Or does it?

There aren't a lot of car chases, murders, sex scenes, or explosions, but lives are quietly changed.

Lost in Translation (2003)

Newlywed Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) and burned-out married actor Bob (Bill Murray) meet at a Tokyo hotel, talk, and sing some karaoke. Everything is melancholy and luminously beautiful.

We keep thinking maybe they'll leave their spouses — and yet we're somehow grateful when they don't. Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation is a celebration of small, intense interactions we'll never recapture, and maybe shouldn't.

At the end, Bob finds Charlotte in a crowd. They look in each other's eyes, embrace, and he whispers something we can't hear. They kiss in a way that feels not at all sexual. They're friends.

The Power of the Dog (2021)

Jane Campion's drama looked like a likely Best Picture winner in 2022 before CODA scored the honor in an unusual, Covid-tainted year.

It is, on its surface, a slow, ponderous story about a widow (Kirsten Dunst), her kindly suitor and eventual husband (Jesse Plemons), her effeminate, intellectual son, (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and her brutal brother-in-law (Benedict Cumberbatch).

For most of the movie, we think we're watching a sensitive Western, perhaps with a revisionist take on the very 2020s theme of "toxic masculinity." But by the end, we realize it's been a different kind of movie all along — and a more ruthless one than we realized. It makes a hard, shrewd shift in genre, and we respect it.

Dazed and Confused (1993)

The ultimate hangout movie, Dazed and Confused follows a group of high schoolers on graduation night as they cruise around and make plans to go to a party at the Moontower. There's some fighting and bullying and flirting, and some mailboxes get battered. Football star Randall "Pink" Floyd (Jason London) has to decide whether to sign a pledge. not to do drugs.

And that's it. No one dies, nothing explodes, no one pulls off the heist of the century. And yet it's a pure joy, helped launch the careers of Ben Affleck, Parker Posey, and Matthew McConaughey, and is the best hangout movie ever. Quentin Tarantino has called his favorite movie of the 90s.

Dazed and Confused is one of several deceptively simple Richard Linklater movies, where very normal days and nights turn out to be the most memorable of our lives.

And, since we mentioned Tarantino...

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

A slice of life story about real-life actress Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), her burnout actor neighbor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), and Dalton's pal-stuntman-assistant Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).

The film takes us on a pleasant meander through three days of their lives — at one point we join Sharon on a solo trip to the movies — but writer-director Quentin Tarantino knows he doesn't need to do much to move the plot along...

... Because we're on the edge of our seats the entire time, thinking about the hellish thing we know happened to the real Sharon Tate. Waiting for it to happen onscreen. Horrified.

There are little smatterings of violence before the big finale as Cliff fights both Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) and Tex Watson (Austin Butler).

And when the grim ending comes... it turns out to be not what we expected.

Perfect Days (2023)

The newest film on our list, Perfect Days follows a Tokyo bathroom custodian named Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho) as he goes about his simple days, fueled by mix tapes, good books, and his love of photography.

It's a curious, transfixing film about making the most of a seemingly simple existence. People enter his life who seem poised to change it dramatically, but he takes comfort in his routines.

Its excellent movie credentials include premiering at the the 76th Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or and won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury and the Best Actor Award for Yakusho. It was also nominated for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards,.

Before Sunset (2004)

Another Linklater movie, and the sequel to his lovely Before Sunrise, which could also be on this list. Jesse and Celine (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, who co-write the movie with Linklater and Kim Krizan) reunite in Paris, nearly a decade after the night they spent together in Vienna in Before Sunrise.

Jesse has written a book about that night, and he and Celina reminisce about what could have been and what can never be. Or can it?

The biggest event in Before Sunset comes at the very end, when instead of doing something, Jesse doesn't do something — and it changes his and Celine's lives. It also sets up the third film in the series, the beguiling Before Midnight.

Last Days of Disco (1999)

Writer-director Whit Stillman has said that during the tough days of filming his 1994 Barcelona, a rare moment of joy came while shooting a disco scene. He wondered why he couldn't just make a whole movie of young women loving the nightlife and dancing. So he made Last Days of Disco.

Chloe Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale star as aspiring book editors who eke out small salaries while looking for love or connection or something on dance floors and the sexy banquettes at their edges. At least one character considers them overprivileged and insipid, and the big climax is a debate about Lady and the Tramp.

But there's a lot happening in the subtext, including a richly detailed, nearly invisible subplot about tax fraud. And — much more importantly, from the movie's perspective — people find real meaning in the most seemingly superficial of settings. This might be your humble correspondent's favorite movie — and it's one of the most seductive movies we've ever seen.

The Brutalist (2024)

The newest film on this list, and a leading Oscar contender, Brady Corbet's The Brutalist moves as a patient, often hypnotic pace, inviting you to enjoy and appreciate its anthemic score, nuanced performances, and the brutally beautiful architecture of protagonist László Tóth (Adrien Brody).

It unfolds over 3 hours and 35 minutes that do not fly by: One of its leads, Felicity Jones as Erzsébet Tóth — doesn't really show up until after the midpoint intermission. Strikingly, for a movie with plenty of time, The Brutalist never over-explains, often waiting until years after events in the film to have occurred before the characters discuss them at any length.

Arguably the most devastating moment in the film — it occurs between László and his benefactor/antagonist Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr. (Guy Pearce) — unfolds with such understatement that you may not immediately understand the trauma unfolding unless you catch the sound of an unbuckling belt.

Contempt (1963)

French writer Paul (Michel Piccoli) is enlisted to work with Fritz Lang (played by the real Fritz Lang) on an adaptation of The Iliad.

When Paul and his wife Camille (the recently departed Brigitte Bardot) are invited to the home of cocky American producer Jeremy Proko (Jack Palance), Proko's car only has room for one passenger. And so begins a period of intense agony for Paul.

It's all very slow — yet you wish it were even slower. Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt is one of the most gorgeous movies ever made. The visuals are sumptuous, including of Casa Malaparte, the seaside home on Capri, Italy where key scenes occur. And "Camille's Theme," by Georges Delerue, is so stirring that Martin Scorsese borrowed it for Casino.

Contempt has two very violent deaths, but they're almost an afterthought. The emotional carnage comes first.

La Piscine (1969)

TimeOut perfectly describes this one as "a deliciously languid, slinkily unsettling affair."

Director Jacques Deray spends lots of time on the uncluttered elegance of la piscine of the title (la piscine is French for "the swimming pool") and the magnetism of its four central inhabitants, played by Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Maurice Ronet, and Jane Birkin.

There's lust and jealousy, sure, though we're never sure how seriously to take it all until, about midway through the film, someone commits a rompishly casual murder. When it happens, you're almost sad to see the movie take a break from shots of people just lying around.

The Father (2020)

The setup for Florian Zeller's magnificent debut is so simple it barely seems sufficient for a movie: A daughter (Olivia Colman) is trying to move her dementia-struck father (Anthony Hopkins) from his flat and into a nursing home.

But the scenes that result are both aching and mesmerizing. Zeller designed the film, he told MovieMaker, "to make the audience feel as if they were going through a labyrinth." He envelops the audience in Anthony's confusion by moving the proportions of the apartment, changing the locations of items, and even changing the colors of a wall.

We see and feel a man losing his mind, and the film makes us share in his alternating peace and terror. Zeller was so certain that Hopkins was the only actor for the job that he named his main character Anthony and wrote the script for the Silence of the Lambs Oscar winner without ever having met him.

All worked out: Hopkins won his second Best Actor Oscar for The Father, one of the most excellent movies of recent years.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

The gold standard of movies where not much happens, Jeanne Dielman follows a widowed housewife (Delphine Seyrig) as she goes about her domestic routines over three days: cooking, cleaning, taking care of her son, and having sex with a different client each afternoon.

Yes, she has sex three times, and there is one pointed act of violence, which may sound like a lot is happening. But consider that the movie is three hours and twenty minutes long. At one point it devotes four minutes to a static shot of Jeanne making veal cutlets.

Released when writer-director Chantal Akerman was just 25, Jeanne Dielman initially drew a mixed response, but steadily gained respect. In 2020, the Sight + Sound poll named it the greatest movie ever made. It replaced Vertigo at the top of the list.

If you like this list, you might also enjoy this list of 10 Great Documentaries About Making Movies That You Can Stream Now.

And we invite you to follow us for more stories like this.

Editor's Note: Corrects main image, updates Contempt item and adds follow link.

Main image: Contempt. Marceau-Cocinor 

Think there's a better Bond than Goldfinger? By all means, let us know in the comments. We promise not to be too shaken or even stirred.

And now, here are 12 Goldfinger behind the scenes images.

Shine On

Goldfinger is perhaps most famous for the demented way that the titular villain kills his aide-de-camp, Jill Masterson, played by Shirley Eaton.

He kills her by having her painted gold, which leads to her death by skin suffocation.

Above, Sean Connery ensures that the real Eaton isn’t suffering any skin suffocation despite her gold body paint. She seems fine.

Sharp-Dressed Man

For once, a Bond girl isn’t wearing the most revealing costume. Here’s Connery with Eaton and Bond creator Ian Fleming, who died the month before Goldfinger was released.

If you're interested in the dynamic between Connery and Fleming, you can read about how he ultimately came around to the idea of casting Sean Connery by reading this excerpt of Nicholas Shakespeare's terrific Ian Fleming: The Complete Man.

We consider it a must-read for serious Bond fans.

Roles in the Hay

Connery and Honor Blackman, who plays, uh, Ms. Galore, rehearse an infamous fight scene in the Goldfinger behind the scenes image above.

We’re not sure if we can safely type Ms. Galore’s first name, as our stories are syndicated to lots of different media platforms with lots of understandably sensitive filters.

It's quite feline, though.

True Love

Sean Connery as James Bond with his true love: His iconic Aston Martin, one of the all-time most beautiful movie cars.

