I've gotten more into it, these last few years, but a lot of the "classics" we frequently hear referenced are actually still excellent.
Casablanca is my favourite movie of all time. To Catch a Thief is bloody good (Grace Kelly!), as is North by Northwest (Eva Marie Saint!). It's a Wonderful Life has grown on me, over time, and, as a Christmas movie, it's definitely above average, if rather bleak. Spartacus, while cheesy, is pretty good, too. The Magnificent Seven (original) is fucking great. Towering Inferno (original) is also, I feel, rather underrated, these days. Hatari (John Wayne) is great, too. Even Logan's Run (just before blockbusters really took off) is very good, if a little weird. Network is a biting satire, far ahead of its time. And the original Pelham 1,2,3 is ahead of its time, too. I didn't really like The Graduate, but the soundtrack is very good.
Even some silent films (notably Metropolis by Fritz Lang, Nosferatu, etc) are pretty good too, in hindsight.
So yeah, I'm not claiming that Hollywood was ever particularly "based", or anything like that, but some of these "Silver Age" and "Golden Age" Hollywood productions are actually very, very good. Credit where credit is due.
No real point to this - just saying, if you are yet to really give "classics" like some of that lot a go, well, maybe it's worth it, for a break from all the woke shit of Current Era, lol...
Any other recommendations welcome, ha.
Who thinks otherwise?
Me. I'm not the kind of person who automatically hates everything old, but old movies in particular I really don't like. The acting is extremely stilted because they all went to the same rigid acting school, so everyone is always doing a bad impression of British royalty. Look up "transatlantic accent". Nobody talks like that. Nobody except actors who were taught to because it makes them sound fancy.
Some older movies where they actually act like human beings are great, but almost all of them are terribly acted.
Having done a little bit of "theatre" stuff myself - it's an entirely different form of acting...
Not saying you're wrong, necessarily, but there's a reason that style of acting feels so weird, nowadays...
Essentially, the sort of "naturalism", if you will, hadn't really come into film acting yet (arguably, some TV of the era had it, to a greater extent), in particular as many of those actors had a theatrical background...
They were literally taught to speak that way. Much as newsreaders in Commonwealth countries were.
So it's not that the acting is "terrible". It's just not what you are used to.
Personally, I love Cary Grant's acting, even if obviously the accent is dubious. It just takes some getting used to is all.