Jimmy Stewart’s Westerns are some of the best ever made in that genre.
They were among the first to focus more on character and the consequences of a violent life.
You have to see his Westerns
Winchester 73, Broken Arrow, Bend of the River, Naked Spur, Far Country, Man From Laramie, Destry Rides Again
His movies with Hitchcock are equally good
Rear Window, Vertigo
His comedies are superb
Philadelphia Story (with Hepburn and Cary Grant)
Harvey (based on the play that Stewart starred in)
Stagecoach. It holds up amazingly well. It’s a Western, but much more of a commentary on society.
Sunset Bulevard. Just watched this last night on PBS. Very Hitchcockian, a little noirish. Very good.
My favorite Hitchcock film, though, is Notorious.
And if you’ve never seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, that is an absolute must.
I am going to second this suggestion, Double Indemnity in particular.
A masterpiece.
mmm
It’s too derivative of Body Heat. 
Actually, I do like Body Heat better. But I’d recommend both.
Here is a list of “1,001 films you must see before you die.” It’s actually over 1,200 now because the list has been added to since 2000 when it was first drawn up.
Honestly, “must see” is a bit strong as it is mainly a list for someone who is really into cinema; I would put some in the category of “watch so you can analyze what went wrong.” As a more casual fan, what you can use it for is to bring something to your attention you might never had heard of. They most likely all have an entry in Wikipedia (all the obscure ones I sampled did) so you can look it up to see if it is to your taste. The list is in time-order so you can start at 1974 and work your way backwards, clear back to 1902 if you have the stamina.
The Shootist
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
The Oxbow Incident
Stagecoach (the original)
The Grapes of Wrath
Flight of The Phoenix (again, the original)
Gone With the Wind
Freaks (horror, so shocking at the time that it couldn’t be released in the original version)
Born Yesterday (comedy, with the hysterical Judy Holliday)
Angels With Dirty Faces (yeah, gangster film, but worth watching because of The Dead End Kids)
Action, war movies, political thrillers:
**Beau Geste **(both the silent version starring Ronald Coleman, and the sound version starring Gary Cooper)
The Prisoner of Zenda (the black-and-white version with Ronald Coleman is better than the color version with Stewart Granger, but both are good. [Both are based on the stage play adapted from the novel.])
Sergei Eisenstein’s films:
Alexander Nevsky
Ivan the Terrible, Part 1
Ivan the Terrible, Part 2
Also, The Battleship Potemkin, just so you can tell the marxists that they are full of it.
Ninotchka is technically a romcom, but the comedy is mostly social and political.
Max Fleischer
Betty Boop
Popeye
Superman
Gulliver’s Travels
Mr. Bug Goes to Town
You didn’t say what you meant by old movie, so I just decided you meant anything up to 1974, the only year you mentioned in your post. I took my list of my 100 favorite movies and eliminated anything from 1975 on. This is what’s left:
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, U.S., dir. Michael Curtiz)
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, U.S., dir. Lewis Milestone)
Amarcord (1974, Italy, Federico Fellini)
Army of Shadows (1969, France/Italy, dir. Jean-Pierre Melville)
Camille (1937, U.S., dir. George Cukor)
Casablanca (1942, U.S., dir. Michael Curtiz)
Chinatown (1974, U.S., dir. Roman Polanski)
Citizen Kane (1941, U.S., dir. Orson Welles)
A Clockwork Orange (1971, U.K./U.S., dir. Stanley Kubrick)
Dark Star (1974, U.S., dir. John Carpenter)
Dr. Strangelove (1964, U.K., dir. Stanley Kubrick)
Duck Soup (1933, U.S., dir. Leo McCarey)
Fantastic Planet (1973, France, dir. Rene Laloux)
Forbidden Planet (1956, U.S., dir. Fred McLeod Wilcox)
Freaks (1932, U.S., dir. Tod Browning)
The Godfather (1972, U.S., dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
The Godfather Part II (1974, U.S., dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
The Great Dictator (1940, U.S., dir. Charles Chaplin)
Invaders from Mars (1953, U.S., dir. William Cameron Menzies)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, U.S., dir. Frank Capra)
King Kong (1933, U.S., dir. Merian C. Cooper)
La Jetée (1962, France, dir. Chris Marker)
La Strada (1954, Italy, dir. Federico Fellini)
The Last Picture Show (1971, U.S., dir. Peter Bogdanovich)
M (1931, Germany, dir. Fritz Lang)
Macbeth (1971, U.K./U.S., dir. Roman Polanski)
The Maltese Falcon (1941, U.S., dir. John Huston)
McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971, U.S., dir. Robert Altman)
Modern Times (1936, U.S., dir. Charles Chaplin)
Play it Again, Sam (1972, U.S., dir. Herbert Ross)
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970, U.K./U.S., dir. Billy Wilder)
Psycho (1960, U.S., dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
Ride the High Country (1962, U.S., dir. Sam Peckinpah)
The Searchers (1956, U.S., dir. John Ford)
Seven Samurai (1954, Japan, dir. Akira Kurosawa)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952, U.S., dir. Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen)
The Third Man (1949, U.K., dir. Carol Reed)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948, U.S., dir. John Huston)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, U.K., dir. Stanley Kubrick)
Vertigo (1958, U.S., dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
The Wild Bunch (1969, U.S., dir. Sam Peckinpah)
The Wizard of Oz (1939, U.S., dir. Victor Fleming)
A pale imitation of Thunderball (1965). The 1983 movie owes its existence to a dispute over producer rights.
