What exactly makes a movie a “classic” varies wildly and with the viewer, as does the appropriate timescale. For some, a movie from a decade ago might be eligible (I call these movie fans “children”). For others, you have to go back a lot further.
Today, I’m going to do the latter, taking a look at some of the great (or, at least, greatly entertaining) movies that were released no later than the tail end of 1970s. (Even if I find it personally distressing to label movies younger than I am “classics.”) Quibbling over semantics aside, these offerings prove how deeply rewarding it is to dig through the back catalog of motion picture history now and again.
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Virgil Tibbs’ (Sidney Poitier) entry into Sparta, Mississippi, at the outset of this steamy, socially conscious cop thriller unfolds like a scene from a horror movie, making clear the peril of a Black man in a southern town after dark. That’s of course before the sheriff realizes that Mr. Tibbs is the only one who can solve a murder. Though its politics are dated, this Norman Jewison-directed Oscar winner remains a landmark film of the Civil Rights movement.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi, Hoopla
Rocky (1976)
The long-running franchise has had its ups (the Creed films) and downs (that robot butler in Rocky IV), but the original remains one of the ultimate sports movies, with a ton of heart buoyed by characters who feel like real people. (It beat out Network and Taxi Driver for Best Picture and it’s hard to be mad about it.)
Where to stream: Max
All About Eve (1950)
I’m not sure that Hollywood ever turned out a sharper, funnier script than this one. If Bette Davis had only done All About Eve, she’d still be a legend. Is it one of the best black and white movies ever made? Yes.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Sounder (1972)
Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield are phenomenal in this drama about a family of deep south, Depression-era sharecroppers struggling to survive and to stay together.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Peacock, Tubi, Freevee
Casablanca (1940)
Everybody’s favorite golden-age Hollywood movie came by its reputation fairly: Bogart and Bergman have tremendous chemistry, and the film blends the doomed romance vibes with real suspense and a sense of humor that keeps the wartime atmosphere from getting too heavy.
Where to stream: Max
Jeanne Dielman, 32 Quai des Commerce (1975)
Recently named the best movie ever made in a stupidly controversial Sight & Sound critics’ poll, Chantal Ackerman’s three-hours-plus epic shows us three days in the life of a Brussels single mother; it’s gripping and tragic in its depiction of day-to-day drudgery, even as part-time sex worker Jeanne’s tricks turn out to be the least interesting parts of her day.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Black Girl (1966)
The movie that brought international attention to sub-Saharan African cinema. Black Girl stars Mbissine Thérèse Diop as Diouana, who is isolated and treated as less than human by her French employers as she reflects on her earlier life in Senegal.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Metropolis (1927)
Fritz Lang’s story of a future city starkly divided between the haves and the have-nots remains visually stunning, and its themes are no less relevant now than they were nearly a century ago.
Where to stream: Tubi, Crackle, Kanopy, Redbox, Pluto TV, Plex
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
Snappy dialogue, interesting, believable characters, and women who are at least as cool and interesting as the men: This Howard Hawks’ romantic adventure is mostly about pilots just hanging out in a South American town, with every takeoff and landing a potential tragedy.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Two musicians get in drag in order to escape from mobsters in this classic Billy Wilder vehicle for Marilyn Monroe, at the peak of her powers here. Nobody’s perfect, but this movie is close.
Where to stream: Max
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
A deliberately paced mind-bender, Stanley Kubrick and company take us from the origins of violence to a hypnotically engaging and highly detailed mid-century modern future where we come face to face with our own evolution.
Where to stream: Max
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
A very satisfying and thoroughly unpretentious crime thriller in which four men hijack a New York City subway train, demanding money in exchange for a release of their hostages and the car itself. The high tension and NYC setting are highlights, as is the cast: Walter Matthau as the lead police lieutenant is believably human while adding a touch of humor. Héctor Elizondo, Martin Balsam, Robert Shaw, Jerry Stiller, and Doris Roberts also put in solid performances.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi, MGM+
American Graffiti (1973)
Nostalgia’s nothing new. George Lucas’ American Graffiti takes us back to the last day of high school for a bunch of teenagers in the 1960s, as the director makes clear that some aspects of growing up are fairly universal, and that he has something to say about more than galactic space battles.
