# How old are "old movies"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 4, 2011, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682 "2011-05-04T12:40:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/21 "2011-05-04T17:03:40Z")
I voted before 1970, which is coincidentally the year I was born, but really that’s when movies started getting more gritty and realistic and started exploring the concept of the antihero, IMO (which really started in the late 60s with films like **Midnight Cowboy** and **Bonnie & Clyde** , but became a staple in the 70s). ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/22 "2011-05-04T17:42:57Z")
Anything made before the year I was born (which is, conveniently, 1970). In fact, I’m pretty sure I can count on one hand the number of movies I’ve seen that were made before 1970: _Casablanca Gone With the Wind Psycho It’s a Wonderful Life_ …that’s all I can come up with right now. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/23 "2011-05-04T18:35:51Z")
The silents are a bit old for me; they take more effort. Older talkies without restored sound can be hard on the ears. (I love the Mexican _Época de oro_ films on our local Spanish TV stations but their sound is often dreadful–making it even harder for somebody with my minimal Spanish comprehension; hasn’t _anybody_ released restored versions?) Yes, movies can “show their age” in other ways than technical wear & tear. But I often prefer B&W classics to What Was Ultra Hip a couple of decades back. (Most of the really bad movies of days gone by are–gone. Or rarely shown on TCM.) Of course, remembering B&W TV probably removes one barrier to enjoying the old stuff. Some of the talk about “dated” movies reminds me of the airhead couples on _House Hunters_ turning up their noses at kitchens lacking granite counters & stainless steel appliances. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/24 "2011-05-04T18:40:42Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Some of the talk about “dated” movies reminds me of the airhead couples on _House Hunters_ turning up their noses at kitchens lacking granite counters & stainless steel appliances. Airheads they may be, but there are a lot of them and they control a lot of money. And that is all you need to know about taste. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/25 "2011-05-04T18:42:02Z")
If any of the stars are still working and still A-List I’d hesitate to call it old, so going with Jack Nicholson/Dustin Hoffman/and a few others I’d say roughly 1970 and before. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/26 "2011-05-04T19:02:27Z")
I voted for “made before 1950”. My reasoning is technological-in the days before magnetic sound recording, movies used an optical track to record the sound-over time, these break down. Many optical-sond films are almost unintelligible today-I was watching an old print of “The Maltese Falcon” (1941), and much of the dialogue was not hearable. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/27 "2011-05-04T19:25:39Z")
It really depends on the movie. But in general I have to say that around 1966 is the cutoff point. A movie is definitely old if it has such phrases as “What’s the big idea?”, “Why I oughta”, or “Give it to me straight, Jonny.” ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/28 "2011-05-04T19:27:32Z")
_Snakes on a Plane_ is an [old movie](http://www.xkcd.com/891/). ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/29 "2011-05-04T19:32:25Z")
Before 1960, because IMO, the aesthetic changed, and it’s also more likely the cast is all dead. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/30 "2011-05-04T20:04:25Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > I voted for 1970 only because it was closest to my “old movie” demarcation year of 1967. That marks the last year of the Code, the releases of **Bonnie and Clyde** and **The Graduate** , and the departure of Jack Warner, one of the last remaining studio moguls, as head of Warner Brothers. This stikes me as being about right, both in terms of the date (I voted for 1970, because I was a teenager in the 1970s), but also in the reasoning. ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/31 "2011-05-04T21:12:22Z")
I would break it down like this: The '60s were when the old studio systems started breaking down. TV was becoming mainstream. And 1968 is when the code officially died and the ratings board was instituted as a replacement. Outside of a few films this means everything prior to '68 met Hays Code. Anything prior to the '60s is definitely old. 1977 is when Star Wars was released. That was a seminal film and changed the way movies were produced and marketed. It really it took a few years for the studios to recognize and adopt the blockbuster model. But by 1980 the new and current paradigm seems to have gelled. Anything after 1980 is definitely new. So I picked 1970 as the midpoint of the transition period. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Lovely\_Margo\_Lane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/34f0e0/32.png) [@The\_Lovely\_Margo\_Lane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lovely_Margo_Lane)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/32 "2011-05-04T21:16:04Z")
