35mm work gives the picture a queasy you-are-there immediacy. The film is in the public domain.

Thriller · Horror · Crime

A young officer in Napoleon's army, separated from his regiment, follows a mysterious woman to the castle of an elderly baron and uncovers a story of murder, guilt, and a witch's curse. The Terror is famous less for its plot than for how it was made. Roger Corman shot Boris Karloff's scenes in a few days using leftover sets from The Raven, then sent a string of directors, including Francis Ford Coppola, Monte Hellman, and Jack Hill, to film the rest around them. Jack Nicholson, then a young actor on Corman's payroll, plays the lead. The film fell into the public domain because it was released without a copyright notice. It is a rambling, atmospheric curiosity that captures a group of future major filmmakers at the very start of their careers.

Horror

A 1964 Italian sword-and-sandal film directed by Domenico Paolella, starring Peter Lupus (credited as Rock Stevens) as Hercules. Hercules journeys to Babylon to rescue Asparia, the queen of the Hellenes, who has been enslaved along with her people by the three tyrannical siblings who rule the twin cities of Babylon and Nineveh. One of the tyrants, Taneal (Helga Liné), schemes to use Hercules for her own purposes, while King Phaleg of Assyria manipulates the hero into helping him seize Asparia. The film liberally uses stock footage from the biblical epic Sodom and Gomorrah (1962) for its climactic destruction of Babylon.

Action · Adventure · Fantasy

Martian parents, worried that their children are sad and listless, decide the solution is to kidnap Santa Claus from Earth and bring him to Mars. Two Earth children get caught up in the scheme. A legendary low-budget holiday curio, infamous for its wobbly sets and a young Pia Zadora as one of the Martian kids. The missing copyright notice placed it immediately in the public domain.

Sci-Fi · Family · Comedy

Vincent Price plays Dr. Robert Morgan, the apparent sole survivor of a plague that has turned the rest of humanity into vampire-like creatures. By day he hunts them and stakes them; by night he barricades himself inside his home while they swarm outside, calling his name. The film is the first adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, which later inspired The Omega Man and the Will Smith version. Matheson worked on the screenplay but was unhappy with it and took a pseudonym. Shot in Rome on a low budget, it leans on Price's weary, haunted performance to carry the isolation. The film entered the public domain in the 1980s and is widely considered the most faithful of the novel's adaptations.

Horror · Sci-Fi

A documentary film about the August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where a quarter of a million people gathered to demand civil and economic rights for Black Americans. Directed by James Blue for the United States Information Agency, the film captures Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic "I Have a Dream" speech. Added to the National Film Registry in 2008. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Documentary

A 1964 American psychological thriller directed by Burt Topper, starring Victor Buono as Leo Kroll, a disturbed hospital lab technician who embarks on a serial killing spree of young women, particularly nurses. Inspired by his dominant, possessive mother, Leo is an overweight loner with low self-esteem whose hatred of women drives him to murder. When he meets Tally, a young woman who works at an amusement park, she briefly curbs his homicidal impulses — but his dark nature ultimately resurfaces. The film was inspired by the real-life Boston Strangler case and went into production while police were still attempting to solve the crimes. Buono, fresh off his Oscar-nominated performance in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, delivers a chilling performance as the tormented killer.

Thriller · Crime · Horror

A 1965 science fiction compilation film produced for American television from installments of the Japanese Super Giant film series by Shintoho. Starman (Ken Utsui), the steel-bodied champion of the Emerald Planet's Peace Council, comes to Earth to stop the alien Meropolitans, whose agents have infiltrated the planet and plan to destroy it with a super-weapon. The original Japanese films were edited and dubbed by Walter Manley Enterprises for American syndication, with the hero renamed from Super Giant — the same treatment that produced Attack from Space and Evil Brain from Outer Space. The film is in the public domain.

Sci-Fi · Action

A 1965 science fiction compilation film produced for American television from two installments of the Japanese Super Giant film series by Shintoho. The superhero Starman (Ken Utsui), a steel-bodied being created by the Peace Council of the Emerald Planet, is sent to Earth to protect it from belligerent aliens from the Sapphire Galaxy. The Sapphireans kidnap Dr. Yamanaka and force him to use his spaceship against Earth, and it falls to Starman to save the scientist, his family, and the planet. The original Japanese films were edited and dubbed by Walter Manley Enterprises for American syndication, with Starman's character renamed from Super Giant.

