The definition of a Baby Boomer has always been a tenuous thing.
Offically the term refers to the giant uptick in birthrates after the end of World War II.
Even so, the Baby Boomer label applies to anyone born between the years 1946 and 1964.
It would be impossible to make a comprehensive list of Boomer movies.
The subcultures, countercultures, and various clashes therein are too many.
So without further ado here aresomeof the movies that defined the Baby Boomers.
So the question is less if a Disney movie should be included, and more which one?
Everyone raises his hand.
Boys mightve had Davy Crockett, but girls had Sharon and Susan.
A Hard Days Night (1964)
It was said that the revolution would not be televised.
And still a wonderful memento of those happier times is Richard Lesters groundbreaking musical-comedy,A Hard Days Night.
Casting rock n roll sensations in a quickie movie was not a new phenomenon in 1964.
Elvis Presley dimmed his career by starring in more than a dozen of em.
Mrs. Robinson sees Ben as a useful idiot to amuse her.
Yet she has no interest in his interior life or aspirations.
Throw in some amazing Simon and Garfunkel songs and compositions, and you have the first true Boomer movie.
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
1967 was a big year for youth culture at the movies.
The Leopold and Loeb stand-ins in HitchcocksRopedo not get away with it; theyre lectured for their nihilism.
Meanwhile Walter Neff recognizes he was led to his doom by a blonde siren in WildersDouble Indemnity.
The level of violence and blood splatter was shocking, visceral, and a game-changer.
Both were nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, and each was embraced by a different generation.
In other words, it was an oblivious and out of touch movie meant for the olds.
They call me Mr. Tibbs!
Black filmmakers of this generation, obviously, did not make such stories.
And to her horror aftertheirbaby is born… she is proven right.
Rather they seek to parade their freedom while dropping acid and maybe selling a little cocaine.
So of course theyre murdered by the real degenerates who demand conformity.
Butch Cassidyisnt the most downbeat or mean-spirited of the revisionist Westerns that would come to saturate the 1970s.
However, theres a distinct melancholy and self-awareness about Butch and Sundances West.
Kind of like the Western itself.
Directed by Gordon Parks,Shaftpresented a Black action hero who need not impress any white man.
He was financially well-to-do, giving out money to his community, and unbowed and unbent before white authority.
He also had the best damn theme song.
As the trailer promises, Shaft: hotter than Bond, cooler than Bullitt.
Ironically this is embodied here by the Old Worlds malignant Cosa Nostra (or Mafia).
Perhaps the most impressive thing is the films lack of an orchestral soundtrack.
It would not be the last movie to employ such rose-tinted longing for the 60s.
Central character Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) certainly isnt religious.
Shes a movie star who never goes to church.
Its also a masterpiece.
It also enjoys an undercurrent of the culture clashes timely for its era.
By the end of the film, Joanna is, uh,convincedto likewise conform.
It wasGet OutbeforeGet Out, and without the happy ending.
Like many a 70s thriller,All the Presidents Menis downbeat and world-weary to its core.
Consider thatRockywon Best Picture in the same year.
YetMartin Scorseseand Paul Schraders neo-noir happily picks at the despairing underbelly still dragging beneath the culture.
It even felt removed from Mel Brooks, withAnimal Househaving still some semblance of grounding in the real world.
YetRaiderseven more so thanStar Warsfeels defined by the kid culture of Boomers and those age-adjacent.
Theirs also… what comes next.
The movie was a monumental hit for director and co-writer Lawrence Kasdan.
Oliver StonesPlatoonis a fictional passion play heightened to the level of Samuel Barbers Adagio for Strings.
Even so, it remains grounded in the memories and experiences of writer-director Oliver Stone.
Barnes and Willem Dafoes Sgt.
Elias are the thinly veiled devil and angel of American foreign policy on Chris and every other grunts shoulders.
But no one finds salvation in this devastating portrait of the war that still shapes competing worldviews.
Glenn Closes Alex Forrest is indeed a 1980s modernization of the demon lover.
Here shes been summoned by second-wave feminism to ruin a poor innocent schmuck named Dan (Michael Douglas).
Its a fear still reflected in many Boomers politics.
Doubtfireor opposite Dustin Hoffman inHook.
Field of Dreams (1989)
Baseball.
Baseball is of course a sport that has been ubiquitous in America since before the Civil War.
And that reality is chiefly on the mind of Phil Alden Robinsons achingly sentimentalField of Dreams.
Robert ZemeckisForrest Gumpis indeed a valedictory about the last 40 years of pop culture.
Ryan touring the modern day Normandy cemetery with his children and grandchildren.
Both younger generations look on in awe.
