1962

Academy winner Lawrence of Arabia poster

Lawrence of Arabia

Composite 81.06

Should have won Harakiri poster

Harakiri

Composite 81.72

The Academy's ballot

🏆Lawrence of Arabia#281.06 🎬To Kill a Mockingbird#380.42 🎬The Longest Day#1073.61 🎬Meredith Willson's The Music Man#1769.35 🎬Mutiny on the Bounty#1867.42

Your #1 was Harakiri (#1).

The full slate

Harakiri (1962)

⭐ Top-rated🏛️ All-time great

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Dir. Masaki Kobayashi · Tatsuya Nakadai · Akira Ishihama · Shima Iwashita · Tetsuro Tamba

IMDb 8.6 (91,841 votes) · TMDB 8.4

Down-on-his-luck veteran Tsugumo Hanshirō enters the courtyard of the prosperous House of Iyi. Unemployed, and with no family, he hopes to find a place to commit seppuku—and a worthy second to deliver the coup de grâce in his suicide ritual. The senior counselor for the Iyi clan questions the ronin’s resolve and integrity, suspecting Hanshirō of seeking charity rather than an honorable end. What follows is a pair of interlocking stories which lay bare the difference between honor and respect, and promises to examine the legendary foundations of the Samurai code.

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Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

🏆 Winner⭐ Top-rated🏛️ All-time great💰 Box office #3

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Dir. David Lean · Peter O'Toole · Alec Guinness · Omar Sharif · Anthony Quinn

IMDb 8.3 (342,057 votes) · TMDB 7.997

During World War I, English officer Thomas Edward 'T.E.' Lawrence sets out to unite and lead the diverse, often warring, Arab tribes to fight the Turks.

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To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

🎬 Nominee⭐ Top-rated🏛️ All-time great💰 Box office #8

Composite 80.42

Dir. Robert Mulligan · Gregory Peck · Mary Badham · Phillip Alford · John Megna

IMDb 8.2 (351,059 votes) · TMDB 7.993

Scout Finch, 6, and her older brother Jem live in sleepy Maycomb, Alabama, spending much of their time with their friend Dill and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley. When Atticus, their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson against fabricated rape charges, the trial and tangent events expose the children to evils of racism and stereotyping.

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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. John Ford · John Wayne · James Stewart · Vera Miles · Lee Marvin

IMDb 8.1 (88,772 votes) · TMDB 7.8

Questions arise when Senator Stoddard attends the funeral of a local man named Tom Doniphon in a small Western town. Flashing back, we learn Doniphon saved Stoddard, then a lawyer, when he was roughed up by a crew of outlaws terrorizing the town, led by Liberty Valance. As the territory's safety hung in the balance, Doniphon and Stoddard, two of the only people standing up to him, proved to be very important, but different, foes to Valance.

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What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Robert Aldrich · Bette Davis · Joan Crawford · Victor Buono · Wesley Addy

IMDb 8.0 (67,859 votes) · TMDB 7.904

A former vaudeville child star viciously torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion.

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The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. John Frankenheimer · Frank Sinatra · Laurence Harvey · Angela Lansbury · Janet Leigh

IMDb 7.9 (84,802 votes) · TMDB 7.5

Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco, finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and soon races to uncover a terrible plot.

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Sanjuro (1962)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Akira Kurosawa · Toshirō Mifune · Tatsuya Nakadai · Keiju Kobayashi · Yūzō Kayama

IMDb 8.0 (43,302 votes) · TMDB 7.9

In this companion piece and sequel to "Yojimbo," jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a proper samurai on its ear.

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Ivan's Childhood (1962)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky · Nikolay Burlyaev · Valentin Zubkov · Yevgeni Zharikov · Stepan Krylov

IMDb 8.0 (43,579 votes) · TMDB 7.8

In WW2, twelve year old Soviet orphan Ivan Bondarev works for the Soviet army as a scout behind the German lines and strikes a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers.

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The Exterminating Angel (1962)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Luis Buñuel · Silvia Pinal · Jacqueline Andere · Claudio Brook · Enrique Rambal

IMDb 8.0 (38,222 votes) · TMDB 7.931

After a lavish dinner party, the guests find themselves unable to depart... and, over the next few days, all of their elaborate societal pretenses and façades deteriorate as they are reduced to living like animals.

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#10

The Longest Day (1962)

🎬 Nominee⭐ Top-rated💰 Box office #5

Composite 73.61

Dir. Ken Annakin · John Wayne · Robert Mitchum · Henry Fonda · Richard Burton

IMDb 7.7 (63,110 votes) · TMDB 7.6

The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"

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#11

My Life to Live (1962)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Jean-Luc Godard · Anna Karina · Sady Rebbot · André S. Labarthe · Guylaine Schlumberger

IMDb 7.8 (37,782 votes) · TMDB 7.7

Twelve episodic tales in the life of a Parisian woman and her slow descent into prostitution.

