Year Released: 1967
With a perfect 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Cool Hand Luke is an absolute classic from the Golden Age of Hollywood. The film stars Paul Newman as the title character, Luke, a man who’s sentenced to a rough prison camp. Newman ended up being nominated for an Oscar for his part.
And, even those who’ve never even seen the film are probably still aware of its most famous line; “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate,” which has become a popular saying since the movie’s release in 67’.
L.A. Confidential
Year Released: 1997
This 1997 neo-noir crime thriller was based on Jame’s Ellroy’s novel which was published seven years before the film hit theaters. It stars Kim Basinger, Kevin Spacey and Danny Devito, along with Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe, whose careers both skyrocketed after taking part in this production.
L.A Confidential, which tells the tale of police corruption in Los Angeles during Hollywood’s Golden Age, was nominated for nine Academy Awards. Of the nine, it won two, including Best Supporting Actress (for Kim Basinger,) and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Rebecca
Year Released: 1940
Next on our list is an Alfred Hitchcock film. This time, it’s for his 1940 picture, Rebecca. This was actually Hitchcock’s first American-made movie, and by far one of his best.
Rebecca won several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture (the only one of those particular awards the director ever won.) It was also awarded Best Cinematography and was nominated for nine others.
The Philadelphia Story
Year Released: 1940
We’ve headed back in time to 1940, when this romantic comedy directed by George Cukor hit the scene. Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn star as a young married couple on the verge of divorce. Critics seem to agree that the storyline is one of the best of its time, with one calling it a “beautifully spun tale.”
The film won the Academy Award for Best Writing in an Adapted Screenplay and brought in $3.3 million – which was a lot of money in 1940.
Inception
Year Released: 2010
Leonardo DiCaprio stars in this unique sci-fi film from Christopher Nolan that delves into lucid and hive-mind dream exploration. Audiences and critics alike went wild for the film, which the latter referred to as “wholly original,” and “cut from a new cloth.” And, indeed it’s not like anything we’ve ever seen before.
Inception was nominated for eight Oscars and won four, including the awards for Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. It was nominated for four more, including Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture.