The movie itself takes place in the year 2027 in the fictional city-state of Metropolis, which is designed and ran for the benefit of the corporate ruling elite, who are the “thinkers” (they don’t know how anything works, really, but they have all the beneficial ideas that eventually lead to the manufacture of things by other classes). Because thinkers live above ground, high up, the maintenance and upkeep of Metropolis falls onto the shoulders of the underground-dwelling working class, called “workers,” or “hands” (thinkers are also called “heads”). While a science fiction movie (for all intents and purposes) on the surface, Fritz Lang ably explores the issues of class and societal division so masterfully, one will walk away from this movie wondering at how we still have issues very similar to what he examined in 1927, today. Lang’s movie, though, is ultimately hopeful, even amidst the struggle between the thinkers and the workers for control of Metropolis. And his resolution, which at least in the movie solves the problem of inequality between social classes, can’t be anything but pleasing. Metropolis also skillfully makes use of prophetic vision in its central theme that there will be a “One,” or so-called “savior” who unites the classes at some point in the future. Most memorably, the recent Matrix franchise employed an idea of “The One,” and it drew some of its inspiration from Lang’s 1927 cinematic effort.

Both a science fiction masterpiece and a classic movie in any genre, Metropolis adeptly tells its story of urban stress — and how people are eventually negatively affected by it — in a way that discretely insinuates its exploration of class struggle, and also a prophetic vision usually found only in biblical or fantastical literature, without a moviegoer even realizing it’s been done. Truly a four-star effort.

Sergei Eisenstein’s movie though, is celebrated for far more than just a really good example of how cinema could be used for indoctrination or propaganda. In fact, The Battleship Potemkin is justifiably famous for Eisenstein’s then-revolutionary experiment with cinematic “montage.” For the Soviet filmmakers of Eisenstein’s time, “montage” involved juxtaposing (weaving) shots which may not have had any actual relation to each other to create new meaning in each of the individual shots, which didn’t previously exist in each scene alone. With it, an audience member could understand why characters in one scene were doing what they were doing by watching a totally unrelated sequence in another scene, and vice-versa. In this way, the whole of the movie tended to be greater than its unique parts. 1972’s The Godfather also makes great use of montage in many parts of the movie.

Filmed in high-quality black-and-white, The Battleship Potemkin wasn’t the rousing success Josef Stalin and other Communist leaders had hoped for (Eisenstein was Stalin’s favorite filmmaker). Yet, over time, it became one of the most classic of classic movies. It also shocked movie audiences of its time with its depiction of violence in a frank and brutally honest manner. In that era, the matter of real-life physical violence could be more of an implied thing. Eisenstein, in an effort to gain more sympathy for the sailors of the Potemkin and also for villagers and others shown in later scenes in the movie, employed it brutally in some instances, and starkly and memorably in others, but always with the aim of creating sympathy for the working masses against their ruling overlords. In recent years, The Battleship Potemkin has been digitally remastered and many lost or previously-censored scenes restored. With that, it stands in a select group of silent films that have truly earned the title “classic movie.” Watch it if you get the chance to.

The 1930s was a time of great pioneering in aviation, and also one of its most dangerous. What seems routine today — flying in stormy weather or high over mountains — was routinely hazardous and terrifying on occasion. back then. In this 1939 movie classic directed by action specialist Howard Hawks (great last name, by the way), we’re given an action-filled thrill ride of a movie that also examines how we lose character and sometimes get it back through great acts of personal heroism. Only Angels Have Wings stars Cary Grant and Jean Arthur as a pair thrown together by happenstance and later deliberate calculation on the part of Arthur’s character Bonnie, who’s a piano playing cabaret entertainer newly-arrived in the South American port city of Barranca, Columbia, which nestles up against the Andes Mountains. Carter is the leader of a gang of airmen, who fly just about anything through and over the Andes range, most of the time successfully and with little drama, but sometimes not-so-successfully and with A LOT of drama.