Where to stream: Tubi
The Last Picture Show (1971)
Another flashback to a bygone era, this one set in a dying small town in Texas. One of the best movies of the 1970s, Peter Bogdanovich’s breakout is mercifully free of the rosy glow that the high school films of the ‘70s leaned into.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
A cinematic slice of pure joy, with a number of truly great musical numbers punctuated by some genuinely hilarious performances. For my money, the best musical of the era (and far weirder than you’re probably imagining).
Where to stream: Max
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
A soaring, candy-colored musical about young lovers (Catherine Deneuve and Nino Castelnuovo) separated by circumstance in the titular city. Pretty much every word is sung. In French. Watch it anyway!
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, Kanopy
Stormy Weather (1943)
There's not a ton of plot here, with the film serving instead as a showcase for the talents of some of the biggest Black talent in Hollywood of the era. And that's plenty. Starring Bill Robinson, better known as Mr. Bojangles, the movie is presented as a retrospective of his life, with Lena Horne offering up an indelible, thrilling performance of the title song. Cab Calloway and Fats Waller also appear and perform, as does Casablanca's Paul Dooley.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Gloria Swanson was just 50 when she was cast as the horrifyingly outdated silent-film star at the center of this very dark comedy/film noir. Doesn’t matter, she kills it.
Where to stream: Paramount+
Sunrise (1927)
With some of the most brilliant cinematography and camerawork of the silent era, F. W. Murnau tells a story of romance (and attempted murder) that feels epic, even with stakes that, ultimately, aren’t any bigger than the marriage between the film’s troubled couple.
Where to stream: Tubi, The Roku Channel, Hoopla
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)
The brilliant Melvin Van Peebles wrote, directed, produced, and scored this film that kicked off the Blaxploitation genre, and bested all its imitators by playing like a hyper-stylized slice of life. Made for $150,000, it pulled down over $15 million at the box office.
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Just an old-fashioned love story about the romance between a young engaged couple, a genderfluid scientist, and a jacked lab experiment. A cult classic now too famous to qualify as a cult classic, and for good reason.
Where to stream: Digital rental
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
A sweet-seeming Kansas girl heads off to the magical Land of Oz, announcing her arrival by murdering a lady and stealing her shoes. Only one thing to do at that point, really: take out her sister, as well.
Where to stream: Max
Psycho (1960)
Near the tail-end of his career, Alfred Hitchcock reinvented American horror cinema and introduced the definitive screen slasher: Norman Bates’ mother and best friend, Norma.
Where to stream: Digital rental
It Happened One Night (1934)
Frank Capra’s risqué romantic comedy swept the Academy Awards in its year, with leads Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert making for a brilliant pairing in the movie that defined the rom-com, and remains among the best of the form.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Cooley High (1974)
Cochise (Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs), a basketball star, and Preach (Glynn Turman), an aspiring playwright, plot to play hooky during their final weeks of senior year. Their plan leads to a series of adventures and misadventures that look very much like the stuff of a more typical teen comedy, before the comedy slowly gives way to more serious introspection. This movie had a profound influence on filmmakers from John Singleton to Spike Lee.
Where to stream: Tubi, Freevee
The Boys in the Band (1970)
William Friedkin's adaptation of an off-Broadway play about several gay friends gathering for a birthday party with funny, bitchy, dramatic results. Gay audiences found it a little dated back in 1970, but it serves as a very effective (and engaging) time capsule, and stands as one of the first major American movies centered around queer characters.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Bambi (1942)
Even if not as technically innovative as some of Disney’s earlier films, Bambi’s still absolutely gorgeous, and its simple, down-to-earth story is emotional, thrilling, and poignant in ways that the animator’s fantasy films couldn’t quite match.
Where to stream: Disney+
From Here to Eternity (1953)
Fred Zinnemann’s Pearl Harbor drama is remembered for its all-star cast (Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Frank Sinatra, etc.) and swooning romance, but it’s also an impressive and harrowing recreation of the attacks in 1941, and their impact on the Americans at their center.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Kwaidan (1964)
This Japanese anthology of horror-tinged stories isn't necessarily terrifying, but it is one of the most stunningly beautiful, and sumptuously designed films that you're likely to find this side of Japanese folklore. A highly influential film, it kicks off with the story of a horribly wronged woman and her very long, very black hair.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
This historical drama brings Medieval Europe to stunning life with its depiction of Arthur, King of the Britons (Graham Chapman), scouring the English countryside in search of men brave enough to join his Knights of the Round Table, desperate to figure out if swallows can, indeed, carry coconuts. It’s all deeply serious. (Cough cough.)
