Its a hard call.
1967 is historic because of two specific movies: Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate. The take on them then was that one was "the violent movie"(Bonnie and Clyde) and that one was "the sex movie"(The Graduate) but B and C had plenty of sex, too.
Both films were big hits(though I believe "The Graduate" was the bigger hit) and both films drove a lot of press.
It is hard to find similar breakthroughs in 1966 or 1965(the year that "The Sound of Music" was the Best Picture); it was as if all American and European history was leading up to 1967 as the year to "break through."
The existing American studio system was under collapse. Film director/film scholar Peter Bogdanovich pinpoints 1962(another great year for movies) as the "last gasp of the studios", principally because Warner Brothers ended the Bugs Bunny franchise. If CARTOON CHARACTERS could be fired, anybody could.
In the meantime, European film(which was "R" and "X" rated in its fashion) was inspiring a new generation of American filmmakers. The writers of Bonnie and Clyde took the script first to Francois Truffaut; "The Graduate" feels like about ten European directors contributed to the visuals.
The "push" of the 1967 movies led to the MPAA invoking a new ratings code in late 1968, and by 1969, the barriers were gone: from The Wild Bunch to Midnight Cowboy to MASH, sex, nudity, violence, rape, cussing -- "anything goes."
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And that's why 1967 is a hard call. Perhaps the best year of the "New Hollywood" era came later, with the new ratings. Maybe it was 1969 or 1970, or 1971 (the year of Dirty Harry and A Clockwork Orange) or 1972(the year of The Godfather and Cabaret, with its gay themes.)
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The other hard call: we are told that the New Hollywood Golden Age started in 1967 (with Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate) and ended ten years later in 1977 (with Star Wars and Close Encounters.)
Looking back, that "call" could very well be part of the "Baby Boomer nostalgia" that has caused such a backlash in later generations, the same old "it was better in OUR day" argument that every generation puts on others.
Truth be told, the period of 1967 to 1977 had lots of BAD movies, especially the clunky entertainments like the Matt Helm spy movies and Love Story and the disaster movies and the TV-movieish "Planet of the Apes" sequels, and a lot of the Charles Bronson stuff.
For all we know, the 90's were the best New Hollywood Golden Age.
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All that said, yeah, everybody noticed BIG changes at the movies in 1967.
But some of the hits were tougher versions of old genres. My favorites of 1967 include "The Dirty Dozen"(a war movie to thrill vetrans and hippies alike, given the criminal savagery of the mission) and "Wait Until Dark"(a great big scream night at the movie theater.) Nothing too hip about those two.
One of my favorite 1967 movies was VERY old-fashioned: "Hotel," a suave and smooth and jazzy take on a novel by Arthur Hailey, who would have a bigger hit in "Airport." Sometimes I feel that nobody remembers "Hotel" but me, but it is from 1967, and one of the best old-fashioned movies of that new-fashioned year.
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