Ably supporting the main effort by Grant and Jean Arthur (her Bonnie is smitten with Grant’s Carter, though Carter initially rebuffs her advances at almost every turn) Rita Hayworth and Richard Barthelmess play Bat and Judy Kilgallen, who show up in Barranca looking for flying work for Bat. Kilgallen is a pilot who once failed in a test of character and is now treated like a pariah by the other aviators in Geoff Carter’s circle. Hayworth delivers a fine performance as Judy, Carter’s ex-lover, who prevails upon Geoff for a big favor. Through a series of events, we’re shown how redemption can be possible, even at the cost of personal sacrifice on the part of others. And the way in which Geoff and Bonnie decide upon their own relationship will leave you pleased and wondering why they never made a sequel.

This would not be the last movie in which Howard Hawks and Cary Grant worked together, but it’s certainly one of their best. Though known more for his skilled employment of wild action to move a film along, Hawks is an under-appreciated maestro for the way he could use character emotion and mood to give us an insight into human relationships. Only Angels Have Wings is a sterling example of this skill, and also deservedly famous for its action scenes and the realism of the flying world of the 1930s. All in all, this film is a classic movie well worth watching or owning.

In the 1936 movie classic My Man Godfrey, we find William Powell (of the Nick and Nora Charles Thin Man movies) and a radiant, yet slightly wacky, Carole Lombard magnificently complimenting each other’s considerable acting abilities. Believe me, it’s no easy thing to play ditsy and easily distracted, but Lombard does it with a genius that’s both stunning and hilariously zany at the same time. And William Powell, who plays the seemingly down-on-his-luck bum hired by Lombard’s Irene Bullock character to be her new butler, delivers a nuanced and appropriately-mannered performance that manages to convey a bemused mirth at the antics of the upper-crust Bullock family, into whose arms he’s been thrown by the fates.

Directed by Gregory LaCava, My Man Godfrey is set in the Great Depression, which is a time in America where both great wealth and great poverty co-existed uneasily with each other. Irene Bullock and her sister, Cornelia (the always dependable Gail Patrick), have been out on a high-society game of “scavenger hunt,” in which the task set before the hunters is to find a so-called forgotten, or downtrodden, man. Trolling through a local city dump, which was also home to a few dozen men who’d been tossed into rough seas by the Depression, we see the Bullock sisters happen upon their prize (Powell). Through a series of humorous events, Powell’s Godfrey Smith (not his real last name, as we find out later) eventually agrees to hire on for a short while as Irene’s manservant. Of course, Cornelia Bullock is none-too-pleased, and over the course of the film engages in a few dirty tricks with the aim of laying Godfrey Smith low. Naturally, Godfrey proves smarter and more capable than either of the Bullocks realize at first, and that goes double for the rest of the clan, led by Eugene Pallette, who plays put-upon father and prominent businessman Alexander Bullock to gravely-voiced comedic perfection. Of course, Powell’s Godfrey is not at all who he appears to be when Irene and he first meet at the dump. In reality, he’s much more than just a butler, but that’s only gradually revealed — with great relish and comedic effect — as we move through My Man Godfrey. By the film’s end, we’re both pleased and laughing joyfully at the final scene, where both William Powell and Carole Lombard come to a more permanent relationship.

This classic movie was also written with social commentary in mind, it being the Great Depression, and all. It subtly examined themes of class and morality in how we treated those of us who in that day were thought to be of lower social status. That kind of examination of class and morality in movies runs through many of the more contemporary cinematic offerings which have appeared in theaters over the last few decades, including The Remains of the Day, among others. My Man Godfrey was also the first film to be nominated for four Oscars in all four acting categories. Additionally, it’s been deemed a “culturally significant” movie by the Library of Congress. If you want screwball comedy and subtle social humor, you can’t go wrong with the movie classic My Man Godfrey.

Once in a while, a film comes along which is so brilliant and insightful it needs no vocals — or even dialogue subtitling, on occasion — to get its message across. 1928’s The Passion of Joan of Arc is just such an example. Directed in newly-developed panchromatic black-and-white film stock by Carl Theodore Dreyer and starring Maria Renee Falconetti as the doomed Joan of Arc, Passion is widely regarded by critics as one of the greatest cinematic achievements of its time, and still mesmerizes as an example of how a character’s facial expressions, and the way in which he or she reacts to in-the-moment events, can truly propel a film to rarefied heights. If there’s truly such a thing as a movie classic, Passion is it.

