20 Movies That Still Rule Despite Being Half a Century Old

It’s hard to make a movie that appeals equally to audiences half a century apart. After all, just look at movies from 40, 30 or even just 20 years ago. If the velour track pants of Mean Girls already look dated to modern audiences, how will they look to the viewers of 2065?

There are exceptions, however. For Redditor glib-eleven, it’s Dr. Strangelove. “Terry Southern and Kubrick wrote an amazing script,” they told r/Film. “Among the earliest dark comedies.” They then asked, “Which 1960s films have aged extremely well?” and all sorts of cinematic fine wine flowed thereafter.

20 Dr. Strangelove

19 Fail Safe

18 To Sir, With Love

17 The Hustler

16 Lawrence of Arabia

15 The Haunting

14 Cool Hand Luke

13 Night of the Living Dead

12 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

11 In the Heat of the Night

10 Rosemary’s Baby

9 Planet of the Apes

8 The Communist

7 Colossus: The Forbin Project

6 12 Angry Men

5 North by Northwest

4 The Apartment

3 It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

2 Lolita

1 2001: A Space Odyssey