A fully restored Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5 sold for $6.4 million in 2019.

Auction house RM Sotheby’s said at the time that it included such features as “hydraulic over-rider rams on the bumpers, a Browning .30 caliber machine gun in each fender, wheel-hub mounted tire-slashers, a raising rear bullet-proof screen, an in-dash radar tracking scope, oil, caltrop and smoke screen dispensers, revolving license plates, and a passenger-seat ejection system.”

Odd Job

Harold Sakata, who played Oddjob, clowns around on set and shows he’s no bad guy behind the scenes. 

He's one of our all-time favorite Bond villains, though, who set the standard for many more to come.

Though none matched the coolness of his flying hat routine.

The Fall Guy

From left to right, actor-stuntman Bob Simmons, who played Bond in the gunbarrel sequence, Connery, and Nadja Regin, who played Bonita.

The gunbarrel sequence, of course, it the opening segment in the film in which Bond, wearing a hat, walks across the screen in profile and suddenly turns to fire his gun toward the audience as the Bond theme plays.

Did you think that was Connery? We get it. So did we.

Make-Up

Eaton’s gold paint reportedly took 90 minutes to apply, but it was worth it: Her gold-painted image graced the cover of LIFE magazine as part of the promotional campaign for the film, the third of the 27 Bond movies.

If you’re a collector, her issue of LIFE is the November 6, 1964 issue.

She’s being painted above by makeup artist Paul Rabiger, who also worked on Bond films including Thunderball, You Only Live Twice and From Russia With Love.

Good as Gold

Shirley Eaton is all smiles, even covered in gold paint.

Eaton, a British actress also known for the Carry On films, retired from acting in 1969 to devote herself to family, but in 1999 she release her autobiography, perfecly titled Golden Girl.

It was a bestseller, and she went on to release three more books.

In the Club

Harold Sakata as Oddjob and Gert Fröbe as Auric Goldfinger.

Orson Welles was among those considered to play Goldfinger, a gold tycoon who is obsessed with the soft metal, but he wanted too much money. (Shouldn’t that have made him even more qualified for the role?)

Fröbe, a German actor, was dubbed by actor Michael Collins, continuing something of a Bond tradition: Ursula Andress was similarly subbed in the original Bond film, Dr. No.

From Russia With Love

Tania Mallet, who played Jill’s sister, Tilly Masterson, poses for an amateur photographer named Sean Connery.

Mallet, and English actress and model who sometimes signed her name with two Ts, had an origin story straight out of a Bond movie: She was a descendent of Russian aristocrats on her mother’s side.

She had auditioned for the role of Tatiana Romanova in the second Bond film, From Russia with Love, but the filmmakers passed because of her British accent.

How Sean Connery Became Bond

Ian Fleming, left, didn’t initially think Connery resembled the super-suave elegant James Bond of his novels, who of course resembled Fleming himself.

But he soon saw the appeal of the Scottish actor, and in one of his novels after Connery’s casting, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, he even “responded to Connery’s cinematic Bond by putting some Scottish blood into him,” as Nicholas Shakespeare wrote in the new book Ian Fleming: The Complete Man.

Liked These Goldfinger Behind the Scenes Photos?

You’ll probably also love These Images From Dr. No, the first James Bond movie, featuring Sean Connery and Ursula Andress. You might also like this video of 10 Gen X Film Stars Gone Too Soon.

Main image: A Goldfinger promo image Honor Blackman, left, with an insert of Sean Connery and Margaret Nolan in Goldfinger. United Artists.

They didn't worry about good taste — they just wanted to make you laugh.

Here are some '80s movies that might not fly now.

Porky's (1981)

It will never stop amusing us that the guy who made Porky's, the great director Bob Clark, also made A Christmas Story. (He also made the horror movie Black Christmas and the kids movie Baby Geniuses. Talk about range.)

Porky's is one of those '80s movies that kids were often shielded from, which in retrospect makes sense: Though it was presented as a freewheeling comedy, it's filled with weird humiliations, and of course peeping that doesn't meet modern standards of consent.

But to call back A Christmas Story, Bob Clark didn't give a fuuuuuuuuuuudge.

Trading Places (1983)

At one point, Dan Aykroyd disguises himself as a Jamaican. That isn't great. And some people have objected to the scene where a gorilla takes a bad guy as his mate. Maybe that isn't so funny in retrospect.

But other elements ofTrading Places are incredibly good, including the film's very smart take on nature vs. nurture, and its smart observations about all the assumptions our society makes about who deserves to be rich.

We love it's then-modern update on the screwball comedies of the 1930s, and Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy and Jamie Lee Curtis are all extremely good. It's one of our favorite '80s movies.

Better Off Dead (1985)

John Cusack plays Lane Meyer, a teenager who attempts, repeatedly, to remove himself from this earth after he's dumped by his girlfriend, Beth Truss (Amanda Wyss) for cocky blonde guy Roy Stalin (Aaron Dozier).

The whole plot would never fly today, nor the slapstick jokes around a teenage boy trying to end himself. But the entire movie is such masterful absurdist comedy that no thinking person could possibly take it seriously.

Also, like many of the movies of the time, it features some dicey Asian characters, but at least they're good at racing and have girlfriends. We'd say they're much cooler, at least by high school standards, than poor Lane is.

Finally, Diane Franklin (above, with Cusack) is excellent as Monique, a notably smart, capable and cool dream girl. So there's that. This is maybe the most '80s of all '80s movie comedies.

The Man With Two Brains (1983)

The whole setup of this dark screwball comedy will feel a tad misogynistic to some: Steve Martin plays a mad neurosurgeon, Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr, who falls in love with femme fatale Dolores Benedict (Kathleen Turner), then builds up resentment as she declines to consummate their marriage.

Meanwhile, he falls in love with a disembodied brain, Anne (voiced by Sissy Spacek) and begins searching for a body in which to house her. Along the way, he roots for one attractive woman to die, and ponders killing another. It all crescendoes in a joke at the expense of compulsive eaters.

It's not in the same league as The Jerk, a previous collaboration between Steve Martin and director Carl Reiner, but it has some very funny scenes.

Heathers (1988)

Heathers is the most pitch black of '80s movies, and embodies fatalistic Gen X cool. It was written by Daniel Waters as a kind of counter-point to the generally sunnier John Hughes comedies of the day.

The film stars Christian Slater as a charismatic teen lunatic who enlists popular girl Veronica in his plot to start offing popular kids, and staging things to make it look like they did themselves in — enlisting nefarious props like mineral water to makethe crime scenes more convincing.

Remember, this was the '80s, when the idea of deadly suburban high-school kids seemed hilariously absurd. A recent attempt to revive Heathers as a TV series was delayed and derailed by multiple incidents of real-life school violence that may the idea seem very unfunny to modern viewers.

Coming to America (1988)

There's something to offend everyone in the brilliant comic grotesquerie of Coming to America, a movie that goes after almost every demographic but respects all variety of hustles. Eddie Murphy takes the Richard Pryor trick of playing several characters in the same scene and, with the help of make-up, perfects it.

Coming to America has countless jokes that young, modern audiences may find shocking, but hey: They were also shocking when the movie came out. Eddie Murphy and his collaborators just didn't care. They wanted hard laughs, and they got them.

Airplane (1980)

Airplane is loaded with questionable jokes, including June Cleaver herself speaking jive. It's deeply inappropriate — and also one of the funniest things that has ever happened in a movie.

Kudos to David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker — synonymous with '80s comedies — for coming up with the idea of Barbara Billingsley delivering the line, "Oh stewardess? I speak jive." And also for the 7,000 other great jokes in Airplane, one of the all-time greatest comedies that don't care if you're offended.

The ZAZ team also came up with two more of the all-time great comedies on this list.

More on Airplane (and the Next Two Movies on This List)

"When we do screenings of Airplane! we get the question if we could do Airplane! today,” David Zucker, one-third of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker trio, recently said in an interview with PragerU. “The first thing I could think of was, ‘Sure, just without the jokes.’"

He also complained that modern Hollywood is "destroying comedy because of nine percent of the people who don’t have a sense of humor.”

That wasn't the case for '80s movies.

Top Secret (1984)

This film, the second Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker classic on our list, features muscle-bound, gun-totin' Black French character named Chocolate Mousse. At one point a bad guy is mounted by a bull. An extreme facial disfigurement gets one of the movie's biggest laughs.

Top Secret is also, for our money, maybe the funniest movie ever made: It's an absurdist caper that crosses a Cold War spy thriller with an Elvis movie, with perfectly orchestrated sight gags that get better with ever watch. The backward bookshop scene? Mesmerizing.

Top Secret also includes one of the all-time best jokes of '80s movies: "My uncle was born in America. But he was one of the lucky ones. He managed to escape in a balloon during the Jimmy Carter presidency." That's a great setup and payoff, whatever your politics.

The Naked Gun (1988)

The final Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker film on our list, The Naked Gun features a dizzying, hilarious array of risque jokes, all of which are terrific. The building statues sequence is a standout.

It's also the only film on this list to co-star a man once accused of double homicide — a rarity among '80s comedies.

No one is apologizing. We enjoyed the recent relaunch, too, but prefer the original.

Sixteen Candles (1984)

John Hughes' Sixteen Candles has gotten a lot of criticism, in retrospect, for the stereotypical Long Duk Dong character (played by Gedde Watanabe) and a scene that makes Anthony Michael Hall's character seem predatory, in retrospect.

Watanabe told NPR in 2008 that he was a "a bit naive" about taking on the role of Long Duk, though he still has affection for him.

As for the other thing: Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling), who is presented as the dream guy of our heroine, Samantha (Molly Ringwald), passes off his unconscious girlfriend, Caroline (Haviland Morris), to another guy, Ted (Anthony Michael Hall, with Morris, above). Jake tells Ted, “Have fun.”

