Please Suggest

What kinds of movies do you like?

Romance? Sabrina (1954)

Mystery? Witness For The Prosecution (1957)

Film noir? Double Indemnity (1944)

War? Stalag 17 (1953)

All directed by Billy Wilder

GONE WITH THE WIND
BEN HUR
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN
CASABLANCA
THE BAND WAGON
SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS
ON THE TOWN
MILDRED PIERCE

The bicycle thief
touch of evil
Sweet smell of success 

For romance-"Roman Holiday"
Suspense/Horror-"The Spiral Staircase" (1946) and "The Lodger" (1944)
Noir- "Murder, My Sweet"
War- "Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison"
Drama-"Black Narcissus"
Epic-"The Ten Commandments
And one other film I can't really catagorize-part noir, romantic comedy and action with a side order of ham, courtesy of Vincent Price. It's called "His Kind of Woman" starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. Raymond Burr plays the heavy in this one, and Vincent Price steals the show playing an aging actor who finally gets to be a real hero.

... I am not sure if anyone wants to start a discussion on Sabrina, but I will share some thoughts since I recently viewed the film twice in the theater as part of the Cinemark Classics Series. 

I first viewed Sabrina eleven years ago, in February 2006 on Turner Classic Movies, and I loved it—I thought that it was delightful and charmingly romantic. 

When I saw the movie in the theater earlier this month, my view both times proved more ambivalent. Overall, I still liked Sabrina—I deemed it "pretty good," meaning above-average yet not quite an unqualified "good" (let alone "very good" or "great"). For both screenings, I thought that the film proved terrific in its first half before weakening significantly in the second half. The first half represents scintillating romantic comedy, as humor mixes easily with Sabrina's (Audrey Hepburn's) romantic sadness and then her But in the second half, as the focus shifts toward Sabrina's relationship with Linus (Humphrey Bogart) rather than his younger brother, David (William Holden), I feel that the film becomes too slow, especially in a certain scene with Sabrina and Linus. The movie largely loses its humor (and rhythm), but the seriousness is unsatisfying because I do not feel that any of the relationships are convincingly worked out—to accept what unfolds, I have to sort of rationalize matters and engage in some intellectual wrangling, because I do not really "feel" it. (I know that the changes of heart and relationship developments do work for others, though.) 

The performances from Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and William Holden are strong, though—even if Bogart is too old for Hepburn (even Holden looks quite a bit older than he did in Sunset Blvd. just four years earlier) and even if Hepburn's natural aristocratic accent makes no sense for a working-glass girl from the New York area (even if her character grew up around wealthy folks and with an English father, she surely attended public schools among other working-class kids). But in that era, Hollywood did not bother with such pesky details. Hepburn always possessed the ability to combine comedy with soulfulness, and she looks glorious in this film. And director Billy Wilder provides some nice visual touches, especially in the second scene where Sabrina arrives at and the departs from Linus' office.  

Overall, though, I would not consider Sabrina one of Wilder's best films by any stretch. I believe that a much better Wilder comedy–and a truly great comedy–is his next film, The Seven-Year Itch (1955), which receives a sort of preadvertising mention in Sabrina. The Seven-Year Itch is wittier, riskier, consistently humorous, and downright hilarious at times. It also offers much more in the way of contemporary social relevance, exploring very real anxieties (then and now, but especially then, with the fifties emphasis on monogamous marriage and the nuclear family),yet doing so in an entirely comedic manner.

Sabrina has its charms, but The Seven-Year Itch is at once more dynamic and more meaningful. It presents the protagonist–and, by inference, the audience–with some very real choices.   

Many great films suggested here, including many of my personal favorites, but I have one quibble. All but two of the movies mentioned are American (and one of those is in English). I have perhaps more confidence in Daisy's breadth of mind, as American films are only one strand of film heritage, and would recommend the following to her:
The Third Man (1949)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
The Red Shoes (1948)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Jean De Florette (1986) and Manon of the Spring (1986)
Seven Samurai (1954)
Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)