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Counterculture

Unconventional appearance, music, drugs, communitarian experiments, and sexual liberation were hallmarks of the sixties counterculture, most of whose members were white, middle-class young Americans. To some Americans, these attributes reflected American ideals of free speech, equality, and pursuit of happiness. Other people saw the counterculture as self-indulgent, pointlessly rebellious, unpatriotic, and destructive of America's moral order. Authorities banned the psychedelic drug LSD, restricted political gatherings, and tried to enforce bans on what they considered obscenity in books, music, theatre, and other media. Parents argued with their children and worried about their safety. Some adults accepted elements of the counterculture, while others became estranged from sons and daughters.

Making Sense of the Sixties (1991)

8.7/10

One of the most comprehensive studies ever made of the 'decade of change', this 6-part documentary mini-series from PBS includes over a hundred interv... Read more

Marshall McLuhan: McLuhan's Wake (2007)

Starring: Marshall McLuhan

Taking Edgar Allan Poe's 'Descent Into the Maelstrom' as its central metaphor, this documentary about theoretician Marshall McLuhan covers basic biogr... Read more

Masculin Feminin (1966)

7.6/10
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Chantal Goya, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Marlene Jobert

Godard was at the peak of his powers when he directed this tale of a young man, fresh out of the army, who becomes disillusioned with his life. For a... Read more

Medium Cool (1969)

7.4/10
Director: Haskell Wexler
Starring: Robert Forster, Verna Bloom, Peter Bonerz, Marianna Hill, Harold Blankenship

This unique blend of documentary and drama sets a TV news reporters fictional romance against the backdrop of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicag... Read more

Naked Lunch (1991)

7.1/10
Director: David Cronenberg
Starring: Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, Roy Scheider

William S. Burroughs' 1959 free-form, underground classic is brought to the screen weaving elements of the author's life with the fictional material.... Read more

No More to Say & Nothing to Weep For: An Elegy for Allen Ginsberg (1997)

6.4/10
Director: Colin Still
Starring: Dick Cavett, Allen Ginsberg, Paul McCartney

Witness the last days of the Beat poet whose works would capture the very essence of the 1960 counter-cultural movement in an informative documentary... Read more

Psych-Out / The Trip (1967)

Director: Richard Rush, Roger Corman
Starring: Adam Roarke, Bruce Dern, Dean Stockwell, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fo...

Psych-Out - Jenny Davis (Susan Strasberg) is a deaf young woman who has run away from home to search for her missing brother. Arriving in the hippie-f... Read more

Punishment Park (1971)

7.9/10
Director: Peter Watkins
Starring: Patrick Boland, Kent Foreman, Jim Bohan, Catherine Quittner

Set in a detention camp in an America of the near-future, Punishment Park's pseudo-documentary style places a British film crew amongst a group of you... Read more

Running On Empty (1988)

7.7/10
Director: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Judd Hirsch, Christine Lahti, River Phoenix, Martha Plimpton

A superior family drama about a pair of 60's radicals, still on the run from the FBI, trying to raise a family. Christine Lahti and Judd Hirsch are th... Read more

SLC Punk (1999)

7.5/10
Director: James Merendino
Starring: Matthew Lillard, Michael Goorjian, Annabeth Gish, Jennifer Lien

In this energetic comedy set in 1985 Salt Lake City, college-age best buddies Stevo (Matthew Lillard) and Heroin Bob (Michael Goorjian) try spiked hai... Read more