Tangent: Heh. Black and white isn’t as much an issue as silent films. We love silent films. But it’s tough to get a modern audience to watch 'em.
She’s from the pre-2000 generation? How dated. 
There are just so many. I’ll leave out silents, since they have a further hurdle.
Duck Soup
A Night at the Opera
Some Like it Hot
Bringing Up Baby
The Public Enemy
Casablanca
The Maltese Falcon
The Big Sleep
Strangers on a Train
The 39 Steps
Fort Apache
Stagecoach
The Thin Man
Citizen Kane
Letter to Three Wives
All About Eve
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
Stalag 17
The Body Snatcher
The biggest problem is not the black and white (or pacing – films from the 30s were extremely fast paced), but that older films were made for adults while current films are made for teens.
You Can’t Take it With You is very funny even after all this time, and so is Bringing up Baby.
I’m 48, and arguably Generation X (did the baby boom end in 1964 or 1965?). Two years your junior, I know that neither you nor I grew up with black and white movies. Yet we both like them.
So I disagree with your premise.
I think black and white movies are there, waiting for people when they grow up, and it’s just as well, because they require an attention span longer than a minute.
Anyway, here are some of my favorite b&w’s (I know many are dupes):
The Manchurian Candidate
The Thin Man
My Man Godfrey
Rebecca
Casablanca
Psycho
The Maltese Falcon
City Lights
The Gold Rush
The Kid
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer
Topper
Spellbound
Night of the Hunter
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Philadelphia Story
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
My Favorite Wife
I love Gaslight, excellent movie. I detest the need to update and modernize books and movies, I prefer to keep them as period pieces if that is how they were written originally. There is usually a fuck up of details when you change it up by modernizing.
Born in 1961 and until the mid 70s we didn’t have a color TV, I got used to watching everything in black and white and I still love old movies. I like silents, though I understand that many people just do not like subtitiles, which is why they usually also won’t watch foreign films. Georgio Moroder tried to update Metropolis with a modern soundtrack [which I actually like] and most people disliked it <shrug> can’t please everybody.
Night of the Hunter – great choice, one of my favorite movies ever, and so let me add: Cape Fear. Kids today need some menacing Robert Mitchum in their lives.
Out of the Past was his(and Jane Greers) best role, IMO. We have lost the strong masculine yet thoughtful actor.
We’ve had people on this Board say that they don’t like watching black and white movies. I’m surprised at the prejudice, myself. Certainly not all black and white movies are slowly paced watch His Girl Friday or Arsenic and Old Lace). I think a lot of people see that it’s black and white and think immediately B&W >> old >>stodgy, no good. I suspect part of the move to colorizatioon was to get around this.
Color generally doesn’t add a lot. King Kong was made to be seen in black and white – they used Gustav Dore engravings as inspiration. Ray Harryhausen has decried to colorized version (which i actually thought wasn’t that bad).
On the other hand, Harryhausemn himself worked at colorizing the 1932 Merian C. Cooper version of She, which they wanted to film in color, but didn’t have the budget for. Color definitely adds something in that case.
I’m old enough so that, when i started going to the movies, many were still being released in black and white, when they might easily have been filmed. Some have already been mentioned.
The Train
Dr. Stranelove
Fail-Safe
To Kill a Mockingbird
King Rat
The Bedford Incident
Twelve Angry Men
I grew up in a household with a black and white TV (I didn’t see Star Trek in color until their last season), and they ran black and white films at the movie theater all the time. But I’m older generation.
No love for Border Radio, Down by Law, and She’s Gotta Have It?
I would start them off with films that are fast-paced, are still relevant and have a relatively short running time.
The Third Man
Paths of Glory
Casablanca
Dr. Strangelove
Sullivan’s Travels
Those are the five I would rank highest though I’m quite fond of The Train and Bringing Up Baby…
…oh, and The Magnificent Ambersons.
Down By Law!!! It is a sad and beautiful world.
One thing with this is that during the 50’s and 60’s, you shot in black and white if you were trying to make a “serious” movie (or a low budget one). What might be called “oscar bait” today. Most of those movies are quite good, but they do tend to be slower paced, perhaps a little stodgy, and sometimes they don’t age all that well to someone not familiar with the hot-topic issues of the time. They’re definitely not movies that are going to appeal to a younger audience.
Pretty much all the B&W comedies and other more light-hearted movies that have been listed in this thread are from the 30’s and 40’s and would have almost certainly been shot in color had they been made later.
Here’s another new one–the latest film from the director of last year’s record-breaking blockbuster, The Avengers?
There are a lot of good choices here. I’ll add:
The Uninvited
Born Yesterday
Lost Weekend
42nd Street
The Birds
Hobson’s Choice
How Green Was My Valley
Mrs. Miniver would be great for a ‘modern’ viewer if one skipped the first 20 minutes, and the movie opened with the family in the bomb shelter, calmly awaiting the night’s bombing.
I love the movie, but think it would be better without the beginning.
Has anyone mentioned Casablanca yet?
Yes. It adds nothing. It’s not terrible by any means, but trying to decide if it is some sort of blasphemy, even if well done blasphemy, tends to detract from what is going on.
Lot of good choices in the thread. I’ll add:
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
Touch of Evil
The Lady From Shanghai
Winchester 73
WOW—lots of good movies listed here. For my own part, I am not a huge fan of “Citizen Kane” either. While I think it’s an okay movie, I never understood the accolades that it received.
Me too, but part of that is the “nostalgia factor” from growing up with them watching “Chiller Theater” “Creature Feature” “The Incredible Picture Show” “Shock Theater” “Simon’s Sanctorum” “Ghoularama” and many others. Although I must admit that several color films were shown on the aforementioned horror shows. “Them” is a personal favorite along with “The Mole People” “The Incredible Shrinking Man” “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman” and of course the infamous “Plan 9 From Outer Space.” Have you seen “The Lost Skeleton of Cadavara” before?