Ben-Hur (1959 film) the second highest-grossing film in history at the time after "Gone with the Wind". It won a record 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Wyler), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Heston), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Griffith), and Best Cinematography – Color (Surtees). "Ben-Hur" also won three Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for Stephen Boyd. Today, "Ben-Hur" is widely considered to be one of the greatest films ever made, and in 1998 the American Film Institute ranked it the 72nd best American film
Shadows (1959 film) change his ways in the first version. In his December 1959 manifesto "A Call for a New Generation of Film Makers", Mekas said that "Shadows" was the start of a new movement which would inspire independent filmmakers, energize the flagging avant-garde film scene, and triumph over the commercial Hollywood film industry. Even so, he was upset that the film had been reworked. In January 1960 he wrote in his movie review column in "The Village Voice" that the 1959 version was commercialized, "just another Hollywood film", and that everything he had praised in the first version had been "completely destroyed."