For years, filmmakers produced movies in black and white because there was no other choice. Even when color became available in the 1930s, the process was so expensive that only the biggest of prestige pictures were allowed the luxury of a lady in red or a blue bayou.

Black and white was common well into the 1950s and still used in low-budget films in the 1960s.

Eventually, the price of color became less of an issue and the advent of color television drove a demand for productions that would fill not only theaters but also living rooms with rainbow hues.

Still, some filmmakers have chosen to make movies in glorious monochrome, because it is useful in evoking a stylistic feeling or tone, or as an aesthetic choice. Here are five exceptional films intentionally shot in black and white:

MANHATTAN (1979): Manhattan is a cinematic love letter to the city that served as Woody Allen's muse for most of his career. It is elevated beyond being a Woody-standard romantic comedy by shooting the city, both its people and places, with a sense of silver-tone style.

RAGING BULL (1980): The boxing scenes in this masterpiece from Martin Scorsese were designed to look like the sporting snapshots found in old publications such as Look magazine. To render them in color would have robbed them of that photojournalistic familiarity.

ED WOOD (1994): Shot in black in white by director Tim Burton in homage to the films of the actual Ed Wood, this small film embraces the outsider. Yes, the title character wears an odd angora sweater and befriends a drug-addled creature-feature legend, but because the story is true, these instances become threads in the larger weave of a very human story.

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (1971): This film from Peter Bogdanovich, although shot in nostalgic black and white, is really about the stripping away of nostalgia. Set in a Texas town struggling to survive in the mid-20th century, it's a masterful portrait of disparate personalities trying to establish themselves in the town and the world beyond its limits. A personal favorite.

YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974): Parody master Mel Brooks' focus on re-creating the look and feel of a classic Universal monster movie left him little choice but to shoot in black and white. The result approaches the material it lampoons with the greatest of respect and the sharpest barbs.