If You Like This Movie: A Guide for People Looking to Get into Classic Movies

Many young people are curious about older movies but don’t know where to begin. No one wants to waste their time watching something they’re sure they won’t enjoy but how do you determine if you are going to enjoy something without watching it? This made me think, as someone who has watched more movies than your average person, how I might help the people find older movies that might fit their taste.

With that in mind, I looked back on some of our most popular movies of the past few years and found a few black and white or simply older movies that fit the taste and tone of the modern audience. Hopefully this guide will provide curious young movie fans some titles to seek out that align with their interests. That said, the best way to know if you’re going to enjoy older movies, is to try them all. But, barring that, here’s a helpful guide for finding older movies to match your taste and style.

2020 was a strange year for movies as COVID-19 destroyed movie theater attendance. Thus it’s hard to say what was the most popular movie of the year. But, going solely on sales figures, home video and the modest theatrical numbers, Bad Boys for Life was the most popular movie of 2020. The buddy cop comedy stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in their third pairing as Miami detectives in the hit Bad Boys franchise.

If you have enjoyed the Bad Boys franchise and you're curious about where the concept of the buddy cop movie came from, a gateway to classic film that may appeal to you is Akira Kurosawa’s 1946 classic, Stray Dog. Available as part of the Criterion Collection, Stray Dog is cited by many film historians as the movie that invented the familiar tropes of the buddy cop movie.

Stray Dog stars Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura as newly aligned police detectives. Mifune is a young detective whose gun is stolen from him on his way to work. When his gun is used to commit a series of crimes, he’s tasked with going undercover in the illicit illegal weapons underworld of post-war Tokyo. Guiding Mifune is an older detective portrayed by Shimura. This creates the dynamic you might recognize from more modern cop movies such as the Lethal Weapon franchise.

The film also captures the common dynamic of the more straight-laced cop and the more aggressive, play by their own rules type of cop, but to a lesser and more thoughtful extent. The bottom line is that if you want to know where movies like Bad Boys for Life or Lethal Weapon came from, it all started with Stray Dog and the masterful storytelling and compelling characters of Akira Kurosawa. It’s a very mainstream effort that will ease you into both classic cinema and world cinema at once.

In 2015 the biggest movie in the world was another franchise that has its roots in classic cinema. Jurassic World dominated the box office in 2015 and still has sequels to come as audiences cannot get enough of CGI dinosaur carnage. For fans of this kind of blockbuster entertainment who might be looking for where the inspiration comes from, look no further than 1933’s King Kong.

Ahead of its time is an understatement when describing director Merian C Cooper’s remarkable 1933 black and white King Kong. CGI wasn’t even a glimmer in an engineers eye when Cooper managed to bring to life the larger than life Kong and his dinosaur nemeses. Some 60 years before Steven Speilberg made people believe dinosaurs were once again walking the Earth, Merian C Cooper blew the collective minds of audiences in 1933 with his giant gorilla vs T-Rex fight scene.

Today, obviously, King Kong looks a little awkward and DIY but in 1933 there was nothing remotely like it in the world. Without Cooper’s visionary work in special effects, movies such as Jurassic Park and its many sequels may not exist, at least not in the way we see them now. Generations of directors like Steven Speilberg saw King Kong and first realized what dreams were possible on the big screen. As a gateway to classic films, King Kong is both wildly entertaining and the most fun history lesson in filmmaking to ever exist.

Fantasy movies have dominated the worldwide box office for some time now. Finding a way to bring those audiences to classic films with a story they might recognize and be compelled by is quite a challenge. But, such inspiration for the future fantasy film blockbuster storytelling does exist. For instance, perhaps you’re curious where the story structure for some of the most famous films of the last three decades came from?

For that, we return our old friend Akira Kurosawa. In 1954 Akira Kurosawa wrote and directed the revered masterpiece, Seven Samurai. Seven Samurai tells the story of Seven Samurai who are hired to defend a village against an overwhelming army of raiders and bandits. The samurai proceed to train the villagers to fight and protect themselves. You are probably already thinking of movies that proceed from that kind of plot.

I’m reminded of the Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood pointing meme when I watch Seven Samurai. I can’t help but think of all of the movies that have lifted some aspect of Seven Samurai. For instance, the film’s epic battle sequences have inspired scenes in everything from Lord of the Rings: The Towers to The Matrix franchise to Mad Max: Fury Road. All feature classic underdog scenarios in epic battle against overwhelming odds and they all tie back to Seven Samurai and the simplicity and brilliance of the trope that Kurosawa created.

The fingerprints of Kurosawa and Seven Samurai can be found all over the Star Wars universe as well. Fans of Star Wars will find Seven Samurai story influences in the original Star Wars trilogy, in Star Wars Rogue One, and even in the television series The Mandalorian. That show even lifted much of the plot of Seven Samurai for the award nominated episode Sanctuary which finds The Mandalorian training farmers to fight a band of warriors of overwhelming numbers and technology.

Once again, Kurosawa’s influential work offers a window into both classic cinema and world cinema and those who don’t object to subtitles will be greatly rewarded. Cinema has changed over the years in grand and epic fashion but classic films that paved the way for our modern blockbusters remain as indelible as ever. Give Kurosawa a chance and just the familiarity of his tropes will be entertaining, not unlike watching classic Simpsons’ episodes today and seeing the burgeoning form of modern comedy.

If Stray Dog, King Kong and Seven Samurai end up sparking your interest in where your favorite movies came from, I have a few other recommendations for you.

If you loved the Oscar nominated La La Land and other modern musicals, check out Singing in the Rain or An American in Paris. Anyone who has sung and danced in a movie since the days of black and white became color, is dancing in the steps Gene Kelly, the star of both Singing in the Rain and An American in Paris.

If you love screwball comedy, perhaps a more G-rated version of the patter heavy humor of Judd Apatow today, then you will love His Girl Friday starring Cary Grant. Grant was the original hunky leading man, a proto version of say Colin Firth in Bridget Jones crossed with Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones. He was a loving romantic partner and a careless cad all in one handsome package.