In this examination of the last hours of the iconic female warrior and soldier for God, we see Joan’s trial, imprisonment, torture and execution much as it would appear in a religious passion play about the remaining earthly hours left to Jesus Christ before his crucifixion by the Romans. In fact, the common theme of jealousy at the role of someone else who just may have been chosen by God to carry out his works here on earth runs through the interplay between Joan and Bishop Pierre Cauchon, her chief interrogator and a strong proponent of English rights in France in the mid 15th century. In fact, his behavior throughout the trial, which was engineered to ensure Joan of Arc’s death, was condemned by Church authorities in later centuries.

The film employs skillful use of closeups of the main characters’ faces, and Dreyer insisted that his actors and actresses wear no makeup, the better to show the range of emotions he forced each to go through. It also made great use of light and shadow to bring the audience to just a small, yet haunting, sense of the oppressive weight of authority which turned on Joan, who’d been a literal savior of the French effort to rid itself of English meddling into the country’s affairs. Until her appearance on the scene, the French armies had been generally unsuccessful at dealing the English a meaningful enough blow to make them rethink their continued insistence on a say in the future of the whole of France.

Maria Renee Falconetti delivers probably one of the greatest single performances captured on film to this day, according to many scholars and critics. Known more for her stage work, The Passion of Joan of Arc was only her second, and final, movie. What’s interesting is that Passion had been thought lost for all time in a fire, and it wasn’t until 1981 that a mint copy was miraculously discovered in a janitor’s closet in an insane asylum in Oslo, Norway. Today, it’s recommend fare for any serious student of the cinema, and delivers a truly inspired and powerful performance on the life and death of Joan of Arc. If you get the chance, watch it, for it’s really one of the first cinematic movie classics in the history of film.

Made in 1954, director Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, starring Jimmy Stewart and the always beautiful Grace Kelly, set the standard for classic movie thrillers for decades to come. In fact its voyeur-who-witnesses-a-murder-and-isn’t-believed theme is an essential part of any movie that seeks to encourage a bit of paranoia and suspense. Alfred Hitchcock himself relied upon this premise in several other movies of his over the years, to great effect.

The film opens with Jimmy Stewart’s photographer character, Jeff Jeffries, bound to a wheelchair, convalescing after an accident. Actually more of a professional voyeur, he spends the day observing the comings-and-goings of the neighbors in his apartment building. The films darkens quickly enough, after he observes what he thinks may have been a murder. It’s at this point that Jeffries has a very hard, if not at first impossible, time convincing his girlfriend Lisa — effectively played by Grace Kelly – and others that the upstanding citizen across the way may not be as harmless and nice as he seems.

A lot of critics, including this one, feel that the murder that Stewart’s character may or may not have witnessed is nothing more than what’s called a “MacGuffin.” That is, it’s a pretext with which to give motivation to certain characters to make them do what they need to do in the movie. This makes sense, because Rear Window forces us to examine Jeffries, Lisa, and the possible murderer (Raymond Burr), and how they react to what’s going on around them; their interrelationships and the emotions which play across their faces, at times. The possibility of murder itself, cold as it may seem, is just something that’s used to get these characters going in the directions they need to. We especially find ourselves interested in examining how Jimmy Stewart, in the role of voyeur or sentinel, reacts to his situation, hobbled as he is by his confinement to a wheelchair. And that’s the genius behind this film, for only a truly masterful actor (which Stewart was) could be convincing enough to make the average movie audience of the time care more about him than about a person who may have been killed.

Honored as one the 100 best movies of all time, Rear Window set the standard for the classic movie thriller. Its cinematography and skillful use of camera work by Hitchcock, who propels you into the feelings of the main characters as effortlessly as a river of water flows downstream, will keep you riveted to your chair. If you get a chance, rent it or buy one of the re-mastered DVDs available for sale.

