American film and television studios terminated production of black-and-white output in 1966 and, during the following two years, the rest of the world followed suit. At the start of the 1960s, transition to color proceeded slowly, with major studios continuing to release black-and-white films through 1965 and into 1966. Among the five Best Picture nominees at the 33rd Academy Awards in April 1961, two — Sons and Lovers and the winner, The Apartment — were black-and white. Two of the nominees in 1962, The Hustler and Judgment at Nuremberg , were likewise black-and white. The pattern continued into 1963, with The Longest Day and To Kill a Mockingbird ; 1964, with America America and Lilies of the Field ; and into 1965, with Dr. Strangelove and Zorba the Greek .
At the 38th Academy Awards, held on April 18, 1966, the Best Picture winner ( The Sound of Music ) and one other nominee ( Doctor Zhivago ) were in color, but the remaining three nominees ( Darling , Ship of Fools and A Thousand Clowns ) were in black-and-white. However, at the 39th Academy Awards, held on April 10, 1967, the winner ( A Man for All Seasons ) and three other nominees ( Alfie , The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming and The Sand Pebbles ) were in color. Only one nominee ( Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ) was in black-and-white.
By the 40th Academy Awards, held on April 10, 1968, not only were the winner ( In the Heat of the Night ) and all four of the other nominees ( Bonnie and Clyde , Doctor Dolittle , The Graduate and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner ) in color but, because studios were no longer producing black-and-white films, the awards for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design were merged into single categories rather than having a distinction between color and monochrome. [1]
The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.(January 2024) |
The transition to color started in earnest when NBC announced in May 1963 that a large majority of its 1964–65 TV season would be in color. [2] By late September 1964, the move to potential all-color programming was being seen as successful [3] and, on March 8, 1965, NBC confirmed that its 1965–66 season will be almost entirely in color. [4] Three months later, on June 17, CBS, which had been limiting its color programming to only occasional specials, sent out a bulletin that it was preparing to broadcast at least 50 percent of its 1965–66 primetime programming in color. [5] [6]
The move of American TV to color reached its final phase in February 1966 when the third network, ABC, announced plans for its 1966–67 season to be almost entirely in color. [7] Since the premiere of NBC Saturday Night at the Movies in September 1961, post-1948 major studio feature films gained a dominant foothold in primetime American TV and, by the mid-1960s, feature films were being broadcast by all three networks in prime time on a nearly-daily basis. Although many of those films were in black-and-white, the ones that were presented in color on NBC, had been singled out for special promotion as "broadcast in living color".
In the aftermath of ABC's announcement, studios quickly surmised that only the color features in their film library will have TV broadcast value and stopped production of black-and-white films. Other than a very small number of major films that the studios were willing to publicize — The Fortune Cookie , Is Paris Burning? , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? — completed or nearly completed black-and-white features were put into perfunctory release, but features that had been only partially completed were halted and ordered to restart in color. A similar situation had occurred 37 years earlier, in 1929, when studios stopped production on mid-completion silent films and ordered the addition of dialogue. [8]
Since the 1970s, fiction feature films around the world have been filmed almost exclusively in color. Some films after the transition to color are occasionally presented in black-and-white for budgetary or stylistic reasons. This is a list of notable feature films made after the 1960s that have a significant amount of their running time in black-and-white or monochrome/sepia tone. Many modern black-and-white films are shot in color and converted in post-production. [9] [10]
Note: This list does not include short films, documentaries, or films with less than 50% black-and-white footage.
Film | Year | Exclusively B/W |
---|---|---|
Dear Comrades! | 2020 | Yes |
The 40-Year-Old Version | 2020 | No |
Friend of the World | 2020 | No |
Genus Pan | 2020 | Yes |
Mank | 2020 | Yes |
Some Southern Waters | 2020 | Yes |
Služobníci | 2020 | Yes |
Malcolm & Marie | 2021 | Yes |
Guilt | 2021 | Yes |
Belfast | 2021 | No |
C'mon C'mon | 2021 | Yes |
Passing | 2021 | Yes |
The Tragedy of Macbeth | 2021 | Yes |
Limbo | 2021 | Yes |
The Afterlight | 2021 | Yes |
Paris, 13th District | 2021 | No |
Werewolf by Night | 2022 | No |
Vindication Swim | 2022 | No |
Olavum Theeravum | 2022 | Yes |
Blonde | 2022 | No |
Hundreds of Beavers | 2022 | Yes |
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World | 2023 | No |
Maestro | 2023 | No |
Shttl | 2023 | No |
Green Border | 2023 | Yes |
Falling In Love Like In Movies | 2023 | No |
There's Still Tomorrow | 2023 | Yes |
Bramayugam | 2024 | Yes |
Samsara | 2024 | Yes |
The following films are less than 50% black-and-white footage, but contain notable scenes in black-and-white.
