When we talk about the Hollywood’s golden age and film history in general, and the most iconic films of all time, we most often think of the 1950s and 1960s when the film industry reached its peak and became a significant form of entertainment for the masses, but also the period before that.
It was the time that got us some of the most interesting and artistically valuable works in the history of cinema. This era produced so many movie masterpieces, and these ten are still worth watching in 2020.
Casablanca (1942)
Casablanca, an Oscar-winning movie, is a timeless tale of love, loss, and redemption in the Nazi era, premiered on November 26, 1942, in New York. A beautiful and sad love story with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the roles of Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund, two lovers whose relationship had to be sacrificed to fight the Nazis.
This film also stands out for the most memorable quotes from a movie, from “Here’s looking at you, kid!” and “We’ll always have Paris” to “Play it, Sam. Play As Time Goes By” and “Louis; I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Gone With The Wind (1939)
In the epic tale of love during the American Civil War, the beautiful and capricious daughter of a planter, Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), falls in love with the affectionate Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), who is engaged to Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland). As Scarlett persistently tries to win Ashley’s heart, charming adventurer Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) is captivated by her temperament.
Often proclaimed the best movie of all time, Gone With The Wind won eight Oscars out of a total of thirteen nominations, and with the runtime of 221 minutes, it is one of the longest Hollywood movies ever made.
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Chicago is a gangster-ruled city in 1929, filled with street shootings and illegal liquors. Two poor musicians, saxophonist Joe and bass player Jerry, play at a pub owned by a mobster. After a police raid hits the bar one night, Joe and Jerry are barely able to escape and go to a music agency in search of a new job. The problem is that the agency is looking for only two female musicians for a women’s orchestra traveling to Florida.
After they survived gangster shooting, aware that they both had to escape immediately, the imaginative Joe came up with the idea of changing into women, Jerry in Daphne and Joe in Josephine, and applying for members of that orchestra. After embarking on a trip with the ladies, Joe will fall for attractive singer Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe).
Rebel Without A Cause (1955)
When he is taken to the police station for drunkenness, troubled teenager Jim Stark (James Dean), who recently moved to Los Angeles with his family, is picked by his estranged parents, father Frank and mother, Carol.
Jim is moving to a new school after being kicked out of the previous one. In the new environment, he will also meet a troubled girl, Judy (Natalie Wood), and a slightly younger adolescent, John Crawford, called Plato (Sal Mineo). This film is a paradigmatic example of the coverage of the subject of rebellious youth in American cinema, with the significant placement of the story in the middle social class.
The Wizard Of Oz (1939)
The little girl Dorothy from Kansas (Judy Garland) and her dog Toto finds their selves in the magical land of Oz after their house has been blown away by the tornado. Here, Dorothy is greeted as a heroine because her house fell on an evil witch from the East.
Dorothy decides to find the great wizard in the city of Oz, the only one who can tell her how to go home. On her journey, Dorothy meets Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, who join her on her journey to Oz in search of brain, heart, and courage.
Citizen Kane (1941)
It is rumored that famed tycoon Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles) died in his lavish Florida mansion, Florida, with great excitement for the American public and the media. Upon learning that the deceased had died solitary, editor of a New York newspaper, immediately sent a group of his reporters to the scene to find out as much of the spicy details as possible about Kane’s life.
Citizen Kane won an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay, in 1942. The fascinating drama of legendary actor, screenwriter, and director Orson Welles, with the title of undoubtedly the most successful filmmaker’s debut project of all time, deservedly bears the epithets of one of the best, most significant and influential films in the history of cinema.
It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
As it snows on Christmas Eve in the picturesque town of Bedford Falls, desperate George Bailey (James Stewart), pressured by massive debt and intoxicated with alcohol, decides to commit suicide by jumping into the river. In an attempt to save him, St. Joseph sends a gentle Clarence (Henry Travers), a second-class angel to whom this particular “case” could help progress and gain wings.
Certainly the most beautiful and touching Christmas movie of all time, the director himself, three-time Oscar-winner Frank Capra, said it was his most successful work.
Rear Window (1954)
It was so difficult to choose which Alfred Hitchcock’s movie should end up on this list. Films like Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds, and others, are proof that Alfred Hitchcock was a genius. But, Rear Window is definitely a movie worth watching today. This film takes us to the life of photographer and journalist L.B. Jeffries (James Steward), trapped in his apartment due to his broken legs.
To shorten the time between the visit of the glamorous girl Lisa (Grace Kelly) and the caregiver Stella (Thelma Ritter), Jeffries has fun watching the neighbors with binoculars. Out of boredom, he comes up with a scenario in which one of the neighbors killed his wife and got rid of the body. In an unexpected turn of events, his scenario could come true. As in plenty of Hitchcock’s films, the main character is an everyman whose curiosity gets him in trouble.
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
The story is placed in New Orleans after World War II. Southerner Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) is an impoverished former aristocrat, a fragile and neurotic middle-aged woman who is desperate for her place in the world.
Trying to escape her past, marked by severe alcohol addiction, the loss of an inherited plantation, and seduction of a minor, Blanche arrives to visit her younger sister, Stella Kowalski. She is married to the striking, but also rude and vulgar worker Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), a member of a new industrial-immigrant generation who drinks and smokes too much and acts as the boss of the house. Hoping to find shelter from frustration and the past, by staying with her sister, Blanche will soon come to grips with the violent Stanley.
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
One of the most famous musicals of all time, Singin’ in the Rain, was directed by Arthur Freed, otherwise known for the Academy Award-winning musical An American in Paris. The plot revolves around two well-known silent movie actors, Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Line Lamont (Jean Hagen).
In the meantime, the movie industry of the 1920s was quickly flooded with sound films (so-called “talkies”) and overshadowed the silent glory. One day, young, sweet, and promising Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds) gets into the story by winning a charmer Don, and those two come up with the idea of how to save Don’s latest movie from doom.
