Approximately 72 Old Movies to Fall In Love With

Culture Study Podcast

Society & Culture, Arts

4.5 • 789 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I love old movies — but I didn’t always! In fact, I needed many years of directed classwork to fall in love with them. But if you’re not in the mood to pause your life and take on significant graduate debt, THERE ARE STILL OPTIONS, and Margaret H. Willison and I are here to offer them. In this episode, we offer specific suggestions to listeners based on short lists of their (recent) film favs, talk about “aesthetic friction” and how to overcome it, strongly invite you to put your phone in the other room, and travel all over film history in a very earnest attempt to help you find your own entry point into the expansive mansion that is “old movies,” broadly defined.Show Notes (Scroll Down for a List of EVERY MOVIE MENTIONED):Follow Margaret on Instagram!!Find out more about Margaret’s course on Mansfield Park hereIf you want to learn A LOT more about Pre-Code Cinema, this book is my go-to (and very accessible)A bunch of classic streaming services have challenged some of the arguments in this piece, but it’s a decent overview re: the disappearance of classic film from NetflixIf you want to go deep on screwballs and the comedy of remarriageMy Scandals of Classic Hollywood on Warren Beatty lives onEVERY MOVIE MENTIONED AND WHERE TO FIND IT(as best as Melody could figure out) (recs for checking the local library are implicit)Vertigo (1958) - rentPaper Moon (1973) - Paramount+Badlands (1974) - rentTokyo Story (1953) - MaxAn Autumn Afternoon (1962) - MaxGosford Park (2001) - rentWhat’s Up, Doc? (1972) - rentBringing Up Baby (1938) - rentThe Lady Eve (1941) - Criterion, rentSylvia Scarlett (1935) - rentNow, Voyager (1942) - Tubi, TCM, rentSullivan’s Travels (1941) - rentThe Palm Beach Story (1942) - rentThe Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944 ) - rentShampoo (1975) - rentTo Be or Not To Be (1942) - Max, CriterionBorn Yesterday (1950) - rentThe Philadelphia Story (1940) - Tubi, rentButch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) - Tubi, rentNorth by Northwest (1959) - Criterion, Tubi, TCM, rentForeign Correspondent (1940) - Max, Criterion, Tubi, rentSingin’ in the Rain (1952) - Max, rentMagnolia (1999) - Paramount+, rentMcCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) - rentCabaret (1972) - Tubi, rentNew York, New York (1977) - not available for streaming :(Broadcast News (1987) - Starz, rentDesk Set (1957) - rentThe Conversation (1974) - Paramount+, Criterion, rentEvil Under the Sun (1982) - Prime, rentDouble Indemnity (1944) - rentThe Third Man (1949) - rentKind Hearts and Coronets (1949) - rentThe Shop Around the Corner (1940) - rentHoliday (1938) - rentShadow of a Doubt (1943) - Criterion, rentThe Women (1939) - rentAll About Eve (1950) - rentFunny Face (1957) - rentBarefoot in the Park (1967) - rentCharade (1963) - Prime, rentAnatomy of a Murder (1959) - rentRear Window (1954) - Criterion, rentWe’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:Dark AcademiaHow cookbooks get madeVan/Skoolie/RV LifeSpiritual care for non-religious peopleAnything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) hereFor today’s discussion: What suggestions did we miss? Which suggestions do you endorse? Share the old movie love!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone, it's Anne. Two things. First, we're preparing for some upcoming recordings and are still taking your questions on how cookbooks get made and cleaning culture. We're also working on an episode with Vanessa Zoltan about spiritual care for the non-religious. If you've never been religious or if you were once religious but now aren't, how do you think about spiritual care? What does that even mean? What are those words? What is the spirit? Why does it need care? Maybe you don't think about it. I don't know. We can go in any direction here. If any of these prompts sparks something for you, let us know in the Google forum at tiny URL.com slash culture
0:39.3	study pod. And as always, you can also use that form to give us your ideas for future episodes
0:44.2	and to submit questions for ask and anything. And second, today's episode is so fun. It's also
0:51.1	so long. And it took a lot of work. So we're paywalling a little bit more of it
0:56.2	than usual. If you want the full episode, which includes a lot more recommendations and a
1:02.9	AAA conversation about thriving in a low residency graduate program, also, all of the extensive
1:09.7	show notes in which Melody lists out every single movie
1:12.6	and where you can watch it, head to Culturestudypod.substack.com and become a paid subscriber.
1:19.6	Your subscriptions make this show possible. You make it sustainable. Without them, we can't make
1:24.5	the show. So please come join us today. Okay, let's get into it.
1:34.5	This is the Culture Study podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.
1:38.2	And I'm Margaret H. Willison.
1:40.6	I'm a writer and podcaster previously featured on this program to talk about celebrity outrage
1:47.5	and now logically back to talk about classic film.
1:51.2	Yeah, no, this is great.
1:52.2	You know, we have my friend Phil Macyak who is trying to become the David B.
1:57.7	and Kuli of Culture Study.
1:59.5	That's his goal.
2:00.8	So I feel like we can we can find, you can be like the Pauline Kale.
2:04.5	I love that.
2:05.3	Oh my God.
2:07.2	What an honor.
	...

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