Where to stream: Netflix
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
With Lew Ayres in the lead, the original All Quiet remains a harrowing experience—a recreation of the events of World War I so realistic, it stands as one of the true, great anti-war films of all time.
Where to stream: Tubi
The Godfather (1972)
It’s said by many that the second film is better...and they’re not wrong, though the first is a similarly brilliant piece of filmmaking, and absolutely the place to start when watching or rewatching Francis Ford Coppola’s saga.
Where to stream: Paramount+
M (1931)
Peter Lorre is chilling as a murderer of children in Fritz Lang’s thriller. Aside from being a masterful film in its own right, M influenced every crime drama, serial killer film, and police procedural that’s come along since.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, Kanopy
Gilda (1946)
One of the greatest and most entertaining noir films of its era also foregrounds one of the hottest bisexual love triangles you’re likely to find in film.
Where to stream: Tubi
Mildred Pierce (1945)
Joan Crawford is at her very dramatic best in this story of a mother dealing with a hyper-entitled snotbag of a daughter. Joan and director Michael Curtiz take all of the great noir trappings of the era (including murder) and put a single mother at the center of them. Now central in her filmography, this was a comeback for Joan at the time, and proved that she could still pack cinemas as a middle-aged woman.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Superman (1978)
In our highly dystopian present, every third movie is a superhero punch-'em-up...but not so in 1978, when Richard Donner directed the original (more or less) and best (more or less). Christopher Reeve remains a steadfast combination of believable sincerity and dorky charm, generating real chemistry with Margot Kidder's Lois Lane.
Where to stream: Max
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Max von Sydow stars as a medieval knight in Ingmar Bergman's very dark fantasy about finding human connection in the absence of faith. The film tells its story using some of the most indelible imagery in the history of cinema—anyone for a game of chess? With death?
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Citizen Kane (1941)
The pretentious film student's answer to the question: "What's the greatest film of all time?" is, as it happens, a genuinely great film; an appropriately dark and wildly innovative commentary on the corrupting powers of money and American-style capitalism. In those regards, it hasn't aged a day.
Where to stream: Max
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
So rousing is Sergei Eisenstein's film, set during the early Russian Revolution of 1905, that you'll be cheering on the rebellion that lead to the birth of the Soviet Union (where this film was no less controversial than elsewhere). Among the movie's many brilliantly directed moments is the iconic Odessa Steps sequence, which has been referenced by everyone from Laurel and Hardy to Denis Villeneuve.
Where to stream: Max, Tubi, The Criterion Channel
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)
This all-star road race film is goofy, sure, but it's also got a mean-streak a mile wide—and I absolutely mean that as a compliment. The cast all compete to make it across the state of California to collect a chunk of money that they've learned is buried in a state park. It's cute watching Milton Berle, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Eddie Anderson, Sid Caesar and others team up to get the money...but it's even better when they fall out and start fighting tooth and nail, all alongside crooked cop Spencer Tracy.
Where to stream: Tubi
Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
The all-star cast can be a little distracting, but Stanley Kramer’s courtroom drama remains powerful and depressingly relevant in its depiction of normal, everyday people driven to commit atrocities with only minimal encouragement.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi, MGM+
12 Angry Men (1957)
Sidney Lumet's essential courtroom drama plays a bit differently in our era of rampant judicial mistrust, but nonetheless still has plenty to say about the danger, power, and virtue of defying the mob. A definitive rebuttal to the McCarthy-era Red Scare, it speaks to the ease with which we'll go along with a fearful crowd.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi, MGM+, Freevee
Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953)
The first in a series of charming, and increasingly inventive comedies from the great director (and star) Jacques Tati. M. Hulot feels like a silent film character in a world of sound, and, indeed, the focus here is less on dialogue than in the inadvertent ways in which our hero brings absolute chaos wherever he goes. There's a method to the comedy, as well, Tati finding satisfaction in seeing the thin veneers of the comfortable, snobby, rich vacationers worn away.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Carnival of Souls (1962)
This deeply haunting, low-budget independent beat George Romero's Night of the Living Dead to the punch by around five years, following a young woman (Candace Hilligoss) through a very dark night of her own. Thoroughly eerie, it's a movie that stays with you, like it or not.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Max, Tubi, The Criterion Channel, Crackle, Shudder, Freevee, Shout Factory TV
The Sound of Music (1965)
The hills are alive, etc., as a charmingly goofy nun-in-training gets a job at the home of an Austrian aristocrat. What starts out as a very hummable sing-a-long takes a dark turn as the shadow of Nazi Germany comes to loom—that genuine threat elevates Julie Andrews' breakout into something as meaningful as it is fun.
