The 25 best classic films that each film fan needs to see

Embark on your own cinema history course with these influential films.


You do not need to go to the film school to become a scholar of Cinematographic arts . Films can all education. If you want to understand what makes a movie great, all you have to do is watch many great movies. And this list of 25 of the best classic films ever made is an excellent starting point.

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25 classic and Hollywood films that you should see

1
Sherlock, Jr. (1924)

Still from Sherlock, Jr.
Metro-Goldwyn Pictures

If you have never seen a silent film before, this Buster Keaton Classic is the perfect to start - an idiotic and romantic game about a cinema projectionist who considers himself an amateur detective and is framed for a crime by a romantic rival. It is filled with innovative gags and sequences of physical comedy which last a century later.

2
It happened one night (1934)

it happened one night
AA Archive Film / Alamy Stock Photo

One of the few films to win the Top Five Oscars : Best film, best director, best actor, best actress and best adapted script, this vis -à -vis comedy follows two foreigners (played by Clark Gable And Claudette Colbert ) Who meet and fall in love during a cross-country bus journey… Despite a series of misadventures and hijinks along the way.

3
Married to Frankenstein (1935)

Still from Bride of Frankenstein
Universal images

Frankenstein is better known, but the rest is the best film. Dr. Frankenstein of the original has sworn to play God until he is forced to create a female company for his first monstrous creation. A triumph of cinema at all levels, he has since been reviewed for his Subversive queer subtext (director James Whale was a closed homosexual).

4
Wind (1939)

hattie mcdaniel and vivien leigh in gone with the wind
MGM

One of the greatest shows in Hollywood history, this adaptation of Margaret Mitchell The novel is epic in every sense of the word, of its production (with famous with several directors and a "distribution of thousands"), at its length (almost four hours), its success at the box office ( $ 3.4 billion in today's dollars ). His subject of civil war and his racial post-reconstructions attitudes are problematic today, but his central romance between Scarlett O'Hara ( Vivien Leigh ) and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) is forever.

5
Maltese falcon (1941)

Still from The Maltese Falcon
Warner Bros.

This densely dense criminal film embodies all the style and the tropes that would define the film Noir - a blasé detective ( Humphrey Bogart ), a sinister villain ( Peter Lorre ), an attractive fatal woman ( Mary Astor ), and a labyrinthine intrigue which mainly serves as a framework for scenes of bad people doing bad things in search of selfish ends.

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6
Children of Paradise (1945)

Still from Children of Paradise
Pathé Consortium Cinema

France's response to Wind , this epic drama, clandestine filmed German Occupation of the Second World War , takes place in the 1830s in Paris and exceeded the history of a courtesan (French fashion icon Arletty ) and four different men who fall in love with her over a period of years.

7
The Red Shoes (1948)

Still from The Red Shoes
General films distributors

This show Luride Technicolor from the British cinema duo Michael Powell And Emeric Pressburger is the story of a prodigy page from the Victoria ballet ( Moira Sherrer ) which falls under the influence of a charismatic dance instructor and demanding Boris Lermontov ( Anton Walbrook ) and fight against the requirements of playing his expectations and sacrificing the rest of his life to meet them. Printed with dreamlike images, it is very remarkable for a 17 -minute recreation from the titular ballet, which uses cinema towers to take us to the fractured psyche of Victoria. AE0FCC31AE342FD3A1346EBB1F342FCB

8
The third man (1949)

Orson Welles in The Third Man
Uber Bilder / Alamy Photo

This post-war cynical thriller of the United Kingdom gave Orson Welles One of the best roles in his career - even if the film makes you wait. Joseph Cotten Play an American who moves to Vienna to work for his war boyfriend, only to discover that his old friend is dead and there is a conspiracy in progress. To say much more would be a spoiler, but consider that the entry in the middle of the Welles film is considered one of the greatest in the history of cinema, and the unusual soundtrack - was fully efficient on the Zith - has become an unlikely success.

