When I was five years old, I saw “The Ten Commandments” with my parents at a drive in in 1956 and remember the special effects vividly! I still get a kick out of watching it today.
The first movie I saw without my parents in a movie theater was also in 1956 (my older cousin took me): “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms.” Ray Harryhausen’s dinosaur was nothing short of awesome! I still enjoy watching that.
When I was a kid I both loved and was somewhat terrified of The Dark Crystal. Watched it over and over. It’s still awesome.
I was going to say Big Trouble in Little China, but I think I probably saw Willy Wonka first and probably the Wizard of Oz around the same time. Both of them were and still are great.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star wars.
I feel very young. One of my first theater experiences I remember was Home Alone. I would have been 6.
I’m guessing I saw Star Wars, Close Encounters, and Silver Streak all when I was 9 or so for the first time. The first two in the theater, the last on TV. They’re all still favorites.
*The Day the Earth Stood Still *came out in 1951, so I was three when my parents took me to see it. Never have gotten tired of it. Don’t plan to see the remake.
One thing that’s interesting about the movie is that the interior of the spacecraft still looks futuristic. I remember some space movies from the 50’s where spacecraft were roomy and looked like auditoriums. One of them had passengers sitting in folding chairs! But Michael Rennie’s ship still looks advanced even by 21st century standards.
Speaking of Logan’s Run. I was a graduate student living in the Ft. Worth area when it came out. The entrance to the underground world was the Ft. Worth Water Garden in front of the Ft. Worth Convention Center. We used to hang around there at night in the aimless, penniless way young people have and were really surprised to see it turn up in the movie.
It might have been the VERY first movie I ever saw. I couldn’t have been any more than three, since the IMDB re-release schedule gives the date as December 1975:
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.
I even remember having pizza beforehand.
And yes, I still like it…the artistry of the animation and the songwriting hold up even today.
(When I saw a 1993 re-release with my friend Rick–who was the one who introduced me to the Dope–I said as we walked out, “I’d forgotten how much I liked that movie.” He replied, “I’d forgotten how HIGH that little twerp’s voice was.” :D)
Then, when I was five, I remember seeing the Disney live-action release Candleshoe in the theater. It’s a remarkably well-done little flick that’s sort of an “Anastasia”-type deal. Two British crooks (one of whom is played by Leo McKern) recruit an American orphan (Jodie Foster, in the first thing I ever saw her in) to pose as the long-lost granddaughter of an English lady (Helen Hayes–who played a similar role in the original Anastasia!) They want her to search for a treasure on the lady’s estate that was hidden by a pirate ancestor of hers. But once the girl gets there and passes the test, she begins to care for the old lady and the foster children she’s taken in. The lady is land-poor, but to keep her from realizing how dire her straits are, her faithful butler (David Niven) poses as all the other servants, as well as an aristocratic neighbor. So Jodie’s character begins to want to find the treasure to help her instead of to benefit the crooks. (It’s left ambiguous at the end as to whether she really IS the old lady’s granddaughter.)
Of course, not all of this registered with me as a kid–mainly, the part that stuck with me was the image of gold coins pouring out of a broken statue. But when I saw it again as an older kid, and again as an adult, it really hit me how well-made, well-written, well-cast (all those first-class actors like Niven, Hayes, and McKern!) and overall well-done it was. I still consider it one of Disney’s underrated gems.
I think I saw The Titfield Thunderbolt about when it first came out – I would have been 8 at the time – and I still like it.
Weird, when I read the title, my first thought (of what you were asking) is what is the earliest movie around that you like (not “What is the earliest movie you remember seeing and liked”–which appears to be how most people in this thread are answering).
The earliest movie I remember seeing and liking (and still like to this day) is probably E.T.
However, the earliest movie (EVER, of all time–which is what I thought the OP’s title was asking) that I’ve seen and still like to this day is probably Wizard of Oz.
I think you read the OP like I did too. : p
I was six or seven when I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time. I didn’t understand much of it, but I was enthralled.
I can still remember running out of the room when the Ark causes the Nazis’ faces to melt.
Probably *2001 *- I don’t know if I can definitely remember any films I saw before then. I did see it fourteen times in the summer of its release (a perk of growing up in the cinema industry).
The only certain memory of another movie I saw at the time of release and still like is The Andromeda Strain. After which I sat through most of the blaxploitation era and wouldn’t care to revisit most of it. 
There would have been several Disney films in there, live and animated, new and re-release, but I don’t know that I’d count any among them as favorites. Maybe The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.
FWIW, all of the movies I have listed I still like to this day.
Cat Ballou (1965). I couldn’t have been more than five years old. But I remembered it strangely well, and love it to this day. And even then, I knew that Jane Fonda was smoking hot.
When I was a kid in the 60s there was only one commercial TV station where I lived and they showed bits of programming from all the major city networks. Sundays however were just endless old movies. I got two things from this; a life long love of movies and learning how to cook myself something to eat while watching a movie. In those days you didn’t know anything about the movies you were about to watch; no IMDB, no Halliwell’s Film Guide, but there would be dozens including most mentioned in the OP that I would happily watch again any time.
The earliest movie that I can recall seeing at the movies (drive in actually) that I would watch again was Lawrence of Arabia. I saw that with my parents. I think the earliest things I saw with friends were Cool Hand Luke, The Dirty Dozen and The Graduate, all of which are 1967 releases but may have got here later.
The first movies I saw in a cinema were all Disney, and most, especially the animated ones, still hold up. That includes Bambi, Snow White, and Pinocchio. I don’t know if Pete’s Dragon, or Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo would still hold up.
But I also remember seeing old movies on TV, like with Danny Kaye, or the Marx Brothers, or Bob Hope and Bing Crosby*, or Ma and Pa Kettle. I suspect they still hold up, but I haven’t seen them since to know for sure. Well, except for the Marx Brothers.
*Farfel Farfel Pipik
I can’t remember which movie I saw first: Ben Hur or a re-release of Gone With the Wind that came to my small-town city theatre. I think of Ben Hur as the first movie I remember that had an intermission, so it may have been that one. We saw it at a drive-in. It made a HUGE impression on me, especially the bloody body of one of the chariot drivers after his chariot wrecked. I had a Ben Hur coloring book, and I remember coloring the fallen chariot driver all red.
On the whole, though, I probably still enjoy watching GWTW more now, though. I do still watch it when it comes on tv and enjoy it.
I first saw The Day the Earth Stood Still on tv. Ditto Forbidden Planet. I still really love both movies.
Loved it when I was five because a hunk of stone fell on a guy’s torso and he vomited blood. Haven’t seen it since so I can’t comment, but the cast is great.
I have found Sink the Bismark to be even better than when I saw it at six. I couldn’t appreciate the finer points of the Fairey Swordfish or Dana Wynter then.
This is the one I was going to say. I still laugh when I watch it.