Year Released: 1981
Harrison Ford stars as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, an action/adventure movie about an archaeologist who must find the fabled Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis do. The film is directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Lawrence Kasdan, but it’s actually based on a story written by George Lucas and Howard Kazanjian.
The film grossed nearly $385 million against a budget of $18 million, and it was, for the most part, well-received by critics. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Score. It won five, including Best Sound and Best Visual Effects. Raiders of the Lost Ark currently holds a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Lawrence of Arabia
Year Released: 1962
Another epic war adventure film, Lawrence of Arabia is directed by David Lean, and based on the life of British archaeologist and army officer, T.E Lawrence. It follows and documents the officer’s experiences throughout the Ottoman Empire, such as his attacks on Damascus and Aqaba.
At the 35th Academy Awards show in 1963, the film was nominated for a total of ten Oscars – and won seven of them. Among the wins include the award for Best Director and Best Picture. It also took home the BAFTA Award for Best Film and the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture (Drama.) In 2004, a Sunday Telegraph poll of the leading filmmakers in Britain named it the third-greatest film in British history.
Psycho
Year Released: 1960
Perhaps Alfred Hitchcock’s most widely known and recognized film, Psycho is a classic horror-thriller that still gets played today around every Halloween. The film stars Anthony Perkins as a mentally unstable owner of a hotel who has a ton of dark secrets hidden within the building where he works.
The movie is considered one of the director’s best films and was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Supporting Actress. Since the original’s release, it has been remade several times, both for film and television. The infamous shower scene has been the subject of all kinds of skits, as well as a documentary released in 2017 by filmmaker Alexandre O. Phillippe, called 78/52, a reference to the number of cuts and setups used by Hitchcock for the original film.
Rear Window
Year Released: 1954
How many Alfred Hitchcock films do we have on this list? Let’s just say that there are a lot of them here. This picture stars James Stewart as a journalist that’s stuck at home in a wheelchair after he suffers a broken leg. He begins to watch his neighbors out of boredom, and winds up discovering something much more sinister than he expected to find.
Rear Window is widely regarded as one of Hitchcock’s best films. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, and in 1997 was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. It was also listed on AFI’s list of the “100 Years…100 Movies” list as number 42.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Year Released: 1948
This 1948 American adventure movie has a perfect rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on nearly 50 different reviews. It also holds a 4/4 on Roger Ebert, and an 8.2/10 on IMDb.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre won three Academy Awards, including Best Director for John Huston, along with three Golden Globes; Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress and another Best Director Award.