40 classic movies of all time
We have compiled a list of 40 film classics that brings together the best films of all time, arranged chronologically and accompanied by a short synopsis. Each proposed title has earned its place as a fundamental reference in the history of cinematography and culture in general, and that is why we consider them unmissable. The list covers various genres such as drama, comedy, suspense, horror, science fiction, animation, musicals, historical films and epics.
1. Nosferatu, 1922
director: Friedrich W. Murnau
Script: Henrik Galeen
Gender: Terror.
Protagonists: Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Alexander Granach and Greta Schröeder.
Synopsis: Based on the book Dracula by Bram Stoker, Nosferatu It is a classic of German expressionism. A real estate broker named Hutter must sell Count Graf Orlock's castle. Hutter has not realized that he is, in fact, a vampire. Earl Orlock takes an interest in Ellen, Hutter's wife.
2. The battleship Potemkin, 1925
director: Sergei Eisenstein.
Script: Sergei Eisenstein and Nina Agadzhanova.
Gender: historical drama.
Protagonists: Aleksandr Antonov, Grigori Aleksandrov, Vladimir Barsky, Mikhail Gomorov, Aleksandr Levshin, Ivan Bobrov and Konstantin Feldman.
Synopsis: The battleship Potemkin it is a film inscribed in the Russian formalism. Based on real events, it tells the story of the crew of a ship that is abused by the officers until they decide to mutiny.
3. Metropolis, 1927
director: Fritz Lang
Script: Thea von Harbou
Gender: science fiction, dystopia.
Protagonists: Gustav Fröhlich, Brigitte Helm, Rudolf Klein-Rogge and Alfred Abel.
Synopsis: This film is part of German Expressionism. It represents a contextualized dystopia in the year 2000, in which the rich dominate the luxuries and means of production while the workers are confined underground. Everything is shocked when the rich young man Freder falls in love with María, a humble woman who preaches good among her equals. Freder notices an uprising.
4. The passion of Joan of Arc, 1928
director: Carl Theodor Dreyer.
Script: Carl Theodor Dreyer and Joseph Delteil.
Gender: historical drama.
Protagonists: Maria Falconetti, Eugene Silvain, Maurice Schutz, Michel Simon, André Berley and Antonin Artaud.
Synopsis: It is a historical drama of the silent film, which focuses on the trial and death of Joan of Arc, the warrior of the Middle Ages that led France to her victory over the English, claiming to receive messages heavenly. However, she is accused of witchcraft and is prosecuted for it.
5. An Andalusian dog, 1929
director: Luis Buñuel.
Script: Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí.
Gender: drama, experimental cinema.
Protagonists: Pierre Batcheff, Simone Mareuil and Salvador Dalí.
Synopsis: This is a Franco-Spanish surrealist short film, the script of which was the result of a collaboration between Luis Buñuel and the artist Salvador Dalí. The story begins with a man who sharpens his razor and cuts a woman's eye, after seeing how a cloud cuts the moon.
You can also see: Luis Buñuel: main films and stages. of the genius of Spanish cinema.
6. The lights of the city, 1931
director: Charles Chaplin
Script: Charles Chaplin.
Gender: comedy.
Protagonists: Charles Chaplin, Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee, and Harry Myers.
Synopsis: A homeless man falls in love with a blind flower seller. Eventually, the young woman tells him that they will take away the house where she lives with her grandmother. The tramp, who has an unusual friendship with a rich man, looks for a way to help her.
7. Modern times, 1936
director: Charles Chaplin.
Script: Charles Chaplin.
Gender: comedy.
Protagonists: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Chester Conklin, and Stanley Stanford.
Synopsis: A worker works inside a factory and goes crazy when he is subjected to the frenetic pace of mass production. Upon leaving the hospital, he accidentally got involved in a demonstration and was arrested by the authorities. Once free, finding himself without the means to survive, the man joins a young orphan whom he meets on the street to help each other.
It may interest you: Charles Chaplin: 10 key films to understand his cinema.
8. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937
director: David Hand.
Script: Ted Sears, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Dick Richard, and Webb Smith.
Gender: animation, children.
Synopsis: Based on the Brothers Grimm story, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs It is Walt Disney's first animated feature film and is undoubtedly a classic of the genre. It tells the story of a young woman in the care of her stepmother, a vain witch who envies her beauty and decides to kill her. Snow White flees into the forest and takes refuge in a house full of dwarfs. When the witch discovers her, she will go after her footprint.
