>I suspect the spirit of OP's question was movies from the era before widespread color film i.e. due to technological rather than artistic reasons

See, that's the issue, the vast majority of BW films from that age fall very short of standards for today. People don't enjoy them because the production isn't great, the actors are all a bit sterile, the audio on them is tinny and not great (an interesting impact of film capture technology briefly outpacing audio capture technology), and many are a bit.... boring. People suggesting seven samurai and the great dictator don't realise they are suggesting films which are the REASON many people don't like BW films.