The next day, Caroline and the Ted conclude that they had sex. He asks if she enjoyed herself, and she says, “You know, I have this weird feeling I did,” which is the movie’s way of justifying the guys’ behavior.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Fast Times is the one of those '80s movies that is may be more offensive to religious conservatives than people on the left, because it takes the side of a high school student, Stacy (Jennifer Jason Leigh, above right, with Phoebe Cates), who has an abortion after a smooth talker gets her pregnant and then turns out to be a worthless deadbeat.

Like the next film on this list, this was one of those movies that kids in school yards spoke of in whispers — as one of those '80s comedies that parents definitely didn't want them to see.

It may have just been because of the famous Phoebe Cates pool sequence, but we don't think so. The movie's presentation of teen realities was a much bigger threat to the Moral Majority, the religious fundamentalists who thrived through the 1980s.

If you like this list, you might also like this list of Rad '80s Movies Only Cool Kids Remember.

Main image: Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Editor's Note: Corrects main image.

Perhaps you may wonder what we mean by a post-apocalyptic movie. We're referring to any film that takes place after the fall of civilization, whether due to a nuclear war, or any other cataclysmic event.

There are different flavors of post-apocalyptic movies, from sci-fi horror stories to silly comedies. Many are darkly entertaining, though the best tend to be philosophical — and perhaps even to inspire us to avoid destroying ourselves.

And with that, here are the 12 best post-apocalyptic movies we've ever seen.

The Matrix (1999)

The premise of The Matrix feels realer every day: Robots have created a fantasy world to distract humans from the real world. (Our only quibble with that notion is that the robots are using humans as power sources, and... why? Wouldn't electricity work better?)

Be it the bullet-time special effects or the reinvention of Keanu Reeves, The Matrix was monumental. A lot of the action stuff still holds up, and there are fun moments to be found in the computer simulation of it all.

One of the coolest things about The Matrix, like a few other films on this list, is that it doesn't immediately reveal itself to be a post-apocalyptic movie. Neo's world looks a lot like our own... at first.

12 Monkeys (1995)

It’s impressive to turn an adaptation of an experimental French short film into a hit sci-fi movie, but Terry Gilliam did it. You might say, “Sure, but he had Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt!” Yes, but this was just at the beginning of Pitt’s prominence. This is one of the films that broke him through into the mainstream.

In 12 Monkeys, a widespread pandemic has wiped out most of human civilization. Humans have access to time travel, though, so they send a convict back in time. Crucially, they don't try to change the future — that’s not possible. They simply want to be able to mitigate the death going forward.

Sadly, then they send Willis’ prisoner back too early, and everything gets messed up.

Also Read: The 12 Most Voyeuristic Movies We've Ever Watched

A Quiet Place (2018)

A Quiet Place takes the unique frame of just focusing on a family, and notes that children are, well, the only hope for the future.

John Krasinski starred alongside his wife Emily Blunt, and also directed. This is the first full-on horror film on this list, but horror and the apocalypse go hand in hand.

Aliens have come to Earth with a taste for humans. However, their senses are poor, including being effectively blind, but have a tremendous sense of hearing. Survival means being quiet. Silent even. Sure, that makes it easy to ratchet up the tension, but you have to execute. A Quiet Place definitely does that.

Children of Men (2006)

What if the apocalyptic event was anodyne and slow moving? It’s not a shark biting you in half, but a boa constrictor slowly squeezing the life out of you. For two decades, no new children have been born. This has caused society to slowly unravel. The youngest humans have become celebrities. The world is ceasing to function, and falling into war.

Clive Owen plays a man who, you’ll never believe this, has grown cynical. Then, he finds out something remarkable. There is a pregnant woman.

Now, there is almost nothing he won’t do to save her and her unborn child. Directed by the acclaimed, Oscar-winning Alfonso Cuaron, Children of Men is high-quality filmmaking.

Night of the Comet (1984)

We figured a cult classic should be in the mix, and Night of the Comet is our choice. It’s the kind of movie that has Mary Woronov in a supporting role. If that sentence means anything to you, well, you’ve probably already seen Night of the Comet, or at the very least are running out to watch it. It’s kind of comedic in the way it winks at sci-fi disaster movies of yore.

A comet’s fly-by proves fatal, turning the vast majority of people into dust. Some are left dying more slowly, becoming almost crazed zombies. Thanks to the protection of solid steel, though, two Valley girl sisters survive, as does a truck driver.

Now they have to try and survive. What’s impressive is that Night of the Comet manages to wink without feeling wink-y, you know? Also, Catherine Mary Stewart is a delight as one of the leads.

Also Read: 10 Movie Sex Scenes Somebody Should Have Stopped

WALL-E (2008)

A masterpiece of show-don't-tell filmmaking. WALL-E is also the gentlest movie on this list by a wide margin. WALL-E is a sweet movie about a couple of lonesome robots who just might be able to resurrect a long-trash planet Earth.

It starts simply, with no dialogue: Humans have abandoned Earth because it has been polluted to the point of being uninhabitable. WALL-E has been left behind to clean up all the garbage. Then another robot, EVE, arrives. Thus begins a robotic love story, animated majestically.

When we finally meet the humans, fairly late in the film, they're not entirely impressive. But WALL-E and EVE rescue them anyway.

The Omega Man (1971)

Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend has been turned into a movie three times, and parodied in a Simpsons episode as well. Vincent Price was in The Last Man on Earth in 1964, and Will Smith starred in a 2007 version called I Am Legend, but The Omega Man is the best of the bunch.

This is the first Charlton Heston movie on our list, and he was no stranger to post-apocalyptic movies. His character has spent years believing he is alone. Well, alone other than some violent mutated plague survivors.

But what if he's not the last man on Earth? What if there is more left for him than isolation and killing mutants?

Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Tie) (1984)

Hear us out: We'll grant you that much of the action in the Terminator movies takes place before the apocalypse. But the films also give us glimpses of Skynet’s assault on humankind, and the charred world that results from said attack.

We would be remiss not to include at least one Terminator film, given how often people worry about the possibility of a Skynet-like entity wiping out life on our planet.

Also Read: 11 Bad Sequels That Should Never Have Been Made

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Two film icons joined forces to make A.I. a reality. Stanley Kubrick worked on adapting “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” into a film for years. He felt like he needed technology to advance enough to make it.

Eventually, Kubrick realized he had gotten too old to work on it any longer, and in 1995 handed the project over to Steven Spielberg. When Kubrick died in 1999, Spielberg finally was able to get the project rolling.

Haley Joel Osment plays an android programmed to love who is acquired to replace a dead child. Unaccepted, he finds himself on a journey alongside other androids. Eventually it takes us far, far into a future beyond the existence of humanity.

At the time, A.I. was accepted a little tepidly. Now, many consider it a sci-fi classic.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Pretty much every zombie movie is a post-apocalyptic movie, and the modern conception of the zombie movie began with Night of the Living Dead, which depicts the first hours of the end of civilization as we know it.

George A. Romero took a budget a little over $100,000 and skills learned working on industrial films and made a horror movie in his hometown of Pittsburgh. While the movie doesn’t use the word “zombie,” it so clearly is the progenitor of the zombie genre.

At the time, people didn’t know what to make of Night of the Living Dead. Now, it’s considered a seminal horror movie. Of course, it helped that due to an error in submitting the copyright it ended up in the public domain. Hey, that helped make it a cult classic, and Romero a horror movie icon.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Fury Road is perhaps the antithesis of Night of the Living Dead. The latter is low-budget and simple. The former is one of the most bananas movies ever made, in a good way?

George Miller got his start with Mad Max, about a world barely clinging to civilization. By the events of Fury Road, most remnants of our world are long gone, save for a few salvaged weapons and vehicles. The result is perhaps the most-thrilling action extravaganza…ever?

Sure, there is some silliness to Miller’s Mad Max world, with some truly dark dystopian elements undercut by names like “Doof Warrior.” There’s nothing silly about the action, though. Relying largely on practical effects, Fury Road has to be seen to be believed. The car chases, the action, it’s all so riveting. By the way, not only was Fury Road a hit, but it won six Oscars.

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Planet of the Apes was not the first movie to have a twist ending. It certainly was not the last. But almost none have nailed it like Planet of the Apes. The film's final shot reveals why is belongs on this list.

Until that moment, you think Charlton Heston’s astronaut, George Taylor, has traveled through time and space to a planet where apelike creatures have advanced to human levels of intellect.

Then, well, it turns our the truth is much worse.

If you liked this list, you might also like this list of A.I. Movie Villains Ranked.

And we invite you to follow us for more stories like this.

Main image: Planet of the Apes. 20th Century Fox

They're presented in no particular order. Some are from long ago, but some are still going strong.

Starting with...

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

This pretty-much always funny FX series about the idiot proprietors of a very unhygienic Irish pub has covered a gamut of topics that make people uncomfortable, from race to abuse to religion to child beauty pageants. What other sitcom staged a (fake) baby funeral?

Audiences can't get enough: It's the longest-running live-action sitcom on television, after recently surpassing The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet.

The Righteous Gemstones

The brilliant story of a televangelist family with a slew of secrets mixes sex, violence and very big characters in endlessly inventive and unexpected ways, taking direct shots at the hypocrisy of many who preach the prosperity gospel.

It also got huge laughs out of gratuitous sequences like one last year that started with a home invasion, then turned to a guitarist spending some quality time with himself in bed, and escalated to a brutal brawl.

But the most unexpected thing about the show, starring co-creator Danny McBride and a stellar ensemble cast, is that it actually seemed to believe in God. It never made fun of anyone's faith — just their hypocrisy.

Euphoria

Another HBO series, Euphoria has drawn shock from the start for its blunt (and some would say exploitative) portrayals of teenage drug use and sexuality.

