Movies can be awesome.
A good film often speaks volumes on how society envisions its future. Our most epic fantasies reflect our most sincere ambitions, our desires, our hope. Some films present those ambitions with such audacity and charisma that they remain etched in the fabric of pop culture for decades. Those films transform a genre. Those films define an era. Those films are classics. In no particular order, here are some of the best classic films the industry has to offer:
Rear Window – Alfred Hitchcock
A classic films list would remain incomplete without mention of Alfred Hitchcock. Rear Window, at the time of its release, provided moviegoers a close-quarters, murder thriller unlike anything previously envisioned. The groundbreaking crime drama simultaneously glues audiences to the edge of their seat while cultivating a brand new genre of film right before their eyes. With intensely subdued performances from its leads, the film slips between the minds of viewers, toying with their sense of intrigue and suspense.
Bonnie and Clyde – Arthur Penn
Perhaps the real life events of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow would not have reached such astronomical levels of infamousy without the help of Arthur Penn’s legendary story of human life. Bonnie and Clyde serves as more than just your run-of-the-mill crime romance. The film traverses the full range of human emotions as the soaring highs of romance fade into the bleakness of crime and consequence.
The Birds – Alfred Hitchcock
Sometimes you have to double-dip. The “Master of Suspense” forever leaves his mark on horror and thriller with the help of a villainous flock of fowl. The Birds tells the story of a town’s nightmare plague at the hands (or claws) of rogue birds, derailing a kindling romance between the two main characters. The premise may seem silly, but the horrid howls and shrieks of birds bombarding school children and men burning alive squanders any of the audience’s attempts at cracking a smile. At the helm of the town’s peculiar situation, long, swaying periods of tension and release stitch each scene together in harrowing detail, a grotesque thing of beauty sure to make great viewing.
2001: A Space Odyssey – Stanley Kubrick
These days, nobody makes a movie like Stanley Kubrick did. The epic space fantasy 2001: A Space Odyssey bursted into life in 1968, dazzling and perplexing audiences from start to finish. Littered with subliminal messages and images, the one-of-a-kind film may take more than a single viewing to fully grasp the scope of Kubrick’s vision, but the film’s demands are more than made up for in thematic experience.
Alien – Ridley Scott
Grim, ghastly and bold, Alien stands apart from any other horror film in terms of intensity and atmosphere. Scene-to-scene the movie never takes a moment’s rest, suspending a thick veil of fear over every turn the camera takes, every lull in dialogue, over every second of the film’s runtime. Scott’s vision not only spurred one of the most successful film franchises in history, but birthed a whole new way to make and watch horror films.
