Classic Movies
by jessichka | created - 12 Jul 2011 | updated - 21 Sep 2011 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. You Only Live Once (1937)
Passed | 86 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The public defender's secretary and an ex-convict get married and try to make a life together, but a series of disasters sends their lives spiraling out of control.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, Barton MacLane, Jean Dixon
Votes: 7,654
2. You Can't Take It with You (1938)
Passed | 126 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The son of a snobbish Wall Street banker becomes engaged to a woman from a good-natured but decidedly eccentric family not realizing that his father is trying to force her family from their home for a real estate development.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold
Votes: 27,917 | Gross: $4.66M
3. Made for Each Other (1939)
Approved | 92 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
While on a business trip, an ambitious young lawyer meets and immediately falls in love with a stranger. They wed the following day, and tragedy soon strikes.
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: Carole Lombard, James Stewart, Charles Coburn, Lucile Watson
Votes: 4,104
4. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Passed | 129 min | Comedy, Drama
A naive youth leader is appointed to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate. His idealistic plans promptly collide with corruption at home and subterfuge from his hero in Washington, but he tries to forge ahead despite attacks on his character.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold
Votes: 121,435 | Gross: $9.60M
5. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Not Rated | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand each other, without realizing that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut
Votes: 38,520 | Gross: $0.20M
6. His Girl Friday (1940)
Passed | 92 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart
Votes: 63,199 | Gross: $0.30M
7. Come Live with Me (1941)
Passed | 86 min | Comedy, Romance
Seeking US citizenship, a Viennese refugee arranges a marriage of convenience with a struggling writer.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: James Stewart, Hedy Lamarr, Ian Hunter, Verree Teasdale
Votes: 2,458
8. The Lady Eve (1941)
Passed | 94 min | Comedy, Romance
A trio of classy card sharks targets a socially awkward brewery heir, until one of them falls in love with him.
Director: Preston Sturges | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette
Votes: 23,390
9. Ball of Fire (1941)
Approved | 111 min | Comedy, Romance
A group of professors working on a new encyclopedia while living in a Manhattan mansion take in a mouthy nightclub singer who is wanted by the police to help bring down her mob boss lover.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers
Votes: 14,066
10. Meet John Doe (1941)
Passed | 122 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A penniless drifter is recruited by an ambitious columnist to impersonate a non-existent person who said he'd be committing suicide as a protest, and a social movement begins.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan
Votes: 14,909
11. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Passed | 100 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre
Votes: 166,639 | Gross: $2.11M
12. Rings on Her Fingers (1942)
Approved | 86 min | Comedy, Crime, Romance
Two con artists take a shopgirl under their wing, but she disrupts their marrying-for-money scheme by falling for a mathematician.
Director: Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Laird Cregar, Shepperd Strudwick
Votes: 1,081
13. Double Indemnity (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Byron Barr
Votes: 167,542 | Gross: $5.72M
14. It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
PG | 130 min | Drama, Family, Fantasy
An angel is sent from Heaven to help a desperately frustrated businessman by showing him what life would have been like if he had never existed.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell
Votes: 499,404
15. My Darling Clementine (1946)
Passed | 97 min | Drama, Romance, Western
After their cattle are stolen and their brother murdered, the Earp brothers have a score to settle with the Clanton family.
Director: John Ford | Stars: Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature, Cathy Downs
Votes: 25,768
16. Quo Vadis (1951)
Not Rated | 171 min | Biography, Drama, Romance
After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadership of the despotic emperor Nero.
Directors: Mervyn LeRoy, Anthony Mann | Stars: Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, Peter Ustinov
Votes: 16,760 | Gross: $24.29M
17. The Big Heat (1953)
Passed | 89 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
Tough cop Dave Bannion takes on a politically powerful crime syndicate.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby
Votes: 29,198
18. The Wild One (1953)
Approved | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Two rival motorcycle gangs terrorize a small town after one of their leaders is thrown in jail.
Director: Laslo Benedek | Stars: Marlon Brando, Mary Murphy, Robert Keith, Lee Marvin
Votes: 17,605
19. From Here to Eternity (1953)
Passed | 118 min | Drama, Romance, War
At a U.S. Army base in 1941 Hawaii, a private is cruelly punished for not boxing on his unit's team, while his commanding officer's wife and top aide begin a tentative affair.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed
Votes: 50,844 | Gross: $30.50M
20. How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
Approved | 95 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Three women set out to find eligible millionaires to marry, but find true love in the process.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall, David Wayne
Votes: 24,895
21. On the Waterfront (1954)
Approved | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
An ex-prize fighter turned New Jersey longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses, including his older brother, as he starts to connect with the grieving sister of one of the syndicate's victims.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger
Votes: 165,023 | Gross: $9.60M
22. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
PG | 120 min | Drama, Thriller
An American doctor and his wife, a former singing star, witness a murder while vacationing in Morocco, and are drawn into a twisting plot of international intrigue when their young son is kidnapped.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, Doris Day, Brenda de Banzie, Bernard Miles
Votes: 69,619 | Gross: $10.25M
23. The Wrong Man (1956)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama, Film-Noir
In 1953, an innocent man named Christopher Emanuel "Manny" Balestrero is arrested after being mistaken for an armed robber.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone
Votes: 31,384
24. Exodus (1960)
Approved | 208 min | Action, Drama, War
The State of Israel is created in 1948, resulting in war with its Arab neighbors.
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Ralph Richardson, Peter Lawford
Votes: 11,399 | Gross: $18.97M
25. Sex and the Single Girl (1964)
Not Rated | 110 min | Comedy, Romance
A womanizing reporter for a sleazy tabloid magazine impersonates his hen-pecked neighbor in order to get an expose on renowned psychologist Helen Gurley Brown.
Director: Richard Quine | Stars: Lauren Bacall, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Henry Fonda
Votes: 4,700 | Gross: $9.27M
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