In a 2022 story at the end of the show's second season, The New York Times noted that many of the show's young fans love the characters and plotlines, but not the man who created them, noting that Levinson "wrote all 18 hourlong episodes and directed all but three of them," and that fans routinely go on social media "to criticize his visions of the characters."

Levinson has said the show is very autobiographical: "I feel like I’m watching a version of myself navigating the world at a young age,” Levinson said in a clip promoting the show when it debuted in 2019.

After making stars of Zendaya, Sydney Sweeney and Jacob Elordi, it returns soon for its long-delayed third season.

All in the Family

Loudmouth Archie Bunker (Carroll O'Connor), an unrepentant bigot, was only really offensive to people who didn't understand we were supposed to laugh at him, not with him.

But the show's intentions were clear: All in the Family creator Norman Lear, who passed in 2023 at age 101, was one of Hollywood's most outspoken liberals, and wanted Archie Bunker to speak freely to show how ignorant his closed-minded notions sounded. But All in the Family also had the grace to present him as vulnerable character, capable of change.

In one of its most famous episodes, 1972's "Sammy's Visit," Archie gets to know Sammy Davis Jr., who, to Archie's alarm, not only Black but Jewish. Davis highroads him by giving him a kiss on the cheek at the end of the episode, hilariously violating all kinds of bigoted taboos.

The show gained renewed appreciation last month with the terrible death of another of its stars, Rob Reiner.

Married... With Children

The show was criticized for its countless dirty jokes and risque storylines, as well as for the piggish tendencies of Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) and the portrayal of Peggy Bundy (Katey Segal) as lazy and selfish.

OK, but Married... With Children has aged very well as a sendup of saccharine-sweet sitcoms.

It knew exactly what is was doing, and never endorsed or asked us to sympathize with the Bundys — who shared a name, after all, with a serial killer.

The Simpsons

The Simpsons debuted not long after Married... With Children on the then-fledgling Fox network. Yet it's somehow still going. In fact, it's the longest-running sitcom.

The Simpsons inspired debate with many topics — from guns to drugs to politics — and also took a stand by presenting gay characters in a sympathetic light long before the majority of TV shows did. It tends to offend people on the right more than people on the left, and has never shied away from mocking Fox News.

But we bet if offends random restaurant chains the most, with out-of-nowhere zingers like, "I'm so hungry I could eat at Arby's!" (That joke is from Season 9's "Das Bus," above.)

We also love that The Simpsons even gives big moments to minor characters.

South Park

When South Park decides to take on a target — from Kanye West to Harry and Megan to Kristi Noem to sex education in schools — everyone involved should prepare to be savaged.

The show's animation process is so streamlined that creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone can quickly weigh in on divisive and hot-button issues before other shows can even begin to process them. It's been going shamelessly strong since 1997.

And it's almost never gotten as much attention as it has with its latest season.

Chappelle's Show

Dave Chappelle left no stereotype unmocked in brilliant sketches like "The Racial Draft," in which various races tried to claim people of mixed ethnicity. Every episode of Chappelle's Show had something to offend you, from Rick James' catchphrase to homeless crack addict Tyrone Biggums.

Even Chappelle wasn't always sure people were laughing at the right things — he left while shooting the show's third season after an incident in which a white spectator laughed at a sketch about stereotypes in the wrong way, and made Chappelle question whether his show was subverting stereotypes, or adding to them.

"When he laughed, it made me uncomfortable," Chappelle told Time. "As a matter of fact, that was the last thing I shot before I told myself I gotta take f---ing time out after this. Because my head almost exploded."

Chappelle, of course, is one of the most successful standup comedians of all time, and continues to offend people. He continues to not care.

The Boys

This magnificent Amazon Prime Video show is like an R-rated Avengers, where almost all the superheroes are in it for the fame and fortune, sexual harassment runs rampant, and some are outright racists.

The antiheroes known as The Boys are dead-set on stopping them, but even their leader, Billy (Karl Urban) is an antihero prone to saying offensive things and doing much more damage than he needs to.

The mix of sex, violence, comedy and gore will be a huge turnoff to people who don't love it. But not us: We love it.

Family Guy

Over 25 years, Family Guy has made jokes aplenty about race, religion, gay panic and even... Star Wars. Along the way its been accused of racism, homophobia, and sexism.

It's utterly ruthless in pursuit of laughs and audiences have rewarded it not only with one of the longest runs on television, but also three spinoffs.

24

The Kiefer Sutherland counterterrorism drama was criticized from the beginning for seeming to endorse and even encourage the use of torture to interrogate suspects. Many have argued that besides being reprehensible and inhumane, torture can in fact be counterproductive, and endanger Americans abroad.

It's not just liberal critics making these arguments.

In fact, The New Yorker reported that in November 2006, military and FBI interrogators met with the 24 creative team to "voice their concern that the show’s central political premise—that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country’s security—was having a toxic effect. In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers.” 

24 executive producer Joel Surnow shrugged it off, telling The New Yorker: "“We’ve had all of these torture experts come by recently, and they say, ‘You don’t realize how many people are affected by this. Be careful.’ They say torture doesn’t work. But I don’t believe that.”

More on 24

last year, 24 star Kiefer Sutherland defended the show again, telling the Independent:

“If the United States military can be derailed by a television show, we’ve got a much bigger problem than 24. ... To use 24, a television show, as a scapegoat for the behavior of the United States military is just absolutely asinine.”

Saturday Night Live

As you're probably aware, the show just celebrated its 50 anniversary. It has had some of the most debated moments in TV history, and creator Lorne Michaels has made sure it weathered them all.

In 1990, for example, the presence of host Andrew "Dice" Clay, known for a misogynistic in-character routine, led cast member Nora Dunn and scheduled musical guest Sinead O'Conner to sit out the show.

But Clay's presence was nothing compared to the 1992 episode in which O'Connor delivered a stunning performance of Bob Marley's "War" — before tearing up a picture of the Pope to protest abuse in the Catholic Church. (A decades later, an investigation by The Boston Globe would reveal that sexual abuse in the church had indeed been covered up.)

SNL has also drawn criticism for booking polarizing hosts from Donald Trump to Elon Musk, and provided plenty of envelope-pushing moments with guests from Sydney Sweeney to Katy Perry. We could do a whole gallery devoted to its controversies... So we did.

You might also like these two other lists about one of our favorite TV shows: the 13 Best Saturday Night Live Sketches Ever.

Main image: Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney hosting SNL. NBC

Obviously, these things are subjective. So if you think we missed one, let us know in the comments.

And now, the best SNL sketches, in our estimation, ever.

The Olympia Restaurant (1978)

Early Saturday Night Live sketches often felt seat-of-your pants and tended to lag at times as everyone tried to find the same pace. Not this one: A typical morning in the life of a Greek diner that refuses to adapt, it has a simple, recognizable hook and sweet slice-of-life simplicity. The rhythm is as pleasing as a morning routine.

SNL is sometimes known for big characters, but almost everyone in this sketch plays it straight and real, which adds to its charm. Gilda Radner is especially good as the one customer who seems to understand the place, and Bill Murray gets the funniest moment with his panicked nodding, using only a single word.

The sketch is a little more poignant when you know that star John Belushi's immigrant dad operated a struggling restaurant when Belushi was growing up in Wheaton, Illinois.

Key line: "Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, four Pepsi, two chip."

Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute (1979)

The great Margot Kidder, playing a bank vice president on a business trip, receives a visit from a profoundly Midwestern, profoundly decent, assuredly unsexy sex worker: Fred Garvin, male prostitute.

Dan Aykroyd brings big dad energy to the role of a kindly, folksy gigolo, and Kidder is a perfect straightwoman. The setup is absurd, but everyone plays it with endearing vulnerability. Like many Aykroyd characters, Fred Garvin would provide the template for many played-straight ridiculous characters to come.

This one doesn't always turn up on lists of the best SNL sketches, but it should. It also gets referenced throughout the terrific new movie Saturday Night, in which Aykroyd is played, impressively, by Dylan O'Brien.

Key line: "Ma'am, you're dealing here with with a fully qualified male strumpet."

Buckwheat Dead and America Mourns (1983)

A high-flying, edgy satire of breathless coverage of President Reagan's attempted assassination in 1981.

This sketch is the clear highlight of the years after the departure of the original Not Ready for Primetime Players. Eddie Murphy is brilliant not only as Buckwheat, but also as the man who shot him, John David Stutts.

It also foreshadowed decades of round-the-clock news coverage with just as little self-awareness as Joe Piscopo's take on Ted Koppel.

Key line: "It's good to see you all. Hi! I killed Buckwheat."

First CityWide Change Bank

With maybe the simplest concept of any Saturday Night Live sketch, this piece by legendary writer Jim Downey (above) — who also stars as an eager-to-please service representative — masterfully ridicules seemingly sincere corporate ad campaigns.

The execution of a very basic idea is perfect. Downey can currently be seen in a key role in One Battle After Another.

Key line: "We will give you the change, equal to... the amount of money that you want change for."

Chippendales Audition (1990)

A sketch where everyone else plays it straight so Chris Farley can give it 2,000 percent as Barney, a young man determined to be a Chippendales dancer.

Some — including the brilliant former SNL writer Bob Odenkirk — believe that the sketch was cruel to Farley. But listen to his many friends in interviews on Dana Carvey and David Spade's Fly on the Wall podcast and you'll hear that Farley was very much on board with the premise of the sketch — and no one has ever been more committed to a sketch.

The sketch works not because of the jokes about Farley's weight, but because of how sweetly and sincerely everyone plays the situation.

Key line: "I wish I could just flip a coin and be done with it, but we can't. We're Chippendales."

Matt Foley: Van Down by the River (1993)

Everyone else — from Julia Sweeney to Phil Hartman to David Spade to Christina Applegate — just tries not to hold it together as Matt Foley, played by Chris Farley at his best, absolutely takes over.

