15 Hollywood Classics That Reflect a Different Era, Ranked

Gone With The Wind (1939)

Warner Bros./Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via MovieStillsDb

Although the film’s artistic ambitions and striking performances give Gone With The Wind the reputation of an essential cinema classic, its implicit messaging has made its legacy far more complicated in the decades since its release.

While part of this modern criticism comes from the film’s framing of its Black characters, Gone With The Wind is more fundamentally criticized for its glorification of the antebellum South and its uncritical adoption of the Confederacy’s “lost cause” narrative.