The Weather Underground (2003), Metalhead (2013), Sid & Nancy (1986), Source: The Story of the Beats and the Beat Generation (1999), Nico-Icon (1995), Brewster McCloud (1970), Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation (2019), Woodstock (1970) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Counterculture movies.
Storyline: Young adult Harold Chasen, solitary and friendless by choice, is obsessed with death, this fascination manifesting itself in he staging his own fake suicides, driving a hearse and attending funerals, even of people he doesn't know, all to the chagrin of his exasperated wealthy mother with who he lives. Mrs. Chasen is determined for Harold to be "normal", including she sending him into therapy to deal with his issues and finding him a girlfriend through a computer dating service. It is at a series of funerals that Harold meets Maude, on the cusp of her eightieth birthday, she who too attends funerals of strangers. Unlike Harold, Maude is obsessed with life - her own life to be more precise - she doing whatever she wants to please herself, damned what others may think or how they may be affected. Since she can't take material possessions with her, she is more interested in experiences, with whatever material possessions she has - often "borrowed" without asking - only to further those ...
Plot Keywords: black comedy, existentialism, meaning of life, rebellion, dark humor, counterculture, coming of age ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Beyond being in the same class at Shermer High School in Shermer, Illinois, Claire Standish, Andrew Clark, John Bender, Brian Johnson and Allison Reynolds have little in common, and with the exception of Claire and Andrew, do not associate with each other in school. In the simplest and in their own terms, Claire is a princess, Andrew an athlete, John a criminal, Brian a brain, and Allison a basket case. But one other thing they do have in common is a nine hour detention in the school library together on Saturday, March 24, 1984, under the direction of Mr. Vernon, supervising from his office across the hall. Each is required to write a minimum one thousand word essay during that time about who they think they are. At the beginning of those nine hours, each, if they were indeed planning on writing that essay, would probably write something close to what the world sees of them, and what they have been brainwashed into believing of themselves. But based on their adventures during that ...
Plot Keywords: drama, comedy, rebellion, social class, generation gap, identity, friendship ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A Christlike figure wanders through bizarre, grotesque scenarios filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery. He meets a mystical guide who introduces him to seven wealthy and powerful people, each representing a planet in the Solar system. These seven, along with the protagonist, the guide and the guide's assistant, divest themselves of their worldly goods and form a group of nine who will seek the Holy Mountain, in order to displace the gods who live there and become immortal.
Plot Keywords: surrealism, religion, symbolism, cult film, psychedelic, mysticism, experimental film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A documentary on the Rolling Stones' 1969 US tour and the tragic events that concluded it. We see footage of their concerts and of them making the Sticky Fingers album in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. However, the main focus of the film is on one concert - Altamont Speedway, outside San Francisco, 6 December 1969. A free concert, it is the Stones' idea and it was meant to be the Woodstock of the West (Woodstock having occurred four months earlier). Other bands performing included Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Ike and Tina Turner, Crosby Stills Nash and Young and Santana. However, it is far from being the peace and love of Woodstock. Part of the problem is that the Stones hired the Hells Angels as security. The other problem was that a large portion of the crowd were high on drugs. Friction ensues. During the Stones' set, Meredith Hunter, high on methamphetamine and armed with a gun, makes a lunge for the stage and is stabbed to death by the Hells Angels. The peace and love era of the 60s was over.—grantss
Plot Keywords: documentary, music, concert, 1960s, rock, violence, tragedy ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: This documentary was made three years after Jimi Hendrix's untimely death. At the time it was an example of how a visual biography should be done, but some of the information in it needs revising in the light of new information uncovered over the years. The film contains concert footage spanning the Marquee in 1967 to his last UK performance at the third Isle of Wight festival in 1970; along the way we see classic performances at Monterey (1967), Woodstock (1969), Fillmore East (1969/70), and Berkeley (1970). A double album was released to tie-in with the film, containing the complete performances in the film, along with interviews with people in the film (not necessarily the same interviews). The film is worth seeing for Jimi's performances, and to hear what his contemporaries have to say about him (Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell, Lou Reed, Mick Jagger, Pete Townsend, and others).—Martin <martin.o_brien@which.net>
Plot Keywords: documentary, rock music, concert film, 1970s, guitarist, classic rock, live performance ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Fueled by a raging libido, Wild Turkey, and superhuman doses of drugs, Thompson was a true "free lance, " goring sacred cows with impunity, hilarity, and a steel-eyed conviction for writing wrongs. Focusing on the good doctor's heyday, 1965 to 1975, the film includes clips of never-before-seen (nor heard) home movies, audiotapes, and passages from unpublished manuscripts.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: documentary, biography, counterculture, journalism, politics, american history, 1960s ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: At the Harry DeJour Playhouse in New York in the mid-2000s, John Waters emerges from a confessional onto a stage littered with trash. He tells stories. After a few about his childhood and early influences, he roughly follows the chronology of his career as a film director, relating anecdotes about the making of each film and letting those stories lead him to riffs on other topics. Gay references and wry observations about people's foibles and limits are constants. Waters' looks, too, are the butt of his jokes.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: comedy, stand-up comedy, documentary, humor, satire, independent film, director ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Sub-titled "The Birth of Extreme", this documetary takes a look at the transformation of skateboarding from its former image as a land-bound pastime for surfers to its status today as an extreme and acrobatic sport in its own right. Starting from the California surf community of Dogtown, the film follows the evolution of modern skateboarding through it's 70's heyday, its decline during the 80's, and its eventual (and highly lucrative) return in the 90's.—Jean-Marc Rocher <rocher@fiberbit.net>
Plot Keywords: documentary, extreme sports, culture, history, usa, california, street culture ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A documentary about the punk band The Sex Pistols. The film tries to lighten some of the backgrounds of their way through the punk era while telling the story of the band from zero back to zero. Features lots of interviews and comments of folks who were involved.—Oliver Heidelbach
Plot Keywords: documentary, music, biography, punk, uk, rock, band ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A documentary on the infamous gonzo journalist, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
Plot Keywords: documentary, biography, journalism, counterculture, writer, independent film, interview ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The Popes are a family who haven't been able to use their real identity for years. In the late sixties, the parents set a weapons lab afire in an effort to hinder the government's Vietnam war campaign. Ever since then, the Popes have been on the run with the authorities never far behind. Today, their eldest son wants a life of his own although he is aware that would mean that his parents would either get caught or he will never see them again.
Plot Keywords: drama, family, fugitive, father-son relationship, coming of age, music, rebellion ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood visits 1969 Los Angeles, where everything is changing, as TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) make their way around an industry they hardly recognize anymore. The ninth film from the writer-director features a large ensemble cast and multiple storylines in a tribute to the final moments of Hollywood's golden age.
Plot Keywords: quentin tarantino, leonardo dicaprio, golden age of hollywood, comedy-drama, nostalgia, violence, dark humor ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: As the front man of the Clash from 1977 onwards, Joe Strummer changed people's lives forever. Four years after his death, his influence reaches out around the world, more strongly now than ever before. In "The Future Is Unwritten", from British film director Julien Temple, Joe Strummer is revealed not just as a legend or musician, but as a true communicator of our times. Drawing on both a shared punk history and the close personal friendship which developed over the last years of Joe's life, Julien Temple's film is a celebration of Joe Strummer - before, during and after the Clash.—IFC First Take
Plot Keywords: music documentary, british film, musician's life, social commentary, archival footage, musical influence, independent film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: This movie, based on the cult Broadway musical of the 60s, tells a story about Claude, a young man from Oklahoma who comes to New York City. There he strikes up a friendship with a group of hippies, led by Berger, and falls in love with Sheila, a girl from a rich family. However, their happiness is short because Claude must go to the Vietnam war.—Dragan Antulov <dragan.antulov@altbbs.fido.hr>
Plot Keywords: musical, anti-war, vietnam war, freedom, counterculture, romance, youth ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The big-screen version of Hunter S. Thompson's seminal psychedelic classic about his road trip across Western America as he and his large Samoan lawyer searched desperately for the "American dream"... they were helped in large part by the huge amount of drugs and alcohol kept in their convertible, The Red Shark.
Plot Keywords: psychedelic, black comedy, counterculture, las vegas, absurd, surreal, road movie ...
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