The 20th Century’s 100 Best American Movies Worth Watching Today: Part 1
I am writing this because I love films, both classic and modern, and I want everyone else to enjoy them too. I’ve written my list for a specific purpose, and it is NOT a list of the 100 best American films made, thought there will be exceptional films in here. This guide is for people looking for classic movies worth watching today. I’ve carefully developed this tour of films for people who are not particularly interested in “great” films, but are somewhat willing to give older movies a try. I had two questions in mind:
First, would a first-time viewer in their 20s or 30s today, with zero nostalgia and zero era-based forgiveness, actively enjoy this film? I kept in mind an average 25-yr old with each film selection.
Second, is there a substantial reason this film belongs among the best? The bar is “there’s a real reason this belongs,” not “it changed cinema.” It also had to be viewable/streamable today without having to scour eBay or something.
Also, it has to be an American film. This is not a list of foreign films, which I may do later. I had to be ruthless in what I cut out, because this could easily have ballooned into 200 films. For example, Lawrence of Arabia is not on this list. It killed me to leave it out, it’s one of my three favorite films of all time, but it’s more a British film than American–it was financed by American money but made by a British production company, had a British director, mostly British actors, and was shot overseas.
We are going to start by cheating. I said this was the top 100, but there are two short films I need to recommend first that aren’t officially part of the list. They are both necessary and sufficient to kick off our tour, and we’ll then proceed chronologically. Give these early films a real try, they are way better than you think.
Short Films
The Immigrant (1917, Charlie Chaplin)
The Immigrant is only 22 minutes long, but it packs in a rough Atlantic crossing, a dice game, seasickness, and a budding romance before Charlie Chaplin’s perpetually poor Little Tramp even arrives in America. What really stays with you is the feeling: the slapstick at the ship’s dinner table, especially Chaplin’s graceful struggle to eat a plate of beans as the boat rocks, is pure physical comedy. The restaurant scene makes you feel the stress of having no money in your pocket. The shot of the Statue of Liberty is moving at first, but the mood quickly shifts as passengers are herded off like cattle, briefly undercutting the American dream. Even so, the film ends on a note of hard-earned warmth, cheering for an underdog who gets by on nothing but wit and charm.
The Music Box (1932, James Parrott)
Stan and Ollie take on what seems like a simple job: hauling a crated player piano up a huge 131-step public staircase in Los Angeles. But gravity, pushy bystanders, and their own stubborn mistakes turn the task into a drawn-out struggle. This scene is a perfect example of Laurel and Hardy’s comic magic, like Sisyphus in bowler hats, stretched out for half an hour with flawless timing and growing frustration. You’ll laugh at the mishaps, but by the fifth trip down those stairs you really start to hope these two tired guys can finally get the piano inside. This tour simply must contain Laurel & Hardy, they’re foundational to the DNA of American comedy. If you want a feature-length film of theirs, try Sons of the Desert.
The Silent & Early Sound Foundations (1920–1939)
The General (1926, Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman)
Johnnie Gray is a Southern railroad engineer who cares about two things: his locomotive, the General, and the woman he wants to marry. When Union spies steal both during the Civil War, Johnnie sets off on a determined chase deep into enemy territory. The pursuit quickly turns around, and soon he is racing back home with Union soldiers on his tail.
The General is Buster Keaton’s best work and sets the standard for fast-paced silent comedy. Instead of using simple sight gags he transforms the American landscape into a huge, fast-moving obstacle course. Some of the stunts in this movie are insane, like a real train crashing through a burning bridge in one take(!)–an awesome piece of large-scale silent-era filmmaking. Instead of feeling old-fashioned it comes across as a thrilling, carefully planned action-comedy.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930, Lewis Milestone)
Encouraged by their schoolmaster’s patriotic speeches, some German classmates sign up for World War I with excitement only to have their illusions destroyed in the harsh, rat-filled trenches of the Western Front. Training is humiliating, life at the front means hunger and fear, and every death makes the surviving boys feel older and emptier. A powerful scene shows Paul trapped in a shell crater with a dying French soldier he has stabbed, making him face the real person behind the word “enemy.”
All Quiet on the Western Front is still one of the most important war films ever made, because it never makes suffering look exciting or heroic. The camera follows the soldiers as they charge, only to show explosions, mud, and gunfire breaking them apart. While some of the dialogue might feel a little old-fashioned now, the film’s main message is still powerful: adults give boys a romantic view of war, but war destroys them. The film remains raw, sad, and unforgettable.