9
All about Eve (1950)

Still from All About Eve
20th Century Fox

Hollywood likes nothing more than the navel, and it is undoubtedly the biggest film on the movies ever made. Bette Davis Plays the siren of the aged screen Margo Channing, whose fame fades as it ages - conceived by connive Anne Baxter ), who will do everything to become a star. The acidic script is filled with some of the most memorable lines ever written, so attach your safety belts, because it will be a jumped night.

10
Sing in the rain (1952)

Still from Singin' in the Rain
Loew's Inc.

Another mouth on the screen, this musical featured Gene Kelly ,, Donald O'Connor , And Debbie Reynolds While three actors in an industry find it difficult to transition silent films to talks. Filled with idiotic physical comedy, catchy songs and a dance sequence bravera after the other, it is rightly considered one of the best Hollywood musicals ever made.

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11
Top at noon (1952)

Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in High Noon (1952)
Stanley Kramer Productions

A literal tic clock leads this propulsive western, which takes place in real time in the hours preceding a marshal in a city of Far West ( Gary Cooper ) Must decide to compete against a band of criminals or to flee and to leave the place fallen into anarchy. Former president Bill Clinton I liked this one so much , he projected it to the White House more than a dozen times.

12
Seven samurai (1954)

Still from Seven Samurai
Toho

Japanese cinema master Akira Kurosawa made a number of classics, but none endured like this epic story of a small village assisted by bandits and the improbable band of the unsuitable warriors who unite to defend it. If this configuration seems familiar, it is because it served as a spine for any number of quasi-rames, from The seven magnificent has The life of an insect .

13
the hunter's night (1955)

Still from Night of the Hunter
United artists

Actor who became director Charles Laughton I had never made a movie before trying to adapt Davis Grubb's novel the hunter's night For the screen, and its inexperience (and the limited budget of the film) are apparent on the screen in all the best ways. Laughton used actor and staging techniques He had learned in Broadway To lend a surrealist mixture of realism and artifice to the history of two young children fleeing the river, pursued by a former preacher of fanatic and self -proclaimed condemnation ( Robert Mitchum ) In search of booty, their father hid after a bank flight. The public and the criticisms of the time did not know what to do with it, but he is now considered a masterpiece.

14
The sweet smell of success (1957)

Still from Sweet Smell of Success
United artists

In this deeply cynical quasi-film, Burt Lancaster J.J. Hunsecker (based on real life Walter Winchell ), which uses its influence to ruin people's lives, and Tony Curtis is Sidney Falco, an impatient press agent too willing to do everything it takes to win the favor of Hunsecker. The barbedotic scenario plunges into the rotten heart of the media, shamelessly concentrating on a pair of irremediable scumbags that each intended to be the cancellation of the other.

15
From north to northwest (1959)

Still from North by Northwest
Warner Bros.

A perfect mixture of humor and thrills at high concept, this caper of spy about a man ad manhattan ( Cary Grant ) who is confused with a government agent and prosecuted across the country by harmful forces is the most purely entertaining film Alfred Hitchcock Never done - and that said something.

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16
Some love it hot (1959)

Still from Some Like It Hot
United artists

This hilarious and subversive comedy of the director Billy Wilder follows two musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon ) to Chicago of the era of prohibition which must go on flight after having witnessed a mafia. They choose to disguise themselves as women and join a fully female group on tour. Their act of infiltration leads to complicated relations with Sugar Kane ( Marilyn Monroe ) and the Millionaire in love Osgood Fielding III ( Joe E. Brown ).

17
Breathless (1960)

Still from Breathless
New Cinematography Company

This classic freewheel of the so-called "new wave" French new wave finds the director Jean-Luc Godard Bring all the rules of Hollywood cinema to a reinforcement effect while it follows brief and condemned romance between a young French criminal ( Jean-Paul Belmondo ) and his American girlfriend ( Jean Seberg ). Shoted on site with portable cameras and employing novel techniques from then on such as improvisation and jumping cuts, relaxed representation of sex, violence and young narcissism shocked the contemporary public and remains daring .

