Classic movies
I feel bored with new movies. I don’t know if it is me or if I feel burnet out on what Hollywood is putting out, either way i don’t feel there is anything new or refreshing.
I’ve watched some old movies, such as '12 Angry Men' (1957) which i found incredibly interesting. The entire movie is shot in one room basically and is about a youth charged for a murder and the twelve men in question have to decide if he should be put to a death sentence or not.
The point about mentioning this movie is that it is something very different than what is put out from Hollywood now. The same goes for 'Oceans Eleven' (1960) with the Rat Pack, which is a very different movie than the reboot from 2001.
I find older movies has more interesting plots and stories, not that it needs to be from the sixties. It can be from any decade, but I’d like to hear what you think should be on a movie bucketlist!
Thank you for your time, and I’m excited to watch your recommendations!
Going by decade, here are a few films that are very much worth watching in my opinion. There are many more of course. I know a few that are earlier than the forties, but I'll start there and limit myself to three for each decade.
1940's: Casablanca, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Third Man
1950's: Roman Holiday, Seven Samurai, The African Queen
1960's: Lawrence of Arabia, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
1970's: I'll be leaving out a lot of the bigger names in this decade because I just don't like them. Alien, The Conversation, Jaws
1980's: Blade Runner, Das Boot, Raiders of the Lost Ark
1990's: The Shawshank Redemption, Unforgiven, Good Will Hunting
2000's: Amelie, The Lives of Others, The Departed
Far enough.
I'd like to add How to Steal a Million as my personal favorite Audrey Hepburn movie. Peter O'Tool is just too charismatic in it!
Great list. And to tack on because you got all the way to the 2000s, I want to plug:
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
It's one of my all time favorites. It was a commercial failure. Half because its title is too long (are you really gonna say "Hey, you want to go see The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford tonight?"), half because it's long and at a slower pace. But it's relatively accurate (so says the James family), has a great soundtrack, and contains some of the best cinematography ever recorded on film.
Older movies I'm fond of:
Some of what I struggle with in any older movie is how blatantly homophobia or racism is played for laughs. The movies can be funny in other ways, but so many things are going to be a bit distasteful at times. Even Clue, which I love beyond words, still takes a couple of jabs at gay people. But even with the distasteful bits, I think each of the movies I mention are funny, even ones made a lifetime ago.
Arsenic and Old Lace & Harvey are two of my favorite movies of all time. They just don't make screwball comedies anymore, and I can't help but feel the world is a poorer place as a result.
I've very much enjoyed:
So since January iv been trying to watch classic films and just good movies in general. A lot of inspiration from criterion closet videos so iv got a list.
Godzilla(1954)
Being there
Yojimbo
Onibaba
Network
Rear window
Le samurai
Paths of glory
Casablanca
So those are some classics. Its kinda fun to watch them and then watch a film that is inspired by a certain one. So ghost dog was inspired by le samurai according to the internet people. Kurosawa inspired Leone so you can pair up some films like that.
I have been thinking about Yojimbo recently. I absolutely adore that movie. Any collaboration between director Akira Kurosawa and actor Toshiro Mifune is probably worth a watch, but this one holds a place in my heart. Mifune sets the archetype for lonewolf anti-hero which resurfaces across films in various cultures. It's a bit shorter and more digestable than some of Kurosawa's other films too, so a good intro to him. But also, do check out Seven Samurai, Rashomon and Ran.
Plus without it, you don't get A Fistful of Dollars (more or less a direct remake of Yojimbo directes by Sergio Leone, which I'm a bit lukewarm on personally), and probably therefore no The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (a sort of sequel to Fistful which is one of the most beautifully shot and scored films of all time).
While I'm riding this stream of consciousness, Once Upon a Time in the West is another all time great from Sergio Leone -- I may even like it more than Ugly depending on what day you ask me.
I watched yojimbo and fistful of dollars back to back just to compare. Both very enjoyable but yojimbo is such a good film. Its actually been a while since iv watched a Kurosawa film so I reckon i should rememdy that this weekend.
In absolutely no order:
There are so many classic movies that it's overwhelming. I think it's interesting to watch a lot of films from the same director.
For a while, I did that with Hitchcock. So within a few months I watched The Birds, North By Northwest, Vertigo, Rope, Rear Window, To Catch a Thief, and The Man Who Knew Too Much (both the original and the remake). I still haven't watched Marnie, I should do that soon. And I've seen Psycho but it was a long time ago.
I also started watching a lot of Wes Anderson Movies. I've seen all of his movies in the middle but not the first few or the most recent. Next on my list is his first movie, Bottle Rocket.
Anything from Spielberg or Denis Villeneuve or James Cameron is worth it. Probably anything from John Huston.
