Recommend me a fantastically well shot old film to watch tonight

[Marc Wielage]

Keith D above has great taste.

Psycho is also very, very well-shot in B&W. Quite a few of those old 1940s film noir movies are surprisingly well done in terms of lighting. Damn near all of Hitchcock's films are well shot, regardless of which DP was involved. Spellbound​ is another good one.

 

[scott devitte]

Blowup

 

[Marcus Friedlander]

Casablanca

 

[David Battistella]

On the Waterfront
West Side Story
The Conversation
Fail Safe
Rear Window
To Kill a Mockingbird

 

[Gunleik Groven]

Modern Times.
Goldfever (2nd release)
The Kid

Watched them with my kids the other day.

Works

 

[Mike Quill]

The Conversation: http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-Conversation/60003586?trkid=222336

 

[Wayne Morellini]

Das Boot, probably more well directed. Forgive the use of models in standard water, or the reuse of underwater explosions, but most everybody else is good.

Get the directors cut version, 3hrs19 minutes, had not had so much fun for a while, your wife will want to kill you.

 

[Robert Hart]

Try "Appointment With Venus" an old British drama set in WW2. There was also "Mrs. Miniver". Both were probably a bit plodding by today's standards but should be fairly kid safe.

You may still be able to find "Appointment With Venus" on Youtube. It is available with two other British WW2 films as a DVD collector's set. Maybe try the original and Peter O'Toole versions of "The Pied Piper". It is also a WW2 drama based on a novel by Neville Shute, who also wrote the filmed postwar novels, "on The Beach", "No Highway" and the WW2 drama "A Town Like Alice".

There was also a gem of a film featuring the young Hayley Mills and young-ish Oliver Reed titled "Whistle Down The Wind".

There is a sixties film in colour, which was released in two versions, one the original as "Sammy Going South" and another version, significantly reworked for US audiences as "Boy Ten feet Tall". The jury is out on which was the best version. I think it may have been legendary US actor Edward G. Robinson's last major piece. Anything he featured in old B/W US films was good.

The establishing chapter is thought to be a visual template for Spielberg's treatment in "Empire Of The Sun" of the character Jamie's abrupt reversal of fortunes when he catches the maidservant helping herself to property in his family's house.

These all were findable on Youtube but copyrights may now have been enforced.