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Over the course of my life, my all-consuming passion for movies has precluded my watching a lot of spectator sports, though I’ve always had a soft spot for baseball. (I’m old enough to remember the “Miracle Mets” of 1969, and can still name the players. Tommy Agee, anyone?)

Here are twelve black and white classics, available now on Netflix, that I consider unmissable. I’m hoping that through these timeless films, we might open a few more young eyes to the glory and beauty of black and white cinema.

Some say the term “movie star” is outmoded, since studios don’t make as many movies or build up their acting talent as they once did. But I think the term still applies to George Clooney, who’s very much with us as he nears retirement age (63) this month. But don’t expect him to slow down.

When movie buffs discuss the greatest directors of old Hollywood, the same names tend to crop up: John Ford, Frank Capra, William Wyler, George Cukor, and of course, Hitchcock. Worthy picks of course, but why not Fred Zinnemann? Granted he worked in a wide variety of genres (much like contemporary George Stevens), making him harder to classify. Also he started directing features roughly 15 years after these pioneers of talking pictures. Still, his track record is every bit as impressive.

It was gratifying, if not particularly surprising, to see Cillian Murphy capture the Best Actor Oscar this year. He’d just starred in the year’s most critically acclaimed film, “Oppenheimer,” which also took Best Picture. It was a big performance in a very big movie.

“Orson Welles lists ‘Citizen Kane’ as his best film, Alfred Hitchcock opts for ‘Shadow of a Doubt’, and Sir Carol Reed chose ‘The Third Man’ - and I'm in all of them.” Those are the words of Joseph Cotten, perhaps the finest screen actor never to be nominated for an Oscar. The more time passes, the more it feels like a serious oversight.

Why were so many of our very best actors born in April? It’s an unanswerable question, of course, but intriguing nonetheless. And in the rarefied world of movie stardom, the concentration of April birthdays is pretty remarkable.