The original Matt Foley sketch was a carryover from Farley's time working with writer-performer Bob Odenkirk at Chicago's Second City. By the time it came to SNL, it was at its full frenetic brilliance. It's also a sketch with heart — we end up sympathizing with everyone involved.

Key line: "He's been down in the basement drinking coffee for about the last four hours so he should be ready to go."

Dillon-Edwards Investments (1999)

Another sketch you probably won't fall on many lists of the best SNL sketches, but this is the perfect mix of stupid and smart. Chris Parnell plays it straight as a father concerned with his financial future.

It's also perfectly timed at less than 90 seconds, which makes us love it even more.

Key line: "A lot of investments companies rushed onto the internet. But Dillon-Edwards took their time."

More Cowbell (2000)

Passions run high in August 1976 as The Blue Oyster Cult records their hit song "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" under the watchful eye of rock legend Bruce Dickinson (Christopher Walken). Also, let's save you a Google: Gene Frenkle, the percussionist played by Will Ferrell, is not a real person.

This one turns up on almost every list of the best SNL sketches for a reason. Lots of reasons, actually.

Key line: "I got a fever. And the only prescription is more cowbell."

Debbie Downer: Disney World (2004)

Debbie Downer (Rachel Dratch, always outstanding) proves that she can even ruin breakfast at Disney World.

It's a flawlessly written sketch that only gets funnier as everyone involved understandably falls apart with laughter. At one point, host Lindsay Lohan has no choice but to flee the sketch altogether. We're not fans of people breaking on camera, but this one is the gold standard of breaking on camera.

Every Debbie Downer sketch on SNL is great, but this is our favorite. It's one of the best SNL sketches and best SNL moments.

Key line: "It's official: I can't have children."

Meet Your Second Wife (2015)

A brutal jab at men who marry much younger women, "Meet Your Second Wife" is a very dark, very funny sketch with a solid premise and plenty of perfect small jokes packed in throughout. The unstoppable Tina Fey and Amy Poehler anchor a basically perfect, sharp-elbowed sketch. Bobby Moynihan and Aidy Bryant especially stand out with subtle, skillfull turns.

Fey and Poehler are responsible for many of the best SNL sketches and performances, but this one's our favorite.

Key line: "Actually it's seven."

Black Jeopardy With Tom Hanks (2016)

A lovingly detailed, laughs-in-the-specifics sketch that suggests maybe isn't America isn't so racially divided, after all. Exquisitely acted by everyone — Kenan Thompson (pictured), the longest-serving SNL castmember ever, is superb.

But Tom Hanks is especially surprising as a MAGA-hat wearing conspiracy theorist who comes off as a pretty good guy. This is one of those best SNL sketches where you catch sharp new insights every time you watch.

Key line: "What is: I don't think so. That's how they get ya."

Live Report (2016)

Saturday Night Live has done multiple sketches in which a local news anchors get caught up in a very curious detail seemingly irrelevant to the major breaking story they're covering. This is the best.

Newscasters Beck Bennett and Cecily Strong – as well as reporter on the scene Kenan Thompson — are ostensibly covering a Tampa sinkhole, but also can't understand why a local shopper played by Margot Robbie is married to a regular-guy Matt Schatt (Mikey Day).

One of the best SNL sketches of recent times and all time, this one is a perfectly written and acted game of change-the-subject.

Key line: "So... you two are married to each other."

If you enjoyed this list of the best SNL sketches, you might also like these 12 Wild Stories From Behind the Scenes of Saturday Night Live.

Also: We understand these things are subjective. So again, please share your own list of the best SNL sketches in the comments.

And please follow us for more stories like this.

All images from NBC's Saturday Night Live.

Of course, it's hard to generalize about a multibillion-dollar industry that has existed nearly as long as film itself, headquartered for decades in the San Fernando Valley over the Hollywood Hills from the mainstream Hollywood studios.

When Hollywood looks to its Valley neighbors, it often does so by sugarcoating things — treating the industry as silly and amusing — or playing it for horror, with the implication that the adult film industry leads inevitably to violence.

The following films are noteworthy for their blunt presentation of the industry. For the most part, they present it as an underground, unregulated economy where some people get along just fine — but others find themselves disappointed or worse.

Hardcore (1979)

Hardcore — recently part of a Paul Schrader retrospective on the Criterion Channel — is a fascinating but not completely successful film. George C. Scott plays Jake Van Dorn, a very religious Midwestern dad who has to travel to seedy Los Angeles when he learns his daughter, Kristen (Ilah Davis) has entered the adult film industry.

The film is a fascinating look at how the adult entertainment business functioned in the late 1970s. But Scott's transformation from everyman to shrewd undercover avenger isn't totally convincing. And it feels a bit melodramatic that Kristen descends so quickly into very violent films.

Still, Season Hubley is excellent as Niki, Jake's guide into the seedy underworld. it's fun to imagine an older and more accomplished Schrader remaking this film with someone like Liam Neeson, the master of dad-on-a-rampage movies.

Videodrome (1983)

David Cronenberg's 1983 film fairly brilliantly presages the rise of the internet and our willingness to surrender some of our humanity in the service of technology, but it starts with a journey into old-fashioned adult entertainment.

Max Renn (James Woods), president of a small UHF station, stumbles upon a broadcast signal of very alarming videos. This leads him to Nicki Brand (Debbie Harry) an explicit radio host with dark predilections.

Max's investigation of her disappearance leads to him having a Betamax cassette inserted into his torso, and his eventual effort to transcend our sick sad world and "leave the old flesh." It's all very metaphorical, but feels especially relevant in the age of artificial intelligence.

Boogie Nights (1997)

You knew this would be here. For about the first half of Paul Thomas Anderson's masterful second film, Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg, in his best role) finds a chosen family under the tutelage of Valley filmmaker Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds). Jack's partner Amber Waves (Julianne Moore) and rising starlet Rollergirl (Heather Graham) even have kind of a mother-daughter dynamic.

But as drugs and — gasp! — video take hold, Dirk descends into darker and darker stuff, and it quickly becomes apparent that the romanticized good times of the '70s aren't sustainable in the '80s.

Lots of people would love to live Dirk's high-flying '70s life, but no one would want his wretched existence in the '80s.

Demonlover (2002)

This French neo-noir corporate drama by Oliver Assayas stars Connie Nielsen as a sneaky, ice-cold executive involved in a French company's acquisition of a Japanese company that makes very gross anime.

The film is surprisingly frank in its presentation of said anime, but all the executives involved in the negotiations seem to see the material merely as a product, not a thing to be judged. There's a great metaphor here about transactional relationships.

As is often the case in dramatic portrayals of the industry, the more mainstream films portrayed in Demonlover (we use the phrase "mainstream" very loosely here) are a gateway into violent content in which people really get hurt. Or worse.

After Porn Ends (2012)

Documentarian Bryce Waggoner released three volumes of this excellent series with a simple but arresting concept: Adult film industry performers simply explain what they've been doing since leaving the industry. (Waggoner directed the first two, and the third was directed by former adult performer Brittany Andrews.)

The series removes artifice and fantasy to reveal the people of the industry as just people — some of whom are thriving, and some of whom are mightily struggling.

It raises questions about stigma, exploitation and reinvention, without telling anyone how to think or feel.

Lovelace (2013)

Amanda Seyfried (above) is excellent as Linda Lovelace, one of the most contentious figures in the history of the adult film industry.

She became a sex symbol for starring in what became one of the most mainstream and profitable of all adult films. But years later she wrote in her memoir, Ordeal, that she was violently forced into the business and all sorts of animalistic degradations.

Lovelace handles her story sensitively and sympathetically, never crossing the line into the kind of exploitation the real Linda Lovelace tried to escape.

King Cobra (2016)

One of the most common criticisms of the industry is that it exploits women. King Cobra is all about gay adult product, so the gender component is removed.

But that brings into more stark relief other potential forms of exploitation: namely older people exploiting younger people, and people with money exploiting those without it. (These are also problems, of course, in supposedly respectable fields.)

King Cobra is based on a true story — the source material is the book Cobra Killer by Andrew E. Stoner and Peter A. Conway, about the the life and early career of former adult actor Sean Paul Lockhart (Garrett Clayton, above).

Written and directed by Justin Kelly, it's a little-seen but captivating film with a top-notch cast that also includes Christian Slater, Molly Ringwald and James Franco, who is also a producer on King Cobra.

American Porn (2002)

Journalism doesn't get more serious than PBS's Frontline, and in 2002 the Oscar and Emmy winning documentary program investigated the business of adult entertainment, charting its rise and the reason for the demand.

If Hardcore provides a fascinating but melodramatic look at the industry in the late 1970s, this Frontline doc is a fascinating investigation of the state of the industry in the early 2000s, when the internet was radically shifting the dynamics of the business and making adult product more accessible than ever before.

You can watch the entire documentary — and every episode of Frontline — for free online via your local PBS station.

Red Rocket (2021)

One of the best films on this list, Sean Baker's Red Rocket is a judgment-free portrait of Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) an adult semi-star forced to return to his Texas hometown while on the outs from the industry.

Mikey believes he can wheedle his way back in by convincing Raylee (Suzanna Son), a 17-year-old donut shop employee who goes by the name Strawberry, to join him. He also strings along his ex, Lexi (Bree Elrod) and her mom Lil (Brenda Deiss), so he can live with them while he gets back on his feet.

Packed with excellent first-time actors, the film feel visceral and alive, adroitly blending comedy and sadness. It avoids moralizing, yet you'll probably come to hold some strong opinions about Mikey.

Baker is one of our greatest filmmakers, who uses stories about sex work to make broader points about hard work in general. His latest, Anora, is up for six Oscars, including Best Picture.

Starlet (2012)

Almost every Sean Baker film involves some element of investigating sex work, always empathetically and evenhandedly.

Baker and co-writer Chris Bergoch came up with the concept for the Mikey Saber character in Red Rocket while doing research for Starlet, when they realized how many male actors live off of female talent.

