Reel Old Movies

The 2025 Academy Awards are Sunday, March 2, but the first decades of Oscar honors were fertile ground for history-making movies.  Take a look at a few of the best, some of the firsts and a couple of the mosts when it comes to the Academy Awards' golden statuette and the Golden Age of Hollywood.  The first best picture nominees The first Academy Awards took place in 1929, honoring movies made from mid-1927 to 1928.  It was also the only year that two categories for "best" picture were included: One was for "Unique and Artistic Picture" and the other for "Outstanding Picture." The Artistic Picture category was dropped the following year, and the Outstanding Picture would evolve into the Best Picture category today. The movies nominated in each of the categories included: Outstanding Picture: "Wings" ** Won "The Racket" "7th Heaven" Unique and Artistic Picture: "Sunrise"  ** Won ( Watch for free ) "Chang...

[Updated January 2026] Last year didn't see as many pre-1980 movies re-released in movie theaters as in years past, but fingers crossed for 2026.  Here's a list (and so far, it's slim pickings!) of classic movie re-releases coming soon to a theater hopefully near you.  These are roughly pre-1980 movies being released nationally or at least broad regionally.  As always, check out your local independent movie theaters: they are gems for classic movie screenings and I cannot track all of those! (My tiny town's old one-screen movie theater played a Hitchcock retrospective last year, for example. The audiences were mostly younger adults which spurred hope for the next generation of classic movie fans.) In the meantime, whether you're an old movie expert or just starting out, check out a few books for classic film fans: *  Beginner's Guide to Classic Movies *  It’s a Wonderful Life: Quotes and inspiration from the 1946 classic movie  *  An American C...