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Essentials by Decade: The 1950s

Rebel Without a CauseThe 1950s was Old Hollywood's last great decade, but even before Dylan put the words to music, the times they were a changin'. There was revolution in Marlon Brando's naturalistic performances and rebellion in thrill-seeking, rock and rolling teens. Science fiction and monster movies tapped into a growing nuclear dread, and even westerns became "adult." Blockbuster big screen epics lured people away from their newfangled television sets, and iconoclastic French New Wave directors energized world cinema. These essential 1950s movies etch a portrait of a decade that wasn't all happy days. See our Essential films of the 1950s, including:

Essential films of the 1950s

Classics

Film and television made before 1970

Melody Time

Babes in ToylandStrictly BallroomEnchanted (Widescreen Edition) Holidays are the time to bring the whole family together in harmony. What better way to do it than with classic musicals from Disney? Find song & dance classics for the whole family.

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Essentials by Decade: The 1930s

The Thin ManThe Adventures of Robin HoodThe '30s was magic time for the movies. Although the Great Depression gripped the country, Hollywood fought back by creating a uniquely American artform, the screwball comedy. Then there was the musical, which shook off the static style of the early talkies and took flight with the lilting, saucy romances of Astaire and Rogers and the radical hallucinations of Busby Berkeley. Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, and John Wayne all became stars. Director Ernst Lubitsch's celebrated touch was never more deft, and Frank Capra and John Ford were reimagining America, each in his distinct way. David O. Selznick proved himself the archetypal producer-mogul, moving from Paramount to RKO, then MGM, and finally his own studio--and setting the capstone on Hollywood's most golden of golden-age years, 1939, with his magnum opus Gone With the Wind. See our Essential films of the 1930s, including:

Essential films of the 1930s

John Wayne DVD Store

Visit our John Wayne DVD Store for all the newest DVDs, exclusive articles, a video reminiscence by the cast of The Cowboys, rare photos from the Wayne family scrapbook, and more. Don't miss it, pardner.

John Wayne DVD Store

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Wayne and Eastwood: Icons of the Western

The mythology of the West has long transfixed both filmmakers and filmgoers, and few actors have embodied its spirit better than John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Their movies not only are pinnacles of the genre, but also rank among the most important in cinematic history.
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Essentials by Decade: The 1960s

2001: A Space OdysseyThe 1960s saw the career sunset of a number of Hollywood Golden Age directors, while a younger generation of international filmmakers were hitting their strides, infusing the medium with new vitality, style, and iconoclastic wit. Technological advances yielded increasingly ambitious epics. By the end of the '60s, Hollywood studios embraced change and made way for independent productions. See our Essential films of the 1960s, including:

Essential films of the 1960s

Classic Essentials: Silent Films

The Gold RushThe silent screen often shimmered with light, beauty, and the poetry of the unexpected. D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation still carries the thrill of the birth of an artform. The classic comedies Buster Keaton and Charles Chaplin not only starred in but also directed remain side-splittingly funny and heartbreakingly tender--and Keaton's in particular inspire awe for a visual integrity of performance and photography that could brave a cyclone or a waterfall without recourse to special effects. Ernst Lubitsch mastered the technique of getting the naughtiest innuendo across to an audience without showing anything the censors could cut. And the spiritually luminous close-ups in Carl Dreyer's Passion of Joan of Arc proved that, with the silent screen at its best, there was nothing left for dialogue to say. See our Essential silent films, including:

Essential silent films


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