9. The Wizard of Oz, 1939
director: Victor Fleming.
Script: Noël Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Alan Wolfe.
Gender: musical.
Protagonists: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, Clara Blandick, and Charley Grapewin.
Synopsis: The Wizard of Oz is a musical based on the homonymous tale by Lyman Frank Baum. It tells the story of Dorothy, a young woman from Kansas who dreams of leaving that place, who is dragged by a tornado to a magical kingdom. She there she will meet a lion, a tin man and a scarecrow. Together with her friends, Dorothy must look for the Wizard of Oz to find her way back home.
10. gone With the Wind, 1939
director: Victor Fleming, George Cukor and Sam Wood.
Script: Sidney Howard, Oliver H.P. Garrett, Ben Hecht, Jo Swerling, and John Van Druten.
Gender: historical drama.
Protagonists: Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Olivia de Havilland and Leslie Howard.
Synopsis: It is a classic of American cinema based on the homonymous novel by Margaret Mitchell. The story begins in the run-up to the Civil War. Scarlett O'Hara is a pretentious and selfish young woman from southern society, infatuated with young Ashley, an honorable man betrothed to her cousin Meredith hers. In the middle of a great celebration, Scarlett meets the adventurer Red Buttler, who struggles to conquer her. But when war breaks out, the South collapses and the capricious Scarlett must find a way to survive and look after her family.
11. The great Dictator, 1940
director: Charles Chaplin.
Script: Charles Chaplin.
Gender: comedy.
Distribution: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie, Reginald Gardiner, Henry Daniell, Grace Hayle, Carter De Haven, Billy Gilbert, and Maurice Moscovitch.
Synopsis: A Jewish barber is amnesiac after serving as a soldier in the First World War. After the war, the leader Adenoid Hynkel has taken power and started a persecution against the Jews, while he plans to conquer the world.
12. Philadelphia Stories, 1940
director: George Cukor
Script: Donald Ogden Stewart, Waldo Salt
Gender: comedy.
Protagonists: Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey, and John Howard.
Synopsis: The film is based on the work of Philip Barry. Two days before her second marriage, Tracy Lord receives an unexpected visit from her first husband and from the writer Macauly Connor, whom they have taken on as a reporter who will cover family scandals Lord. Tracy's fiancé, George Kitredge, begins to feel jealous.
13. Rebeca, 1940
director: Alfred Hitchcock.
Script: Robert E. Sherwood and Joan Harrison.
Gender: suspense.
Protagonists: Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine.
Synopsis: Based on the novel by Daphne Du Maurier, Rebeca tells the story of the widower Maxim de Winter marries a humble young woman whom he meets during a trip to Monte Carlo. Upon returning, they settle in Maxim's habitual residence in England. There, the young wife will discover that Rebecca's presence strangely occupies all the spaces.
14. Citizen Kane, 1941
director: Orson Welles.
Script: Orson Welles and Herman J. Mankiewicz.
Gender: drama.
Protagonists: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane, George Coulouris, Dorothy Comingore, and Ray Collins.
Synopsis: On his deathbed, the tycoon Charles Foster Kane, owner of several media outlets, utters the word Rosebud, which arouses the curiosity of the press and public opinion. Consequently, a group of journalists initiates an investigation to decipher the hidden meaning.
15. White House, 1942
director: Michael Curtiz.
Script: Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch.
Gender: drama, romance.
Protagonists: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid.
Synopsis: White House It is based on the work of Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. It tells the story of Victor Laszlo, a Czech leader of the resistance in times of Nazism and married to Ilse, who takes refuge in the city of Casablanca, Morocco. However, getting out of there is very difficult for those who appear on the Gestapo list. Rick Blaine, an American expatriate and Ilse's ex-lover, runs a café there where all kinds of clandestine characters meet, thanks to which he gets some safe-conducts. In his hands is the fate of Victor and Ilse.
16. Living is beautiful, 1946
director: Frank Capra.
Script: Frank Capra, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett.
Gender: fantastic drama.
Protagonists: James Stewart, Donna Reed and Henry Travers.
