Great films (from before 1960)?

Sick of Taranolan's Batjo Unchained Knight Hype Nigga Tranny Movie 27? This is the thread for you

I'll start with Great Expectations (1946)

Everyone who's seen the Pip episode of South Park or read Dickens will know the plot of this one but it's really great and worth a watch. The accents really get me going and the movie is well made with the moral aspects of it really shining. It's a story that is very touching and moving, made professionally, and with a sort of beauty to it that's extinct in today's films.

duck soup (1933), probably marx brothers best movie. absurd and fast paced.

Nice. That geezer looks like AliG/Borat/Bruno

Good thread! Lookin forward to see what crops up here.

Ones that spring to mind are:

Modern TImes

Freaks

I Live In Fear

Rashomon

Ikiru

The Third Man

Night Of The Hunter

good thread. i went through some lists and selected some favourites...

night of the hunter.

vertigo.

citizen cane.

ben hur.

paths of glory.

spartacus.

moby dick.

the wizard of oz.

pinocchio.

les diabolique.

seven samurai.

the 7th seal.

rashomon.

high noon.

12 angry men.

the maltese falcon.

forbidden planet.

the invisible man.

king kong.

the fly.

metropolis.

frankenstein and bride of...

abbot and costello meet frankenstein.

nosferatu.

the time machine.

the 7th voyage of sinbad.

ride lonesome.

journey to the centre of the earth.

Ikiru

Got to see this in the cinema. It's very long and the main character is interestingly dull in a subtle and clever way. An old Japanese geezer tries to get funding for a children's park? Gotta watch this one again.

The Third Man

Love the music, sad creepy emotions

citizen cane.
rose bud. epic from child to old man life story.

seven samurai.

brilliant, especially love the way that the characters interact with each other, the men on an impossible mission theme, and the use of intelligently cunning tactics&strategy in battle

Orson Welles was in a movie of Franz Kafka's The Trial - have a look at that, another beautiful nightmare type of film

By the way, thanks for the responses, thread turned out right! :-D

Terrible thread; simply too few to choose from!

All About Eve (1950) my interest in old movies starts with this movie.$$

but i don't like old comedys like Capra's or some like it hot

We should probably just make this "Akira Kurosawa and other notable films before 1960"

side note: If you guys haven't checked out the Metropolis anime it pairs quite nicely with psychedelics.

There were great films up through the 70s, and plenty of 80s films (less 90s flicks that weren't revival efforts) that still "felt" like old films. These two from 1970 are two of my favorite:

^1964 but as a anti-nuclear war flick it easily could of been a late 50s film, like this one

Also, before 1934 there were no formal censorship codes in place, so there some pretty graphic and gritty crime and horror films (especially in context) before that. So you can find some pretty flat-out exploitative films from that era apparently (if they haven't been lost)

1960 is a random and arbitrary cut-off imo, but I know what you mean about how so many films now, even critically acclaimed and objectively good ones, are with few exceptions filmed and written with such frantic pacing, so much where you can't just sit and absorb the beauty of film itself. Soundtracks are often overdone (i.e. no "silence" or pure natural background noise). Unless it's an indie flick, there's probably a very clear and literal plot, nothing to think or talk about or reflect on after the film ends. There's no repeat value to a lot of new films, especially Blockbusters, because it's an experience that doesn't warrant further exploration or thought. There's not as much to cherish.

La Strada

Death of a Cyclist

The Seventh Seal

Wild Strawberries

The Cranes are Flying

Letter Never Sent

Le Notti Bianche

Il grido

  On 1/15/2013 at 1:12 PM, kinski said:

duck soup (1933), probably marx brothers best movie. absurd and fast paced.

YES!! just about any Marx brothers movie from A Day At The Races and back are friggin amazing.

Al Capone (1959). A factual biography. Fantastic.

Strange Illusion (1945).

I enjoyed "No Way Out" from 1950. I just clicked on it randomly on youtube one day.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042792/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBLsHLdncDA

Pickpocket (1959)

Some good ones mentioned.

Also

Public Enemy (1931)

Angels With Dirty Faces

Yankee Doodle Dandy

... just about any other movie with James Cagney

The Grand Illusion

Rules Of The Game

It's A Wonderful Life

A Streetcar Named Desire

Casablanca

Sunset Blvd

Asphalt Jungle

Touch Of Evil

Ugetsu

Throne Of Blood

To Be Or Not To Be

Some good ones came out in 1960:

Eyes without a face

Psycho

The apartment

the bicycle thief

Pre-1960, huh?

As Chunky mentioned, Shichinin no Samurai is definitely one worth mentioning. I also watched the original 1954 Gojira (Godzilla) in one of my history courses a few years back.

As for American films, I'd say Some Like It Hot and Plan 9 From Outer Space, though both films preceded 1960 by only a year. The latter is actually quite badly done, but is famously entertaining for that very reason.

This is 1963 but it's awesome:

Sweet Smell of Success

Letter from an Unknown Woman

The Third Man

Gun Crazy

Citizen Kane

Night of the Hunter

Les Diaboliques

a lot of good ones have already been mentioned but i hold The Day The Earth Stood Still in a special place in my heart. For coming out on the heels of the Korean war it's a pretty provocative and anti military movie for the time.

Great theremin centric score by Bernard Hermann which was emulated and basically recreated for the Tim Burton movie Mars Attacks

also if you like scifi but think most of it from this era sucks (and you would be right) check out Forbidden Planet, and if you have a blueray player or HD TV check it out in HD, it's one of the best looking transfers i've ever seen