Sci-Fi · Action

Bloody Pit of Horror (Italian: Il boia scarlatto, The Crimson Executioner) is a 1965 Italian Gothic horror film directed by Domenico Massimo Pupillo and starring Mickey Hargitay as a deranged former actor who believes himself the reincarnation of a 17th-century executioner. When a group of photographers and models arrives at his castle to shoot covers for horror novels, he traps them in his dungeon of elaborate torture devices and sets about purging them of their sins. The film is loosely inspired by the writings of the Marquis de Sade and is a prime example of mid-1960s Italian exploitation horror, full of campy grandeur, garish color, and baroque death traps. It is in the public domain.

Horror

A 1965 science fiction compilation film produced for American television from three installments of the Japanese Super Giant film series. The evil genius Balazar from the planet Zemar has been assassinated, but his prodigiously overdeveloped brain has been preserved and now seeks universal conquest, starting with Earth. The High Council of the Emerald Planet sends Starman (Ken Utsui) to defeat Balazar's followers, who are using nuclear weapons and unleashing monsters with deadly diseases. Three self-contained Japanese stories were edited into a single 78-minute film by Walter Manley Enterprises, resulting in what has been called "an alternately mind-blowing and mind-numbing adventure" of nonstop chases, captures, rescues, and fight scenes.

Sci-Fi · Action

A 1965 Italian Gothic horror film directed by Mario Caiano, starring Barbara Steele in a dual role. When scientist Stephen Arrowsmith (Paul Müller) discovers his wife Muriel (Steele) having an affair with the gardener, he tortures and murders them both, removing their hearts and using their blood to rejuvenate his aged servant Solange (Helga Liné). Since Muriel's estate was willed to her mentally unstable stepsister Jenny (also Steele), Stephen marries Jenny and plots to have Solange drive her insane. But Jenny begins having nightmares — the sound of beating hearts and Muriel's voice urging her to murder Stephen — and when a doctor is brought in to treat her, the supernatural vengeance of the murdered lovers begins to unfold. The film features an early score by Ennio Morricone. Also known as The Faceless Monster.

Horror

Exactly what the title promises, and one of the great camp titles of the 1960s. Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx), granddaughter of the Baron posing as his daughter, sets up a frontier lab outside a Western town to perfect artificial brains, and finds her ideal test subject when the wounded outlaw Jesse James (John Lupton) stumbles in with his dying partner. Shot in eight days by veteran poverty-row director William Beaudine — his final film, after hundreds of features and serials stretching back to the silent era — it is cheap, padded, and weirdly sincere, a B-western colliding with a monster movie. Perennial fodder for bad-movie nights and a staple of every public domain horror collection. The film is in the public domain.

Horror · Western

A family on vacation in the Texas desert takes a wrong turn and ends up at a remote lodge run by a strange caretaker and his cult-master leader, who worships the god Manos. Made by an El Paso fertilizer salesman on a bet, the film circulated for decades as a public-domain curio before Mystery Science Theater 3000 made it one of the most famous bad movies ever made.

Horror

A 1966 American Z-movie comedy directed by Joseph Cates, starring Phyllis Diller, Jack E. Leonard, Brian Donlevy, and Jayne Mansfield. On a nearly-deserted island off the coast of Florida rumored to hold the Fountain of Youth, a boatload of teenagers arrives for a scavenger hunt. The island's wealthy owner (Donlevy) dispatches his daughter Junior (Mansfield) to remove them, while rotund botanist Irving (Leonard) is sent to spy on the teenagers. Irving's twin brother Herman (also Leonard) and the scheming Camille Salamander (Diller) have their own plans to find the fountain first. The film parodies teenage beach party films rather than spy films, and is featured in the 2004 documentary The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made. Released to the public domain in the 1990s, it has since been widely distributed on DVD and VHS.

Comedy

A young couple on honeymoon in Transylvania crashes their car into a lake, and the wife's body is possessed by the spirit of a witch executed two centuries earlier. Her husband and a descendant of Van Helsing must find a way to exorcise the witch and restore her before the creature claims more victims. The She Beast is the directorial debut of Michael Reeves, who would go on to make the acclaimed Witchfinder General before his early death. Barbara Steele, the queen of Italian Gothic horror, stars. The film is rough and low on budget, but its foggy Transylvanian atmosphere and Reeves's eye for grim imagery hint at what was to come. The film is in the public domain.

