I’m wondering what of the oldest films are still watched on a regular basis by a relatively mainstream audience purely for entertainment purposes (as in, not for a film studies class or for the explicit intention of “going through the classics”).
The oldest examples I can think of are Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). I think the fact that they’re both in color and are children’s/family films has helped them age well, even compared to movies several decades younger.


It’s far from the oldest, but The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) deserves mention for still regularly being shown in movie theatres, over 50 years after its original release.