Classic Movies You've Never Seen Available to Stream at Home This Week

Kirk Douglas stars alongside Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, and Ann Sothern in this film about three women who receive a letter from a friend that reveals she plans to run away with one of their husbands — without saying which one. The movie, which received positive reviews from 94% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes, won one Oscar for Best Writing and one for Best Director.

This musical biopic about the life of composer George M. Cohan won three Oscars following its 1942 release — for Best Music, Best Sound, and Best Actor for star James Cagney. The film won over 93% of critics and 83% of audience members rating it on Rotten Tomatoes, with many critics citing Cagney’s performance as elevating the overall experience.

“The Bad and the Beautiful” is the second of two classic films on this list to star the late Kirk Douglas. Here he plays the role of the ruthlessly ambitious Hollywood producer Jonathan Shields who will do anything for success. The movie won five Oscars and currently has a 96% approval rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. The site’s Critics Consensus describes the film as “melodrama at its most confident.”

Oscar-winning filmmaker Preston Sturges wrote and directed this comedy about a woman who wakes up married and pregnant after a farewell party for American soldiers shipping out to war — with no memory of how it happened. Rotten Tomatoes’ Critics Consensus describes it as “Sturges at his most zanily subversive,” with 88% of critics liking it.

In “Johnny Guitar,” the formidable Joan Crawford plays Vienna, a saloon owner who is accused of murder by some of the locals, including rival Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge), ultimately leading to a gunfight between the two women. Critics delivered the quirky Western a 93% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Montgomery Clift starrs as an American private stationed in post-war Berlin who helps a lost Czech boy find his mother. Four-time Oscar winner Fred Zinnemann directed the film, which won an Academy Award for Best Writing, Motion Picture Story, for Richard Schweizer and David Wechsler. Ivan Jandl won the statue for his outstanding juvenile performance. “The Search” holds a 100% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 92% rating among viewers.

Randolph Scott, one of cinema’s most recognizable stars of Westerns, plays an ex-sheriff who blames himself for his wife’s death during a robbery and vows to find and kill the seven men involved. “7 Men From Now” was the first of seven Western film pairings of director Budd Boetticher and Scott between 1956 and 1960. The film holds a 100% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and a rating of 81% among audiences.

Tyrone Power plays a swashbuckling Spanish aristocrat who uses a secret identity to bring justice to 19th-century California. Basil Rathbone portrays a corrupt police captain, one of the many such roles he played in the 1930s and 1940s. Critic Dennis Schwartz called the film “one of the all-time great swashbucklers.” The movie is famous for its sword duel between Rathbone and Power. “The Mark of Zorro” has a 91% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and 79% of audiences liked the movie.

Charles Burnett wrote and directed the film about a slaughterhouse worker in the Watts section of Los Angeles and the toll this job takes on him and his family. Boston Globe critic Wesley Morris called the film a “milestone of eloquent understatement that captures the daily life of have-nots as few American movies have.” The film has a 97% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and 84% of audiences liked the movie. The Library of Congress has included “Killer of Sheep” on the National Film Registry, and the National Society of Film Critics chose it as one of the “100 Essential Films.”

“Random Harvest” is about an amnesiac WWI veteran who marries a music hall performer, then has an accident that restores his memory of his former life as a wealthy man and expunges his post-war experiences. Mervyn LeRoy’s film, which stars Ronald Colman and Greer Garson, was nominated for seven Academy Awards. The movie has a 89% Freshness rating among critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.

Paul Schrader (“American Gigolo”) directed and co-wrote the film with his brother Leonard and Leonard’s wife Chieko. The film is a fictionalized account of the life of noteworthy Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, as told in four chapters. The Critics Consensus on Rotten Tomatoes calls the film Schrader’s “directorial masterpiece” and “a classy and imaginative portrait enriched by a stunning score and impressive cinematography.”

This screwball rom-com from Howard Hawks is about a group of professors compiling a compendium of slang. They employ an exotic dancer fleeing her gangster boyfriend to help them interpret the jargon. Written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, the film was lauded for its cast, with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck in the lead, ably supported by familiar character actors Oskar Homolka, Henry Travers, and S.Z. Sakall. The movie holds a 100% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 90% approval rating with audiences.

