Browse Classics EssentialsClassic GenresEssentials By DecadeEssentials by Decade: The 1950s The 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
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Grow your DVD library without shrinking your wallet. Shop the $5.79 DVD Sale and find comedies, dramas, westerns and much more. Make sure to check back every week for new titles. ›Shop now Essentials by Decade: The 1940s  Shadows fell over the movies in the 1940s, and in those shadows, ironically, the movies bloomed. Foremost, there was World War II, and the many films--good, bad, sometimes great--made about combat and wartime intrigue, and life going on on the homefront. Even comedies and romances were often obliged to factor the war into their plots or mood. Then, with increasing insistence as the decade wore on, there was the rise of film noir--not so much a genre as a tone, a worldview, a stylistic richness that could seem at the same time jagged and voluptuous, poisonous and fragrant. Nobody planned it; they wouldn't even have a name for it till decades later. But film noir became a vision of American life and the American Dream, and a reflection of doubts and anxieties as servicemen returned postwar to homes that were the same and yet not the same. See our Essential films of the 1940s, including: ›Essential films of the 1940s 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 Essentials by Actor: William Holden  A reliable and boyishly handsome leading man in 1940s Hollywood,
William Holden made an acclaimed breakthrough in 1950's Sunset
Boulevard. An actor who worked hard and played hard, Holden's
hunk-next-door persona belied his ability to pull off morally ambiguous and
cynical roles. Frequently teaming with the legendary director Billy Wilder,
Holden was the premier leading man of the late '50s, starring in gritty
all-male war dramas and opposite the decade's greatest leading ladies.
›Essentials by Actor: William Holden
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Save on hundreds of DVDs in the Big DVD Sale! Choose from theatrical hits, complete TV seasons, special editions, and more as low as $5.49. ›Go to the sale Essentials by Decade: The 1960s The 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 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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