Classics to Watch (1930s - 1960s)
by dezzra | created - 15 Jan 2017 | updated - 27 Jun 2018 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
PG | 161 min | Adventure, Drama, War
British POWs are forced to build a railway bridge across the river Kwai for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, not knowing that the allied forces are planning a daring commando raid through the jungle to destroy it.
Director: David Lean | Stars: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa
Votes: 233,455 | Gross: $44.91M
2. War and Peace (1956)
PG | 208 min | Drama, Romance, War
Napoleon's tumultuous relations with Russia, including his disastrous 1812 invasion, serve as the backdrop for the tangled personal lives of two aristocratic families.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda, Mel Ferrer, Vittorio Gassman
Votes: 10,870 | Gross: $12.50M
3. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)
Passed | 150 min | Drama, Romance, War
An extended family split up in France and Germany find themselves on opposing sides of the battlefield during World War I.
Director: Rex Ingram | Stars: Rudolph Valentino, Alice Terry, Pomeroy Cannon, Josef Swickard
Votes: 3,551 | Gross: $9.20M
4. The Sheik (1921)
Passed | 86 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
A charming Arabian sheik becomes infatuated with an adventurous, modern-thinking Englishwoman and abducts her to his home in the Saharan desert.
Director: George Melford | Stars: Rudolph Valentino, Agnes Ayres, Ruth Miller, George Waggner
Votes: 3,664
5. The Little Princess (1939)
Approved | 93 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
A little girl is left by her father in an exclusive seminary for girls, when her father fights in the Second Boer War. Later, when he is presumed dead she is forced to become a servant.
Directors: Walter Lang, William A. Seiter | Stars: Shirley Temple, Richard Greene, Anita Louise, Ian Hunter
Votes: 6,742
6. The Gold Rush (1925)
Passed | 95 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A prospector goes to the Klondike during the 1890s gold rush in hopes of making his fortune, and is smitten with a girl he sees in a dance hall.
Director: Charles Chaplin | Stars: Charles Chaplin, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman
Votes: 118,732 | Gross: $5.45M
7. Love Me Tender (1956)
Approved | 89 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
At the end of the Civil War, a Confederate team is ordered to rob a Union payroll train but the war ends leaving these men with their Union loot, until the Feds come looking for it.
Director: Robert D. Webb | Stars: Richard Egan, Debra Paget, Elvis Presley, Robert Middleton
Votes: 4,715 | Gross: $4.50M
8. Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (1955)
Approved | 93 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
American frontiersman Davy Crockett fights in the Creek Indian War, is elected to the U.S. Congress and fights for Texas at the Alamo.
Director: Norman Foster | Stars: Fess Parker, Buddy Ebsen, Basil Ruysdael, Hans Conried
Votes: 4,892
9. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Passed | 102 min | Comedy
While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett
Votes: 66,136
10. The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Not Rated | 112 min | Comedy, Romance
When a rich woman's ex-husband and a tabloid-type reporter turn up just before her planned remarriage, she begins to learn the truth about herself.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey
Votes: 73,900
11. Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Not Rated | 118 min | Comedy, Crime, Thriller
A Brooklyn writer of books on the futility of marriage risks his reputation after he decides to tie the knot. Things get even more complicated when he learns on his wedding day that his beloved maiden aunts are habitual murderers.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Jack Carson
Votes: 75,000
12. Notorious (1946)
Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
The daughter of a convicted German spy is asked by American agents to gather information on a ring of German scientists in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern
Votes: 107,337 | Gross: $10.46M
13. North by Northwest (1959)
Approved | 136 min | Action, Adventure, Mystery
A New York City advertising executive goes on the run after being mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies, and falls for a woman whose loyalties he begins to doubt.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis
Votes: 346,391 | Gross: $13.28M
14. To Catch a Thief (1955)
PG | 106 min | Mystery, Romance, Thriller
A retired jewel thief sets out to prove his innocence after being suspected of returning to his former occupation.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams
Votes: 79,824 | Gross: $8.75M
15. Dial M for Murder (1954)
PG | 105 min | Crime, Thriller
A former tennis star arranges the murder of his adulterous wife.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams
Votes: 188,974 | Gross: $0.01M
16. Rear Window (1954)
PG | 112 min | Mystery, Thriller
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his Greenwich Village courtyard apartment window and, despite the skepticism of his fashion-model girlfriend, becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter
Votes: 522,518 | Gross: $36.76M
17. Charade (1963)
Passed | 113 min | Comedy, Mystery, Romance
Romance and suspense ensue in Paris as a woman is pursued by several men who want a fortune her murdered husband had stolen. Whom can she trust?