Starlet follows Jane (Dree Hemingway), a 21-year-old rising star who strikes up an unlikely friendship with 85-year-old Sadie (Besedka Johnson).

Money Shot (2023)

Director Suzanne Hillinger's documentary about one of the most prominent websites for adults isn't interested in anything salacious. It just sets out to normalize — and humanize — the people who just happen to make adult content for a living.

"To me, it was really important the way that we shot the interviews, for example — that the environment around each interview subject is very much a part of the frame, that these are people in their homes, with details and lives and plants and pets and shoes in the background," Hillinger told MovieMaker.

Again, about the dashes — we know there's nothing wrong with the word "shot," but algorithms don't, particularly when it's paired with the word "money," and we want people to be able to see these articles rather than having them buried by robots.

Pleasure (2021)

A Sundance darling that gained lots of initial attention for its blunt depictions, director Ninja Thyberg's Pleasure is the story of Linnéa, a small-town Swede played by Sofia Kappel (pictured) who travels to Los Angeles to try to break into the industry.

The film is notable for its multifaceted presentation of the adult world. Some of Linnéa's experiences are good, but others are horrible, including a scene in which she technically consents to a violent scenario but does so only under considerable coercion and pressure. She soon finds herself contributing to the abuses.

Bonus: X (2022)

All three films in Ti West's X trilogy — the other two are 2022's Pearl and 2024's Maxxxine — seek to demystify the adult entertainment industry while exploring the stigma around both sex and violence.

X is the most blunt about it. The film takes place on a very DIY adult film location — a Texas farm — where the older couple who own the place seem to disapprove of the young people's shenanigans. But things are more complex than they seem.

In all three X films, the main protagonist is a young woman — always played by Mia Goth — trying to use her sex appeal to get ahead. It doesn't usually work out as she planned.

Liked This List of 12 Movies About the Adult Film Industry That Don't Sugarcoat Anything?

You may also like this list of movies about the world's oldest profession that sugarcoat things quite a bit.

Main image: Red Rocket. A24

These 10 went out of bounds in alarming ways.

Here we go.

Last Tango in Paris (1972)

A master class in how not to direct sex scenes. Thirty-year-old director Bernardo Bertolucci and 48-year-old star Marlon Brando decided the morning of the movie's most infamous sex scene to incorporate butter into it, but didn't tell 19-year-old lead actress Maria Schneider about it until the cameras were rolling.

“I wanted her reaction as a girl, not as an actress,” Bertolucci, who died in 2018, later said. “I wanted her to react humiliated.” Schneider, who died in 2007, said she did indeed feel violated by the scene.

When the scene gained renewed scrutiny in 2016, Bertolucci clarified that Schneider was aware that the scene would be violent, and that it was in the script, but that the "the only novelty was the idea of the butter. ... And that, as I learned many years later, offended Maria. Not the violence that she is subjected to in the scene, which was written in the screenplay.” He also clarified that the sex in the film is all simulated. 

Pretty Baby (1978)

The recent Hulu documentary Brooke Shields: Pretty Baby catalogues the countless ways that Hollywood men sought to sexualize Shields from an early age. The film takes its title from Pretty Baby, the Louise Malle film based on a true case of a 12-year-old, raised in a brothel, and forced into exploitation by her mother.

The film sympathizes with Shields' character, Violet, but raised understandable alarm because it shows Shields undressed. The film was deemed so problematic even by 1978 standards that it sparked countless articles debating its decency, and the British Board of Film Classification carefully debated whether it should be legal.

One dubious scene: a kiss between Shields, who was 11 at the time, and 28-year-old co-star David Carradine — though Shields said recently on The Drew Barrymore Show that Carradine was "gracious" and "protective" of her on set.

Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

You could write whole articles about the problems with Revenge of the Nerds, and many people have, but one of the main ones is a scene in which nerds use hidden cameras to watch sorority women in various states of undress.

It's a felony, nerds.

Revenge of the Nerds, Again (1984)

The most troubling part of Revenge of the Nerds is a scene in which lead nerd Lewis (Robert Carradine), the supposed hero of the movie, wears a mask to trick a fellow student into believing he's her boyfriend. After they have sex, she's delighted by how good it was, which is the movie's way of justifying the criminal deception. Terrible lessons all around.

Screenwriter Steve Zacharias has said he regrets both the mask scene and the hidden camera scene, and he removed them when he sat down to write a musical adaptation of the film.

Also Read: 12 Shameless '80s Comedies That Just Don't Care If You're Offended

Sixteen Candles (1984)

Sixteen Candles is another film in which the awfulness of a character's behavior is compounded by the movie expecting us to like him. Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling) is presented as the dream guy of our heroine, Samantha (Molly Ringwald). But at one point Jake passes off his unconscious girlfriend, Carloline (Haviland Morris), to another guy, Ted (Anthony Michael Hall).

Jake tells Ted, “Have fun.” The next day, Caroline and the Ted conclude that they had sex.

He asks if she enjoyed herself, and she says, “You know, I have this weird feeling I did,” which is the movie's way of justifying the guys' behavior.

Basic Instinct (1992)

Sharon Stone wrote in her memoir The Beauty of Living Twice that she was tricked into the most revealing scene in Basic Instinct by a crew member who told her she needed to remove her underwear because it was “reflecting the light.”

She said she was so shocked by the end result that she slapped director Paul Verhoeven and immediately called her lawyer — but that she eventually agreed to the release of the scene. Verhoeven later said Stone was a willing participant in the scene and "knew exactly what we were doing," which she disputes.

Stone told the Table for Two podcast recently that she lost custody of her child in a 2004 court case because of her role in the film.

"I lost custody of my child," she said. "When the judge asked my child — my tiny little tiny boy — 'Do you know your mother makes sex movies?'"

She lamented "this kind of abuse by the system... that I was considered what kind of parent I was because I made that movie."

Poison Ivy (1992)

We don't think depictions of bad behavior are endorsements of it, and Poison Ivy in no way suggests that there's anything OK about the relationship between Ivy (played by a then-16-year-old Drew Barrymore) and her friend's dad (a then-58-year-old Tom Skerritt).

The film wasn't intended as gross exploitation — it even premiered at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

Director Katt Shea has said she and Skerritt were well aware of the potential problems inherent in the relationship between Ivy and the much older character, and that she was protective of Barrymore, using a body double for her in certain scenes.

Nonetheless, she said in 2022 interview with Yahoo: "I don't think that movie would be made today, period."

L----a (1997)

We can't even type the name of this movie, based on the masterful Vladimir Nabakov novel, without freaking out internet censors. You can blame gross people who use it as a euphemism for despicable criminal conduct.

Stanley Kubrick's 1962 adaptation of Navabov's novel proved that you didn't need to be explicit to tell the mortifyingly sad story of Humbert Humbert, who abducts and abuses his young stepdaughter, Dolores Haze, while lying to the audience and himself that it's a consensual love affair instead of a series of horrendous crimes.

Adrian Lyne's 1997 version decided that relaxed standards in the 1990s would allow him to finally adapt Nabakov's novel without leaving things to the imagination — but his timing was very bad. President Bill Clinton had just signed the Child Pornography Prevention Act, which banned depictions of sexual activity by minors. Though Lynn was using an adult body double for 15-year-old lead actress Dominique Swain, distributors were so spooked that the film debuted not in theaters, but on Showtime.

Lynn may have just gone about the whole thing wrong: Nabakov's novel contains not a single dirty word. Kubrick's adaptation was up to the challenge of adapting it with similar restraint, and Lyne's artistic endeavor felt unnecessary and misguided.

Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)

The film by Abdellatif Kechiche led a Cannes Film Festival jury to give the Palme d'Or prize to not only the director, but also his two lead actresses, Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos. 

But Seydoux said soon after that the long takes of intimate scenes were "kind of humiliating sometimes, I was feeling like a prostitute."

Kechiche said of the critcism: “If Seydoux lived such a bad experience, why did she come to Cannes, try on robes and jewelry all day?” he said. “Is she an actress or an artist of the red carpet?”

He also said the film shouldn't be released, because it was too "sullied." But it ultimately was released.

Romeo and Juliet (1968)

The two stars of 1968′s Romeo and Juliet sued Paramount Pictures in 2023 for more than $500 million over a scene they shot as teenagers.

Olivia Hussey, who was 15 at the time and died last year at 73, and Leonard Whiting, then 16 and now 75, said director Franco Zeffirelli, who died in 2019, misled them by saying they would wear flesh-colored undergarments in an intimate scene, but informed them on the morning of the shoot that they would wear only body makeup.

A judge dismissed the case in May 2023, but Whiting and Hussey filed a second lawsuit against Paramount, claiming the studio had digitally redistributed the film without their permission.

Liked This List of Movie Sex Scenes Someone Should Have Stopped?

Here's a story about the Best Picture winner Anora, which features lots of sex scenes that were carefully communicated between director Sean Baker and the film's actors.

You might also like this list of 12 Rad '80s Movies Only Cool Kids Remember, featuring the sequel to Revenge of the Nerds.

Main image: Romeo and Juliet. Paramount Pictures.

The next Bond film in the long-running series will be directed by Denis Villenueve, who also has his hands full with the upcoming Dune: Part Three.

As we wait to see where he'll take the franchise — and who will play Bond next — let's look back at some unforgettable photos from the very first James Bond movie.

Welcome to Jamaica

Dr. No wasn't the first of Ian Fleming's novels about James Bond — that was 1953's Casino Royale — but Dr. No was the first to be made into a feature film.

Set in London, Jamaica and the fictional island of Crab Kay, it shot on location in Jamaica in 1962.

The plot concerns Agent 007 traveling to Jamaica to investigate the death of MI6 station chief John Strangways. But that's just an excuse to bring together Bond (Sean Connery) and Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress), above.