Some stuff off the top of my head(which will mostly be film noir as that's what i'm rewatching at the moment):
The Sting
Casablanca
The Maltese Falcon
Double Indemnity
North by Northwest
Strangers on a Train
Vertigo
Arsenic and Old Lace
Rear Window
Also even older films:
Animal Crackers/A Night at the Opera/Duck Soup are probably the 3 easiest to recommend Marx Brothers comedies.
I'll try to remember this topic and do a longer list later.
Edit-
Took so long to submit my response I forgot to refresh and see now that you've been rec'd most of these already. Some others that come to mind:
Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa McBeth)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Comedy)
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (Comedy)
Airplane (Comedy)
Network (uhh...dark comedy/social commentary)
Clue (Comedy)
His Girl Friday (uh...romantic comedy..maybe..kinda?)
Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House (Comedy)
Mr. Smith goes to Washington (Drama)
Sleuth (Mystery)
Touch of Evil (Noir)
UHF (Comedy, with Weird Al)
And Then There Were None (Mystery)
Murder on the Orient Express (The original, Mystery)
The Mark of Zorro (1920) is the earliest movie I consider watchable by modern standards, even though it is a silent movie. Douglas Fairbanks did all his own stunts.
I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) - This movie is a compelling story about a man wrongly convicted to a chain gang. The movie ultimately helped put an end to chain gangs IRL.
The Ox-Bow Incident (1942) similar to 12 Angry Men, it's a powerful story of vigilante justice in the wild west. This movie was made on a shoestring budget in 28 days and was buried at the box office, but the dark themes of injustice and groupthink became almost prophetic during the McCarthy era and now the movie is considered a classic.
Seven Samurai (1954) another story of vigilante justice, this time in set in the Age of the Samurai. The lead man Toshiro Mifune actually wanted to be hired as a cameraman, but was convinced to become an actor instead.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) An fascinating sci fi movie, watchable even by todays standards. Much like the Twilight Zone, this movie has deep social commentary.
Yojimbo (1961) A masterless Samurai arrives in a town divided by two rival criminal gangs. The Ronin devises a plan to pit the criminal gangs against each other, aiming to liberate the town from their tyranny. Another Kurosawa/ Mifune masterpiece. Kurosawa is one of Japans most famous directors.
Adding to the Kurosawa recommendations (was beginning to think no one was going to mention him, this was the last comment in the thread) -- Rashoman is an interesting tale of a sexual assault told from many different angles, a style that has since been named after the movie.
If someone can tag this as off topic, that'd be great. I think this is everything mentioned
All films
In the future we should all include IMDB IDs for quick scrapes :)
While there are plenty of classic movies worth watching, there is also a whole film world outside Hollywood that I think also produces interesting unique films today. Since you mention 12 Angry Men, I am gonna say Anatomy of a Fall, the Cannes winner from 2023. Also a courtroom drama, and while it dives into similar topics of proof and assessment of guilt, it is very different.
If you want to go deeper into classic movies, the AFI Top 100 and Sight and Sound Greatest Films of All Time are good places to start.
Dr. Zhivago
Cabaret
Anything by buster Keaton
TCM (Turner Classic Movies) is basically the reason (ok sports too) I pay for youtube tv, just a string of curated old movies with no commercials. Makes for great background viewing, and a lot of the time, getting invested in something on in the background, and then ending up sitting there watching the whole danged movie.
I feel the same as you and have been watching classic movies for years.
I’ll list a few I recommend.
Casablanca
Maltese Falcon
Gone With the Wind
Alien
12 angry men
The conversation
Blade runner
Back to the Future trilogy
Dr. No
From Russia With Love
Nightmare on Elm Street
Halloween
Jaws
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Psycho — really most of Hitchcock’s movies
Rebel without a cause
Rear window
Robocop
Seven samurai
Smoky and the bandit
True grit
Star Trek I & 2
Legend of Lost
Lawrence of Arabia
There are many, these are just out of my library.
here are some contemporary films that I feel have a "certain aspect" which makes them classic in some sense:
also, older films that I want to share:
bonus:
There were a couple movies that sprang to my mind but they’ve already been mentioned. I’ll list them again for emphasis…
I want to add a few more for consideration:
Here are a few other suggestions I consider modern but might qualify as old or classic depending on your POV:
I love Le Mans (starring Steve McQueen) and Grand Prix.
Le Mans is more like a documentary from that time, it is lacking in story department (I'd go as far as saying there is basically no story), but it captures the atmosphere of the time prefectly.
Garnd Prix on he other hand is full romantic story combined with unprecented racing scenes. Thus it's runtime is quite long as it really seems like two movies in one.
I also love old Bond movies (say up to first movies with Pierce Brosnan), they are simply different. I can't say what is different, but they are.
Italian job is also great movie from that era. Great escape is another one.