Film | Year | Notes |
---|---|---|
The Wizard of Oz | 1939 | Beginning and end of film are sepia-toned |
Solaris | 1972 | Numerous black-and-white scenes |
Natural Born Killers | 1994 | Flashbacks are black-and-white |
Kill Bill: Volume 1 | 2003 | |
Kill Bill: Volume 2 | 2004 | |
Casino Royale | 2006 | |
Oz the Great and Powerful | 2013 | First 20 minutes are black-and-white |
The French Dispatch | 2021 | Numerous black-and-white scenes |
Thor: Love and Thunder | 2022 | Fight scene between Gorr and Thor is black-and-white |
Asteroid City | 2023 | |
Oppenheimer | 2023 | |
Poor Things | 2023 | Most of the first 20 minutes are black-and-white |
Dune: Part Two | 2024 |
The following are color films that were also released in black-and-white.
Film | Year | Notes |
---|---|---|
Nickelodeon | 1976 | B&W director's cut released in 2009 |
Johnny Mnemonic | 1995 | Johnny Mnemonic: In Black and White released 2022 |
The Mist | 2007 | B&W version released in 2008 |
Mad Max: Fury Road | 2015 | Mad Max: Black & Chrome released 2016 |
Shin Godzilla | 2016 | Shin Godzilla: Orthochromatic released 2023 |
Logan | 2017 | Logan Noir released 2017 |
Parasite | 2019 | |
Zack Snyder's Justice League | 2021 | Zack Snyder's Justice League: Justice is Gray released 2021 |
Nightmare Alley | 2021 | Nightmare Alley: Vision in Darkness and Light released 2022 |
Godzilla Minus One | 2023 | Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color releaed 2024 |
The Munsters is an American sitcom about the home life of a family of benign monsters that aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBS. The series stars Fred Gwynne as Frankenstein's monster Herman Munster, Yvonne De Carlo as his vampire wife Lily, Al Lewis as Grandpa the aged vampire Count Dracula, Beverley Owen as their niece Marilyn, and Butch Patrick as their werewolf-like son Eddie. The family pet, named "Spot", was a fire-breathing dragon.
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work on one particular motion picture.
Color television or colour television is a television transmission technology that includes color information for the picture, so the video image can be displayed in color on the television set. It improves on the monochrome or black-and-white television technology, which displays the image in shades of gray (grayscale). Television broadcasting stations and networks in most parts of the world upgraded from black-and-white to color transmission between the 1960s and the 1980s. The invention of color television standards was an important part of the history and technology of television.
The year 1972 involved some significant events in television. Below is a list of notable television-related events.
The year 1965 in television involved some significant events. Below is a list of television-related events in 1965.
My Three Sons is an American television sitcom that aired from September 29, 1960, to April 13, 1972. The series was filmed in black-and-white and broadcast on ABC during its first five seasons, before moving to CBS for the remaining seven seasons, which were filmed in color. My Three Sons chronicles the life of widower and aeronautical engineer Steven Douglas as he raises his three sons.
Bewitched is an American fantasy sitcom television series that originally aired for eight seasons on ABC from September 17, 1964, to March 25, 1972. It is about a witch who marries an ordinary mortal man and vows to lead the life of a typical suburban housewife. The show was popular, finishing as the second-rated show in America during its debut season, staying in the top ten for its first three seasons, and ranking in eleventh place for both seasons four and five. The show continues to be seen throughout the world in syndication and on recorded media.
"The Cage" is the first pilot episode of the American television series Star Trek. It was completed on January 22, 1965. The episode was written by Gene Roddenberry and directed by Robert Butler. It was rejected by NBC in February 1965, and the network ordered another pilot episode, which became "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Much of the original footage from "The Cage" was later incorporated into the season 1 two-part episode "The Menagerie" (1966); however, "The Cage" was first released to the public on VHS in 1986, with a special introduction by Gene Roddenberry, as a hybrid of the color footage that was used in "The Menagerie" and black and white footage which was not used in "The Menagerie". It was not broadcast on television in its complete all-color form until 1988. The black and white version and all-color version were also released in various standard-definition media including LaserDisc, VHS, and DVD formats.