Take 007

Sean Connery (above) earned the role of 007 in part because of his walk, according to the new Nicholas Shakespeare book Ian Fleming: The Complete Man.

He quotes producer Albert Brocolli saying of Connery, "He walked like the most arrogant son of a gun you’ve ever seen," which led him to realize: "That’s our Bond."

Shakespeare's book follows the life of Fleming, whose novels inspired the series of 27 Bond films that started with Dr. No.

Ursula Andress and Ian Fleming

Above: Ursula Andress on set with Bond creator Ian Fleming. As Nicholas Shakespeare's book recounts, Bond was based in part on Fleming, who dramatized and heightened his own experiences with love and spycraft.

Andress' character, Honey Ryder, is often considered the first "Bond girl," although she doesn't make her iconic bikini-clad entrance until about halfway through Dr. No.

She is preceded onscreen by Sylvia Trench and Miss Taro.

Enter Bearing Shells

Honey Ryder's job is shell diving, and appropriately she enters Dr. No bearing shells. If her opening costume in the film — a white swimsuit and belt — seems a little revealing, consider that in the novel upon which Dr. No is based, she wears only the belt.

The shells sequence turned around the expectations for the film, according to Ian Fleming: The Complete Man.

“‘It was going to be a low-budget flop,’” says Blanche’s son Chris Blackwell, son of Ian Fleming’s muse and love, Blanche Blackwell, in the book. “It all changed when we watched the rushes of Ursula Andress emerging from the sea.”

He added: “It was electrifying. We suddenly felt, ‘Gosh, we’ve got a movie.’”

Bad Boys

According to Shakespeare’s book, Fleming almost spoiled a take of the iconic beach scene. He was leading two friends on a walk along Laughing Waters — the name of the beach where the scene was filmed — and almost walked into the shot.

Director Terence Young yelled at them to “Lie down!” which they did. Shakespeare writes: “The composer Monty Norman had arrived in Jamaica to write the music and he watched Young shout at them — ‘They were shooed off like little boys.’

"Ian and his friends were left lying behind a dune, forgotten, until someone remembered to release them an hour later.”

That's Fleming, right, with Andress and Connery.

Chemistry, Raw Chemistry

What comes through most of all in the publicity photos for Dr. No is the radiant, transcendent chemistry between Connery and Andress. Which, we suppose, was exactly the idea.

"He was very protective towards me, he was adorable, fantastic," Andress said in a 2020 interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera after Connery's death at 90. "He adored women, He was undoubtedly very much a man.''

She added: “We spent many evenings together and he would invite me everywhere, Monte Carlo, London, New York, from when we met until now we always remained friends. Friends, friends.'"

At Sea

Andress and Connery are all smiles, relaxing on a boat offshore.

Connery brought plenty of life experience to the job of being Bond.

Among other jobs prior to taking on his most famous role, Connery was a naval boxer, lifeguard, and art class model, according to Shakespeare's Ian Fleming: The Complete Man.

Director Terence Young at Work

Making the film wasn't all fun in the sun — here are Connery and Andress discussing a scene with director Terence Young.

Young not only brought Bond to the screen for the first time with Dr. No, but directed the second 007 film, From Russia With Love, released a year after the first film, in 1963.

Guy Hamilton directed the third film, Goldfinger, but Young returned for his third and final Bond film, Thunderball, in 1965. It's safe to say that no director did more to shape the aesthetic of the early franchise.

Keep Your Friends Close

Sean Connery as Bond and John Kitzmiller as Quarrel.

When 007 arrives in Jamaica to investigate the murder of M16 Station Chief John Strangways, he is tailed by Quarrel — but Quarrel soon turns out to be aiding the CIA.

He soon introduces Bond to Felix Leiter, a CIA operative who becomes one of James' closest friends. The first actor to play him was future Hawaii Five-O star Jack Lord.

Sean Connery and Ursula Andress

The actors show off their athleticism and chemistry while frolicking on a Jamaican beach during filming.

Nice work if you can get it.

Andress told Corriere della Sera that when she joined the film, “I didn't know Sean, and I thought it would be my first film and maybe my last.

"But instead it took off, the chemistry between us worked and it was the perfect combination.”

Ursula Andress and Sean Connery

Did they have any idea people would be watching their movie and writing about them, more than 60 years later?

Or did it just seem like a fun, beachy spy thriller? You have to wonder.

 ''It was a very small budget production and I agreed to do it thinking not many people would see it," Andress told Corriere della Sera.

More Connery and Andress

Here's another picture of Sean Connery and Ursula Andress.

Too many? We're sorry.

If you liked this story, you might also like this excerpt from Nicholas Shakespeare's Ian Fleming: The Complete Man (which you can learn more about here)....

And we'd love for you to follow us for more stories like this.

Main image: Ursula Andress on the set of Dr. No. United Artists

Here are some examples of great sleazy movies.

They aren't guilty pleasures, they're just pleasures.

Last House on the Left (1972)

Wes Craven's debut has a scuzzy unfinished quality that lend a documentary quality to its violence and cruelty, which makes it difficult to watch – but also hard to tear yourself away from. It has a car-crash voyeurism that makes you complicit in its nastiness.

A story of abduction, brutality and vengeance, scored by eerie hippie music, Last House on the Left is a time capsule of burned-out idealism but a harbinger of Craven's incredible horror career, which includes the classic Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream horror franchises.

And producer Sean S. Cunningham would go on to direct the first film in the Friday the 13th franchise, which will turn up soon on this list.

Freeway (1996)

Writer-director Matthew Bright's very '90s update on Little Red Riding Hood stars a very young Reese Witherspoon as Vanessa, an illiterate teenager living in Southern California with her sex worker mom (Amanda Plummer) and evil, predatory stepfather (Michael T. Weiss). Then things get worse.

When her mom is arrested, Vanessa tries to trek north to Grandma's house, but she's picked up by modern-day big bad wolf Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland.)

Everything about this movie feels wrong, and it's intoxicating. We love all the acting — Witherspoon is spectacular — as well as the surprise appearances of stars like Brooke Shields and stars-to-be like Bokeem Woodbine and Brittany Murphy.

Best of all, we saw this for free, via the Kanopy app.

And it's also on our list of '90s Comedies That Just Don't Care If You're Offended.

Body Double (1984)

The gold standard of sleazy '80s movie, this Brian De Palma neo-noir imagines a Hitchcock movie in the era of VHS adult home movies.

It stars Craig Wasson as a struggling actor named Jake Scully who gets a housesitting gig that includes a creepy side bonus — he gets to watch a neighbor seductively undress and dance around each night. (The movie assumes that this is totally cool, despite her apparent lack of awareness that he's watching.)

But then things get even weirder, as a home invader with a drill breaks into the woman's home, and Jake's search for answers links him up with adult actress Holly Body, played by a terrifically game Melanie Griffith. It's great sleazy fun that will keep you guessing.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

A movie that makes you want to take a shower afterwards, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a relentlessly sleazy movie that uses sleaze to its great advantage.

It’s one of the most effective and captivating horror movies ever made thanks to its hardcore, disquieting atmosphere, oozing with sex and the constant threat of violence.

Filled with the sounds of animals and buzzing flies, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre makes clear from the start that it has no limits, even before we hear the first rev of Leatherface’s chainsaw.

It's also on our list of the 11 Scariest Horror Movies of the '70s.

Natural Born Killers (1994)

Oliver Stone tried to have it both ways in this ultraviolent killer-couple movie that tries to high-mindedly denounce sleazy tabloid TV while also being quite sleazy itself.

We're meant to at least begrudgingly like — if not outright root for — serial killers Mickey and Mallory, played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis. (Stone is quoted saying in the 2016 book The Oliver Stone Experience that he cast the actors because he thought they could look trashy.) It's also fun to watch Robert Downey Jr. as a sanctimonious sleaze.

The film was based on a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino that was so thoroughly changed that Tarantino has distanced himself from the film. (Not because it was a sleazy movie, mind you, but because Tarantino thinks the final film misunderstood his intentions.)

Kids (1995)

Kids, the directorial debut of Larry Clark and the screenwriting debut of Harmony Korine, was criticized at the time of its release for its blunt depiction of a hedonistic teen world filled with sex, drugs, and exploitation. The lead character, Telly (an excellent Leo Fitzpatrick) is an unrepentant 17-year-old predator who targets very young girls.

As Roger Ebert noted, the film "doesn't tell us what it means." But that's not what makes Kids sleazy — depicting behavior isn't endorsing it, and Kids can be read as an important message movie about kids' need for attention and guidance.

What's uncomfortable about the film, in retrospect, is its leering camerawork with young subjects. One could argue that its cinematography, while sleazy, serves the film by making viewers into bystanders who do nothing to intervene and save the kids onscreen.

It's a fascinating, well-done film, notable for being the debut film of the great actresses Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson. It also has one of the best soundtracks of the '90s. 

Lost Highway (1997)

This David Lynch epic — released in a down cycle in his career between the success of Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive — tells a story of jealousy-driven murder from the perspective of the killer or killers, Fred and Pete, played by Bill Pullman and Balthazar Getty.

It's all very intoxicatingly confusing — a recent episode of the outstanding You Must Remember This Podcast noted that Lynch was inspired in part by the O.J. Simpson case — and it's hard to put your finger on what's so sleazy about it.

But sleazy hallmarks abound: Fred plays saxophone, the official woodwind of sleazy erotic thrillers; Robert Blake is a central figure; it's all driven by the death of an adult movie producer.

Anyway, we love it. A sleazy movie that uses sleaze exquisitely.

Saw (2004)

Saw is one of those movies cited by people who say they hate horror movies, but the original, at least, is a very well-crafted thriller that relies on twists and solid performances more than shock value. There's something very sleazy about watching people suffer for entertainment, but Saw's unapologetic sleaziness makes its a very compelling watch.