Filmed in black-and-white, 1939’s Stagecoach began a decades-long collaboration between classic movie star John Wayne and his most loyal director, John Ford. That it’s also the film that catapulted John Wayne to true stardom is an even better reason to like it. What’s also interesting is that his portrayal of The Ringo Kid is recognized by critics as moving the typical Western hero from a person who basically wore a white hat, so to speak, and without ulterior motive, to somebody who was more complicated and multi-dimensional. Also starring Claire Trevor as a frowned-upon woman of so-called loose morals, and Thomas Mitchell as a drunken doctor of no real courage, director Ford’s examination of true motives and complicated behaviors among several members traveling on a stagecoach going through the Indian Territories set a pattern of realism for more than a few Westerns that followed over the years. It’s worth noting that Mitchell also won a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his effort.

Stagecoach brought about a new era of Westerns to emerge from Hollywood, and many of the spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s have a direct lineage back to this one film. A veteran of dozens of B-movies by that time, John Wayne took The Ringo Kid, who was a man of ready violence, if need be, and used him to show how someone who might’ve been not-too-pure in the past, could make himself capable of good works in the defense of those weaker than himself. Also, Claire Trevor’s run-out-of-town saloon girl proved she was more than equal to the rigors of stagecoach travel, and in dealing with bands of marauding Indians and raiders. Though she’d been beaten down a bit by life, she demonstrated a ready willingness to stand up when it counted. And also to love, when it mattered.

Many critics contend that this now-classic movie was the first really adult oriented Western to come out of the cowboy movie factories of old Hollywood. This is due in part to Ford’s examination of societal mores, and also in the way in which complex relationships between members of the stagecoach traveling party were laid out. Particularly in the case of the alcoholic doctor, memorably played by Mitchell, one can see Ford’s continuing fascination with redemption and episodic feats of courage. Additionally, the crisp cinematography and the film’s use of light and shadow to depict deep emotions make for an experience which made this John Wayne vehicle a movie that was hard-hitting for its time, and beloved among classic movies in the here and now.

Forbidden Planet, one of the best classic movies of the science fiction genre, is a film made in 1956 that pays direct homage to William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Starring Walter Pidgeon as Doctor Morbius (the Prospero character in Tempest) and Anne Francis as his daughter, Planet examines how a paradise-like existence on the distant planet Altair-4 may not be all that it appears. That this is so is amply demonstrated by the arrival of a spaceship, captained by a youngish Leslie Neilsen, and what happens when he and his crew are injected into the mix. The movie is also famous for its introduction of Robby the Robot into our popular culture. The robot in Lost in Space is a direct descendant of the Robby archetype, as are many of the space crew portrayals in later science fiction movies and television productions like Star Trek and Babylon Five.

Anne Francis, who plays Altaira, the lovely young daughter of Morbius, gives a nuanced performance, especially after the arrival of Neilsen and his spaceship, which had been sent out in search of the crew that had previously gone to Altair-4. Of that crew, only Altaira and her father remained, the others having been killed off by an unseen force surrounding the planet. Robby fills the role of loyal servant, who also may be more than is apparent at first blush. While Forbidden Planet uses science fiction as its motive force, it’s clear that it serves as a convenient device with which to examine the issues that underpin the film’s broader narrative. What happened to the race of beings that previously lived on Altair-4? What exactly was the force binding Walter Pidgeon’s Morbius and his daughter to the planet? Does the doctor know more than he lets on, and will he (or the mysterious force) tolerate Nielsen’s courtship of his daughter, who’d never seen another man prior to the arrival of the latest spaceship?

The 50s were a time of anxiety over nuclear power, and our presence in the cosmos. Roswell and UFOs also served to turn up the level of concern over science and its role in the world. But that same concern was also mixed with wonder and a desire to explore, and the movie reflected that. Planet also set cinematic standards for special effects – which still look impressive even today – and for musical scoring, it being the first to entirely use electronic sounds to create a movie score. All in all, when speaking of a science fiction movie classic, Forbidden Planet receives four stars.

