If nothing else, 1969 has been a great year for going to the movies. Around Cambridge (and largely with help of the well stacked booking policy of the new Orson Welles Cinema), one could stay in the dark enough hours on any given day to miss whole political upheavals, all lectures, and the daily suicide threats of close friends. Unfortunately, the best movies of 1969 were about polities and violence-but what can you do?

Following the tradition behind lists like these, I have selected movies only from those released commercially in the United States during 1969. Not all of the best films hate yet reached Boston, but hopefully they will before we die. Movies are listed more or less in order of preference.

ALICE'S RESTAURANT. In 1967 it was not The Graduate, but Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde which had something to say about those Americans who are lost in their homeland. And this year it is not Easy Rider, but Alice's Restaurant.

Penn's newest film is in all important ways a sequel to his last. Only this time the heroes are not violent bank-robbers but potent, generous people with good minds and an ability to love. And the setting is not an America of depression but one of abundance.

The film's story, unlike that of Bonnie and Clyde. is almost non-existent; it revolves around the attempts of the alienated heroes to find community in and around a Stockbridge, Massachusetts church. And while Alice's Restaurant has the feel of a comedy (after all, it is based on Arlo Guthrie's humorous song. "Alice's Restaurant Massacre"), it is nonetheless one of the most depressing films of this year or any other. Love dope, sex, money, utopianism, political action-none of these phenomena can offer salvation to Arlo and his friends. And, unlike Easy Rider, this film does not provide vicious villains to blame all our troubles on.

As the song goes. "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant, exceptin' Alice"-and that's the whole story. We can't get at that central heartbeat that is the real spruce of life any better than Richard Nixon can. And if we can't get at that, we might as well be dead.

Penn's work on the film is nicely augmented by that of editor Dede Allen co-screenwriter Venable Herndon and actors Arlo, James Broderick and Pat Quinn. Pete Seeger is also on hand to remind us how little things have changed since his generation's attempt to find a better America.

TOPAZ. Alfred Hitchcock's newest film is hardly his most entertaining or suspenseful work, but still it stands as a monument to the vision, brilliance and sheer force of America's greatest working director. Hitchcock's visual narrative and moral stance dominate the picture from first shot to last-so much so, that one is oblivious to plot inanities inherited from the Leon Uris novel and the largely clodlike performances of the cast (Michacl Piccoli, Philippe Noirct and Rocoe Lee Browne excluded).

The movie revolves around the Cuban missile crisis and the espionage intrigues that went on behind the headlines. While the heroes are pro-American and the villains pro-Russian, Hitchcock looks down his nose at all of them. The hero, for instance, sacrifices his wife, lover and (almost) his son-in-law to obtain information for the American government.

Throughout, Topaz is resolutely anti-political. The finale, when shots of all the dead heroes and villains are superimposed on a newspaper bearing the headline "Cuban Missile Crisis Over" ends with that newspaper being discarded on a park bench. In other words. Hitchcock says "so what?" to the entire enterprise. (The film is amusing in that way.)

In addition, the picture is full of small ironies and is dotted with nostalgic references to other movies in the master's long career. In this respect, a particularly great sequence is an embrace-assassination scene, which, besides recalling Notorious and North by Northwest, reminds us of the debt Chabrol, Truffaut and countless others owe to this Hollywood filmmaker.

Playwright Samuel Taylor wrote Topaz's unimportant screenplay, and Maurice Jarre composed the nifty musical score.

THE DAMNED. Surely one of the most perverse and decadent movies in recent film history, director Luchino Visconti's picture is a long and stunning tapestry of murder, corruption, sexual abberation and power-lust.

The Damned takes place almost entirely within the mansion of a German industrialist family (the Krupps?) during the years when Hitler was consolidating his power within Germany. Presumably what happens within the confines of the mansion is a microcosm of what is happening in the nation outside-but that's neither important nor worth thinking about. What is important is the incredible richness of the film visually: blood, transvestism, child molestation and all the rest come together to form a lushly orchestrated grand opera of emotional sickness. To be sure, Visconti has indulged himself to the fullest: he takes his sweet time in depicting each sick ritual of his metaphorical family. But while you may be revolted by it, you might love it-and, God, in either case, there is no chance you will forget it. Ingrid Thulin, Dirk Bogarde and a fine actor named Helmut Berger star.

STOLEN KISSES. Francois Truffaut takes time out from paying homage to Hitchcock ( The Bride Wore Black and his most recent film, yet to be released in this country, The Mississippi Mermaid) to provide a deceptively simple piece about unfulfilled love that is as fine as any movie he has made to date.