The Best Classic Movies Every Family Needs To Watch – One special way of keeping your family united and entertained is through movies, and what better way to do that than through classic movies? In this article, we shall be showing you the best classic movies you and your family can enjoy seeing together.
Classic movies are priceless and irrespective of how old they may be, they still give a feeling of warmth and entertainment to those who see them. As a family looking to spice up the family setting with classic movies, here are a few movies you can spend quality time and watch:
1. The Godfather.
Francis Ford Coppola directed this American crime film based on Mario Puzo’s best-selling novel of the same name, which was released in 1969. Starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, and Diane Keaton, the movie also has a number of other A-listers. The first in the trilogy of the Corleone family, led by patriarch Vito Corleone (Brando), this film covers the years 1945–1955. Michael Corleone, his youngest son, played by Pacino, goes from being an outcast in his own family to a vicious mob lord.The movie begins during his daughter Connie’s wedding to Carlo in New York City in 1945, Don Vito Corleone of the Corleone criminal family listens to requests. At the party, Michael, Vito’s youngest son and a Marine presents his girlfriend Kay Adams to his family.
Vito’s godson and famous musician Johnny Fontane approaches him for help landing a movie part. Tom Hagen, Vito’s consigliere, is dispatched to lobby studio chief Jack Woltz to cast Johnny in the role. After discovering the severed head of his beloved racing horse in his bed, Woltz gives in to Hagen’s demand. Sollozzo, a drug lord, approaches Vito around the holiday season, pleading for financial backing and offering to shield Vito from the law in exchange. After some consideration, Vito says no because he doesn’t want to risk losing political support by getting involved in the drug trade. Vito sends his enforcer Luca Brasi to meet with the Tattaglia criminal family out of concern that Sollozzo is in cahoots with the Tattaglias.
After the encounter, Brasi is strangled to death with a garrotted. At a later time, enforcers kill Vito and abduct Hagen with guns and knives. Seeing as how Sonny Corleone, the oldest son of the family, is now in charge, Sollozzo puts intense pressure on Hagen to convince Sonny to go through with the drug trade. Sonny takes out his anger on Bruno Tattaglia for killing Brasi. Michael visits Vito in the hospital after the shooting and discovers that the NYPD policemen under Sollozzo’s payroll have disarmed Vito’s guards, leaving him vulnerable. Michael prevents a second attempt on his father’s life, but he is later battered by the corrupt police captain, Mark McCluskey. Michael has been asked to meet with Sollozzo and McCluskey to resolve their disagreement. Michael pretends to be interested and agrees to a meeting, but in reality, he is hatching a plot with Sonny and the Corleone capo, Clemenza, to kill them and then disappear. After meeting Sollozzo and McCluskey in a Bronx restaurant, Michael shoots and kills them with a weapon that Clemenza had hidden in the restroom.
The assassination of a police captain has not stopped the Five Families’ bloody civil war from breaking out. Michael finds safety in Sicily, while Vito’s younger son, Fredo, is protected by Moe Greene in Nevada. As punishment for Carlo’s assault on Connie, Sonny takes his grievances to the public square. After another incident of abuse, Sonny rushes home, only to be ambushed and killed by thugs at a motorway toll booth. Michael meets and marries a Sicilian woman named Apollonia, but the couple tragically loses their little daughter not long after. Vito, devastated by Sonny’s death and weary of war, calls for a summit with the Five Families. He promises that he will stop fighting them and would not seek revenge for Sonny’s death.
Now that he knows he is secure, Michael plans to marry Kay and join the family business. In the early 1950s, Kay has twins. In light of his dying father and Fredo’s ineptitude as a leader, Michael Corleone steps into the role of the family patriarch. Michael is warned by Vito that a renegade Corleone capo has arranged a meeting where Don Barzini will try to kill him because Barzini ordered the killing of Sonny. Since Hagen is not a “wartime consigliere,” Michael demotes him to overseeing operations in Las Vegas with Vito’s approval. Michael goes to Sin City to buy out Greene’s casino share and is disappointed to find that Greene has more loyalty from Fredo than from Michael’s own family. Vito has a heart attack and passes away when he is enjoying time with his grandchild in 1955. Tessio’s treason is signalled during Vito’s funeral when he asks Michael to meet with Barzini.
The date of the meeting coincides with Connie’s baby’s baptism. The dons of the Five Families and Greene are killed by Corleone hitmen as Michael acts as their godfather at the ceremony, and Tessio is executed (offscreen) for his betrayal. After Michael promises Carlo he will merely be deported and not murdered in exchange for his confession to his involvement in Sonny’s murder, Clemenza garrots Carlo to death. In the presence of Kay, Connie confronts Michael about Carlo’s death. Kay is relieved to hear Michael’s denial when she wonders if Connie is speaking the truth. Capos enter Michael’s office as he sees Kay depart, greet him as “Don Corleone,” and then closes the door.
2. Taxi Driver.
Written by Paul Schrader and starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris, and Albert Brooks, this American film from 1976 was directed by Martin Scorsese. The film follows Travis Bickle (De Niro), a Vietnam War veteran and taxi driver, as his mental health deteriorates while he works nights in a decaying and morally bankrupt New York City.In the movie, U.S. Marine veteran of the Vietnam War and 26-year-old New Yorker Travis Bickle suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For the sake of combating his sleeplessness and isolation, Travis decides to become a cab driver during the late hours. His diary is peppered with aphorisms like “you’re only as healthy as you feel,” and he is a regular at the 42nd Street porn theatres. As he observes the crime and ruin of Manhattan, he grows horrified and begins to fantasize about cleaning “the muck off the streets.” Betsy, a supporter of senatorial candidate Charles Palantine, becomes Travis’s object of affection.
