Just got Netflix. Name some great old movies.

[merztrumpet]

Onibaba (1964) - Creepy Japanese drama

Band of Outsiders (1964) - French crime film from Godard

Alphaville (1965) - A surreal scifi crime picture from Godard

The Seventh Seal (1957) - Swedish drama from Bergman about a man on the verge of death who challenges death to a game of chess

La Strada (1954) - Classic Italian drama from Fellini about a woman who is sold to an entertainer by her mother.

8 1/2 (1963) - Drama from Fellini about a successful director, stricken for ideas about an upcoming film, retreats into his dreams and memories. (Superb soundtrack from Nino Rota)

Rififi (1955) - A French noirish crime film from Jules Dassin.

Youth of the Beast (1963) - Excellent yakuza film from Seijun Suzuki about an ex detective playing two yakuza gangs in hopes to figure out who murdered a friend.

The Bride Wore Black (1968) - Francois Truffaut delievers a fantastic revenge drama/mystery about a woman who was widowed on the front steps of the church after her wedding.

Lady Snowblood (1973) - Little known Japanese flick about a woman born of revenge.

The Sword of Doom (1966) - One of the best Samurai movies ever.

Incident at Blood Pass (1970) - Hiroshi Inagaki's last film, which is also one of the two films that stars both Toshiro Mifune (Seven Samurai) and Shintaro Katsu (Zatoichi), tells a story of a lone yojimbo on a mission to a moutain pass to wait for something and the interactions with other characters he encounters before a major confrontation.

The Mercenary (1968) - Good Italian spaghetti western from Sergio Corbucci starring Franco Nero and Jack Palance. A bandit wants to be a real 'revolutionary' and solicits the help of a veteran (Nero). Music from Ennio Morricone.

Edit: I'm not finding The Mercenary or The Bride Wore Black on netflix. Oh well, keep a look out through other means of distribution.

 

[KidCthulhu]

I've got to third the vote for Kind Hearts and Coronets. Watch what Alec Guinness was really capable of! Also, Murder by Death is my favorite obscure movie starring a lot of famous people in a movie you've never heard of. It's especially funny if you like mystery novels.

 

[mmadsen]

Afi 100

I recommend the AFI 100. The top ten:

1. CITIZEN KANE (1941)
2. CASABLANCA (1942)
3. THE GODFATHER (1972)
4. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)
5. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)
6. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)
7. THE GRADUATE (1967)
8. ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)
9. SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993)
10. SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952)​

 

[Chaldfont]

Oh man, I love those old Bogart movies, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon & Casablanca! We should all still wear suits and fedoras, roll our own cigarettes and start business with a stiff drink.

Netflix is great for more recent, albeit obscure movies too. Or to fill in those holes in your classic movie repertoire. Its great to pick a director or actor and just go surfing for other things the artist has done.

Nine Queens
The Spanish Prisoner
Akira Kurasawa's Dreams
Seven Samurai
Any Hitchcock movie especially: Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Rear Window
Old Clint Eastwood movies: The Outlaw Josie Wales, Kelly's Heroes, High Plains Drifter
Run Lola Run
Memento
The Professional
Angel Heart (oh man this is creepy, maybe the creepiest movie I've ever seen)
Jacob's Ladder
Bubba Ho-Tep (seriously)
Dragon's Lair (yep, remember the old laser disk video game? You can play it on your DVD player)
Enter the Dragon
Legend of Drunken Master
Dagon (its so bad its good!)

Netflix is great for burning through TV series. No commercials, no waiting a week for the next episode, no buying premium cable.

The Sopranos (obviously)
Six Feet Under
Alias
Band of Brothers (Tom Hanks made this after Saving Private Ryan--man this one is good. Read the book too.)
From the Earth to the Moon (another good one, Tom Hanks made this after Apollo 13)
Cowboy Bebop
Farscape
Family Guy
Futurama
X-Files

I know I will think of more later...

 

[Desdichado]

After searching for it for almost a decade, I've finally discovered a copy of Captain Blood in a local video store: it's Errol Flynn in a piratical swashbuckler. It's next on our movie list.

It was just released on DVD a few months ago -- and yes, it's on my Netflix queue and my short list of DVDs to buy, both.

I'd recommend The Adventures of Robin Hood also with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland, who was quite possibly the most beautiful woman to ever grace the silver screen. Heck, I think Grace Kelly is one of the only other ones in the same league.

Where Eagles Dare is another great flick with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. And so many dead Nazis. Someone once told me that this movie held the record for the highest body count for over 15 years; until the second Rambo movie got made, as a matter of fact. I don't know if its true or not, but it's believable.

