10 Best Classic Films (Costs & Tips, 2026)

Topped the once-a-decade Sight & Sound critics' poll in 2012, ending Citizen Kane's 50-year run at number one — Hitchcock's meditation on obsession, illusion, and control still unsettles audiences who go in expecting a straightforward thriller. About $4 to rent.

Held the number one spot on Sight & Sound's critics' poll for five consecutive decades before Vertigo took it in 2012 — Orson Welles was 25 when he made it, and the deep-focus cinematography still gets taught in film schools as a technical benchmark. About $4 to rent.

Consistently ranks in the top five of every major critics' poll despite almost nothing dramatic happening in it — an elderly couple visits their grown children in Tokyo and are gently, quietly disappointed. Ozu's stillness is the entire point; watch it slower than you'd normally watch anything.

Rare among films this critically respected in also being genuinely, widely loved by casual audiences — nearly every line has been quoted so often it's easy to forget how sharp the actual filmmaking is underneath the familiarity. About $4 to rent.

Nearly every action film made since has borrowed something from this one, whether the filmmakers realised it or not — the basic 'assemble a team' structure Hollywood still reuses constantly traces directly back here. Three and a half hours, genuinely worth the length.

Made a year before the actual moon landing, and the special effects still hold up better than most CGI made decades later. Deliberately, sometimes frustratingly ambiguous — don't expect the plot to explain itself, that's the intended experience, not a flaw.

Written and rewritten right up until scenes were shot, with the ending reportedly undecided until close to filming — and it produced more famous lines per minute than almost any film ever made. Genuinely earns its reputation as the definitive classic Hollywood romance.

Frequently tops 21st-century 'best films' lists despite being a story about two people who never actually have an affair — restraint and suggestion do more work here than almost any film that shows everything. The colour and framing alone are worth studying frame by frame.

The first non-English-language film to win Best Picture at the Oscars, and it genuinely earns the achievement — it shifts between comedy, thriller, and tragedy so smoothly you barely notice the tonal ground moving under you. About $4 to rent.

The non-linear structure was genuinely radical for mainstream cinema at the time and influenced how an entire generation of filmmakers thought about storytelling — decades of dialogue-heavy crime films owe something to this one, whether they admit it or not.