Top 35 Hollywood films that everyone should watch (36 photos + 26 videos)

This list may seem strange to you because many great American films are not on there. It’s still impossible to stick it into 35 points. Why exactly 35 points? Don't know. I'll think about it tomorrow.





City Lights (1931)



This tragicomedy is considered the pinnacle of Chaplin's work. The film was shot in 1931, when cinema was already sound, but Chaplin resisted sound to the last, so in “Lights” only music is recorded, and in the opening scene, human speech is voiced by musical instruments. Chaplin's demands on Virginia Cherrill, who played the role of the blind flower girl, became a Hollywood legend. He exhausted her with hundreds of takes of the same scene, kicked her out of the shooting, unable to find a replacement for her, invited her back, and then again endless takes and scandals. Interestingly, Chaplin originally had the idea of ​​making a film in which a blind clown tries to prevent his daughter from realizing that he is blind.

Gone with the Wind (1939)





Victor Fleming's epic film about America, which the southerners lost. Probably a record number of directors and screenwriters worked on Gone with the Wind for one film. Thirteen people, including The Great Gatsby author Scott Fitzgerald, wrote the script, and the film was directed by three directors: John Cukor, Victor Fleming and Sam Wood.

Vivien Leigh was chosen for the lead role out of 1,400 applicants. And it turned out that one of the most famous American women in literature and cinema was played by an Englishwoman. “Gone with the Wind” has long held the record for box office and number of Oscars. More recently, the classic film has been recognized as romanticizing slavery and now comes with a foreword on streaming services by a historian who explains where the film is outdated.

The Great Dictator (1940)



Charlie Chaplin's first all-talk film. If in “New Times” he just sang a song in an incomprehensible language, then in “The Dictator” he already spoke fully. Moreover, the Jewish hairdresser in the Tramp costume is laconic, but the Toman dictator, also played by Chaplin, does not shut up. Filming began before the start of World War II, and the premiere practically coincided with Hitler’s capture of France. However, even then the United States was full of people who sympathized with the Nazis, so screenings of The Great Dictator were disrupted and Chaplin was threatened.

“The Great Dictator” became the standard of political satire in cinema; many scenes from it (the dance with the globe, shaving to Brahms, the final speech of the barber) were included in film textbooks. Chaplin admitted that if he had known about all the horrors of Nazism in the late 1930s, he would have been able to film The Dictator. By the way, according to rumors, Hitler watched this film twice, after which he declared Chaplin a personal enemy.



Citizen Kane (1941)



Citizen Kane regularly tops lists of the best American films of all time, and in terms of citations it is probably second only to The Godfather. Orson Welles, who frightened Americans with his radio show War of the Worlds, directed and starred in Kane when he was only 25 years old. The prototype of Kane was the owner of almost all American newspapers, the inventor of the "yellow press" William Hearst. About the creation of the script for the film by Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles, a film was made by David Fincher in 2020.



Casablanca (1942)



From the very beginning, "Casablanca" was not presented to Warner Bros. something interesting, an ordinary war movie that was supposed to collect a modest box office on the wave of interest in the Allied conference and the landing of troops in North Africa. And although the film's plot was based on a play, the film's script was not even half finished when filming began in May 1942. The film was made into a masterpiece by director Michael Curtiz, the brilliant Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the lead roles, and producer Hal B. Wallis, who not only assembled an excellent team on set, but also took a direct part in fine-tuning the script, which was rewritten dozens of times. They even say that the famous words “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a wonderful friendship” were written by Wallis.

It's a Wonderful Life (1947)



A Hollywood New Year's classic, shown on TV in the US on New Year's Day. The film was directed by the American classic Frank Capra, director of such hits as “It Happened One Night” and “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” It is curious that American audiences did not immediately see A Wonderful Life; in 1947, the film failed at the box office, and critics criticized it for being too sentimental.

