When can we put the ‘classic’ label on a movie? There is no written rule about how long you have to wait or what criteria should be taken into account (critics? box office? awards?), but they certainly have to have one essential quality: that of surviving the test of time .
In this list we are talking about all kinds of classics, films that go from the 30s to the 80s, about fifty years in which authentic cinematographic legends were forged. For example, we talked about movies like ‘Citizen Kane’, considered to be one of the best movies of all time and also one of the most impressive debuts, courtesy of the talented Orson Welles. At its classic level at the time were films such as Frank Capra’s ‘How beautiful it is to live’, a film with which we continue to repeat every Christmas, and also David Lean’s ‘Brief Encounter’, one of the best love films of all the times. There is nothing! Of course, Hollywood lives on this list with some of its most acclaimed titles, but not all good classic cinema is concentrated in the United States.
In this list of classics on Prime Video we also find the founding films of the most influential film movements in the history of the medium. If we talk about Italian neorealism, there is ‘Rome, open city’ by Roberto Rossellini, who showed that a trauma like that of the Second World War could only be portrayed from the most absolute truth and realism. If we talk about Nouvelle Vague, we find titles as essential as ‘The Four Hundred Blows’ by François Truffaut, one of the most recognizable films of the French movement, and also ‘Cleo from 5 to 7’ by Agnès Varda, a film for a long time undervalued and that we now consider key at the time.
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
Widely considered one of the best movies in movie history (or, for some, the best ever), ‘Citizen Kane’ is an enduring classic that continues to amaze more than 80 years later . The film shows us the death of tycoon Charles Foster Kane, who dies in his bed with one last word: Rosebud. The mystery about its meaning is served, and also the not very subtle portrait of William Randolph Hearst,
How beautiful it is to live (Frank Capra, 1946)
How much this Frank Capra classic starring James Stewart made us cry, and where a man must realize what the world would be like without him. A Christmas story that follows a man drowning in debt and facing suicide as the only possible option, but who will live an extraordinary adventure. For many, one of the best Christmas movies of all time.
The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
Adaptation of the novel by Graham Greene, this British film places us at the beginning of the Cold War, in Vienna in 1947 , where an American writer arrives in search of a friend who turns out to have died. And not only that: his friend was involved in shady deals. This is how the mysteries are unleashed in this story that has one of the best endings in the history of cinema.
Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)
Among the best westerns in the history of cinema we could not leave out ‘Stagecoach’, the absolute classic by John Ford starring the king of cowboys, John Wayne . The story follows a group of very different characters who travel aboard a stagecoach, that is, a carriage that transported passengers throughout the Far West.
Brief Encounter (David Lean, 1945)
One of the great romantic dramas in movie history, and also one of the best love movies on Amazon Prime Video . How not to fall in love with this classic by David Lean, in which a housewife somewhat tired of her monotonous matrimonial routine meets a doctor in the waiting room of the train station. From there, the two begin a relationship away from their family responsibilities and find a connection like never before.
Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944)
How many surprises does this classic Hollywood film noir directed by Otto Preminger have in store for the viewer ? The story follows detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews), who investigates the murder of the beautiful Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney), who has been found murdered. Little by little, the woman comes to life in the detective’s mind through the testimonies of those who knew her, and the protagonist feels drawn to her.
Adam’s Rib (George Cukor, 1949)
The couple formed by Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy is undoubtedly one of the most legendary in classic Hollywood, in both a professional and personal tandem . Among their many works together on the big screen, this hilarious screwball comedy stands out with the classic battle of the sexes, with a story in which an apparently idyllic married couple of lawyers find themselves confronted in court over a criminal case.