As I mentioned in the other thread, before my mother’s time - so pre-1950s. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/33 "2011-05-04T21:26:43Z")
I picked “before 1960” (which is, incidentally, sixteen years before I was born), but with some reservations. I tend to think of _all_ movies made before 1960 as “old movies,” but only _some_ movies made between 1960 and 1970. Skimming briefly through a list of Best Picture nominees from the 1960s: _To Kill a Mockingbird, Oliver!, The Lion in Winter_ = old movies; _Dr. Strangelove, Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate_ = not old movies, although obviously dated in some ways. (None of this is meant to be a slur on the quality of either set of movies, they just have a really different style and worldview.) (And _Romeo and Juliet_ is also an “old movie,” although it’s kind of a special case since my mental dividing line for Shakespeare adaptations is a _lot_ later; Branagh’s 1989 _Henry V_ is such a game-changer that I think of almost all Shakespeare movies before that as “old.”) ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/34 "2011-05-04T21:29:23Z")
Pre 1960. It was a time of great changes in film making. There’s the widespread use of colour, and the introduction of widescreen. Plus, it was five years before I was born, of course. ---
**Author:** ![etv78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d78d45/32.png) [@etv78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/etv78)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/35 "2011-05-04T21:32:35Z")
> [@Bartman](#): > > I would break it down like this: > The '60s were when the old studio systems started breaking down. TV was becoming mainstream. And 1968 is when the code officially died and the ratings board was instituted as a replacement. Outside of a few films this means everything prior to '68 met Hays Code. Anything prior to the '60s is definitely old. > > 1977 is when Star Wars was released. That was a seminal film and changed the way movies were produced and marketed. It really it took a few years for the studios to recognize and adopt the blockbuster model. But by 1980 the new and current paradigm seems to have gelled. Anything after 1980 is definitely new. > > So I picked 1970 as the midpoint of the transition period. \ '75 was the midway. (Yeah I know it wasn’t a choice in the poll) ---
**Author:** ![Jaledin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/36 "2011-05-04T21:50:20Z")
I’m surprised by the poll results. I was born in 1976 and picked before 1930 as “old” – I guess I do consider silents to be old, but things like “The Great Train Robbery” and so forth. What’s the word for a 1913 picture? Old as fuck? I think the 1930s was the decade during which Hollywood came closest to “firing on all cylinders.” Old is good, in this one sense. Don’t care for the music recorded in the 1930s, generally, so the movies are lacking in the scoring department for me, except for things like the Lubitsch musicals and movies with lots of diegetic non big-band stuff, like “Only Angels Have Wings.” ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/37 "2011-05-04T22:11:05Z")
Maybe I should have put in an option for movies before 1920. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/38 "2011-05-05T00:03:43Z")
Before 1970 because I wasn’t alive yet then, and I was alive in 1980. ---
**Author:** ![Shamozzle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shamozzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shamozzle)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/39 "2011-05-05T03:20:24Z")
> [@Bartman](#): > > I would break it down like this: > The '60s were when the old studio systems started breaking down. TV was becoming mainstream. And 1968 is when the code officially died and the ratings board was instituted as a replacement. Outside of a few films this means everything prior to '68 met Hays Code. Anything prior to the '60s is definitely old. > > 1977 is when Star Wars was released. That was a seminal film and changed the way movies were produced and marketed. It really it took a few years for the studios to recognize and adopt the blockbuster model. But by 1980 the new and current paradigm seems to have gelled. Anything after 1980 is definitely new. > > So I picked 1970 as the midpoint of the transition period. That’s basically what I was going to say: The death of the studio system and the rise of the Lucas/Speilberg/Coppela auteur-types. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2011, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682/40 "2011-05-05T03:40:18Z")
In 1975, when I was 6 years old, movies from the 40s looked ancient. Now 1975 is further away from today, than WWII movies were then. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-are-old-movies/580682.md?page=3)