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#12

Lolita (1962)

⭐ Top-rated💰 Box office #10

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Dir. Stanley Kubrick · James Mason · Shelley Winters · Sue Lyon · Gary Cockrell

IMDb 7.5 (116,246 votes) · TMDB 7.309

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.

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#13

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Agnès Varda · Corinne Marchand · Antoine Bourseiller · Dominique Davray · Dorothée Blanck

IMDb 7.8 (31,752 votes) · TMDB 7.7

Agnès Varda eloquently captures Paris in the sixties with this real-time portrait of a singer set adrift in the city as she awaits test results of a biopsy. A chronicle of the minutes of one woman’s life, Cléo from 5 to 7 is a spirited mix of vivid vérité and melodrama, featuring a score by Michel Legrand and cameos by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina.

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#14

Jules and Jim (1962)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. François Truffaut · Jeanne Moreau · Oskar Werner · Henri Serre · Marie Dubois

IMDb 7.6 (47,010 votes) · TMDB 7.544

In the carefree days before World War I, introverted Austrian author Jules strikes up a friendship with the exuberant Frenchman Jim and both men fall for the impulsive and beautiful Catherine.

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#15

Cape Fear (1962)

💰 Box office #1

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Dir. J. Lee Thompson · Gregory Peck · Robert Mitchum · Polly Bergen · Martin Balsam

IMDb 7.7 (35,174 votes) · TMDB 7.461

Sam Bowden witnesses a rape committed by Max Cady and testifies against him. When released after 8 years in prison, Cady begins stalking Bowden and his family but is always clever enough not to violate the law.

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#16

Dr. No (1962)

⭐ Top-rated💰 Box office #4

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Dir. Terence Young · Sean Connery · Ursula Andress · Joseph Wiseman · Jack Lord

IMDb 7.2 (196,276 votes) · TMDB 6.984

Agent 007 battles mysterious Dr. No, a scientific genius bent on destroying the U.S. space program. As the countdown to disaster begins, Bond must go to Jamaica, where he encounters beautiful Honey Ryder, to confront a megalomaniacal villain in his massive island headquarters.

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#17

Meredith Willson's The Music Man (1962)

🎬 Nominee💰 Box office #6

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Dir. Morton DaCosta · Robert Preston · Shirley Jones · Buddy Hackett · Ron Howard

IMDb 7.7 (20,804 votes) · TMDB 7.133

Traveling con artist Harold Hill targets the naïve residents of a small town in 1910s Iowa by posing as a boys' bandleader to raise money before he can skip town.

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#18

Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)

🎬 Nominee💰 Box office #7

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Dir. Lewis Milestone · Marlon Brando · Trevor Howard · Richard Harris · Hugh Griffith

IMDb 7.2 (19,496 votes) · TMDB 7.059

The Bounty leaves Portsmouth in 1787. Its destination: to sail to Tahiti and load bread-fruit. Captain Bligh will do anything to get there as fast as possible, using any means to keep up a strict discipline. When they arrive at Tahiti, it is like a paradise for the crew, something completely different than the living hell aboard the ship. On the way back to England, officer Fletcher Christian becomes the leader of a mutiny.

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#19

King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962)

💰 Box office #9

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Dir. Ishirō Honda · Tadao Takashima · Kenji Sahara · Yū Fujiki · Ichirō Arishima

IMDb 6.2 (3,101 votes) · TMDB 6.894

The advertising director of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, frustrated with the low ratings of their sponsored TV program, seeks a more sensationalist approach. He orders his staff to Faro Island to capture King Kong for exploitation. As Godzilla re-emerges, a media frenzy generates with Pacific looking to capitalize off of the ultimate battle.

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#20

The 300 Spartans (1962)

💰 Box office #2

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Dir. Rudolph Maté · Richard Egan · Ralph Richardson · Diane Baker · Barry Coe

IMDb 6.5 (8,248 votes) · TMDB 6.4

The 300 Spartans is an account of the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae, in which the Greek Spartan King Leonidis, played by Richard Egan, led a remarkably small number of Greek Sparta to victory over an invading Persian army led by evil King Xerxes that was thought to number over 25,000. This spectacular conflict gave the Grecians enough time to organize a force to ultimately repel the Persians, and thus change the course of Western civilization.

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How scoring works: films are ranked by a composite of a weighted (Bayesian) IMDb rating — the same method as the IMDb Top 250, so a high score from few voters can't outrank a strong score from many — blended with TMDB. Box office is a tiebreaker and a badge, never part of the score. Raw IMDb ratings and vote counts are shown on each card.