The 21 best classic movies for grownups

Are you a skim milk movie  lover, or a whole cream movie lover? Do you treasure movies that confirm your view of the world, or ones that force you to look at life in ways you never expected?

Do you insist on nodding in agreement with what the characters in a movie say and do, or do you occasionally want to feel the impulse to stand up and shake your fist at the screen? Answer

carefully, because your response reveals whether or not you are a true lover of Movies for Grownups. Here, I’ll make it easy for you: If you really want to have your ticket punched as a

bonafide grownup movie lover, you absolutely _have_ to see the movies listed below. No excuses. Each one either pointed the direction in which movies would go, or assimilated the lessons of

the past in a breathtakingly new way. No _Sound of Music_ here. No _Gone With the Wind_. No _Titanic_, _Star Wars_ or _Shrek_. It’s time to put on your Big Boy Pants, erase your lame old

Netflix queue, and rediscover what real movies are all about. You got a problem with that? Then tell us what movies YOU think belong on the list of Required Movies for Grownups. Use the

"tell us what you think" box below or join us on the message board we just started to discuss your movie favorites. I'll weigh in when I can. Egyptian actor Omar Sharif and

Irish actor Peter O'Toole on the set of 'Lawrence of Arabia,' directed by David Lean, 1962 Sunset Boulevard/Corbis _LAWRENCE OF ARABIA_, 1962 THE ULTIMATE EPIC The endless

desert, the sword-wielding armies, the sweep of history. Director David Lean jammed his widescreen with swirling action, placed blue-eyed newcomer Peter O'Toole at the center and

created a sprawling masterpiece that defined the high-water mark for movie spectacle. SEE ALSO: Michael Curtiz directs Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman filming 'Casablanca,' 1942

Everett Collection _CASABLANCA_, 1942  ROMANCE GROWS UP In this one, the boy (Humphrey Bogart) loses the girl (Ingrid Bergman) before the movie even starts. The question is, what is he

willing to do to get her back? _Casablanca_'s enraptured audiences learned that love stories can often find an unsteady resolution somewhere in an impenetrable fog. Gene Wilder, Kenneth

Mars and Zero Mostel star in the 'The Producers,' 1968 Everett Collection _THE PRODUCERS_, 1968 COMEDY AS CATHARSIS Determined to mount a flop Broadway musical for tax purposes,

Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder stage the sure-fire failure _Springtime for Hitler_. Every "shock" comedy since then owes a debt to writer/director Mel Brooks — but not one of them

gets its laughs with such profound insight into the delicate balance between tragedy and hilarity. Robert Mitchum with cigar among group of soldiers in a scene from the film 'The

Longest Day,' 1962 20th Century-Fox/Getty Images _THE LONGEST DAY_, 1962 WAR REMEMBERED Three directors tell, with documentary-like detachment, the story of D-Day from both the Allied

and Axis perspectives. Accurate or not, _The Longest Day_ recounts the story of Normandy the way those who were there wanted it to be remembered. From left: Pierre Fresnay, Jean Gabin in

'Grand Illusion' (aka 'La Grande Illusion') Everett Collection _GRAND ILLUSION_, 1937 WAR RECONSIDERED In one of the greatest war films, barely a shot is fired. Two

French soldiers are imprisoned in a World War I camp headed by an aristocratic captain (monocled Erich von Stroheim). A slave to outdated, gentlemanly rules of engagement, he clings to the

grandest illusion of all: That war can ever be "civilized." 'Spirited Away,' (aka 'Sen To Chihiro No Kamikakushi'), Chihiro, No-Face Walt Disney

Pictures/Everett Collection _SPIRITED AWAY_, 2001 ANIMATION AND THE DREAM STATE Plugging directly into our cerebral cortex, Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki immerses us in the stupefying

world of a bathhouse populated by grotesque river gods. The mind-boggling image of a young girl and a white-masked ghost riding across a calm sea in a trolley triggers in us a mild panic

attack: "Am I_ dreaming_ this?"