City Lights (1931, Charlie Chaplin)
This is my favorite Chaplin film; if you only watch one silent film, this is it. The Tramp falls for a blind flower girl who thinks he is a wealthy aristocrat. At the same time, he deals with a crazy friendship with an eccentric millionaire who only recognizes him when he’s drunk. To pay for the surgery that might restore the girl’s sight, the Tramp tries all sorts of odd jobs and even enters a hilariously rigged boxing match—all the time worried by what will happen when she learns who he really is.
City Lights deserves its place here because it delivers one of the most moving endings in film history without losing any of its humor. Chaplin famously avoided making talking pictures, showing that a single look can be more powerful than words. The physical comedy still feels fresh, but the real strength of the film is in the quiet, uncertain question: will he still be enough for her once she can see him? Even today, that final shot can break through anyone’s cynicism.
Duck Soup (1933, Leo McCarey)
It would be flat-out illegal to not include a Marx Brothers film on our tour. Rufus T. Firefly becomes the dictator of the bankrupt nation of Freedonia after a wealthy dowager insists on it, and he quickly throws the nation into chaos. When the neighboring country Sylvania sends Chico and Harpo in as bumbling spies, Firefly’s quick temper and stubbornness turn small insults into a pointless, all-out war.
Duck Soup shows the Marx Brothers at their wildest and most focused. The movie skips the romantic subplots that slow down some of their other films and instead delivers nonstop Groucho wordplay, Harpo’s gleeful destruction, Chico’s crooked logic, and the famous mirror scene. The film never tries to teach a lesson; instead it makes every leader, ambassador, soldier and national symbol look silly. That’s why it feels so alive. You are not following a careful plot, but watching four comedians tear apart polite society and somehow make total chaos exciting.
It Happened One Night (1934, Frank Capra)
Ellie Andrews, a spoiled heiress on the run from her controlling father, tries to reunite with her new husband, who isn’t much of a catch. Along the way she meets Peter Warne, a quick-witted newspaper reporter who’s out of work. Peter sees a chance to save his career and promises to help Ellie get to New York without being recognized, as long as she lets him write her story. Their journey across the country has them sharing cheap motel rooms, missing buses, dodging Ellie’s father, and arguing about almost everything.
It Happened One Night deserves its place because it helped create the screwball romantic-comedy style, but still feels fresh today. Frank Capra turns simple things like overnight buses, rainy roads, and a blanket between twin beds—the “Walls of Jericho”—into great movie moments. Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable make their characters’ arguments feel sharp, funny, and believable. Peter’s working-class cynicism challenges Ellie’s privileged background, but the best part is watching them slowly become equals. By the end, they’re not just a couple who learned to get along; they’re perfect for each other.
The Thin Man (1934, W. S. Van Dyke)
This movie will Crack. You. Up. Nick and Nora Charles are married sleuths who treat an eccentric missing-person case in Manhattan less like a grim whodunit than a high-spirited excuse to throw a party. When an old acquaintance vanishes and bodies start dropping, Nora gleefully nudges her retired-detective husband back into the game just to watch him work; their terrier Asta is happy to come along for the ride. If you want to get your reluctant significant other into classic films, this is where I’d recommend starting.
The Thin Man helped redefine the on-screen marriage. William Powell and Myrna Loy are all about effortless, co-conspiring charm: they genuinely adore each other, share razor-sharp wit, and make murder-solving look like the world’s most elegant pastime. The mystery is a satisfying puzzle, but it is almost beside the point next to their banter. Everything keeps moving with breezy confidence, even when the subject is murder and the Charleses’ drinking gets surprisingly heavy. It is a rare vintage comedy that still feels sophisticated, relaxed, and fun—the cinematic equivalent of spending an evening with the wittiest couple at the party.
Bride of Frankenstein (1935, James Whale)
Having survived the burning windmill, Frankenstein’s Monster roams the countryside searching for warmth and human connection, but he only finds fear, angry villagers, and violence. He briefly finds kindness with a blind hermit, but soon asks Henry Frankenstein to create a companion for him. Henry refuses at first, but Dr. Pretorius, who is flamboyant and fond of gin, convinces him to return to the lab. The Bride’s dramatic entrance, covered in bandages and sporting lightning-bolt hair, becomes one of horror’s all-time great entrances.