18
Laurence of Arabia (1962)

Still from Lawrence of Arabia
Columbia Pictures

Even 60 years later, director David Lean's Adaptation of the famous adventurer T.E. Lawrence Autobiography is one of the largest adventure epics ever filmed. The film depicts Lawrence's experiences in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War, and plunges into its allegations of duel to his homeland in Great Britain and the tribes of the Arabs he encounters in the desert and returns deeply. Fitting with questions of colonialism that persist until day and filmed with epic scope and greatness, he has continued to inspire generations of filmmakers and films, of Star wars has Dance with Wolve her Mad Max .

19
The graduation (1967)

Still from The Graduate
Embassy images

A certain mark of juvenile disillusionment with the American dream was crystallized in this dark comedy of maturity in which Dustin Hoffman Plays a university graduate without management who does not know what he wants to do with his life but will do everything to avoid becoming his father. Along the way, he falls into love enthusiasts with an older woman ( Anne Bancroft ) and her daughter ( Katharine Ross ). Although circumstances have changed during the almost 60 years since its release, its existential anxiety air remains as indelible as its Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack .

20
Rosemary Baby (1968)

Still from Rosemary's Baby
Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Photo

A masterpiece of slow combustion horror, Polanski novel Adaptation of Will levin The novel follows the holder rosemary ( Mia Farrow ), who moves with her actor husband in a building of buildings in Manhattan occupied by a strange assortment of people who seem well, path Too much invested in her pregnancy. While Rosemary becomes convinced that her neighbors have sinister plans for her child, she becomes more isolated and paranoid, and the film captures her detangling with an implacable atmosphere of dread.

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21
The latest photo show (1971)

Still from The Last Picture Show
Columbia Pictures

This drama of transition to adulthood marked the beginnings of director of Peter Bogdanovich , who co-wrote the scenario based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Larry McMurtry ( Lone dove ). In a superb black and white cinematography, he captures the goalless generational boredom of a growing group of teenagers in a small town in Texas in the early 1950s. Jeff Bridges ,, Ben Johnson ,, Ellen Burstyn , And Cloris Leachman were all nominated at the Oscars for their performances (with Johnson and Leachman winning), while the scenario, management and cinematography of the film were also honored.

22
Cabaret (1972)

Liza Minnelli in Cabaret
Allied artists

Bob The adaptation of the musical of the Kander and EBB scene is a dark and austere masterpiece of the rise of fascism in Berlin in the 1930s. Liza Minnelli has become an international superstar playing Sally Bowles, an interpreter of the Kit-Kat Klub Seedy (supervised by Joel Gray Createy and charismatic master of ceremonies) trying to embrace a bohemian lifestyle in a free wheel even though the city is seized by fear and paranoia. With an inventive staging and a dark commitment to Cabaret Moral and political message, Fosse has designed a historic parable that remains just as relevant today.

23
The exorcist (1973)

Still from The Exorcist
Warner Bros.

The demonic possession films are a penny a dozen, but none compared to the Classic OG. The time and the rehearsal of the tropes did nothing to mitigate the impact of the director William Friedkin Adaptation of William Peter Blatty novel about a young girl ( Linda Blair ) Welcoming a malicious entity and her mother's mother (Ellen Burstyn) tries to save her soul with the help of a priest called into question by a crisis of faith.

24
The conversation (1974)

Still from The Conversation
Paramount pictures

Released between The Godfather And The godfather, Part II , this thriller tinged with paranoia completes a race for three films by the director Francis Ford Coppola Unmatched in the history of Hollywood. Gene hackman Plays Harry Caul, a surveillance specialist who tries to catch two lovers in an illicit case and inadvertently records proof of a murder plot. Fearing for his safety as well as the moral weight of his actions, it fights on what to do with recording while his grip on his mental health begins to loosen.

25
Taxi driver (1976)

Still from Taxi Driver
Columbia Pictures

Robert de Niro assured his reputation as a biggest actor of his generation with his turn as Travis Bickle, the holder taxi driver, a young veteran mentally unbalanced and angry Vietnam sailing in New York in his shabby depths in the 70s. Director Martin Scorsese Never wasted by depicting the violence and moral decomposition of the city, against which grapes as a disturbed vigilant (particularly interested in the fate of a young sex worker played by a teenager Jodie Foster ) - Not the hero that the city needs, but the one it deserves.


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