3) My Fair Lady (1964)

It doesn’t get much better than Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn and few films better than My Fair Lady. It’s probably the greatest stage play turned musical…ever. Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw, is a brilliant play and My Fair Lady is, possibly even better.

My Fair Lady is the story of a poor street urchin (Hepburn) turned flower girl who learns to speak like an Duchess. Rex Harrison is Henry Higgins the Professor that, through not so gentle ministrations, manages to accomplish the impossible. And Colonel Pickering (Wilfrid Hyde-White) is the long suffering buffer between the two.

The Hepburn role, Eliza Doolittle, seems made for her. Had Julie Andrews, offered the role she played on Broadway, it may never have been the masterpiece it became. Mary Poppins too, the role Andrew chose may have been given to someone else changing everything. Only our favorite Hot Tub Time Machine or maybe Doc Brown’s Delorean could help us find out.

Hepburn as the dirty street urchin turned achingly beautiful, but delicate wonder, was amazing.

7. Mary Poppins (1964)

Yes, the film is for children, children three to 103. The music is incredibly contagious, the story a blast and the plot a lesson for every age and generation. This film too, should be seen at least once with your children, at least once with your grandchildren and God willing with your great grandchildren. Julie Andrews was at the absolute top of her craft for this best of all babysitting films and unmatched in fun and frolic, well maybe except Dick Van Dyke, her co-star, without whom Mary Poppins would have just been incredible.

8. The Sound of Music (1965)

WWII was not a happy time and Austria not a fun place when Germans decided it belonged to them, the setting for The Sound of Music. That doesn’t stop the film from being one of the brightest and most inspiring movies ever. And when Maria (Julie Andrews) meets Captain Georg Von Trapp (Christopher Plummer), the horror of Nazism, just for a while, seems to fade. I fell in love with Julie Andrews during the film and the feeling has never faded. Certainly one of the best musicals ever, and one of the best films, it’s easy to watch The Sound of Music as many times as you like and never get tired.