Hullabaloo was an American musical variety series that ran on NBC from January 12, 1965, through April 11, 1966. Similar to ABC's Shindig! and in contrast to American Bandstand, it aired in prime time.
The Saint is a British crime television series that aired in the United Kingdom on ITV between 1962 and 1969. It was based on the literary character Simon Templar created by Leslie Charteris in the 1920s and featured in many novels over the years. In the television series, Templar was played by Roger Moore. Templar helps those whom conventional agencies are powerless or unwilling to protect, often using methods that skirt the law. Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal is his nominal nemesis who considers Templar a common criminal, but often grudgingly tolerates his actions for the greater good.
Hazel is an American sitcom about a spunky live-in maid named Hazel Burke and her employers, the Baxters. The five-season, 154-episode series aired in prime time from September 28, 1961, to April 11, 1966, and was produced by Screen Gems. The first four seasons of Hazel aired on NBC, and the fifth and final season aired on CBS. Season 1 was broadcast in black-and-white except for one episode which was in color, and seasons 2–5 were all broadcast in color. The show was based on the single-panel comic strip of the same title by cartoonist Ted Key, which appeared in The Saturday Evening Post.
The 39th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1966, were held on April 10, 1967, hosted by Bob Hope at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California.
The Wizard of Oz, produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), was first released in theatres on August 15, 1939. The film was then re-released nationwide in 1949, and once more in 1955. The Wizard of Oz was broadcast on television for the first time on Saturday, November 3, 1956. The film was shown as the last installment of the CBS anthology series Ford Star Jubilee. Since that telecast, The Wizard of Oz has been shown by CBS, NBC, The WB, and several of Ted Turner's national cable channels. The film has never been licensed to any local affiliate broadcast TV station. From 1959 to 1991, the showing of The Wizard of Oz was an annual tradition on American commercial network television. During these years, the film was always shown as a television special.
Lost television broadcasts are television programs that were not preserved or recorded after their broadcasting — thus making them lost to time. They cannot be found in studio archives nor in any other historical record. This phenomenon primarily affects shows or movies that aired before the widespread use of home video recording and digital archiving.
NBC Saturday Night at the Movies was the first television show to broadcast in color relatively recent feature films from major studios. The series premiered on September 23, 1961, and ran until October 1978, spawning many imitators. Television stations had previously only been able to show older, low-budget, black-and-white films. In the late 1970s, competition from cable television and home video led to a decline in viewership.
CBS Thursday Night Movie was the network's venture into the weekly televising of then-recent theatrical films, debuting at the start of the 1965–1966 season, from 9:00 to 11 p.m.. Unlike its two competitors, CBS had delayed running feature films at the behest of the network's hierarchy. Indeed, as far back as 1960, when Paramount Pictures offered a huge backlog of titles for sale to television for $50 million, James T. Aubrey, program director at CBS, negotiated with the studio to buy the package for the network. Aubrey summed up his thinking this way: "I decided that the feature film was the thing for TV. A $250,000 specially-tailored television show just could not compete with a film that cost three or four million dollars." However, the network's chairman, William Paley, who considered the scheduling of old movies "uncreative", vetoed the Paramount transaction.
In 1960, ABC returned to baseball broadcasting with a series of late-afternoon Saturday games. Jack Buck and Carl Erskine were the lead announcing crew for this series, which lasted one season. ABC typically did three games a week. Two of the games were always from the Eastern or Central Time Zone. The late games were usually San Francisco Giants or Los Angeles Dodgers' home games. However, the Milwaukee Braves used to start many of their Saturday home games late in the afternoon. So if the Giants and Dodgers were both the road at the same time, ABC still would be able to show a late game.
From 1965 through 1975, in addition to the Saturday night game on CBC, Hockey Night in Canada also produced and broadcast a Wednesday night game on CTV, CBC's privately owned competitor; beginning in the 1975–76 NHL season, these midweek games would begin to be broadcast by local stations.
Since the 1960s, all regular season and playoff games broadcast in the United States have been aired by national television networks. When the rival American Football League (AFL) began in 1960, it signed a 5-year television contract with ABC. This became the first ever cooperative television plan for professional football, through which the proceeds of the contract were divided equally among member clubs. ABC and the AFL also introduced moving, on-field cameras, and were the first to have players "miked" during broadcast games. As the AFL also had players' names stitched on their jerseys, it was easier for both TV viewers and people at the games to tell who was who.