Robert Altman, who made a series of critically acclaimed films in the 1970s (“M*A*S*H,” “Nashville”), directed this surreal, atmospheric movie about the lives of three women — Shelley Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Janice Rule — in a western town. Douglas Pratt of Hollywood Reporter called “3 Women” a “spectacular artistic success.” The film has a 94% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and 86% of audiences liked the film.

“Twelve O’Clock High” is a war film about Allied airmen and the toll the war takes on them. Gregory Peck stars as the no-nonsense commander tasked with boosting the morale of the flyers he leads. The strong cast includes Hugh Marlowe, Gary Merrill, and Dean Jagger. Critic Emanuel Levy said “Henry King’s WWII drama is one of Hollywood’s first and most honestly probing chronicles of the psychological anxieties and emotional pressures caused by high-command positions.” The film holds a 96% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes and an 87% approval rating among audiences.

“Imitation of Life” is a remake of the 1934 film that was based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Fannie Hurst. Lana Turner plays an aspiring actor and single mother. She befriends an African American woman whose light-skinned daughter wants to pass herself as white, which causes tension between daughter and her mother. The original film was groundbreaking for portraying black and white women as peers, and this remake was released as the civil rights movement was gaining momentum in the U.S. “Imitation of Life” holds an 81% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and 91% of audiences liked the film.

The motion picture based on Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical Pulitzer-Prize play stars Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, and Dean Stockwell. Wesley Lovell of Cinema Sight said the adaptation of O’Neill’s intense work “results in a stage-bound production lifted by grand performances, including the delightful Katharine Hepburn.” “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” has a 94% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and 86% of audiences liked the film.

“I Remember Mama” is the much-loved film adaptation of Kathryn Forbes’ collection of short stories about a Norwegian family living in San Francisco in the early 20th century and the strong-willed woman (Irene Dunne) who holds them together. John J. Puccio of Movie Metropolis said the film was “…a sweet, tender, sentimental tale, richly alive with old-fashioned humor and charm.” The movie has a 100% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and an 84% approval rating among audiences.

“The Mortal Storm,” about how the Nazi rise to power divides a family in southern Germany, is one of the first anti-fascist Hollywood films made before the U.S. entered WWII. The stellar cast includes Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young, and Robert Stack. The movie has a 100% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics, and an 85% approval rating among audiences.

“Wake in Fright” is a little-known Australian film whose fans include Martin Scorsese. The movie stars Gary Bond as a school teacher who gets waylaid in a mining town and after losing a bet descends into self-destructive behavior. Users on IMDb gave the disturbing movie a score of 7.7 out of 10.

“The Black Stallion” is the story of a boy who befriends a mysterious black Arabian stallion after the two are shipwrecked. They return to the boy’s home in America, and with the help of a former horse trainer, he tries to turn the animal into a racehorse. Michael Blowen of the Boston Globe said, “The Black Stallion is a magical fable that basks in shimmering imagery, innocent wonder and the romantic longings that we thought Hollywood had left behind in the ’50s.” The movie has a 90% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics, and 83% of audiences were enchanted by the movie.

“Opening Night” portrays the emotional journey of an actress following the death of a fan. Written and directed by independent film pioneer John Cassavetes and starring Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, and Ben Gazzara, the movie has been given positive reviews by 96% of critics and 91% of audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.

“The Train” is a WWII thriller about a French railway worker-turned Resistance fighter who has to stop the Germans from removing priceless works of art from Paris ahead of the Allies liberation of the French capital. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a Freshness score of 92%, and 89% of audiences enjoyed the movie. The movie, which can be streamed on Amazon Prime Video, reunited director John Frankenheimer with Burt Lancaster after they had collaborated on the films “Birdman of Alcatraz” and the Cold War nailbiter “Seven Days in May.”

“Now, Voyager” stars Bette Davis as a spinster who breaks free from her oppressive life. She romances a married man played by Paul Henreid and helps his emotionally disturbed daughter live her life. Among the melodrama’s scenes that have been lampooned is the part where Henreid lights two cigarettes in his mouth and gives one to Davis. Critics and audiences enjoyed the soap opera, with critics on Rotten Tomatoes giving it a Freshness score of 92%, and 90% of audiences liked the movie.