In 1986 the picture was painted. The leading actor in the film, Jimmy Stewart, sharply condemned such a mockery of the classics.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)



Drama by Billy Wilder, one of Hollywood's greatest comedy directors, director of Some Like It Hot. Silent film star Gloria Swanson, who has not acted since 1929, played the forgotten silent film star Norma Desmond. The once popular director Erich von Stroheim starred as her servant and former director of all her films. One of Hollywood's greatest producers and directors, Cecil B. DeMille, played himself. Buster Keaton, Anna Nielsen, Hedda Hopper also played themselves. They also play retired stars who play cards with Desmond in the evenings.

In the early 1990s, a musical was written based on the film by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. And in 2021, at the Moscow Art Theater, Renata Litvinova staged the play “The Star of Your Period,” the plot of which is based on Wilder’s film.



The Searchers (1956)



This western by the king of westerns, John Ford, is considered the pinnacle of the genre. Starring John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter and Vera Miles, best known for her starring role in Hitchcock's Psycho.



Some Like It Hot (1959)



Thanks to this Billy Wilder film, we know that “everyone has their flaws,” but Some Like It Hot (original title: Some Like It Hot) has no flaws.

Psycho (1960)



The late 1950s and early 1960s were a time of real triumph for Alfred Hitchcock. One after another, such hits as “Vertigo” (1958), “North by Northwest” (1959), “Psycho” (1960), “The Birds” (1963) were released. All of the films listed above are worthy of being on our list, but we’ll single out “Psycho” as the most frequently cited and most iconic.

It is known that Hitchcock bought as many copies of the novel on which the film is based as he could so that audiences would not discover the main plot twist of Psycho ahead of time. The film was a success at the box office and received three sequels, to which Alfred Hitchcock had nothing to do, but all three films starred Anthony Perkins, who played the main male role in the original. In 1998, Gus Van Sant directed a stop-motion remake of Psycho.



West Side Story (1961)



The 1960s and early 1970s were the period of great Hollywood movie musicals. These are "My Fair Lady", "The Sound of Music", "Fiddler on the Roof", "Hollow Dolly", "Sexy Girl" and, of course, "West Side Story". All of these films are film adaptations of Broadway musicals. "West Side Story" is "Romeo and Juliet", but the action is moved to New York in the mid-20th century, and instead of the warring families of Capulets and Montagues, there are warring street gangs "Jets" and "Sharks". The role of Puerto Rican Maria was played by Vladivostok native Natalie Wood (real name Natalya Zakharenko). A remake of the musical, directed by Steven Spielberg, was released in 2021.



Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)



The film adaptation of Truman Capote's story about a girl with a controversial character, Holly Golightly, became iconic for Audrey Hepburn. Dressed by Hubert de Givenchy (one of Audrey's closest friends in real life), the heroine's wardrobe includes jewelry, hats, pointed-toe alligator ballet shoes and that iconic little black dress. "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is a non-stop celebration of fashion, from the opening in front of Tiffany's store on Fifth Avenue to the perfect final scene.

By the way, Capote set the condition for the studio that only Marilyn Monroe should play the main role. But Monroe was forbidden by her acting mentor to act as a girl of easy virtue (which, according to the book, was Holly). Truman Capote called Hepburn's casting the worst casting in film history.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)



The film tells about the legendary hero of the First World War - English intelligence officer T.E. Lawrence, who acted among the Arab tribes and led them in a campaign against the Turks. The film will soon be 60 years old, but it has been restored so well that it seems as if “Lawrence” was filmed quite recently. Starring the leading actors of the 1960s - Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn, Omar Sharif (he will also play the main role in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago). The film runs for 3.5 hours and only once during all this time a woman appears in the frame.



Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Atomic Bomb (1963)



The plot is based on the then-current (and not only) problem of the relationship between the two superpowers - the USSR and the USA. Both countries have acquired a collection of nuclear missiles and are just waiting for a reason, aggression, or a wrong word from the enemy. Nerves to the limit. To the sweet melody of the song "We`ll Meet Again", lyrical and solemn at the same time, this world is covered by a nuclear disaster. English comedian Peter Sellers, best known for his role as Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther, played three roles in the film: Colonel, US President and Dr. Strangelove.

An interesting fact: American director Oliver Stone chose this film to watch together with Vladimir Putin.



Rosemary's Baby (1968)



The title character of Roman Polanski's horror film becomes a key character in the film long before he is born. Rosemary suspects that she was raped by a demon and that her unborn child may be an otherworldly being. This is Roman Polanski's first American film.



The Godfather (1972)



The author of the novel "The Godfather" knew about the life of gangsters only from the words of casino workers serving the bandits. Director Francis Ford Coppola knew nothing about gangsters and did not like films about them. The mafiosi themselves did their best to prevent the creation of the film. The producers considered Al Pacino a bad actor. In short, the film should not have happened at all. But the result was such a masterpiece that the mafia began to imitate it. For a more detailed history of the creation of the painting, read the link.



Young Frankenstein (1974)



Mel Brooks mocked (of course, with love and respect) the main genres of American cinema: the Western ("Blazing Saddles"), the silent film ("Silent Movie"), the films of Hitchcock ("Fear of Heights"), the historical epics (“World History. Part 1”), over science fiction (“Spaceballs”). He dissected classic horror films in “Young Frankenstein” (in the 1990s, Brooks would also take on Dracula in the film “Dracula: Dead and Loving”). The idea for the film belonged to Gene Wilder, whose collaboration with Brooks began with “The Producers.” The actor and director wrote the script together. Making a black-and-white comedy in the mid-1970s was quite a bold decision on the part of Mel Brooks; studios turned him down after learning that the film would be in black and white. However, he managed to get his idea through. "Young Frankenstein" became one of Mel Brooks' highest-grossing films and entered the list of the best American comedies.



One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)



Writers often don't like film adaptations of their works. So Ken Kesey thought that Milos Forman’s film had nothing in common with what he wrote. They say that he condemned the picture without even seeing it. There is also a legend that one day he was watching TV and came across One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, watched with interest for several minutes, and then realized what kind of movie it was and switched the channel with disgust. Read the story of the film's creation here.

Jaws (1975)



The first ever summer blockbuster to earn $260 million in the United States.



Love and Death (1975)



Woody Allen loves literature, as he has admitted many times in his films. "Love and Death" is a parody of all the classics at once. Starring Woody Allen and his frequent screen partner Diane Keaton. Probably, if you choose one Allen film, it would be better to include “Annie Hall” or “Manhattan” on the list, but “Love and Death” is definitely funnier.

Taxi Driver (1976)



Robert De Niro plays a sociopathic Vietnam War veteran who slowly goes mad while working as a taxi driver in New York. The film is based on a script by famous film critic Paul Schrader, which is based on a reworking of the classic western "The Searchers", which was already mentioned on our list, and is rich in autobiographical elements. Among the literary sources from which he based, the screenwriter names the works of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (“Notes from the Underground”) and Jean-Paul Sartre (“Nausea”).



Rocky (1976)



This film was the breakthrough debut for Sylvester Stallone. An unknown screenwriter with a hundred dollars in his pocket refused to sell his script for $350,000. But he sold it for a dollar on the condition that he would play the main role. Rocky was a box office hit and won an Oscar for Best Picture. Stallone also received nominations for best actor and best screenwriter. "Rocky" received 7 sequels.

The Deer Hunter (1978)



Michael, Steven and Nick are best friends. They work at the same factory, after a hard day they have fun in local pubs, meet beautiful girls, go hunting, and soon the friends will go to fight together in Vietnam. However, first you need to have a good walk, and there is a reason: Stephen is marrying his girlfriend Angela. Noisy and cheerful farewells from their hometown are replaced by cruel images of the war in Vietnam. The guys will face difficult trials. They will harden some and only make them stronger, while they will deprive others of their souls and drag them to the very bottom. Not everyone will return home, and they will not be the same as before.

In this film, Meryl Streep played her first role in a big movie (before that there was only a role on TV), and John Cazale (two parts of “The Godfather”, “Dog Day Afternoon”) appeared on the screen for the last time.

 

Apocalypse Now (1979)



Initially, the film was supposed to be directed by George Lucas, and this was when the Vietnam War was still in full swing. The original plan was to shoot the film directly in Vietnam, in a guerrilla style. However, Warner Brothers refused to finance such a project, as it doubted the commercial success of the film. In addition, the risk that the filmmakers would suffer while filming in a war zone was considerable. Francis Ford Coppola made the film entirely at his own expense, using money earned from filming two "Godfathers." The painting took a long time and was difficult, but the result met all expectations.



