A thread to talk about discovering older good movies that you may have possible heard about before but only finally saw for the first time relatively recently.

(I chose pre-1985 because it'll mean the movies are at least more than 25 years old.)

To start off, I just saw Django (1966) for the first time recently. Although I knew about Django for years, I mistakenly thought that I had seen it before, but that must have been a sequel because this was not the same thing. And I liked it a lot, I think it's probably the best non-Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western I've seen. It makes me want to seek out more to see what other good ones I've been missing all these years.
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Just watched Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for the first time.

Not my favorite Paul Newman movie, but I liked it. I'll bet Paul had a blast acting like a complete drunken asshole for the entirety of the shoot. Oh and Elizabeth Taylor was smokin hot.

Given I was 14 in 1985, I'm depressed at using that as the line of demarcation for all things OLD.

That having been said, I finally watched all of Hitchcock's 1956 color remake of his 1934 "The Man Who Knew Too Much". Not one of his better movies, but beautifully shot and still good fun on its own merits.

Just saw "The Border," a 1982 movie staring Jack Nicholson as a US Border Agent. A good film with a great score from Ry Cooder.

I recently watched FOR ME AND MY GAL (1942) for the first time. This is a musical with Judy Garland and Gene Kelly about a vaudeville act touring the country during World War I. It was Kelly's first movie and he's already dynamite in it. The music alternates with some serious intrusion of the war into the bubble of vaudeville lives, an element designed to remind 1942 audiences of their need to commit to the war we'd just entered. Pretty heavy stuff for a musical. I was really impressed. And Judy and Gene are great together. (Check out their other team-ups, THE PIRATE, 1948, and SUMMER STOCK, 1950.)

Any recommendations for movies before 1985 that are in color and widescreen? Seems like most of them are B&W / foolscreen.

Over the weekend I watched "Laura" and "Bonnie and Clyde" for the first time. Loved both.

Watched Yojimbo, and Sanjuro a couple weeks ago. Also watched Rashomon, but I had seen that one before.

I just watched The King of Comedy for the first time about a month or so ago, it was so damn good.

The Big Trail (1930) is widescreen
Becky Sharp (1935) is in full technicolor

However I can't find any films that have both before 1985

Most TVs these days will automatically convert to widescreen, so it's really just color that I'm worried about.

Man, people were fat back in the day.

The short answer is: See my Criterion Challenge list (link in signature).

Actually that was so long ago i don't believe there were any movies from back then because electicity hadn't been invented yet.

Who would want to watch something that old anyway? That is freakin' old!!

Shouldn't most movies between '53 and '85 be color and WS?

Based on reviews I read, I picked up Ace in the Hole and was amazed. Then about a week later, all that shit went down in Chile and it was hard not to laugh at a lot of the coverage.

For some reason my wife recently put The Quiet Man in our Netflix queue and it turned out to be fairly enjoyable. The absolutely awful DVD made it a little hard to enjoy, but it's otherwise an amusing story.

Embarrassingly, it's Hitchcock's Psycho. Just saw it two evenings ago when I blind-bought the blu-ray and was expecting something uninvolving, due its age. Though considered a classic and pretty much knowing the gist of the film, I decided to watch it for the first time to see if it would pull me in.

What I got was the absolute confirmation as to why Psycho is hailed as such and how much of a genius Hitchcock was (from the editing to the camera placements, which is copied by numerous directors).

The Longest Day

While being good, it seemed like the movie should have been called The Longest Movie.

There's always a first time so don't worry about seeing it "late."

He said right in his post that he chose a date that was 25 years ago. He couldn't just ask about "old" movies. He asked about movies made prior to a certain date and he happened to choose 1985. 25 years is a long time. Do any of you drive a car from 1985? How many of you live in the same house or apartment that you did in 1985? How many of you have the same job you did in 1985?

Knee jerk reaction might be that 1985 is not that long ago and the OP should watch Casablanca, Gone with the Wind and King Kong but those movies are 70 years old! Personally I think 25 years is enough time to call a movie old.

It's shorter than TITANIC and each of the LORD OF THE RINGS movies.
[BLEEP - BLEEP - BLEEP!] - edited out old fart rant.

Meet John Doe (1941) - I loved this movie. I rated it a 10 out of 10. heard of it but never had watched it.

A Bridge Too Far (1977) - I can't believe that I had never seen this before the other day!

I'm not big on the actual war part of war movies, so while I very much enjoyed the quieter scenes in between, the shooting and explosions seemed to go on forever.

I had the same problem with Band of Brothers.

I still have clothes from 1985.