This rollicking swashbuckler stars the man who is most closely associated with the genre, Errol Flynn. “The Sea Hawk” was the last of Flynn’s pirate films and Warner Bros.’ most ambitious efforts. The threat of the Spanish Armada against England held special importance for British audiences fearing a possible invasion from Nazi Germany. Mark Bourne of DVDJournal.com described the film’s Erich Wolfgang Korngold-composed score as “Hollywood’s greatest swashbuckling symphony and one of the all-time favorite movie scores.” Critics were thrilled with the film, which holds a 100% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and an 87% approval rating with audiences.

An early live-action film from Disney, “Old Yeller” was based on the Newbery Honor-winning children’s book of the same name by Fred Gipson. In the film, a teenage boy (Tommy Kirk) is helping to manage his family’s farm when a dog shows up uninvited. The yellow Labrador eventually wins over the family. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes were won over, too, giving the film a 100% rating, and 79% liked the movie.

Gene Tierney plays a young widow who buys a haunted seaside cottage in England at the turn of the last century and forms a special bond with its spectral resident. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and starring Rex Harrison as the ghost, the film holds a 100% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and 88% of audiences found the film engaging.

The multi-talented Danny Kaye carries this expensive ($4 million budget) burlesque romp that is set in Medieval times. Though it failed at the box office — despite a cast that includes Angela Lansbury, Basil Rathbone, and Glynis Johns — it is fondly remembered for its alliterative skit “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle, the chalice with the palace has the brew that’s true.” Critics on Rotten Tomatoes gave “The Court Jester” a Freshness score of 96%, and 94% of audiences enjoyed the movie.

Rosalind Russell plays the title role in “Auntie Mame.” Russell was nominated for an Academy Award as the free-spirited woman who takes in her nephew after his father dies and encourages him to seek adventure and experience life. Clyde Gilmour of MacLean’s Magazine said “Rosalind Russell turns in a flamboyant but beautifully controlled performance in the Hollywood version of the stage triumph.” The movie has a 93% approval rating from critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.

This underseen gem from director Robert Altman (“Gosford Park,” “MASH”) features an eclectic cast including Sandy Dennis, Cher, Karen Black, and Kathy Bates. It portrays the members of a James Dean fan club who gather on the 20th anniversary of the actor’s death. Of those audience members who rated it on Rotten Tomatoes, 81% liked the film.

Anthony Quinn, who played an Arab freedom fighter in “Lawrence of Arabia,” returns to the desert in this film about Libyan leader Omar Mukhtar, who led Libyan forces against invading Italian troops beginning in 1929. Libya’s former dictator Muammar Gaddafi bankrolled the film that featured Oliver Reed as an Italian general and Rod Steiger as Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. “Lion of the Desert” holds a 71% Freshness rating among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and it has greater appeal among audiences, with a 93% rating.

An early 20th century pianist receives a letter from a forgotten woman on the eve of a duel in this dramatic romance from director Max Ophüls. Although only 22 critics have reviewed it on Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a perfect 100% Freshness score. The site’s Critics Consensus states that “Golden Age Hollywood romance doesn’t get much better than ‘Letter From an Unknown Woman.'”

Blake Edwards, known for lighter cinematic fare such as the Pink Panther movies, dealt with a more sober subject in “Days of Wine and Roses.” Jack Lemmon plays an alcoholic who marries a woman (Lee Remick) whom he gets addicted to alcohol. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards and won for Best Music, Original Song. The movie holds a 100% Freshness score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Elia Kazan’s “A Face in the Crowd” tells the story of a country music singer’s rise to fame and its corrupting influence. Andy Griffith, who was a genial sheriff on a successful 1960s sitcom, plays the boozy country music performer. The film was not a financial success when it first came out, but it was added to the National Film Registry in 2008.

“A Raisin in the Sun,” based on a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959, looks at the life of an African American family living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s and its struggles with poverty and racism. Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, and Ruby Dee provided the star power for the character-driven movie that has a 94% Freshness score among Rotten Tomatoes critics. Audiences gave the film a rating of 87% on the site.

“A Patch of Blue” is about a black man and a blind white teenage girl who fall in love. Shelley Winters won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar as the bitter mother of the blind teen. The film has an 89% Freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes — with only nine critic ratings — and a 91% rating among audiences.