What makes Bride of Frankenstein special is that it somehow outclasses the iconic original film. James Whale folds Gothic horror, sly camp, wicked comedy, and tragedy into a film that feels strange and alive from scene to scene. Boris Karloff gives the Monster genuine soul, so the Bride’s horrified rejection lands as more than a punchline. It is weird, audacious, surprisingly touching, and visually stunning, building toward an electric creation scene that feels like pure cinema.
Modern Times (1936, Charlie Chaplin)
The Tramp is a frantic assembly-line worker who literally gets swallowed by the gears of industrial machinery before having a nervous breakdown. After spending some time in the hospital and accidentally getting involved in a workers’ protest, he meets the lively, and hungry, Gamine. Together they bounce through the hardships of the Great Depression, looking for a place to call home. Their journey takes them to jail cells, a night shift at a department store, and a café job where the Tramp becomes a singing waiter.
Modern Times is where Chaplin’s physical comedy meets his sharp social commentary. Even though it was made after sound films became popular, Chaplin uses sound in his own way. Bosses and salesmen shout orders through screens and machines, while the Tramp’s only spoken words are a joyful, made-up song. The film is both very funny and surprisingly modern, showing the struggles of daily life with empathy and visual invention. In the end, the couple are still poor and unsure about the future, but they keep smiling.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937, David Hand et al.)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs showed that a full-length animated film could deliver real drama, suspense, and emotion, not just serve as a novelty. After a vain and jealous Queen sends her into the dark woods, a kind princess finds safety in the cottage of seven quirky dwarfs who mine diamonds. When the Queen learns Snow White survived, she disguises herself as an old woman with a poisoned apple. The story moves between cozy moments and real fairy-tale danger.
The forest scenes are frightening, the Queen’s transformation is still genuinely unsettling, and the final chase feels more intense than many modern family movies. The dwarfs feel like a real ensemble, and the hand-drawn world feels deep and atmospheric, thanks in part to Disney’s innovative multiplane camera. The movie’s charm, scares, music, and visuals are still impressive today. It is one of those rare classic films that still feels vibrant, not just historically significant.
Bringing Up Baby (1938, Howard Hawks)
In Bringing Up Baby, an uptight paleontologist is trying to land a museum donation when his carefully ordered life is turned upside down by an unpredictable heiress and her pet leopard. What begins with a missing brontosaurus bone quickly becomes a wild adventure with stolen cars, mistaken identities, jail cells, and even Cary Grant in a frilly negligee. Katharine Hepburn’s Susan Vance is supposed to help David Huxley, but she keeps making every plan go wrong. At first, she’s exhausting, but somehow she ends up winning over both David and the audience.
This is the kind of comedy that keeps piling on complications until it seems like everything should fall apart, but it never does. Grant and Hepburn talk over each other, argue about everything, and gradually show that David’s strict routine wasn’t really helping him. If you like romantic comedies where the couple has to get through a lot of chaos before realizing they’re meant for each other, Bringing Up Baby is a great choice.
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938, Michael Curtiz & William Keighley)
In The Adventures of Robin Hood, a nobleman becomes an outlaw in Sherwood Forest after Prince John seizes England while King Richard is away. Robin steals from the Norman oppressors, builds a band of Merry Men, helps bring Richard back, and falls for the clever and formidable Maid Marian. Errol Flynn turns castle halls and forest canopies into his own playground and makes it all look effortless, so much so that you can imagine him swinging onto a banquet table, winning a sword fight, and charming everyone before they even react.
This is adventure cinema from the golden age, bursting with color and energy. The three-strip Technicolor brings the forests, costumes, and castle interiors to life like pages from a storybook, while the score makes every entrance feel grand. Olivia de Havilland brings real spark to Marian, and Basil Rathbone is a perfect, sneering Sir Guy of Gisbourne. The final shadows-and-steel duel delivers the payoff but the real fun comes from Flynn’s openhearted, athletic performance. If you think old swashbucklers are stiff, this movie will change your mind.
That’s it for part one, and we only have one more film to discuss before moving to the golden 40s and then film noir. All of these are very much worth your time, even if you were born in the 2000’s. Part 2 is coming soon!