What is your favorite old Hollywood classic film of all time?
What is your favorite classic film of all time?
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Nothing beats Casablanca.
The Little Princess with Shirley Temple.
There are so many!
Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Singing in the Rain.
Film by Hollywood or just good film? Because many of my favorite films don’t come from Hollywood.
Ace in the Hole and Detective Story are my two favorite Hollywood film. They aren’t for everyone though, especially for anyone who wants happy ending. Both are realistic and deliver a strong message and have the power to stick with you after you have watched them.
there are just too many from which to pick. I would prefer to compile a list of my top 20, and even then would find myself fiddling endlessly with the great films excluded from the list. No, 20 would not be enough.
Just one?! That’s tough. Here’s a few:
The Maltese Falcon
It Happened One Night
The Wizard of Oz
The General
The African Queen
The Thin Man
A Night at the Opera
Casablanca
To Kill a Mockingbird
Cinema Paradiso
La Strada
The 400 Blows
Gone with the Wind
An Affair to Remember
Brief Encounters
The 39 Steps
I Know Where I’m Going
…and many more.
The Curse of Frankenstein
Bride of Frankenstein
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein
and of course, the little-seen, direct-to-video “Frank and Stein Open a Deli”
Bringing Up Baby. I always laugh until my sides hurt.
“Notorious,” directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains.
Nobody else for my favorite, “Gone With the Wind?” Is it not old enough?
@Aster It’s on my list, just one of several though.
The Apartment. Billy Wilder is a master at balancing both comedy and drama that deal with sensitive topics.
My second pick is “The Best Years of Our Lives”. Absolutely love the realism in it, and the film is so absorbing that it doesn’t feel like 3 hours at all
White Heat
Sherlock Holmes movies (Basil Rathbone)
Defiant Ones
Laurel & Hardy
Rope
Strangers on a Train
And so many Hitchcock films!
Well it’s not Hollywood, but Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal.
BTW: what are we considering “classic”, like up to a certain year? Wondering because relative to Hollywood I think of “classic” as up to the end of the Hayes Code, though pretty much all of my favorite films are from after that period.
@Darth_Algar Yeah, I was debating with myself about where the cut-off is.
@Darth_Algar I think she is just referring to movies that you consider great.
@Mimishu1995 I do hate when people refer to movies like Titanic as a classic though.
Audry Hepburn in, well… anything.
The Ghost And Mrs. Muir
The King And I
Singing In The Rain
The Little Princess
The Ten Commandments
Thoroughly Modern Millie
Heat Of The Night
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
City Lights
The Best Years Of Our Lives
There are too many great ones and they’re so different that I can’t say I have a favorite. I have many favorites and if I try to list them I will leave out many. Also, yeah, you didn’t specify a cutoff date.
Many of the ones others mentioned are of course first-rate.
Some of my favorites that haven’t been mentioned that overlap the already-mentioned time frame somewhat:
various Harold Lloyd films (e.g. Safety Last, Speedy, Dr. Jack 1920–1930)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
The Man In The White Suit (1951)
Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951)
Rear Window (1954)
North By Northwest (1959)
The Apartment (1960 – oh, it was mentioned, well, it’s very good)
The Longest Day (1962)
Charade (1963)
My Fair Lady (1964)
A Shot In The Dark (1964)
Forehead smack
How did I forget to include Sparticus!?
Gosh, I’m feeling like I’ve missed a lot of great, old movies. Unfortunately, Netflix doesn’t always have any of the old “classics” and Turner Network is no longer. I need to see a lot of these movies.
I forgot to mention Rear Window and Psycho. Most Alfred Hitchcock movies are terrific. I would agree that 39 Steps should be on this list. I saw that when I was about 14 with my brother and a bunch of his friends. I was so glad that they asked me to go along (males and females) They were all 5 years older than me.
To me, it is very interesting (but not at all surprising) that the “classic” movie which almost always receives such high acclaim (and appears as Number 1 on all of these movie critic or “pundit” lists) is not mentioned here by even one person.
Recently I rented and watched it for the first time, just to see for myself why it’s always gotten such universal high praise:
Citizen Kane
My rating: Meh.
Kane is lauded primarily for prowess in filmmaking/direction/cinematography etc.
Pioneering as an art form, but not overly popular as a stand alone film.
OK.
But I still want my money back.
Having been to San Simeon, I would like to see it again but I do remember it as long.
@ucme Yeah, wow. And it’s right there at the top of his list, plain as day.
I guess I’ll never have an eye for detail like the great Orson Welles….
Lawrence of Arabia, Black Narcissus, Rules of the Game, The Caine Mutiny, Ben Hur, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Paths of Glory, The Hustler, Five Fingers, 2001, The Americanization of Emily, Harold and Maude, The Loved One, Dr Zhivago, The French Connection, The Godfather (I & II), The Conversation, The Nun’s Story.
Oh thanks, @stanleybmanly
Now that whistling ‘River Kwai’ song will be in my head for the rest of the day…..
“you will enjoy your work”
Well….OK…...just please don’t blow all my shit up afterwards…...
@Kardamom “Gosh, I’m feeling like I’ve missed a lot of great, old movies. Unfortunately, Netflix doesn’t always have any of the old “classics” and Turner Network is no longer. I need to see a lot of these movies.”
FilmStruck is your answer. It’s basically Turner Classic Movies in a Netflix-like streaming service.
@Darth Algar If you have a Roku or some such, get over to you tube. Most of those movies are sitting there for free.
Maybe, but I’ve never much cared for the hit-and-miss nature of YouTube. Besides, I don’t mind paying a few bucks a month for a quality service.
Does “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” count?
@MrGrimm888 It counts if you choose. the question is about YOUR favorite.
^Well that’s my vote then.
Somehow I forgot to list The Ladykillers (1955).
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My grandfather’s favorite, my dad’s favorite oldie, my favorite oldie-Shane
“Bert !!.....BERT !!!......Don’t ya know me….??”
“Mary…..MARY !!........KIDS !!!.....Oh, Zuzu, my little ginger-snap…..!!”
Casablanca, and I’m also with Patty_Melt on Spartacus. Great actors, great action, intelligent script, and the only Roman/sword and sandal type epic without a Christian bias. Definitely worth seeing if you’re into those types of old epics.
The actors were soooo amazing. What movie was it where Liz Taylor had to hint about the guy being gay…Cat on a Hot Tin Roof? And wasn’t the guy Paul Newman? It took a long time for it to finally hit, too. So, so subtle.
Think you’re right, Dutchess, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Have to look that one up, but I think you got it right. Why don’t they make movies like the did back in the day, without explosions and bullet riddled bodies every 10 seconds?
Right? And the acting was REAL ACTING. I mean, in those days TV was new, and much of their style was from stage acting. They had to over act to reach the back of the theater. It took them a while to catch on to the fact that you can pan in on small facial nuances.
But to actually touch on someone being gay…that was dicey then! And they had to do it carefully.
Both “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “The Children’s Hour” films underplayed the homosexual/lesbian story told in the original play scripts. Unfortunate, but true.
Rebecca is probably one of my favourite old Hollywood films.
They had to consider the times @Pied_Pfeffer. A movie is no good if everyone is going to refuse to see it because OMG, gay.
If you’re into westerns, Rio Brava is a classic. John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Walter Brennan. From which comes this little jewel: https://youtu.be/GQ0y2AxF4QM
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