Like many, I treasure a lot of the highly popular classics, which is why they have become highly popular classics. So I'll confine my list here to less-known movies deserving a wider audience:
The Man Who Would Be King, a swashbuckling big-screen adventure film starring Sean Connery, Michael Caine and Christopher Plummer, directed by John Huston.
Sorcerer, a noir re-telling of a 1950s French film titled The Wages of Fear (a better title). Stars Roy Scheider and a cast of little-known foreign actors. Gritty and brilliant.
The Wrong Box, a 1960s slapstick farce starring Michael Caine, Peter Cooke, Dudley Moore and Sir Ralph Richardson, with a wonderful cameo appearance by Peter Sellers. Based on a tale by Robert Louis Stevenson. Laugh-out-loud stuff the Monty Python guys would have been proud of.
Posse, a 1960-ish Western, in black-and-white, starring Kirk Douglas and Bruce Dern in unexpected roles.
The Fixer, starring Alan Bates, based on a great novel by Bernard Malamud. Tale of a persecuted Jewish merchant in eastern Europe, who triumphs through personal virtue.
The Chosen, based on the Chaim Potok novel of the same title, starring Robbie Benson, Barry Miller, Maximilian Schell and Rod STeiger. Tale of the post-WWII conflict between two sons of very different Jewish traditions. Steiger, who was not Jewish, should have got an Oscar for his dead-on portrayal of a Lubovitcher Hasidic rabbi.
The Illustrated Man, based on stories from Ray Bradbury's collection of the same name. again starring Rod Steiger and a little-known actor named Robert Drivas.
Matewan, one of the first major roles for the excellent Chris Cooper, based on the true story of an early 20th-century labor dispute in the coal fields of Appalachia.
October Sky, another Chris Cooper starring role, along with the big movie break for Jake Gyllenhaal. Based on another true story out of Appalachia.
Mystery Men. For me an oddly under-appreciated satire ranking up with the much better-known Galaxy Quest as an affectionate put-down of genre clichés. GQ was a hit on Star Trek and other SF tropes, Mystery Men goes after superhero movies with the same gusto. And a stellar cast: William H. Macy, Greg Kinnear, Jeanine Garofolo, Hank Azaria, Eddie Izzard, Ben Stiller, Tom Waits, Wes Studi, Paul Reubens and, wonderfully, Geoffrey Rush in full bloom.
Chinatown. Just had to mention this. Possibly my all-time most favoritest movie ever.
caw