Double Indemnity (1944) - This one’s got to be a no brainer, right? Long held as the definitive noir movie of cinema history, this is one of the single most must-see films ever put to celluloid. No hyperbole: it’s excellent. It’s got all the tropes: The hard-boiled private detective embroiled in web of intrigue, murder, and, most dangerous of all, women, the downtrodden, pissed off voiceover, the iconic typewriter punching away the rooted demons of mankind. Billy Wilder’s noir masterpiece is one for the ages. It’s what comes to mind when somebody says “Classic Hollywood.” Barbara Stanwyck plays one of the definitive femme fatales, and few women have ever been as alluring. It’s one of the sexiest and most viscous pictures ever made.

Flight (2012) - After staying in animated hell with Polar Express, Beowolf, and A Christmas Carol, the loved director of Forrest Gump and Back to the Future has finally returned to live action. Robert Zemeckis’ Flight was largely ignored at the end of the year awards, which is a shame, since Denzel Washington gives one of his best performances to date as a struggling alcoholic. It’s a compelling, and, more unnervingly, accurate character study that doubles as a survey of addiction. Hollywood filmmaking is rarely this deep, and when met with the gripping spectacle of a plane crash, maybe the best ever in film, you get a singularly compelling motion picture.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) - Most viewers know British cult director Guy Ritchie from the Sherlock Holmes films starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, but few know how he got his start. It was a string of heavily stylized irreverent and uproarious small-time gangster flicks, all of them a wicked good time. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is the first and many wager the best of his gangster films, having met significant critical acclaim around the world. Also worth noting is that a fairly young Jason Statham roams the sidelines years before he exploded with a career of B action movies. The plot is deceivingly simple at first: a card game goes wrong and all channels of the London Underground clamor to make good. It’s the smartest type of stupid fun, and I dare you to not have a hysterical time watching.