Horror

A 1966 American made-for-television horror science fiction film directed by Larry Buchanan and starring John Agar. A low-budget 16mm color remake of Roger Corman's It Conquered the World (1956), the film follows Dr. Keith Ritchie, a NASA scientist who secretly communicates with an alien from Venus named Zontar. Believing Zontar will solve humanity's problems, Ritchie enables the creature's arrival on Earth via a fallen laser satellite. But the three-eyed, bat-winged, skeletal creature has a hidden agenda: it causes global power outages and takes control of people's minds using flying "injecto-pods" that sprout from its wings. Only after his wife is killed does Ritchie realize Zontar has come as a conqueror, not a savior. Filmed around White Rock Lake in Dallas, Texas on a budget of $22,000.

Horror · Sci-Fi

A 1967 American made-for-television horror science fiction film directed by Larry Buchanan for American International Pictures. A color remake of Roger Corman's 1956 film Day the World Ended, the title is borrowed from a short story by Jules Verne and his son Michael Verne, though the film bears no relation to that story. After a nuclear war wipes out most of Earth's population, a group of survivors holes up in a secluded valley protected from radiation by its geography. They must protect themselves from rising radiation levels, cannibalistic mutants with telepathic powers, and in some cases each other. The film entered the public domain because it was published without a copyright notice.

Sci-Fi · Horror

A 1967 American documentary film directed and narrated by Peter Adair. A groundbreaking example of cinema verite, the film explores the religious fervor of a small Pentecostal congregation in rural West Virginia. The church services include snake handling (mainly copperheads), speaking in tongues, faith healing, and singing, with meetings lasting four to six hours multiple times a week. Adair's camera captures interviews with congregants who describe their experiences of salvation through the Holy Ghost, and the film culminates with a ceremonial handling of poisonous snakes — ironically, it is the preacher who gets bitten. The film has entered the public domain and is available at the Internet Archive.

Documentary

The film that invented the modern zombie. Seven people barricade themselves in a farmhouse while reanimated corpses surround them. The radiation from a space probe is blamed for the dead returning to life. Romero's film is a low-budget black and white production that accidentally entered the public domain because the distributor changed the title from "Night of the Flesh Eaters" and forgot to include a copyright notice on the new prints. Duane Jones plays the lead, a Black man trying to survive both the zombies and the group's internal conflicts. The ending is still shocking. The film spawned a genre and five sequels from Romero alone.

Horror · Thriller

A 1968 American science fiction film directed by Peter Bogdanovich (credited as Derek Thomas) for producer Roger Corman. The film is a re-edit of the 1962 Soviet science fiction film Planeta Bur (Planet of Storms) by Pavel Klushantsev, with new English-dubbed footage and additional scenes starring Mamie Van Doren as Moana, leader of a band of blond Venusian women. Astronauts landing on Venus encounter dangerous prehistoric creatures and unknowingly kill a pterosaur-like creature that is worshipped as a god by the Venusian women. In revenge, the women attempt to kill the astronauts, who eventually make an emergency blast off from Venus — leaving behind their damaged robot, which the women adopt as their new god. Bogdanovich also narrated the film. The Venusian women do not appear in the original Soviet film.

Sci-Fi · Adventure

NASA's official documentary film of the Apollo 11 mission, covering the launch, lunar landing, first moonwalk by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and safe return to Earth. The film captures the historic July 1969 mission that fulfilled President Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon. The film entered the public domain as a U.S. government work.

Documentary

A 1969 Egyptian film and the only feature directed by Shadi Abdel Salam. Also known as The Mummy (Al-Mummia), it is ranked third on the list of Top 100 Egyptian films. Produced by Roberto Rossellini, who was instrumental in encouraging Abdel Salam to make the film, it is set in 1881 Upper Egypt and based on the true story of the Abd el-Rasuls, a clan that had been secretly robbing a cache of mummies discovered at tomb DB320 near the village of Kurna, selling artifacts on the black market. When the Antiquities Service arrives, a conflict within the clan forces one member to make a crucial decision between his community's livelihood and his cultural heritage. Regarded as one of the finest Arabic films ever made, its bold camerawork and atonal soundtrack lend an eerie atmosphere to the tale of the struggle between tradition and modernization.

Drama · History