Best Drama Movies of 1968

After being heralded by Jean-Luc Godard as the great hope of the New American Cinema, Peter Emanuel Goldman relocated to Paris just in time for 1968. Social dissolution permeates WHEEL OF ASHES, a stripped-down account of a young man's existential reckoning. "As dust hides a mirror, lust hides the self," reads one of the film's Vedanta-sourced intertitles. And indeed, while the Pierre Clementi protagonist's inner life remains obscure, the Saint-Germain-des-Pres neighborhood that offers his temptations appears in harrowing detail. In its nearly clinical treatment of spiritual withdrawal, WHEEL OF ASHES belongs with post-New Wave films by the likes of Jean Eustache and Philippe Garrel. - Max Goldberg

Shipwrecked on a tropical island, a young boy befriends an abandoned native youth, forcing him to reevaluate societal prejudice about race, religion and nudity.

It is 1940 in Norway, a neutral, peace-loving country that is invaded by Nazi Germany. A gang of Norwegian children do what Norwegian children like best - ski. They are actually rescuing Norwegian gold from the nazi invaders. The Nazis search all adults but don't suspect children playing. The children carry the gold, one bar at a time, across the mountains to a fishing boat. It is a race against time, it is spring and the snow is melting. So they ski from dawn to dusk every day.

Philip Scott, the boss of a toy company, is secretly also the chief of a British spy organization. Scott's cover is destroyed when enemy agents kidnap his girlfriend to force him to reveal the identities of his fellow spies.

The obsessive supporters of Everton FC forsake wives, families and God to follow their beloved team. Meanwhile, the club and its players try to live up to their expectations.

Isabel takes place in a Canadian coastal village. Genevieve Bujold plays a girl, Isabel, whose flawlessly beautiful face masks the maelstrom swirling in her mind. She is haunted by the images of her family members, each of whom suffered a violent death. Believing herself the product of an incestuous relationship, Isabel enters into an affair with a young man who resembles her own brother.

THE SERGEANT is the story of the dark inner struggle of Master Sergeant Albert Callan to overcome the overwhelming attraction he feels for one of his charges. In the staid and stifling environment of a post-World War II army post in France, Callan's deeply repressed attraction to other men surfaces when he encounters handsome Private Swanson. Maintaining the rugged "man's man" image of a war hero, Callan barks orders to his underlings. Later, lonely in his solitude, he recalls the frightening experiences of war and the events that led to this crossroads. Filled with self-loathing and unable to act on the natural attraction he feels for Swanson, Callan's affection festers into antagonism. He pushes Swanson constantly with verbal assaults and undeserved punishments.

While on a leisurely ride in the country, a kinky dominatrix picks up a young male hitchhiker. At the first opportunity she handcuffs and blindfolds him, then takes him to a farmhouse where she ties up the young man and brings out three of her fellow dominatrixes, who take turns abusing and humiliating their captive--and each other.