Older movies that everyone should see

Started by Chrille, Thu 26/06/2003 23:54:03

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Chrille

There are so many great movies that most people of my generation have never bothered to see partly because nobody hardly ever talks about them. List any older movies here that you think people really should see:

Some movies I saw last year, and again recently ;)

Once Upon A Time In America (1984):
Sergio Leone's crime drama masterpiece, it was just recently released on DVD and weighs at roughly 220 minutes. Stars Robert De Niro, James Woods etc.

Cross of Iron (1977):
Best war movie ever, enough said ;). James Coburn kicks (or kicked, rather) ass.

The Wild Bunch (1969):
Without doubt one of the best (and probably the most violent) westerns ever. Very entertaining! Stars Ernest Borgnine, William Holden, Warren Oates etc.
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Trapezoid

I'm not really a big fan of older movies... Most of my favorite films are post-Star Wars. Although "The Producers" is on my list.  ;)

D · Y · D · O

Ah, my kind of thread!

An obvious choice would be Hitchcock:
I recommend 'North by Northwest', 'Rear Window' and 'Vertigo',
but ofcourse all his movies are interesting.

The ever brilliant Kurosawa epic:
'Shichinin no samurai' or better known as 'The Seven Samurai'

The groundbreaking movie:
'Birth of a Nation'

The still very original and well told:
'Citizen Kane'
or the other Orson Welles classic, which also features groundbreaking story-telling and photography:
'Touch of Evil'

Some of Frank Capra's work for example:
'Mr. Smith goes to Washington'
'It Happened One Night'

Frederico Fellini's work like:
'8 1/2'
'La Dolce Vita'

The controversial, though not really a movie:
'Triumph des Willens' by Leni Riefenstahl
She was decades ahead of the movie industry!

The Hollywood epics arose, as did Charlton Heston:
'Ben Hur' is still a rousing epic
'El Cid' has some luscious production design
'The Ten Commandments' heralded the SFX blockbusters.

No list is complete with some early Kubrick:
'Spartacus' goes well with the aforementioned 'Ben Hur'
'2001' is still one of a kind!

The classic 'Casablanca', the Hollywood formula to perfection.
While 'Gone with the Wind' is the opitomy of Hollywood decadent filmmaking.

See young Marlon Brando in 'On The Waterfront' and 'A Streetcar Named Desire'

Charlie Chaplin's greates, intellectual but still funny: 'Modern Times'

One of very few WWI pictures, made before the Second: 'All Quiet On The Western Front'

The visionary 'Metropolis' by Fritz Lang which might offer some inspiration for an adventure game.

That's all my brain can think of right now, but there's an endless supply of excellent movies out there. It's just they're so hard to find sometimes...

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DGMacphee

I've mentioned him many times before, but I'll talk about Hal Ashby:

My favourite film of his is The Last Detail with Jack Nicholson -- here's the IMDB summery:

"Two Navy men are assigned to guard a young prisoner in transit to serve out his sentence. Along the way, they get to know each other and the young man, who begins the journey resigned to his fate, gets a taste of the world and why he might not want to spend his youth behind bars."

And it's very cool -- they buy the kid beer even though he's underaged, they teach him to fight, they get him laid by a hooker, they take him ice skating, and they take him on a picnic in the snow before taking him to the brig.

However, Ashby had a huge run of critical and commercial hits in the 70s, such as:

The Landlord - 1970 - haven't seen but the critics loved it

Harold and Maude - 1971 - cult classic film

THe Last Detail - 1973 - Mentioned above

Shampoo - 1975 - Warren Beatty movie where he plays a hairdresser that pretends to be gay in order to sleep with all the rich dudes' women.

Bound for Glory - 1976 - A biopic about folk legend Woody Guthrie

Coming Home - 1978 - An 'at home' Vietnam war movie about a woman who falls in love with a paralysed veteran while her husband is off fighting in the war. (Ashby was nominated for a directing Oscar for this film)

Being There - 1979 - Peter Sellers plays a simple-minded gardener working for this old man. When the old man dies, Chance goes out into the world with nothing but his knowledge of gardening and things he's seen on TV. Through a turn of events, he becomes a political advisor for a prominent businessman. Very funny satire!

Also, Ashby used to be an editor for films, mainly for the work of Norman Jewison.

Ashby even won an Oscar for editing 'In the Heat of the Night' with Sidney Poitier and Rob Steiger.

So, that my love of Hal Ashby.

As for other famous old films, well, Jesus there are far too many to mention, but here's a short list:

60s and 70s:
The Godfather
Midnight Cowboy
Easy Rider
Five Easy Pieces
One Flew Over THe Cuckoo's Nest
Apocalypse Now
American Graffiti
The Last Picture Show
The French Connection
Annie Hall
2001: A Space Odyseey
A Clockwork Orange
Taxi Driver

Older:
Harvey
It's A Wonderful Life (MEERRRRYYY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!!!)
The Searchers
The Grapes of Wrath
Rebel Without a Cause
To Kill a Mockingbird
Moby Dick
Casablanca
Rear Window
Angels With Dirty Faces
Citizen Kane
Public Enemy
White Heat
Yankee Doodle Dandy
And any Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or Harold Lloyd

Foreign:
Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Rashomon, Ran (or anything Kurosawa for that matter)
Jules and Jim
Zorba the Greek
Week End (Godard is a very aquired taste)
La Strada
The Grand Illusion

And for animated films, I'd select most of everything from Chuck Jones, especially the masterpiece 'What's Opera, Doc?' -- it's heartbreaking as well as funny!

