The Best Classic Movies
by cmarrow05 | created - 05 Jan 2012 | updated - 17 Jan 2012 | PublicThe best movies from the 30's, 40's, 50's & 60's.
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1. Psycho (1960)
R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin
Votes: 717,961 | Gross: $32.00M
2. The Birds (1963)
PG-13 | 119 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery
A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette
Votes: 204,418 | Gross: $11.40M
3. 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: 38,445 | Gross: $0.20M
4. A Foreign Affair (1948)
Approved | 116 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
In occupied Berlin, an army captain is torn between an ex-Nazi café singer and the U.S. congresswoman investigating her.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Jean Arthur, Marlene Dietrich, John Lund, Millard Mitchell
Votes: 8,554
5. The Set-Up (1949)
Approved | 73 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Sport
Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Alan Baxter
Votes: 10,076
6. Scarface (1932)
PG | 93 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An ambitious and nearly insane violent gangster climbs the ladder of success in the mob, but his weaknesses prove to be his downfall.
Directors: Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson | Stars: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins
Votes: 30,296
7. 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: 498,962
8. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Not Rated | 96 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
After a divorced New York mother hires a nice old man to play Santa Claus at Macy's, she is startled by his claim to be the genuine article. When his sanity is questioned, a lawyer defends him in court by arguing that he's not mistaken.
Director: George Seaton | Stars: Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Gene Lockhart
Votes: 54,901 | Gross: $2.65M
9. The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Passed | 112 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A major heist goes off as planned, but then double crosses, bad luck and solid police work cause everything to unravel.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore
Votes: 29,928
10. Lolita (1962)
Not Rated | 153 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A middle-aged college professor becomes infatuated with a 14-year-old girl.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: James Mason, Shelley Winters, Sue Lyon, Gary Cockrell
Votes: 108,752 | Gross: $9.25M
11. The Talk of the Town (1942)
Approved | 118 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
An escaped prisoner has to prove his innocence to a stuffy law professor with the help of a spirited school teacher.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman, Edgar Buchanan
Votes: 9,116
12. 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: 27,904 | Gross: $4.66M
13. 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: 74,956
14. 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: 121,353 | Gross: $9.60M
15. Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
Passed | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
The friendship between two orphans endures even though they grow up on opposite sides of the law and fall in love with the same woman.
Directors: W.S. Van Dyke, Jack Conway, George Cukor | Stars: Clark Gable, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Leo Carrillo
Votes: 4,804
16. Casablanca (1942)
PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, War
A cynical expatriate American cafe owner struggles to decide whether or not to help his former lover and her fugitive husband escape the Nazis in French Morocco.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains
Votes: 605,757 | Gross: $1.02M
17. 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: 521,847 | Gross: $36.76M
18. The Big Sleep (1946)
Passed | 114 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a wealthy family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail and what might be love.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers
Votes: 90,491 | Gross: $6.54M
19. 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: 167,385 | Gross: $5.72M
20. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Passed | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A married woman and a drifter fall in love and then plot to murder her husband.
Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn
Votes: 22,869 | Gross: $8.33M
21. Rope (1948)
Approved | 80 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Two men attempt to prove they committed the perfect crime by hosting a dinner party after strangling their former classmate to death.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Dick Hogan
Votes: 153,556
22. Vertigo (1958)
PG | 128 min | Mystery, Romance, Thriller
A former San Francisco police detective juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with the hauntingly beautiful woman he has been hired to trail, who may be deeply disturbed.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore
Votes: 426,695 | Gross: $3.20M
23. Wife vs. Secretary (1936)
Passed | 88 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
The wife of a publishing executive mistakenly believes that her husband's relationship with his attractive secretary is more than professional.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, May Robson
Votes: 3,869
24. 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: 69,534 | Gross: $10.25M
25. 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: 73,823
26. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958)
Passed | 66 min | Horror, Sci-Fi
When an abused socialite grows to giant size because of an alien encounter and an aborted murder attempt, she goes after her cheating husband with revenge on her mind.
Director: Nathan Juran | Stars: Allison Hayes, William Hudson, Yvette Vickers, Roy Gordon
Votes: 6,260 | Gross: $0.48M
27. The Naked City (1948)
Not Rated | 96 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A step-by-step look at a murder investigation on the streets of New York.
Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor
Votes: 15,491
28. It Happened One Night (1934)
Passed | 105 min | Comedy, Romance
A rogue reporter trailing a runaway heiress for a big story joins her on a bus heading from Florida to New York and they end up stuck with each other when the bus leaves them behind at one of the stops along the way.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Walter Connolly, Roscoe Karns
Votes: 112,222 | Gross: $4.36M
29. A Day at the Races (1937)
Passed | 111 min | Comedy, Family, Musical
A veterinarian posing as a doctor teams with a singer and his friends as they struggle to save an upstate New York sanitarium with the help of a misfit racehorse.
Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Allan Jones
Votes: 14,581
30. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Passed | 108 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
A teenage girl, overjoyed when her favorite uncle comes to visit the family in their quiet California town, slowly begins to suspect that he is in fact the "Merry Widow" killer sought by the authorities.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers
Votes: 70,476
31. 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: 188,700 | Gross: $0.01M
32. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
PG | 95 min | Comedy, War
An unhinged American general orders a bombing attack on the Soviet Union, triggering a path to nuclear holocaust that a war room full of politicians and generals frantically tries to stop.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn
Votes: 517,978 | Gross: $0.28M
33. Strangers on a Train (1951)
PG | 101 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A psychopathic man tries to forcibly persuade a tennis star to agree to his theory that two strangers can get away with murder by submitting to his plan to kill the other's most-hated person.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll
Votes: 140,966 | Gross: $7.63M
34. 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: 283,425 | Gross: $25.00M
35. A Night at the Opera (1935)
Passed | 96 min | Comedy, Music, Musical
A sly business manager and the wacky friends of two opera singers in Italy help them achieve success in America while humiliating their stuffy and snobbish enemies.
Directors: Sam Wood, Edmund Goulding | Stars: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle
Votes: 34,751 | Gross: $2.54M
36. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
PG | 122 min | Drama
Disturbed Blanche DuBois moves in with her sister in New Orleans and is tormented by her brutish brother-in-law while her reality crumbles around her.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden
Votes: 114,303 | Gross: $8.00M
37. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
PG-13 | 111 min | Drama
A rebellious young man with a troubled past comes to a new town, finding friends and enemies.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus
Votes: 97,914
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