Great post!
Gladiator (2000)
For the ladies: One Night with the King (story of Esther)
-Breaker Morant
Phantom of the Paradise, great music, great plot.
Anything with Barbara Stanwyick
Southward Ho! (1939)
A Roy Rogers movie with an anti-gun control message.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LufeC8TiW0A
The Apartment (1960)
Jack Lemmon as an insurance company employee who lends the use of his apartment to his workplace superiors so that they can use the place to spend time with their mistresses.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apartment
Anything before 1950. Many are on youtube and on Tubi.
Midway - 2019 - remake of the 1967 version. Free on Tubi. Well done and not woke (surprisingly)
The Catcher was a Spy - 2018 - on Tubi - true story about a Boston Red Sox catcher turned WWII spy tasked to assassinate a Nazi atomic scientist. Excellent.
The Razor’s Edge - 1984 - on Tubi - a WWI veteran is disallusioned by jazz-age values and discovers the real meaning of life. Cerebral and different. Remake of the 1940’s version with Tyrone Power.
The Grey Zone - 2001 - on Tubi - true story, group of jewish prisoners launch an attack inside of Auschwitz.
The Scarlet and the Black - 1983 - on Tubi - true story of a vatican official defying Nazi officials and saving POW’s in Rome.
Turn - a series on AMC - excellent true story of the spies, Culpepper ring, that turned the revolutionary war. Absolutely excellent.
Anthropoid - 2016 - on Prime Video (not free) - true story of Operation Anthropoid, mission to assassinate Thrid Reich general Reinhard Heydrich, the main architect behind the final solution.
The Island on Bird Street - 1997 - prime video - semi true story, 11 yr old boy hides in jewish ghetto waiting for his father to return.
The Resistance Banker - 2018 - Netflix - true story. A banker in occupied Amsterdam slows the Nazi war machine by creating an underground bank to fund the resistance.
James Garner comedies:
Support your local Sheriff
Support your local Gunfighter
Maverick
Skin Games
Watch anything made before the 2000s and it might be ok. Not too much woke stuff just a couple of decades ago.
The most recent non-woke film I saw was Ford v Ferrari.
Ping
Joker
This week I watched “Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.”
Made in 2005, not woke, British, starring the legendary Joan Plowright.
And, yes, I cried.
Shane, Le Mans
Non-woke movies ping.
Airplane
Father Stu
Non-woke movies? Hundreds of them. How far back do you want to go?
My usual focus is recent movies: what has Hollywood done for us lately? I have a long list of golden oldies as well, but I’ve seen Patton, The Godfather, Jaws, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, etc. enough times. Take the golden oldies off the table. Here’s my current list of reasonably recent unwoke films back to 2017. These movies are all over the place in terms of genre and style. You won’t like them all. I didn’t especially like them all, but I’m glad to have seen them and am happy to recommend them. Watch the trailer and read a few reviews first. But NONE OF THEM ARE WOKE (although a couple of them are a bit tricky on that score, but NOT because they preach; they are dealing with tricky subjects and are layered):
See How They Run (2022); The Wonder (2022; not yet released; saw it today at the Middleburg Film Festival; watch it for Florence Pugh, who is wonderful); Infinite Storm (2022; a so-so movie; watched it for Naomi Watts); The Lost City (2022); Father Stu (2022; Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson and a true story); The Outfit (2022; a throwback noir gangster film; Mary Rylance is excellent); Emily the Criminal (2022; no one makes bad decisions like Aubrey Plaza); Dual (2022; weird but watchable — once); Watcher (2022; Hitchcockian);