Travis walks into the campaign headquarters where she works and invites her out on a coffee date. Betsy tells Travis she has a “special connection” to him, and they decide to go on another date. While on a date with Travis, Betsy is horrified when he suggests going to a porn theatre. He tries to make amends with her, but it doesn’t work out. After being told to leave the campaign office where she works, he bursts in there in a passion and yells at her. Travis confides in a fellow cab driver he knows only as a “Wizard” about his violent ideas after having an existential crisis and witnessing numerous acts of prostitution around the city. The Wizard, however, brushes off his concerns and assures him that everything will be alright. Travis undertakes an intensive workout routine in an effort to channel his pent-up aggression. Travis gets four handguns from “Easy” Andy, a black market weapons dealer he learns about from a fellow cab driver.
At home, Travis hones his weapon skills and alters one so he can keep it concealed and pull it out from under his sleeve in an instant. Additionally, he starts going to Palantine’s rallies to spy on the security arrangements. On one occasion, Travis fatally shoots a would-be robber at the convenience store owned by his pal. Travis frequently runs into Iris, a child prostitute he fantasizes about rescuing on his travels throughout the city. Despite his best efforts, Travis continues to pursue her in the hopes of convincing her to abandon her prostitution career. Almost immediately after, Travis gets a mohawk haircut and shows up at a public protest where he intends to kill Palantine. A group of Secret Service agents notice him unzipping his jacket and reach inside, and they quickly drive him away. Later on that day, Travis kills Iris’ pimp, Sport, by driving to the brothel where she works and opening fire. He walks in and gets into a gunfight with Sport and a mobster who is a client of Iris’s.
Even though he takes multiple bullets, Travis is still able to kill both of his attackers. He then gets into a fight with the bouncer, killing him with a bullet to the head after stabbing him in the hand with the knife he kept in his shoe. Travis tries to take his own life, but he has no more ammunition. He collapses into the couch next to a sobbing Iris, bloodied and hurt. Travis, in his inebriated state, pretends to shoot himself in the head with his finger as the cops arrive. As a result of his wounds, Travis falls into a coma. He is hailed as a vigilante hero by the media and is not charged with the killings; he also receives a thank-you letter from Iris’s father. Once Travis has fully recovered, he goes back to work as a taxi driver and meets Betsy as a fare. They exchange pleasantries, and Betsy says she has been following his tale in the headlines. Travis drives her home, but he won’t take any money, and he leaves with a grin on his face. Looking in his rearview mirror causes him to feel angry.
3. Home Alone.
It was directed by Chris Columbus and written and produced by John Hughes for an American Christmas comedy film released in 1990. The first Home Alone movie starred Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, and Catherine O’Hara. Kevin McCallister, played by Culkin, is a little kid whose family leaves him behind during a Christmas trip to Paris and who must defend their suburban Chicago home from intruders. The movie begins on the night before the McCallisters leave for Paris to spend Christmas, they assemble at Peter and Kate’s house in a Chicago suburb. Kevin, the youngest son of Peter and Kate, is often picked on by his older siblings and cousins. After Kevin and his older brother Buzz get into a fight and spoil the family supper, Kate locks him in the attic.
Kevin blames his mother for enabling his family to bully him, and he expresses a desire for his relatives to go. The family oversleeps because of an electrical blackout brought on by the night’s strong winds, rendering the alarm clocks useless. Kevin gets left behind in the chaos and haste to go to the airport, even though Peter has thrown his passport on the bed by accident. Forgetting that they had booked vans to drive them to the airport, Kevin wakes up to find the home deserted and the family cars remaining in the garage. Believes his wish has come true and celebrates his newfound independence. Later on, Kevin is terrified of “Old Man” Marley, his next-door neighbor, who is said to be a serial killer who killed his own family. Shortly after moving into their new home, Harry and Marv, aka the “Wet Bandits,” begin following the McCallisters around.
Kevin fools them into postponing their robbery of the McCallister home by making them believe that he and his family are still there. When they finally get to Paris, Kate realizes that she forgot Kevin at home, and the rest of the family learns that all flights for the following two days are already booked and that phone service in Chicago is still out. In Paris, Peter and his family remain at his brother’s place, while Kate gets on a flight back to Scranton, Pennsylvania. All the flights to Chicago are sold out when she tries to reserve one.
Gus Polinski, the leader of a roving polka band, overhears Kate’s plight and offers to take her in the band’s moving van on their way to Chicago. Meanwhile, Kevin overhears Harry and Marv plotting a break-in to the McCallister residence on Christmas Eve once they learn they are the only ones there. Kevin begins to long for his loved ones and makes a Christmas wish to the town’s Santa impersonator. He attends a church service and hears the choir sing, where he meets Marley and learns the allegations about him are untrue. Marley reveals that he has never met his granddaughter, who is in the choir because she is the child of his estranged son. Kevin recommends that Marley make amends with his kid. Upon his return, Kevin fortifies his residence with explosive devices. After breaking in, Harry and Marv set off the traps, which result in numerous injuries for both of them.
Kevin phones the police while Harry and Marv chase him around the house, and then lead them to the abandoned house he stole into earlier. When Harry and Marv set a trap for Kevin to exact their vengeance on him, Marley steps in and knocks them out with his snow shovel. Due to Marv’s destructive habit of flooding houses, the police arrive and promptly arrest Harry and Marv. Even though Kevin is sad to be alone on Christmas Day, he and Kate eventually make up. After the remainder of the family spent time in Paris waiting for a direct flight to Chicago, they returned. Kevin doesn’t tell anyone about his run-in with Harry and Marv, but Peter does discover Harry’s knocked-out gold tooth. Next, Kevin sees Marley reunited with his offspring, his offspring’s wife, and their granddaughter.
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