The Ivanhoe that stars Robert Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor is great fun.

Someone else mentioned The Court Jester and I heartily second that one.

I'm also a sucker for a few of the classic musicals; Singin' in the Rain was always my favorite, but I'll take Oklahoma or Kismet or some of the others; although sadly Kismet is not available on Netflix, and probably not on DVD at all.

Hatari! was always my favorite John Wayne movie, set in Africa in the 50s where Wayne leads a band of lovable ruffians who catch animals for zoos for a living.

There's a lot of good westerns out there; it's hard to even know where to begin. True Grit and it's sequels, the spaghetti westerns A Fist Full of Dollars etc., Winchester 76...

I like old movies. If all you want is old, I could go on for hours. Maybe if you narrowed it down a bit?

 

[Chaldfont]

Where Eagles Dare is another great flick with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. And so many dead Nazis. Someone once told me that this movie held the record for the highest body count for over 15 years; until the second Rambo movie got made, as a matter of fact. I don't know if its true or not, but it's believable.

WWII + spies + a castle + ski lift fight scene + car chase escape + plot twists + Clint Eastwood = tons of cool points.

That movie is awesome. It would make a great D20 Modern one-shot.

 

[Desdichado]

Netflix is great for burning through TV series. No commercials, no waiting a week for the next episode, no buying premium cable.

I'll second this. I've had tons of fun on my quest to watch all of the X-files in order. Not that I'm even at all close to finished; I'm still sitting on the second (of nine) seasons.

And my wife has had tons of fun doing the same thing with the Gilmore Girls.

 

[Dagger75]

How about

The Viking

Spartacus

Omega Man

 

[Warrior Poet]

WWII + spies + a castle + ski lift fight scene + car chase escape + plot twists + Clint Eastwood = tons of cool points.

That movie is awesome. It would make a great D20 Modern one-shot.

One of the all-time great action movies. I'm convinced it's where the idea for the Wolfenstein series of video games got its inspiration. Great soundtrack, too.

In addition to all the great suggestions so far, I'd add:

in the lighthearted comedy classification: It Happened One Night starring Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable. Fun, and funny, and has the famous scene where Colbert hails a ride from a passing car by hitching up her skirt and showing off her legs. Tame by today's standards, but still sexy as hell. Plus, there's a great song sing-along on a bus, tons of witty banter, hard-boiled reporters, and drinking. What's not to love?

War!: Not terribly old (1980 or so), but The Big Red One is a great war movie about the 1st infantry in WWII, with the incomparable Lee Marvin as the hard-bitten sargeant leading a group of soldiers, one of whom is played by some kid named Mark Hamill.

Hard boiled mystery: It's been said before, but for noir thrillers, The Big Sleep. This is my all-time favorite movie. Great characters, great story (screenplay by William Faulkner, no less!), great fun, and proof that Lauren Bacall is the sexiest woman in the world. Plus, Bogart (tied with Steve McQueen) is the coolest ever. "You're not very tall for a detective." "I tried to be."

Car chases: Speaking of Steve McQueen and total coolness, Bullitt is one of his iconic films, with a great car chase through the streets of San Francisco. You can also catch great perfomances by McQueen in The Great Escape and the original Thomas Crowne Affair.

Uncle Jack: Chinatown. Stellar cast, stellar film.

Hitchcock: deserves its own category. Pick one. Any one. All of them. Enjoy.

Noir extra credit: Double Indemnity and Shadow of a Doubt.

Hollywood Mystery: Sunset Boulevard. Norma Desmond. Creepy. Great, great film. Watch this one before you see The Wild Bunch and catch William Holden as a young man, then in The Wild Bunch when he's older.

Western with a twist: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid starring Newman and Redford. So much fun, so many great lines. "Think you used enough dynamite there, Butch?" And always remember the rules for a knife fight.

Get started!

Warrior Poet

 

[coriolis]

If you like heavily stylized stuff...

Night of the Hunter: A dark fairy tale about an ex-con (played by Robert Mitchum) pretending to be a preacher to get his hands on the inheritance of a widow and her 2 grandchildren.

Buckaroo Banzai: A weird product of 80s sci-fi with Peter Weller. Probably second only to Monty Python and the Holy Grail as a D&D gamer favorite.

David Lynch's oeuvre - Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, The Straight Story, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive. Also, the first season (6 episodes) of Twin Peaks (add Fire Walk with Me if you liked Twin Peaks) (I assume you saw his version of Dune...)