Director: Stanley Donen | Stars: Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau, James Coburn
Votes: 85,637 | Gross: $13.47M
18. High Noon (1952)
PG | 85 min | Drama, Thriller, Western
A town Marshal, despite the disagreements of his newlywed bride and the townspeople around him, must face a gang of deadly killers alone at "high noon" when the gang leader, an outlaw he "sent up" years ago, arrives on the noon train.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Thomas Mitchell, Lloyd Bridges
Votes: 110,254 | Gross: $9.45M
19. High Sierra (1940)
Passed | 100 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
After being released from prison, notorious thief Roy Earle is hired by his old boss to help a group of inexperienced criminals plan and carry out the robbery of a California resort.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy
Votes: 19,251
20. Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
R | 111 min | Action, Biography, Crime
Bored waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with an ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.
Director: Arthur Penn | Stars: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman
Votes: 120,676
21. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Not Rated | 131 min | Drama
A bitter, aging couple, with the help of alcohol, use their young houseguests to fuel anguish and emotional pain towards each other over the course of a distressing night.
Director: Mike Nichols | Stars: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis
Votes: 79,970
22. National Velvet (1944)
Passed | 123 min | Drama, Family, Sport
A jaded former jockey helps a young girl prepare a wild but gifted horse for England's Grand National Sweepstakes.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Mickey Rooney, Elizabeth Taylor, Donald Crisp, Anne Revere
Votes: 8,007
23. Father of the Bride (1950)
Not Rated | 92 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The father of a young woman deals with the emotional pain of her getting married, along with the financial and organizational trouble of arranging the wedding.
Director: Vincente Minnelli | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, Elizabeth Taylor, Don Taylor
Votes: 12,541 | Gross: $8.84M
24. A Place in the Sun (1951)
Passed | 122 min | Drama, Romance
A poor boy gets a job working for his rich uncle and ends up falling in love with two women.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere
Votes: 24,806
25. Kon-Tiki (1950)
Approved | 77 min | Documentary
A documentary about the Kon-Tiki expedition of the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl.
Director: Thor Heyerdahl | Stars: Thor Heyerdahl, Herman Watzinger, Erik Hesselberg, Knut Haugland
Votes: 2,809
26. Laura (1944)
Passed | 88 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he is investigating.
Directors: Otto Preminger, Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price
Votes: 51,510 | Gross: $4.36M
27. Road to Bali (1952)
Approved | 91 min | Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
Two unemployed show-biz pals accept treasure-diving work in Bali for a local princess and they find treasure, love and trouble.
Director: Hal Walker | Stars: Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Murvyn Vye
Votes: 5,252
28. Niagara (1953)
Not Rated | 92 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
As two couples are visiting Niagara Falls, tensions between one wife and her husband reach the level of murder.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Max Showalter
Votes: 19,745
29. Some Like It Hot (1959)
Passed | 121 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
After two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft
Votes: 283,737 | Gross: $25.00M
30. Naked Gun (1956)
Approved | 69 min | Western
Don Pablo Salazar steals a fortune in jewels from an Indian tribe and an Aztec medicine man puts a curse on the jewels until they are returned. Years later an American insurance man, Breen ... See full summary »
Directors: Eddie Dew, Paul Landres | Stars: Willard Parker, Mara Corday, Barton MacLane, Tom Brown
Votes: 248
31. Airplane! (1980)
PG | 88 min | Comedy
After the crew becomes sick with food poisoning, a neurotic ex-fighter pilot must safely land a commercial airplane full of passengers.
Directors: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker | Stars: Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Votes: 261,394 | Gross: $83.40M
32. Top Secret! (1984)
PG | 90 min | Comedy, Crime, Music
An American rock and roll singer is invited to a cultural festival in East Germany in order to distract from a plot to destroy NATO submarines, but he accidentally becomes involved in a resistance plot to rescue an imprisoned scientist.
Directors: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker | Stars: Val Kilmer, Omar Sharif, Jeremy Kemp, Warren Clarke
Votes: 73,124 | Gross: $20.50M
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