The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

59. 1967 - Point Blank

Point Blank
MGM

Honourable Mentions: Bonnie and Clyde, Cool Hand Luke, The Graduate

Lee Marvin is one of the most fascinating figures in post-war American cinema. A combat veteran of the Pacific Theatre who immediately carved out an acting niche for himself as tough guys and hardmen in noir pictures like the aforementioned The Big Heat, Marvin's towering figure obscured an at times haunted screen presence which seemed to stare past the camera into something deeper, a trait that was tapped into in mesmerising fashion by John Boorman in 1967's Point Blank.

One of many adaptations of Donald Westlake's Parker novels but undoubtedly the best, Boorman's film is eerily dreamlike and rhythmic - as much a hardboiled noir picture as it is a West Coast ghost story - in which Marvin's wronged criminal seeks vengeance on the crooks that double-crossed him. A conventional premise by all means, but Boorman's execution is anything but. It's stylish, ethereal, and borderline psychedelic, with stars Marvin and Angie Dickinson totally arresting as the vengeful spirit and the lost love caught in his warpath.

Bonnie and Clyde was transformative, and The Graduate had its finger on the pulse of boomer existentialism, but Point Blank is (ironically, for a film about a man out of time) irrepressibly timeless. A sixties classic that deserves a far loftier reputation.

 
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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.