Year Released: 2008
Directed by Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight is hands-down one of the best films in the Batman franchise. Christian Bale plays the superhero, trying to save the city from the maniacal Joker. The iconic villain was played by the late Heath Ledger in his final role on film, which won him the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
The film holds a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4/4 from Roger Ebert. But critics weren’t the only ones who ate it up. Audiences loved the film, too, with one member saying it was the “sequel we deserved to the Batman we wanted,” and went on to add, “Heath Ledger is a legend!” Yes, yes he is.
Modern Times
Year Released: 1936
Charlie Chaplin was the comic relief that the world needed during the Great Depression and some of the most troubling times society had seen. He took serious situations and satirized them, providing laughs when there weren’t very many reasons to smile.
In 1989, the Library of Congress deemed the film “culturally significant” and it was preserved in the National Film Registry. The film has also made several of AFI’s “100 Movies” lists.
Chinatown
Year Released: 1974
With a nearly perfect rating of 99% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, Chinatown has been hailed as director Roman Polanski’s best film. It stars a young Jack Nicholson as a detective hired to investigate a case of adultery and ends up stumbling upon something much larger and darker.
The film won several awards in 1975, including the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and four Golden Globes; Best Motion Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Director. It also won a number of other awards including BAFTAs and the Bodil Award for Best American Film.
Dr. Strangelove
Year Released: 1964
This 1964 film, which is also known as it’s full title: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, is directed by Stanley Kubrick and stars George C. Scott and Peter Sellers. Sellers, who plays three separate roles throughout the production, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his work in the film.
The movie was nominated for four Oscars in total, along with six BAFTAs. Of the six, Dr. Strangelove took home four wins, including Best Film from Any Source and Best British Film.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Year Released: 1966
This 1966 epic Western stars Clint Eastwood, who teams up with an outlaw in the Southwest during the Civil War to take out a sinister villain. It has a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is widely regarded as the best of all Spaghetti Western films.
Many more recent films have paid tribute to the classic western. One of them is Quentin Tarantino's 1992 movie Reservoir Dogs, when he creates a cinematic nod to the famed standoff scene. Stephen King also said that the film was his inspiration behind his novel, The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger.