Classic Films

The era of classic films  ranges from the introduction of silent films  in the 1920s to the 1950s. During this era of film, film makers discovered different techniques with the use of camera, and editing: things like the role music plays during a specific scene or the use of the montage  during dramatic or climactic action scenes. Classic film  faced major success both at the time of its release and long afterward.

1888 - 1920s: Silent Films

During most of the roaring 1920s , all the acting was done through gesture and pantomime. Between shots there would be dialogue posted ("titles ") to narrative points of the story. 

• Famous Hollywood Stars: Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin , Clara Bow, Colleen Moore, Douglas Fairbanks ,Greta Garbo , Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Lon Chaney, Pola Negri, Wallace Reid.

• Favorite Films:  Battleship Potempkin  (1925), Ben-Hur  (1925), City Lights (1931), Four Hoursemen of the Apocalypse (1921), Les Vampires (1915), Metropolis  (1927), Nosferatu (1922), The Birth of a Nation  (1915), The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), The General (1927), The Gold Rush  (1925),The Jazz Singer (1927), Way Down East (1920)

1930s: Golden Age of Hollywood

In 1926, 24 frames per second (fps)  became the standard reel speed to synchronize sound to picture, and the birth of 1930s Golden Age of Hollywood  followed.

• Famous Hollywood Stars: Clark Gable ,Judy Garland , Laurel & Hardy, Myrna Loy,The Marx Brothers , Fred Astaire, Errol Flynn

• Favorite Films: All Quiet on the Western Front  (1939), Duck Soup (1939), Frankenstein  (1931), Gone With the Wind  (1939), Grand Hotel (1932), Hell's Angels (1930), It Happened One Night (1934), King Kong  (1934),  M (1931), Modern Times (1936), The 39 Steps (1935), The Wizard of Oz  (1939)

1940s: During the War

• Famous Hollywood Stars: Bette Davis,Betty Grable, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Fred MacMurray, Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart ,Ingrid Bergman , James Cagney, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn , Mickey Rooney, Rita Hayworth, Spencer Tracy, Vivien Leigh

• Favorite Films: A Walk in the Sun (1945), Casablanca  (1942), Citizen Kane  (1941), Foreign Correspondent (1940), I Was a Male War Bride (1949), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Rebecca (1940), Samson and Delilah (1949), Sergeant York (1941), Story Weather (1943), The Best Years of Our Lives  (1946)

1950s: Classic Film Noir & the Hitchcock Decade

• Famous Hollywood Stars: Cary Grant ,Charlton Heston ,Elizabeth Taylor ,Frank Sinatra ,Gene Kelly ,James Dean , Jimmy Stewart, Marlon Brando ,Marilyn Monroe , Montgomery Clift, Tony Curtis, William Holden

• Favorite Films:  12 Angry Men (1957), All About Eve (1950), North by Northwest  (1959), On the Waterfront  (1954), Paths of Glory  (1957), Rear Window  (1954), Seven Samurai  (1954), Sunset Boulevard  (1950), Vertigo (1958)

Related Guides

• Drama Films
• Film Noir
• Horror and Suspense Films
• Independent Films
• Musical Films
• Silent Films
• Westerns