I am often asked what my favorite year at the movies was. The answer is I don’t have one but ask me what do I think the most interesting year at the movies was, and I will tell you without hesitation, 1968.

What makes 1968 so interesting is that it was a transition year. The “new Hollywood” had begun with the release of two then highly controversial 1967 films, Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate, but 1968 provided tamer follow-up in their vein. It wasn’t exactly a return to the “old Hollywood,” but it was a sort of fond farewell to it, as was reflected in most of the extant awards at the time.

The awards season began with the announcement of the New York Film Critics Awards on December 30, 1968. Best Picture was awarded to The Lion in Winter, the film version of James Goldman’s 1966 Broadway play set in the 1183 Christmas court of England’s Henry II who allows his imprisoned wife Eleanor of Aquitaine a visit where their three sons, Richard, Geoffrey, and John jockey to become the King’s announced heir.

The play’s formidable cast included Robert Preston as Henry, Rosemary Harris in a Tony award-winning performance as Eleanor, James Rado (soon to become co-writer-composer of Hair) as Richard, and Christopher Walken as Philip, King of France. Those roles were played in the film by Peter O’Toole, Katharine Hepburn in a role that would win her the third of her four Oscars, Anthony Hopkins, and Timothy Dalton. In New York, however, Hepburn was a distant second to Joanne Woodward for Best Actress as a lonely schoolteacher in Rachel, Rachel directed by her husband, Paul Newman, who won the NYFC award for Best Director. O’Toole placed behind Alan Arkin as a deaf mute in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. They did not award supporting performances until the following year.

Its closest competition was Oliver!, the film version of the 1960 London/1963 Broadway musical version of Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

They gave a wink and a nod to modernity with a Special Award to The Beatles’ Yellow Submarinefor its full-length animation.

The National Board of Review was next up on January 5, 1969, giving its Best Picture award to The Shoes of the Fisherman, the film version of Morris West’s bestseller about the first non-Italian pope in centuries, foretelling the elections of the next three popes, John Paul in 1978, Benedict in 2005, and Francis in 2013. He was played by Anthony Quinn with Laurence Olivier as his Russian nemesis.

The NBR’s top ten films, in addition to The Shoes of the Fisherman, were the first age-appropriate version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Yellow Submarine, Charly based on Flowers for Algernon, Rachel, Rachel, The Subject Was Roses based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1964 play, The Lion in Winter, the first version of Planet of the Apes, Oliver!, and Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Acting awards went to Cliff Robertson in Charly, Liv Ullmann in Hour of the Wolf and Shame, Leo McKern in The Shoes of the Fisherman, and Viginia Maskell in Interlude. Franco Zeffirelli won Best Director for Romeo and Juliet.

On January 6 the National Society of Film Critics gave their Best Picture award to Ingmar Bergman’s Shame with acting awards going to Per Oscarsson in Hunger, Liv Ullmann in Shame, Seymour Cassel in Faces, and Billie Whitelaw in Charlie Bubbles. Ingmar Bergman won Best Director for Shame and Hour of the Wolf.

There were no other awards of note until the Golden Globes on February 24.

The Globes gave their Best Picture – Drama award to The Lion in Winter over Charly, The Fixer, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, and The Shoes of the Fisherman. They gave their Best Picture – Musical or Comedy to Oliver! over Finian’s Rainbow, Funny Girl, The Odd Couple, and Yours, Mine and Ours. Romeo and Juliet won the award for Best English Language Foreign Film while the U.S.S.R.’s War and Peace won Best Foreign Language Foreign Film.

Acting awards went to Peter O’Toole for The Lion in Winter and Joanne Woodward for Rachel, Rachel in Drama, Ron Moody for Oliver! and Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl in Musical or Comedy, and Daniel Massey for Star! and Ruth Gordon for Rosemary’s Baby in Support. Paul Newman once again won Best Director for directing his wife in Rachel, Rachel.

Oscar nominations were announced on February 14 and given out on April 14.

The Lion in Winter and Oliver! continued their competition at the Oscars where the latter won Best Picture, The other nominees were Funny Girl, Rachel, Rachel, and Romeo and Juliet.

The Best Actor award went to Cliff Robertson in Charly with the Best Actress award going to both Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter and Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl in a tie. The supporting awards went to Jack Albertson in The Subject was Roses and Ruth Gordon in Rosemary’s Baby. Carol Reed won Best Director for Oliver!

While most of these films are fondly remembered and still watched today on home video, some have not aged at all well, most notably the musicals, Finian’s Rainbow and Star! which were considered old-fashioned even in 1968. Finian’s Rainbow should have been turned into a movie in the mid-1950s along with its contemporaries Kiss Me, Kate and Brigadoon. By the time it was made, even Fred Astaire in his first musical in 11 years and Petula Clark at the height of her stardom couldn’t save it. Worse was Julie Andrews as Getrude Lawrence in Star! The Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music star, then as now, was welcome in those two films no matter how many times people may have seen them, but everything else she’s done with the notable exception of 1982’s Victor/Victoria has mostly met with indifference at the box-office.

History, on the other hand, has been kindest to a film that was only marginally successful with audiences at the time, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Happy Viewing.