Synopsis: Clarence, a minor angel, is sent to Earth to persuade George Bailey not to commit suicide after the embezzlement he suffers and the scandal that hangs over him. Motivated by a desire for some good angel wings, Clarence sets out to show George the reasons why his existence has made the world a better place.
17. The rope, 1948
director: Alfred Hitchcock.
Script: Arthur Laurents and Hume Cronyn.
Gender: suspense, intrigue.
Protagonists: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Joan Chandler, Cedric Hardwicke, Dick Hogan, Douglas Dick, and Constance Collier.
Synopsis: Some students set out to prove to the professor and criminologist Rupert Cadell, that the perfect crime does exist. To do this, Bandon and Phillip organize a banquet in honor of their partner David Kentley and invite everyone close to them. Nobody knows it, but before they have assassinated David and they have hidden him in an ark that serves as a table for the banquet. Among the guests is Professor Cadell.
18. Rashomon, 1950
director: Akira Kurosawa.
Script: Akira Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto.
Gender: drama, suspense.
Protagonists: Toshirô Mifune, Machiko Kyô, Masayuki Mori, Takashi Shimura, Minoru Chiaki, Kichijirô Ueda, Noriko Honma and Daisuke Katô.
Synopsis: The film is set in the 12th century in China. The story begins when a Buddhist priest, a lumberjack, and a pilgrim take shelter from a torrential rain outside the Rashomon Temple. The three of them engage in a discussion about the trial facing a man accused of murdering a feudal lord and raping his wife. The story tells all the points of view of the situation.
19. Twilight of the gods (Sunset Boulevard), 1950
director: Billy Wilder.
Script: Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and D.M. Marshman Jr.
Gender: film noir.
Protagonists: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, and Nancy Olson.
Synopsis: Norma Desmond is a retired silent film actress who lives with her servant Max hers. Provides asylum to the young screenwriter Joe Gillis, who flees from his creditors. Norma, determined to return to the world of cinema, will try to get Gillis to correct a script that she has written.
20. Bicycle thief, 1950
director: Vitorio de Sica.
Script: Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica, Gherardo Gherardi, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Oreste Biancoli, Adolfo Franci and Gerardo Guerrieri.
Gender: drama.
Distribution: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola, Lianella Carell, Gino Saltamerenda, Vittorio Antonucci, Giulio Chiari, Fausto Guerzoni and Elena Altieri.
Synopsis: The bicycle thief is a film based on the book by Luigi Bartolini. The film belongs to the current of Italian neorealism. After the end of the war, Antonio gets a humble job fixing posters, for which he requires a bicycle. The same day you buy it, the bike is stolen. Thus, Antonio and his son Bruno begin a journey to get her back before returning home, where his wife, his wife, is waiting for him.
21. A Streetcar Named Desire, 1951
director: Elia Kazan.
Script: Tennessee Williams.
Gender: drama.
Protagonists: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter
Synopsis: A Streetcar Named Desire tells the story of Blanche, a mature woman from a broken southern family whose mysterious past has caused her nervous problems. Blanche must go live with her sister Stella and her violent husband, but her conflictive nature alters the order of things.
22. Singing under the rain, 1952
director: Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen.
Script: Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
Gender: musical.
Protagonists: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds.
Synopsis: Don Lockwood, an established silent film artist, meets the young Kathy Selden, who wishes to be an actress. Lockwood discovers in her the complement of her life and, open to the future, he proposes to take a step into the talkies with the actress. His obstacle will be Lina Lamont, the most famous actress in silent movies.
23. Rear window, 1954
director: Alfred Hitchcock.
Script: John Michael Hayes.
Gender: suspense.
Protagonists: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Judith Evelyn, Raymond Burr, and Wendell Corey.
Synopsis: Stewart is a photojournalist who is temporarily immobilized with a leg in a cast. For entertainment, he observes the life of his neighbors from the window with the help of binoculars. Everything changes when his suspicions arouse around the strange disappearance of her neighbor's wife.
24. Ben Hur, 1959
director: William Wyler.
Script: Karl Tunberg.
Gender: epic cinema.
Protagonists: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Stephen Boyd and Haya Harareet.
Synopsis: The film is based on a novel by Karl Tunberg. The story takes place in the year 30 AD. C. Judah Ben-Hur, a man of Jewish origin, and Meshala, of Roman origin, break their friendship when Judah refuses to collaborate in the capture of supposed "enemies" of Rome in Jerusalem. By an accident, Judah Ben-Hur is accused of attempting against the Roman procurator and he, his mother and his sister are arrested by Mesala. Ben-Hur vows revenge. However, the encounter with a man named Jesus of Nazareth will take an unexpected turn.
