Casablanca was rushed into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier …The film was a solid, if unspectacular, success in its initial run.
Exceeding expectations, Casablanca went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, while Curtiz was selected as Best Director and the Epsteins and Koch were honored for Best Adapted Screenplay. Its reputation has gradually grown, to the point that its lead characters,[8] memorable lines,[9] and pervasive theme song[10] have all become iconic, and it consistently ranks near the top of lists of the greatest films in history.
It holds up remarkably well.
Generally speaking, I have a hard time enjoying movies this old. I can appreciate what Citizen Kane or Vertigo did for the art form; but for me, they don’t work as entertainment outside of their historical context. Casablanca is one of the few I’ve seen that I would consider a timelessly watchable movie in its own right. Every bit as enjoyable to an audience in 2026 as it must have been in 1942.
ikr someone posted Citizen Kane on dailymotion and I tried to watch it again and just couldn’t. I appreciate the camera angles but… it’s kinda like reading the fiction of Henry James: great techniques, but wtf do I care about these characters?
If Vertigo was released today it would be panned by every one of the critics that has it at the top of their “greatest movies of all time” list, and I will die on that hill.
That isn’t to say that it didn’t do a lot right, or that it wasn’t a milestone in the history of cinema. It absolutely was, but the plot was all over the place and the only way to sincerely rank it among the best movies ever is to forgive it for a lot of problems that neither critics nor audiences would tolerate these days.
Incidentally, Rear Window, another Hitchcock film, is one that I rank with Casablanca in terms of holding up to modern viewing on its own merits. I would highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it already.
I think I saw Vertigo and Rear Window sometime in the late 90s so I don’t remember much about them, I’ll have to watch them again at some point.
Rear Window is worth it as a great movie, Vertigo only to refresh your memory
I recently rewatched Vertigo, Rear Window and Casablanca and wholeheartedly agree with your assessment.