In 1956, when The Searchers was first released, nobody knew that it would today be a widely-hailed classic movie. Nowadays, it’s especially noted as one of the greatest Westerns of all-time. Starring John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles and a young Natalie Wood, among others, it was one of the first in the cowboy genre to examine issues of racism in the old West; especially that practiced against Native American tribespeople. Directed by John Ford, it was the 12th movie he and Wayne made together

The Searchers, filmed using the Vista Vision process and with bold colors and beautiful scenery (especially of Monument Valley, Utah, which filled in for the famous Llano Estacado region in the Southwest), is also a favorite of many of today’s most famous writers and directors. Steven Spielberg ranks it as one of his all-time classic movies, and for good reason. It’s broad outlines were later used to great effect in the Star Wars franchise, and in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, to use a couple of examples.

Playing the part of Confederate Civil War veteran Ethan Edwards, John Wayne delivered a portrait unlike any he’d created previously. Haunted by hatred and violence, Wayne’s Ethan demonstrates over the course of a five year span how truly debilitating racism and hatred can be if allowed to go unchecked. His portrayal, in fact, is now regarded as one of the finest in a decades-long career. Aided throughout the movie by a young half-Cherokee friend of his brother’s slain family (Jeffrey Hunter), the film centers on the long search for his young niece, who’d been kidnapped in the same Cherokee raid that saw Ethan’s brother, sister-in-law and nephew killed. Hunter’s character himself has to contend with the latent racism evidenced by Ethan on occasion, and also on the woman whom he left behind during the years-long search (played by Vera Miles).

Near the end of the film, we’re not sure if Ethan means to kill his niece for the sin of having lived among the Cherokee, and being “taken” in marriage to the band’s leader, or to bring her back to safety. The satisfying conclusion, though, shows that redemption is possible, even for someone as conflicted by racial hatred as Ethan Edwards.

In its day, nobody thought The Searchers would rank among the best Westerns ever, but its grand scope and cinematography, combined with Ford’s masterful direction and the power of its themes, have all conspired to place it in lofty company. Additionally, John Wayne’s portrayal of a tortured and haunted Ethan Edwards, makes this a definite movie classic.

In the 1940 classic movie that at heart is really an examination of the relationship between professionals who at one time were married — but still remain a boss-and-employee pair — we find both Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell giving virtuoso performances. Directed by Howard Hawks, “His Girl Friday,” is the story of Hildy Johnson (played to fierce effect by Russell) and Walter Burns, whose hysterical determination to prevent the remarriage of his former wife and long-time ace reporter, is depicted masterfully in an Oscar-worthy performance by the normally ultra-cool and ultra-suave Cary Grant.

His Girl Friday is one of a number of movies that can trace their roots back to The Front Page, a 1928 stage by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur. Most went on to become movie classics in their own right (and some didn’t, of course) because of the basic comedic themes running throughout the basic plot.

In His Girl Friday, the comedy centers around the efforts undertaken by hard-driving newspaper editor Walter Burns to prevent his best reporter (and ex-wife, coincidentally) from getting remarried. Burns, at first, isn’t so much against the idea of Rosalind Russell’s Hildy Johnson remarrying because he believes he still harbors any romantic feelings himself for her; instead, he’s just selfish. Selfish because he wants to ensure Hildy’s continued presence at his paper, considering she’s the best reporter around, and her writing sells lots of newspapers. In announcing her engagement, she tells Burns of her plans to leave the paper to move to Albany with her soon-to-be husband. Cary Grant’s Walter character uses every gag in the book to keep her from leaving, including tricking her into taking one, final assignment; getting a jailhouse interview with a quaking little nerd of a prisoner who’d been convicted of killing a cop and is soon to be executed for his deed. Great performances abound, including the ensemble cast assembled to play various fellow reporters, and also the hapless prisoner himself (John Qualen). As far as classic movies go, this is one of the best.

The rapid fire speech patterns and clipped tones used by the actors evoke perfectly how we think people back in those days talked to one another, and the camera work, which ably spread the focus among the primary and secondary members of the cast to great effect, is top-notch. One can’t help but laugh endlessly at the zany, breakneck speed with which Grant and Russell play off each other, and the ending is as satisfying as it is expected. Critics widely hail His Girl Friday as one of the best dialogue-driven comedies of all time, and it’s well-worth the price of a purchase or rental.