The Night of the Living Dead (1968)

George A Romero's low-budget black-and-white indie talkfest takes place almost entirely in the confines of a farmhouse where seven people are sheltering from an army of slow-moving, flesh-eating "ghouls" - there are more verbal descriptions of the horror these living dead inflict than horrors seen on screen, yet it is effective and captivating - a well-acted, often-copied launch pad for so much modern horror.

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Gamera VS Viras (ガメラ対宇宙怪獣バイラス) (US: Destroy All Planets) (1968)

My first encounter with Gamera, the beloved icon from Japan's long-running kaiju movie series, was watching this 1968 movie, the fourth, that pits the fire-breathing turtle-with-a-frozen-stare against a fidgetspinner from outerspace with a bumblebee paint job; the incoherent monster battles that make up a bulk of the movie's ninety-one minutes entertain on account of their rudimentary but serviceable special effects, but you'll want to experience them with the tv muted — kaiju battles make nails down a blackboard sound positively melodic.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

A Man For All Seasons (1968)

A six-time Academy Award-winning historical drama screenwritten by Robert Bolt based on his play, A Man For All Seasons tells the story of Thomas More, the Lord High Chancellor of England from 1529 to 1532, who despite political pressure did not waver in his Catholic religious principles even when the desire for an heir with his mistress Anne Boleyn led King Henry VIII to usurp papal authority.

★★★★☆

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Rosemary's Baby (1968)

For me, it's not a big leap from childbirth to otherworldly gothic horror, and so when director Roman Polanski brings Ira Levin's macabre suspense novel to hideous life, it is just a question of how far he is going to ratchet up the terror as an angelic Mia Farrow experiences a troubled pregnancy and all around her in her and her husband's new New York apartment block, the behaviour of the residents is getting decidedly more odd and more and more in Rosemary's face.

★★★★★

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Barbarella Queen Of The Galaxy (1968)

Its kitsch 1968 aesthetic, groovy music and the sight of a young Jane Fonda as a sex kitten space agent will mean this sci-fi romp has curiosity value for some but otherwise Barbarella, directed by Fonda's then husband, is leaden and only occasionally mildly amusing - one scene that opens with Jane Fonda's Barbarella singing operatically might raise a smirk. 

★★☆☆☆

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2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Based on an Arthur C Clarke story, Stanley Kubrick's unhurried sci-fi masterpiece and auto sensory meridian response tapping exercise starts with a group of apes in prehistoric times discovering a sheer, smooth monolith and ends millions of years later with an astronaut and a sinister sentient computer program called HAL 9000 on a mission to investigate a similar structure that has turned up in space.

★★★★★

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS