When Hollywood superstar Robert Redford passed away recently, reams of newspaper articles documented his life, career and later years.

The Washington Post asked 10 newsroom staffers to write brief summaries of their favorite Redford movies, which ranged from “The Way We Were” to “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and beyond.

This got me thinking about what movies I have personally seen over the years that have left a lasting impression on me.

Here are the five extraordinary movies that are stored in my mental archive, none featuring Redford.

“Gone With the Wind.” Originally released in 1939, I did not see it until it was rereleased a decade later and shown in the Roaring Spring theater on South Main Street. Every seat in the venue was filled. The audience emitted a collective gasp when Clark Gable responded to Vivian Leigh’s plea “What will become of me?” with “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Writer’s note: Damn was generally considered a risque public utterance at that time. Its modern equivalent is also four letters that begin with F.

“The Music Man.” In the early 1960s, this musical played at the Navy’s Bill Chickering theater in Yokohama, Japan. It got me firmly hooked on musicals and led to the later enjoyment of “My Fair Lady” and “Sound of Music.” Robert Preston played a perfect Prof. Howard Hill. Costar Shirley Jones, incidentally, bore an amazing resemblance to a girl I dated in high school (lucky me).

“Days of Wine and Roses.” It doesn’t take much anguish to make my cry — not heaving sobs but choking and muted tears. This film was gripping in its telling of a couple played by Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick, as slowly evolving alcoholic parents who break up when Remick’s character can’t get off the sauce. The closing scene has her refusing Lemmon’s plea to again seek sobriety for the sake of their child. She stumbles off toward a bar with an inviting pulsating neon sign. I dissolve into tears every time I see the film on Turner Classic Movies.

“Bridges of Madison County.” Clint Eastwood has the role of a National Geographic photographer filming covered bridges and meets Meryl Streep, playing a sympathetic Italian mail order bride who is in a loveless marriage. They connect and give every indication they could have a happy coupling if she left her husband for the photog. In the final scene, on a rainy day, each in their own car, she decides to drive away and return to her husband. Again, choking and tears.

“That’s Entertainment, Part One.” Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer (MGM) made many of the most noteworthy musicals in the Golden Age of Film. Director Jack Haley Jr. put the uppermost into a feature film that showcased the best of the best. I saw the film at the Dominion Theater on Tottenham Court Road in London in the mid-1970s. I witnessed, for me, a one-and-only first on that occasion: a movie audience rewarding with rapturous applause its spontaneous appreciation for what it had just seen on the silver screen.

What about you moviegoers? Do you have any favorites?

My son’s favorites are all part of the Star Trek series. Different generations have different tastes.

Cove historian Jim Wentz writes a monthly column for the Mirror.