Airplane (1980)



A parody of disaster films, introducing the world to the comedic talent of Leslie Nielsien. Read the following link for an interview with Airplane director David Zucker.



Blade Runner (1982)



Ridley Scott showed us the electric jungle of Los Angeles 2019. The image he created was so powerful that many did not understand what they saw. And this is probably the worst thing that can happen to the film. After its release, critics trampled the film, and the public ignored it. But this was not the end, but only the beginning. Like a phoenix, Blade Runner rose from the ashes of a nuclear fire and over time took first place in the lists of the best science fiction films. In 2017, the film got a sequel, starring Harrison Ford again.

Back to the Future (1985)



The best movie about time travel. Interestingly, in the first version of the script, the characters traveled between 1985 and 1955 in a refrigerator that received energy from a nuclear explosion.



Platoon (1986)



Many wonderful films have been made about Vietnam in Hollywood. "Platoon" is one of the best. The film was directed by Oliver Stone, who experienced the hardships of the Vietnam War first hand. Before filming began, the leading actors (Charlie Sheen, William Dafoe) were sent to the Vietnamese jungle for two weeks, where they underwent a young fighter's course under the supervision of Vietnam veterans and without contact with the outside world. In the episode, Johnny Depp appears in the film.



Goodfellas (1990)



Martin Scorsese's perfect gangster saga, based on real events. Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro will also appear to play gangsters in Scorsese's "Casino" and "The Irishman."



Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)



Quotes that Arnold Schwarzenegger says with a straight face have spread all over the world. “I’ll be back,” “Come with me if you want to live,” and “Hasta la vista, baby” have become firmly established in the everyday life of thousands of people who do not know that they are using very expensive words. Schwarzenegger's fee for this film was approximately $15 million, and he spoke 700 words on camera. One word cost $21,429, and the expression "Hasta la vista, baby" cost a whopping $85,716.



Unforgiven (1992)



Clint Eastwood is strongly associated with the Western. From Sergio Leone's "Dollars Trilogy" (1964-66) to "Unforgiven" (1992), Eastwood was always completely at home in the role of the taciturn cowboy with a cigar in his mouth and an old poncho, the hero who always stands for justice. Clint Eastwood himself directed “Unforgiven” and played the main role in it. He dedicated the film to the memory of directors Sergio Leone and Don Siegel, in whose films he became famous.



Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)



The film adaptation of David Mamet's classic play "Glengarry Glen Ross", better known as "The Americans", is a caustic satire that ridicules the "grin of capitalism", in which man is a wolf to man. In front of us appears a gathering of sharks, pikes, piranhas of business, digging into the throats of clients, pushing each other with their elbows and tripping up competitors. It is not surprising that happiness, success and prosperity in the common understanding of these words do not await any of the heroes of the film. The ensemble cast in the film is impeccable: Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Jonathan Pryce, Alan Arkin.



Pulp Fiction (1994)



At the domestic box office, the film collected a record $108 million for an arthouse film. Before Pulp Fiction, no independent low-budget film had managed to earn more than $100 million in the United States. In the world, the film collected almost twice as much - 214 million dollars. Tarantino's expectations were exceeded more than 10 times; the creator, at best, hoped for thirty million dollars in fees. In 2013, Pulp Fiction was recognized as a film of cultural, historical and aesthetic significance and was added to the US National Film Registry.



Saving Private Ryan (1998)



The main message of most of Steven Spielberg's films is that one must remain human in any conditions. In Saving Private Ryan, the characters constantly act illogically from the point of view of the logic of warfare, but in a human way. And it always backfires on them. However, Tom Hanks' hero still remains human, and Private Ryan is saved.



The Matrix (1999)



The Matrix, inspired by the books and comics that the Wachowskis enjoyed in their youth, began with the simple idea that all the objects around us are not real: they are just images created by machines. It took the Wachowskis five and a half years to develop the script, during which time they did titanic research work and wrote 14 versions of the script.