The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis (2021); Montana Story (2021; the most thematically conservative film of the last year; Haley Lu Richardson has another awards-worthy performance in a film that is much too quiet and understated to be noticed); The Last Duel (2021); Old Henry (2021; a throwback western); Belfast (2021; a family caught in the Troubles); Free Guy (2021; a good natured spoof with a love story hidden inside); Drive My Car (2021; an amazing film that defies description); Compartment No. 6 (2021; it took me awhile to notice the well-disguised archetypical story); Stillwater (2021); After Yang (2021; an AI movie about catching up to grief, family, loss, belonging, identity, memory and rediscovery of what we take for granted; note that the AI does NOT want to be human); Petite Maman (2021); I’m Your Man (2021; an AI movie, both hilarious and thoughtful, with a couple of speeches that should have you standing up to cheer); Jockey (2021; aging, acceptance, regret); CODA (2021; surprising non-woke choice for last year’s Best Picture Oscar); The Dig (2021);
Hillbilly Elegy (2020; a serenity prayer movie; the left HATES this film because the left HATES the book because the left HATES the idea that poor people have agency and personal responsibility; watch it for JD Vance); Another Round (2020); Dear Comrades! (2020); Greyhound (2020; just disregard that Tom Hanks is 30 years too old; if John Wayne can drop into Normandy, Tom Hanks can captain a WWII destroyer); On the Rocks (2020); Palm Springs (2020; very, very funny); The Courier (2020; Cold War, Cuban Missile Crisis, espionage; based on a true story);
Little Women (2019; watch it for Saiorse Ronan); Straight Up (2019; ok, this one is tricky on the woke meter, but it’s very funny; I say it’s non-woke because the young lady discovers normalcy and ends up in the right place, maybe; you will LOVE the gay young man’s parents); Chernobyl (2019); Tolkien (2019); The Professor and the Madman (2019; Mel Gibson and every freeper’s favorite punching bad, Sean Penn — and they are both terrific); Mr. Jones (2019; about the Holodomor, and the only film I’ve ever seen that gives Walter Duranty his due);
Balloon (2018; a suboptimal method of escaping East Germany, but a true story); Ashes in the Snow (2018; the gulag); Operation Finale (2018; about the capture of Adolf Eichman; not a great movie, but watch it for Oscar Isaac and Ben Kingsley); Support the Girls (2018; this one is tricky; slice of life; mumblecore; terrific ensemble cast; would have made a great pilot for a strong series; pay attention to the background characters); Leave No Trace (2018; a coming of age story; “what’s wrong with you isn’t the same thing that’s wrong with me;” you will fall in love with Thomasin McKenzie playing the 13 year old daughter of a PTSD casualty who has gone off the grid);
Molly’s Game (2017; yes, Jessica Chastain is great); The Death of Stalin (2017; hilarious); Lady Bird (2017; again, Saoirse Ronan); Gifted (2017; a solid B movie with one of the best child performances you will ever see; first half is hilarious, then it slows a bit); First They Killed My Father (2017; the Cambodian holocaust); Columbus (2017; another serenity prayer movie; not for everyone, but a severely formal movie centered on two troubled parent-child relationships; all about silences and absences with architecture serving as a metaphor for the characters’ inner issues; deliberately slow and requires close attention; Haley Lu Richardson should have won an Oscar, or at least gotten a nomination; she is unbelievably good in this)
No, I can’t remember all these films off the top of my head. Letterboxd (which is free) has an app for logging films, so the list is ready made. It also has a watchlist app for keeping track of recommendations. Check it out. Put the freeper recommendations in this thread on your watchlist. You won’t regret it.
There is actually a new series that I like because after two episodes it does not appear to be wokr.
“Alaska Daily” with Hillary Swank.
It is a cross between Lou Grant and Northern Exposure.
Ed Asner is a lefty loon in real life, but the Lou Grant series was decent.
There has not been a single gender deranged character yet, and no mention of climate change.
“Fury”
American tank crew in WWII.
Brad Pitt totally believable along with entire excellent cast.
Mad Men TV series
The Sopranos TV series
Murder, She Wrote TV series
Almost anything directed by Clint Eastwood and any character he’s played.
The Edge: Where Conservative Anthony Hopkins out foxes liberal Alec Baldwin
Meet Joe Black: where a businessman Capitalist is portrayed as a great human being.
This barely touches the surface of what’s available. Note: not much recently.