25. Hiroshima, my love, 1959
director: Alain Resnais.
Script: Marguerite Duras.
Gender: drama, romance.
Protagonists: Emmanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada.
Synopsis: Alain Resnais, a French actress, has a one-night stand with a Japanese man, after finishing a movie in Hiroshima. The relationship awakens in her the memories of her first love with a German soldier in the middle of the Second World War. The actress and her lover begin an introspective process where love, war, memory and oblivion will be the threads of history.
26. Psychosis, 1960
director: Alfred Hitchcock.
Script: Joseph Stefano.
Gender: suspense.
Protagonists: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, John Gavin, Vera Miles, John McIntire, Martin Balsam, Simon Oakland, and Patricia Hitchcock.
Synopsis: After having stolen money from the company, Marion flees and hides in a modest motel in the care of shy Norman Bates and his mother. A week later, Marion's sister begins the search for her by giving her up for missing, coinciding in a store with investigator Milton Arbogast, who is on the trail of money.
27. La dolce vita, 1960
director: Federico Fellini.
Script: Federico Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano and Brunello Rondi.
Gender: drama.
Protagonists: Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg.
Synopsis: Narrated in seven episodes, La dolce vita tells the story of Marcelo Rubini, a social reporter dissatisfied with the bourgeois world that he is forced to frequent. One day, Rubini discovers that Sylvia, a celebrity of the show, is in the city, and decides to follow her for several days in search of great news.
28. Breakfast at Tiffany's, 1961
director: Blake Edwards.
Script: George Axelrod.
Gender: romance.
Protagonists: Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard.
Synopsis: Also known as Breakfast with diamondsBased on a novel by Truman Capote, this film tells the story of young New Yorker Holly Golightly and aspiring writer Paul Varjak. She is a woman of extravagant luxury, who likes to have breakfast in front of the Tiffany’s jewelry store. He aspires to fame while being supported by a mature woman. When they meet, their lives will take an unexpected turn.
29. West Side Story, 1961
director: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins.
Script: Ernest Lehman.
Gender: musical.
Protagonists: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno and George Chakiris.
Synopsis: In New York City, two gangs, the Puerto Rican Sharks and the Jets, Americans of European descent, vie for control of the neighborhood. María, sister of the Puerto Rican gang boss, has just arrived in town. In the middle of the dispute, she and a young Jets fall in love. Their romance, which Romeo and Juliet, is caught up in the confrontation between gangs.
30. Mary Poppins, 1964
director: Robert Stevenson.
Script: Bill Walsh and Don DaGrad.
Gender: musical.
Protagonists: Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke.
Synopsis: Jane and Michael are two rebellious children, children of a banker and a suffragette, in London at the beginning of the 20th century. His defiant behavior, due to the lack of attention from his father, summons the presence of a very special nanny, the magical Mary Poppins. This film is a musical that uses film and animation, which meant a real revolution in the cinema of those years.
31. Doctor Zhivago, 1965
director: David Lean.
Script: Robert Bolt.
Gender: drama.
Protagonists: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie and Geraldine Chaplin.
SynopsisYevgraf Zhivago is a KGB agent looking for his half brother, Yuri Zhivago, a poet and doctor. Zhivago becomes engaged in his youth to the daughter of his adoptive family, Tonya. In the middle of it, he falls in love with Lara, a beautiful young woman wanted by a mature lawyer and politician. Everything is turned upside down when Russia, after the 1917 Revolution, joins the First World War.
32. The rebellious novice or Smiles and tears, 1965
director: Robert Earl Wise.
Script: Ernest Lehman.
Gender: musical.
Protagonists: Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.
Synopsis: Maria is a novice with a creative and joyful spirit. The abbess of the Nonnberg convent in Austria decides to send her as governess to the children of the retired captain Georg Von Trapp, who has recently become widowed. With no experience with children, the captain has turned the home into a barracks, so Maria sets out to summon joy again. However, the advance of the Nazis on Austria turns their fate.
33. Person, 1966
director: Ingmar Bergman.
Script: Ingmar Bergman.
Gender: suspense.
Protagonists: Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, Margaretha Krook, Gunnar Björnstrand and Jörgen Lindström.
Synopsis: After performing the play Electra, the actress Elisabeth loses her voice, which is why she is admitted to a clinic. There, she meets Alma, a nurse who is committed to taking care of her and intends to make her speak again. They both go to a summer house where little by little the relationship grows closer and the limits of identity are put into play. Upon the arrival of Elisabeth's husband, things are upset.
34. 2001: a space odyssey, 1968
director: Stanley Kubrick.
Script: Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke.
Gender: Science fiction.
Protagonists: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester and Douglas Rain.
Synopsis: Millions of years before homo sapiens, some primates find a black monolith that allows them to discover tools and weapons. A narrative ellipse directs the viewer to the space world in 1999, when a shuttle heads to the Moon to study the monolith that has been buried for millions of years. It has a crew of five astronauts and has a computer called Hal 9000, equipped with artificial intelligence, which has received precise instructions to carry out a mission unstoppable.
It may interest you: 2001: Stanley Kubrick's Space Odyssey: Summary and Analysis.
35. A clockwork orange, 1971
director: Stanley Kubrick.
Script: Stanley Kubrick.
Gender: drama, dystopia.
Protagonists: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Adrienne Corri and Miriam Karlin.
Synopsis: Based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, A clockwork orange tells the story of Alex, a young man with no purpose in life. Together with his companions Dim, Pete and Georgie, he is dedicated to vandalizing the city and assaulting innocents for fun. After a terrible crime, Alex is taken to prison. There he voluntarily undergoes experimental treatment to tame his violent instincts and his antisocial behavior.
You may also like: Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange: Summary and Analysis.
36. The Godfather, 1972
director: Francis Ford Coppola.
Script: Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo.
Gender: drama.
Protagonists: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Richard Castellano and Diane Keaton.
Synopsis: Based on a novel by Mario Puzzo, the story begins in the 1940s. Don Corleone is the head of a family of gangsters in New York. He, who has four children, refuses to participate in the drug business, which sparks a confrontation between the city's mafias. The Godfather had three deliveries: the first in 1972, followed by those in 1974 and 1990.
37. Apocalypse Now, 1979
director: Francis Ford Coppola.
Script: John Milius and Francis Ford Coppola.
Gender: war drama.
Protagonists: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Harrison Ford, and Dennis Hopper.
Synopsis: Based on the novel by Joseph Conrad. Captain Willard has been appointed by the US government to go to Cambodia and eliminate the renegade Colonel Kurtz, who has lost his mind. When he finds him, deep in the jungle, he discovers that the Montagnard tribe pays him the honors of a divine being.
38. The glow, 1980
director: Stanley Kubrick.
Script: Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson.
Gender: horror, psychological drama.
Protagonists: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd and Scatman Crothers.
Synopsis: Based on a novel by Stephen King. Hoping to overcome his writer's block, Jack Torrance agrees to guard the Overlook Hotel in Colorado while it remains closed for the winter. He settles there in the company of his wife and son, but things get complicated when a series of paranormal events manifest themselves and Jack begins to terrorize his family.
39. Babette's Feast, 1987
director: Gabriel Axel.
Script: Gabriel Axel.
Gender: drama.
Protagonists: Stéphane Audran, Birgitte Federspiel and Bodil Kjer.
Synopsis: In a 19th-century Lutheran village, strictly Puritan, live two spinster sisters who give refuge to Babette, a cook fleeing the civil war in Paris. Babette cooks for them, observing the strict rules that even censor the pleasure of taste. One day, Babette wins the lottery and feasts on the best French culinary delicacies for the region, which fills them with dread.
40. cinema Paradiso, 1988
director: Giuseppe Tornatore.
Script: Giuseppe Tornatore.
Gender: drama.
Protagonists: Philippe Noiret, Jacques Perrin, Antonella Attili, Pupella Maggio and Salvatore Cascio.
Synopsis:
Salvatore is a small-town Italian mid-century boy whose fascination is going to the movies. There he meets the operator Alfredo, with whom he establishes a close friendship, as he is the one who deciphers the mysteries of audiovisual projection and with whom he shares his passion for cinema. Growing up, he leaves town to make his life, until thirty years later, he receives a letter demanding his presence.
See also: 130 movies recommended by genre that you can't miss.
