I'm compiling a classic movie list from Hollywood's Golden Age....

[ZebsRoomofHerOwn]

...for a couple of my woefully ignorant colleagues. Would anyone like to include some recommendations?

I'm thinking primarily 30s and 40s as they seem to have discovered Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn, but nothing previous to this, like James Stewart, Cary Grant, Clark Gable, Fred Astaire, Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis etc....

My personal favourites include things like the Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday, Now Voyager and Casablanca.

all of Emeric Pressburger & Michael Powell

especially

Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
A Matter of Life and Death
Black Narcissus
The Red Shoes

All about Eve
The Big Sleep
The Third Man
and virtually all Hitchcock!

Little Women (the first one, directed by Cukor)

Ninotschka

The shop around the corner

Metropolis

M

Some Charlie Chaplin?

Sunset Boulevard (or is that too late?)

A lot of these are from the 50s - another vote for Imitation of Life (and any of Douglas Sirk's melodramas of that period - I love All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind)

Have we had Mildred Pierce? Joan Crawford with those enormous shoulders...excellent!

Has anyone mentioned TOuch of Evil? Also The Night of the Hunter is wonderful.

Ooh post list please! Just freecycled a ton of VHSs (we don't even have a player now) so need a reminder of what I'll miss to know which DVDs to get

OK, you asked for it. It's neither exhaustive nor authoritative, nor is it in any particular order. There are also a few 50s ones in there, but it's a great place to start..... and I really have seen all of them except the Spiral Staircase! Now I just need to update my LoveFilm list.
Enjoy.

The Philadelphia Story
It?s a Wonderful Life
Destry Rides Again
His Girl Friday
Bringing Up Baby
Only Angels Have Wings
It Happened One Night
Gone with the Wind
Now Voyager
All About Eve
Jezebel
Casablanca
The African Queen
Top Hat
The Gay Divorcee
Gaslight
Broadway Melody of 1938
Wizard of Oz
Meet Me in St Louis
Easter Parade
A Star is Born
White Heat
Public Enemy
The Roaring Twenties
Yankee Doodle Dandy
A Streetcar Named Desire ?Vivian Leigh
On the Waterfront
Mutiny on the Bounty
For Whom the Bell Tolls
A Farewell to Arms
High Noon
Rebecca
Suspicion
Strangers on a Train
Notorious
Dial M for Murder
North by Northwest
Vertigo
Rear Window
Brief Encounter
Double Indemnity
Letter To Three Wives
The Searchers
The Spiral Staircase
Random Harvest
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Third Man
Brighton Rock
The Maltese Falcon
Calamity Jane
High Society
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Fab - this is going to cost me a fortune

Ah - they don't make them like they used to [old fart emoticon]

Zebs, you can't miss Citizen Kane out!

I know Molesworth, and I do appreciate its classic status, but I get bored that it's always on the top of every single best movie list. Call me fickle, but is it really that good? Feel free to defend it.

It's at the top of those lists for good reasons, imo. But even if you think it's overrated, as many do, it's still a great film!

A Matter of Life and Death
Bringing up Baby
My Favourite Wife
Maltese Falcon
Gilda
any Humphry Bogart

oh - what was the comedy about the dead wife coming back to haunt the husband and the new wife and they all die in a car crash at the end?

Blithe Spirit. It's Noel Coward and v funny. And a fair point Molesworth.
I forgot about Gilda!