Where to stream: Disney+, Hulu
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Its reputation is that of a beloved holiday classic, but few Christmas movies before or since have gone this deep and dark, turning on George Bailey’s very long, very dark night of the soul.
Where to stream: Prime Video, The Roku Channel, Plex
Pather Panchali (1955)
India’s answer to the French New Wave, Satyajit Ray’s gorgeous, but down-to-earth drama finds universal truths in the fraught relationships between desperately poor Apu, his sister Durga, and their mother, Sarbajaya. (The subsequent two films in what would eventually become known as the Apu Trilogy are just as great.)
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Collection, Kanopy
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
The General is often seen as Buster Keaton’s masterpiece, but I prefer Sherlock Jr., in which a normal schlub finds himself, literally, drawn into the movies. It’s an acrobatic and often hilarious journey into film history.
Where to stream: Tubi, Kanopy, Plex
Funny Girl (1968)
Barbra Streisand broke through in a big way in this funny (naturally), moving, and ultimately epic story about the rise of real life comedian Fanny Brice and her troubled romance with Nicky Arnstein (Omar Sharif). It’s like buttah.
Where to stream: Prime Video
His Girl Friday (1940)
One of the films that defined the sharp, fast-talking screwball comedy genre, with Rosalind Russell and Cary Grant as an ex-married newshound couple trying to uncover the truth behind the story of a convicted murderer.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Tubi, Crackle, Pluto TV, Shout Factory TV, Freevee
Anatomy of a Murder (1959)
Otto Preminger’s gripping courtroom drama is less a crime procedural than it is an examination of the fallibility of memory and the dangers of relying too heavily on any individual’s ability to accurately replay our own narratives.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
On the eve of his wedding, Dr. Frankenstein finds himself drawn into temptation when his old mentor shows up in town. The two run off together with every intention of giving birth to new life.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Modern Times (1936)
Ever feel like you’re just a cog in the capitalist machinery of life? Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece is the perfect movie for anyone who’s ever been stuck in a rut at work.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel, Tubi, Kanopy
Grease (1978)
It might not be a brilliant piece of filmmaking, but Grease is the enjoyably goofy a bit of cinematic comfort food that we all need now and again.
Where to stream: Max
Rashomon (1950)
Akira Kurosawa’s samurai tale is not only wildly influential, it’s also film’s definitive statement on the unreliability of memory and the ease with which we spin stories for our own benefit. A warrior’s murder is recounted by a series of characters, each with a similar tale, but with details that vary in crucial ways.
Where to stream: Max, The Criterion Channel
Jaws (1975)
Steven Spielberg created the thrilling, harrowing summer blockbuster to beat them all way back in 1975, shaping the cinematic landscape we’re still living in, for better or worse.
Where to stream: Digital rental
High Noon (1952)
It’s hard to believe, all these decades later, that this simple story of a sheriff abandoned by a terrified town was one of the most controversial films of its era. There’s a lot going on here just under the surface, including a strong defiance of the Red Scare and its accompanying Hollywood blacklist.
Where to stream: Prime Video, Paramount+, MGM+
Carrie (1976)
One of Stephen King’s earliest works translates into this memorably bloody coming-of-age story about a shy young woman (Sissy Spacek) with growing telekenetic powers, caught between her controlling mother at home, and her cruel classmates at school.
Where to stream: Max
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Actor Charles Laughton's sole directorial effort is a wildly impressive one, with serial-killing preacher Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) charming, and then terrorizing a rural West Virginia family during the Great Depression. Audiences at the time found it impossibly weird and arty, and often weren't thrilled with Laughton's take on religious hypocrisy. Time has revealed it as a taut, idiosyncratic masterpiece.
Where to stream: Tubi, Freevee
A Raisin in the Sun (1961)
Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, Diana Sands, Roy Glenn, and Louis Gossett Jr. star in this family drama about a Black family about to come into a small windfall, and the intergenerational conflict and trauma that impacts the ways in which family members want to spend it, and even their their definitions of a better life.
Where to stream: Digital rental