WTTM
Boulevard / Corbis via Getty Images; Silver Screen Collection / Hulton Archive / Getty Images; Miramax Films / Courtesy Everett Collection
(Left to right) Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh on the set of “A Streetcar Named Desire”, Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz” and Uma Thurman in “Pulp Fiction”.
Does anyone really need another list of the greatest movies ever made? Of course not. There are already a million of them cluttering the Internet. And, frankly, our goal isn’t to make you roll your eyes and stifle a yawn. That’s why we came up with a different kind of list – a list of movies that you just have to see because they’re not just great, they’re relevant in a timeless way.
These are the movies that when they come out at a dinner party you want to be able to say, “Oh yeah, I know exactly what you mean.” Some can speak for a generation (The graduation, pulp Fiction). Some are shared touchstones in our pop culture vocabulary (the meaning of “rosebud” in Citizen Kane or “the guy stays” in The great Lebowski). They can offer ideas about growing up (the Seven more series) or have already grown up and now look back wistfully (Tokyo history).
Here are the 30 must-see movies for all adults, in chronological order. Let us know in the comments below how many you’ve seen and which movies you would add to the list!
Movies from the 1930s