The best Bond movies are, IMHO, From Russia with Love and Goldfinger. Connery will always be the best Bond, but the series really started to go over the top after the latter. (Parachuting frogmen? A ninja army? Really? :dubious: ) Of course, your mileage might vary.
Of the rest of the movies in the series, I’d especially recommend On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (which is more or less faithful to the book) and For Your Eyes Only (actually a pretty good Cold War story).
You may not consider ***American Graffiti *** (1973) an “old” movie, but I do. By far George Lucas’s best work (except maybe the original Star Wars), and one in which I get completely lost from the beginning.
The 1954 sci-fi/monster move, THEM! has a great cast, good script, great f/x (for the era) & a terrific director.
A personal favorite.
I also like the Abbot & Costello monster fllicks, & the Hope/Crosby Road pictures.
The Marx Brother are comedy gold, but ethic & racial references may offend some viewers.
I was thinking of starting a similar type thread, only about the wonders of technology (because of Netflix in particular, I’ve been able to watch a lot of old movies now that I never had the opportunity to while growing up–in those days, if they didn’t offer it at the local movie theater, or if it wasn’t on TV, you didn’t get to see it).
Now, my recommendations: Kurosawa. My daughter (who’s a film buff, and is learning about old movies) and I just watched Seven Samurai a couple of days ago. We loved it. We’ve also watched Yojimbo and Rashomon.
We both like Bogart. The Maltese Falcon, Treasure of Sierra Madre, and Caine Mutiny are three classics. Also Key Largo.
Someone mentioned Jimmy Stewart. Watch Harvey.
Almost any Cary Grant film is worth watching.
For a good political thriller, watch Three Days of the Condor (Robert Redford). For a political thriller/comedy, watch Hopscotch (Walter Matthau)
Silent: Battleship Potemkin. Classic.
There are literally thousands of great old movies. You’ll never be bored.
A few of my favorites that haven’t been mentioned yet:
It Happened One Night - the original ‘rom-com’, with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert
Arsenic and Old Lace - screwball comedy at its best; Cary Grant, “Teddy Roosevelt”, and the kindest, sweetest stone-cold killers you’ll ever meet
The African Queen - Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn; adventure, comedy, romance, and leeches!
Maybe. I watched that movie back in the eighties and I remember it as being a great movie. So when it was recently released on a Criterion blu-ray, I sought it out to watch it again.
And I was disappointed. It had not held up well. Matthau is still good but the movie itself was pretty sloppy.
I’m fond of garish, Technicolor cheesy musicals, and also elegant black and white Fred and Ginger movies.
But some other oldies I like:
Shane (Western, with Alan Ladd. An ambiguous ending.)
Can’t go wrong with Bette Davis, her first is Of Human Bondage with Leslie Howard, though it’s slow and plodding you might not enjoy it, but Bette’s scenes are electrifying. I like her in almost anything in the middle years, Mr. Skeffington, The Little Foxes, Deception…and later The Catered Affair (with Ernest Borgnine, it’s a stretch, but a good attempt at a slice of life). And of course, All About Eve.
Pygmalion with Leslie Howard and Wendy Hiller, hilarious, and it was remade as My Fair Lady.
Cary Grant can do no wrong, I am fond of Bringing Up Baby and Father Goose. Also To Catch a Thief, just the costumes alone are eye-popping.
Any cheesy or serious historical movie has my attention, Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Caesar and Cleopatra, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and even old Steve Reeves movies, which are kind of unintentionally hilarious. A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Little Women (you might find it too syrupy and sentimental), National Velvet (a young Liz Taylor and Mickey Rooney, just magical).
I can’t disagree that it’s dated in a lot of ways, and the band when Kendig is at the bar has always been bad, but to me, there are so many great lines (from memory):
-By the way, my name’s not Murdison.
Didn’t think it was, Mr. Murdison
-You remind me of my father.
That’s always been my problem
-Now I know what FBI stands for: Fucking Ball-busting Imbeciles!
-Someone is taking our picture.
Oh, that’s Follett. He’s an idiot. Probably no film in the camera
-Do please stop following me. You’re making my dog very nervous. He detests the smell of stupidity.
-C You Next Tuesday Myerson?
-This is Eleanor Roosevelt!
And so on.
So yeah, it has its drawbacks, but I still love it.
Some old war movies:
***Spitfire
The Dam Busters
49th Parallel
13 Rue Madeleine
Cockleshell Heroes
Run Silent, Run Deep
Destination: Tokyo
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo
Objective: Burma
Orders to Kill
Decision before Dawn
Paths of Glory
The Guns of Navarone
The Great Escape
The Train
Von Ryan’s Express***
Some Cold War movies:
***The Journey
A Dandy in Aspic
Fail-Safe
Topaz***
Some other great dramas:
***Town without Pity
Experiment in Terror
Anatomy of a Murder***
Some science fiction:
***The Day the Earth Stood Still
Destination: Moon
Forbidden Planet
Silent Running
Dark Star***
Lessie…just skimming some big ones, off the top of my head:
Triumph of the Will
Alexander Nevsky
It Happened Here
Gojira
The Hidden Fortress
Maybe some examples of the Giallo genre
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Marooned
Forbidden Planet
Jason and the Argonauts
Colossus: The Forbin Project
The Longest Day
Where Eagles Dare
Tora! Tora! Tora!
In terms on animation, specifically, you might try:
The Hunchbacked Horse
*Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors
Fritz Lang’s M
The Dawn Patrol*** (1930 or 1938)
***Robinson Crusoe on Mars
The Time Machine*** (1960)
***The OdeSSa File
The Day of the Jackal ***(1971)
The Producers (1968)
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
The Great Race
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines