The Essential Classic Movie List
The Movies for a Classic Film Foundation
* = note
**=won best picture
Romantic Comedies/ Romantic
The Awful Truth (1937)
It Happened One Night (1934)**
Libeled Lady (1936)
The Awful Truth (1937)
Holiday (1938)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
You Can’t Take it With You (1938) **
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Only Angels have Wings (1939)
Ninotchka (1939)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Philadelphia Story (1940)
The Lady Eve (1941)
Ball of Fire (1941)
Palm Beach Story (1942)
The Quiet Man (1952)
Roman Holiday (1953)
Some Like it Hot (1959)
The Apartment (1960)**
The Thin Man Movies (also go under Mysteries) (1934-1947)
Film Noir
The Big Combo (1955)
Maltese Falcon (1941)
Laura (1944)
Murder, My Sweet (1944)
Double Indemnity (1944)
Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Detour (1945)
Gilda (1946)
The Killers (1946)
Blue Dahlia (1946)
The Big Sleep (1946)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Out of the Past (1947)
Body and Soul (1947)
Cry of the City (1948)
The Third Man (1949)
Criss Cross (1949)
D.O.A. (1950)
Big Heat (1953)
The Big Combo (1955)
Musicals
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Top Hat (1935)
Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935)
Swing Time (1936)
Born to Dance (1936)
Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
Meet Me in St Louis (1944)
The Harvey Girls (1946)
Easter Parade (1948)
On the Town (1949)
Annie Get Your Gun (1950)
An American in Paris (1951)**
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Brigadoon (1954)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
Oklahoma (1955)
West Side Story (1961)**
My Fair Lady (1964)**
Sound of Music (1965)**
Dramas
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
How Green Was My Valley (1941)**
Melodramas
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Grand Hotel (1932)**
Dark Victory (1939)
Gone with the Wind (1939)**
The Little Foxes (1941)
Citizen Kane (1941) * the top film on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 best American movies
Casablanca (1942) (could also go under War and Romantic)**
Now, Voyager (1942)
Mr. Skeffington (1944)
Mildred Pierce (1945)
All About Eve (1950)**
A Place in the Sun (1951)
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952)
A Star is Born (1954)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Written on the Wind (1956)
Ben Hur (1959)**
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)**
Adventure/Action
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Gunga Din (1939)
King Kong (1939)
The African Queen (1951)
Spartacus (1960)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) * considered the ending year of classic movies **
Gangster
The Public Enemy (1931)
Little Caesar (1931)
High Sierra (1941)
White Heat (1949)
Scarface (1932)
Force of Evil (1948)
Key Largo (1948)
They Live by Night (1948)
On the Waterfront (1954)**
Rififi (1955)
War
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)**
Sergeant York (1941)
Mrs. Minivier (1944)**
The Best Years of our Lives (1946)**
Battleground (1949)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)**
The Longest Day (1962)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Mystery/Suspense * (A lot of Hitchcock under this; he can sometimes cross into Film Noir)
The 39 Steps (1935)
Rebecca (1940)**
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)(considered the most “perfectly told” film; Hitchcock’s favorite film)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Rear Window (1954)
Vertigo (1958)
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
The Birds (1963)
Thin Man Movies (1934-1947)
Western
Stagecoach (1939)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
Red River (1948)
High Noon (1952)
Shane (1953)
The Searchers (1956)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Man from Laramie (1955)
Rio Bravo (1959)
3:10 to Yuma (1957)
Winchester '73 (1950)
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
True Grit (1969)
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Christmas
Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Remember the Night (1940)
Holiday Inn (1942)
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
The Bishop’s Wife (1947)
It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
White Christmas (1954)