AND MANY MORE!
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Helm

WINTERKILL

Pesty

I love classic movies. I suggest "The African Queen",  "Sabrina",  "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "Charade" for the more romantic movies. Then there's "North by Northwest", "12 Angry Men", "All About Eve", and "To Kill a Mockingbird" for drama. And for comedy, my favorites "Harvey" and "We're No Angels". I know some of these have been mentioned before, but they deserve to be mentioned twice.

And DG, yay for Hal Ashby! "Being There" and "Harold and Maude" are two of my very favorite movies of all time.
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Snake

#6
The Return of the Living Dead - 1984

Best zombie movie ever.

Click here to read an awesome review of the movie itself, and a review of it's new DVD release.


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Trapezoid

I don't think RotLD counts as an "older" movie yet. Night does though.

DGMacphee

It's hard to debate 'older' movies.

Do we refer to 'older' as 'golden age of Hollywood'?

If so, then we count everything up to the 1979/80

However, various films released in the 80s could classify as older films. E.g. Ghandi, Chariots of Fire, Raging Bull, The Last Emperor, Kiss of the Spider Woman

It's hard to debate.
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Nostradamus

The Indiana Jones trilogy
The Amytiville Horror series
The original (1974) Planet of the Apes



Las Naranjas

If we mention Birth of a Nation, perhaps we should add Triumph of the Will.

Both are brilliantly made and influenced countless films right up to the present, but there's alot in them that would encourage you to distance yourself from them.
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aussie

Anything by Frank Capra, really, "It's a wonderful life", "Meet John Doe"...

Also "Captain Courageous", "Quo Vadis" and "Casablanca"
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GarageGothic

#12
These are the ones that came to mind, not to say that they really are the best. The top four pretty much inspired my game:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1920)
Don't Look Now (Roeg, 1973)
Sunset Blvd. (Wilder, 1950)
The Third Man (Reed, 1949)
Easy Rider (Hopper, 1969)
La nuit américaine (Truffaut, 1973)
Psycho (Hitchcock, 1961)
Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich, 1955)

Rincewind

Ooh - Oldies...

Hitchcock:
"Suspicion" - Perhaps my favourite of Hitchs moives. A charming love story that evolves into a exciting thiller, where you in the end really don't know what to believe... Great acting by both Cary Grant and Joan Fountaine.

"Spellbound" - The whole psychoanalysis-theme doens't work quite all the way, but one cannot help but love the surreal dream-sequenses designed by Salvador Dali and all the cleverly shot scenes (i.e: Peck walking down the stairs with the knife in his hand, etc...)

"North By Northwest" - Already mentioned, but I'll just say it's one heck of a  good movie.

"Psycho" - Going from the previous one to this is one huge step, but Hitch does it brilliantly. Everything is perfect about this film. The bone-chilling music, the eerie black-and-white photo, the stunning performance from Anthony Perkins and all the other actors... Remarkable.

"Rear Window" - Hitchcock does his very own peepshow, and we are invited to watch... Another grand film, with both technical landwinnings and top-notch acting.

"The Birds" - Not only does he suffice by creating the very first "Psychotic Killer"-themed horror movie, he also does the very first horror film where a huge amount of seemingly "innocent" creatures go to attack against people...

Ok, as you can see, I'm very fond of Hitchcock... ;D

But of course there's not just his movies that earn a place on this list - Here's some other magnificent movies:

"Shichinin no samurai"(I saw it late one night on tv, and loved it... Got to buy it soon...)
"A Clockwork Orange"
"Casablanca"
"The Big Sleep"
"The Godfather"
"Citizen Kane"
"The Terminator" (I don't know if it counts as an oldie or not, but it's one hell of a movie. Better than T2, in my opinion.)
"Alien"
"Airplane!"(Yep, I'm considering that to be one of the best. Don't ask me why, but I just love that film.)

Well, that doesn't cover every good film, but it's some of them... ;D Hehe.


(And "Being There" is also a great movie - Too bad I just saw it once.)

Paranoia

very good taste DG and Rincewind!

Exorcist  (because it freaked everyone out at the time)
mad max1
alien
any of the pink panther films
Jaws
clockwork orange
kelly's heros (donald sutherland cracked me up as a ww2 hippie)
dirty harry
fist full of dollars, plus the others with clint
bullet
hammer horror films
tommy
ring of bright water(even i've got feeling :P}
stone
blues brothers
starwars very first one
great rock n roll swindle
italian job
get carter
yellow submarine
help


loads more but....
Paranoia

Chrille

Poobungies, some of the movies mentioned, despite being excellent choices (Godfather, Indiana Jones, Taxi Driver among others) have most likely already been seen by a lot of people, which wasn't exactly my original intention with this thread :p.

So, more older movies that people never talk about anymore ;). Many great choices mentioned too of course, I'll keep a look out for them.
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DYDO@university

Quote from: Las Naranjas on Fri 27/06/2003 06:40:42
If we mention Birth of a Nation, perhaps we should add Triumph of the Will.

I already did. It amazes me how many people have seen and appreciate 'Triumph des Willens' (for it's technical achievements rather than it's - nowadays - disturbing content).

To expand on Chrille's post, perhaps we should avoid posting movies that have already been said. Oh and recommending the Godfather movies only works in Bhutan.

DGMacphee

Actually, you'd be surprised of the number of AGSers who haven't seen the Godfather movies.

Even ones in the US.

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SSH

I've only seen the third Godfather, somehow. And I haven't seen Taxi Driver.

I like the original "Gladiator": The Fall of the Roman Empire, with Alec Guinness and Sophia Loren.

Talking of Alec Guinness, The LadyKillers and Arsenic and Old Lace are great.

And I know it's been done, but Cuckoo's Nest is great.

12

Timosity

The toxica avenger

pure class

how it never got an award astounds me

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