And before you say "Really? Saw is good?," let's please remember that is stars very legit actors Danny Glover (above) and Cary Elwes, and premiered at the prestigious Sundance film festival. Not bad for a sleazy movie.

It has spawned nine sequels, including the recent Saw X.

Wild Things (1998)

Wild Things stars Neve Campbell and Denise Richards — who were 23 and 26 at the time, respectively — as two high schoolers who take part in a very twisty, very diabolical con.

There's so, so, so much wrong with Wild Things — the dicey portrayal of high school girls, the narrative device of young women lying about assault, the murders — but it's willingness to ignore guardrails of good taste makes it a masterpiece of Gen X noir, pulling from the best elements of widely panned films like Showgirls.

Campbell and Richards (above) are magnificent, as are Bill Murray as a delightfully sleazy lawyer, Matt Dillon as a morally corrupt guidance counselor, and Kevin Bacon as a mysterious cop.

Bacon is also an executive producer of the film, and shows something in a shower scene that you didn't generally see in 1990s movies. In retrospect it seems like a great example of equal-opportunity gratuitous skin, and good for him. It makes it a slightly less sleazy movie.

Hostel (2005

Hostel is kind of like Saw for people who thought Saw was too soft. Director Eli Roth is a student of horror and exploitation flicks, and enlists all of their best tricks while introducing several horrible ones of his own.

What makes Hostel so good is the way it combines very dark social commentary with the nightmarish spectacles to make us rethink the way the world works.

The Laughing Woman aka Femina Ridens (1969)

One of the weirdest, wildest, and most gorgeous-looking sleazy movies we've ever seen, this very 1969 Italian film will be a good wakeup call for anyone who thinks 50 Shades of Grey kicked off that whole scene.

The film is about a woman (Dagmar Lassander, above) who goes undercover in the lair of a possible serial killer who delights in degrading his victims.

It's all so sleazy you can't believe you're watching it, but then there's a twist! It's actually... a romance? The film is very worth watching for set design that evokes the sleek, chic futurism of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, which came out two years later.

Friday the 13th (1980)

After the success of John Carpenter's relatively tasteful slasher film Halloween in 1978, studios sought to cash in with a slew of teen slasher movies — and Friday the 13th was one of the most grimly effective.

The setup is simple and appealed to hormone-addled kids in drive-ins: A mystery killer (not wearing a hockey mask in this one) piles up sun-kissed camp-counselor bodies, dispatched in creative ways.

It was the beginning of a sleazy formula that would serve the Friday the 13th franchise — and many others — very well. The film made more than 100 times its budget at the box office.

Liked Our List of the Best Sleazy Movies We've Ever Seen?

You might also like our list of Big Stars Who Started Out in Horror Movies.

Main image: The Laughing Woman aka Femina Ridens (1969)

Editor's Note: Corrects Paxton to Pullman and Spacey to Bacon.

President Lincoln took a bold and courageous stand for his time, and of course Lincoln was far more advanced in his time than many of his white contemporaries.

But it's also important to understand our country's real history, and not just the most cheerful version of it. So here are some ugly truths about Lincoln, that go along with the laudable ones.

Lincoln Cared More About Preserving the Union Than Ending Slavery

Lincoln's main goal during his presidency, which began just before the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, was to preserve the Union — not to free slaves.

Christopher Bonner, a historian at the University of Maryland, says in Netflix's historical documentary Amend: "Lincoln understands that slavery is bad, which is a good start. But he says that if I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do so."

"He has got to get the South back, and at this point, he'll do whatever it takes to win, even if it's at the expense of Black Americans," Smith says of Lincoln's thinking at the time.

You don't have to take the documentary's word for it. You can read Lincoln's August 22, 1862 letter here, in which he states: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."

He Didn't Always View People of Color as Equals

In 1861, Abraham Lincoln invited a group of African-American leaders to the White House, according to Columbia University historian Eric Foner. But instead of having a discussion about improving racial equality in America, he further underscored their inequality.

In Amend, Pedro Pascal reads the address that Lincoln delivered that day.

"Your race are suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people," he said. "But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race."

Lincoln Blamed the Civil War on Black Americans

In his aforementioned address, Abraham Lincoln continued:

"Consider what we know to be the truth, but for your race among us, there could not be war."

Again, you don't have to rely on Netflix to research this. Here is a link to a primary source, "Lincoln's Address on Colonization to a Deputation of Colored Men."

Lincoln Wanted to Relocate Freed Black Americans to a Colony in Central America

"There is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh at it may be, for you, free colored people, to remain with us," Lincoln added. "It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated. The place I am thinking about having for a colony is Central America."

Yes, at one point, Lincoln wanted to remove Black people from the U.S. altogether.

"Part of what Lincoln is doing here is trying to get at that gnawing uncertainty in Black people that maybe we can't actually belong in this country," Bonner notes. "He's saying, we all understand that equality is what this country's supposed to be about, but really, racial equality is not gonna happen, so get with the program."

More Detail

Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist who traveled the country speaking about his own experiences as a freed former slave, was furious at Lincoln, according to Bonner.

His solution? To convince Lincoln that he needed Black Americans to win the war, thus encouraging white Americans to view Black Americans as equals.

Douglass argued that Lincoln couldn't win the war without abolishing slavery and that Black men were essential to the war effort, saying that men "who would be freed themselves must strike the blow." His logic was that if Black men shed their blood to fight for their country, then they must be considered citizens. (The painting above depicts him urging Lincoln to let Black men fight for the Union Army.)

"Douglass is convinced they will prove they are citizens, that they're deserving of rights, and that they're deserving of legal equality," Bonner adds.

The Main Reason Abraham Lincoln Signed the Emancipation Proclamation? To Win the War

Douglass' plan worked: Although at the time Lincoln couldn't "conceive of the United States as a biracial society," as Foner points out, "his views will begin to move forward very dramatically."

Foner adds: "The Emancipation Proclamation is issued as a military order. It's to help win the war."

The painting above depicts the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first all-Black Union regiment, fighting for their country and freedom.

Disagree?

Feel free to share your objections in the comments and share sources. We love open debate about our country's history.

Thank You for Reading This List of Ugly Abraham Lincoln Facts No One Likes to Talk About

You might also like this list of Based on a True Story Movies That Are Mostly True, including Malcolm X, above.

Amend: The Fight for America is now streaming on Netflix. 

One 1975 movie in particular changed everything about how movies are made.

Let's look back on these movies of 1975, the year that changed everything — and see how relevant they are 50 years later.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

1970s comedies pushed the limits, and Monty Python rarely flirted with sacrilege more than they did with the brilliant Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (Of course, they topped themselves in 1979 with The Life of Brian.)

Holy Grail is loaded with great jokes, from the coconut gallops to the knights who say "ni!" to our favorite joke of all — "Message for you, sir!"

We also absolutely love the lush English forest aesthetic of the whole affair, which puts us in a relaxed state of mind even during the few moments when we aren't laughing.

Shampoo

What a difference seven years makes. Set in 1968 but released in the middle of the following decade, Shampoo charts the death of sixties idealism through the eyes of Warren Beatty's George Roundy.

Roundy is a promiscuous hairdresser inspired by hairstylist to the stars Jay Sebring, who was killed alongside Sharon Tate and their friends by followers of Charles Manson. Roundy doesn't suffer such a grim fate, but he does suffer.

Shampoo is incredibly watchable for its interpretation of what was then recent history, as well as for top-notch performances by Beatty, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, and a young Carrie Fisher, in her first film role.

Dog Day Afternoon

Based on the true story of a 1972 bank heist, it features some of Pacino's best acting, and he's at his most charismatic while chanting "Attica, Attica" as he tries to rally onlookers against the police.

It also has some of Sidney Lumet's most captivating direction, which is really saying something. The film keeps you and your allegiances shifting up until its stunning conclusion.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

If you ask Oscar voters, this was the best film of 1975 by a wide margin.

It was the second of three films to win all five major awards, between 1934's It Happened One Night and 1991's The Silence of the Lambs. Besides Best Picture, the Oscars went to Jack Nicholson for Best Actor, Louise Fletcher for Best Actress, Milos Forman for Best Director, and Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman for Best Screenplay.

A story of a man who fakes mental illness to get into an asylum and stay out of prison, it's one of the ultimate stories of rejecting conformity, at almost any cost.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

As we recently noted, The Rocky Horror Picture Show bombed when it first premiered — but then a savvy studio executive had the brilliant idea of showing it at midnight.

It's been showing at midnight in theaters around the world for the five decades since, and its mix of horror, sci-fi, comedy, preppies, rockabilly, leather, and stockings have felt gloriously transgressive ever since.

The film's 50th anniversary this year was marked by the documentary Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror, directed by Linus O'Brien — who is the son of Rocky Horror writer and Riff Raff actor Richard O'Brien.

Barry Lyndon

In our humble opinion, two films on this list are legitimate contenders for the best film ever made. One is the last film on our list. Barry Lyndon is the other.

Director Stanley Kubrick is known for a sometimes clinical aesthetic, and early on, this adaptation of the 1844 novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon, by William Makepeace Thackeray, feels like it must be a lark — how hilarious that Kubrick made all these people dress up in these costumes, we think. Is he making fun of movie excess?

No — he's calling out the grotesquerie of a world where some have so much, and others have so little, and the wall between them is so high, no matter how scalable it seems. The film ends devastatingly, with as much emotion as you'll find in any Kubrick movie.

The final lines of Barry Lyndon are stunning. (If you haven't seen the movie, please stop reading and do so.) If you have seen it, you surely remember the gist of the epilogue: "It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now."

Deep Red

You know that joke about how not a lot of people bought the first Velvet Underground album, but everyone who did started a band?

Deep Red has a similar influence. Perhaps the most giallo of all giallo movies, this Dario Argento classic was released at the height of giallo, and also marked the first collaboration between Argento and the band Goblin, which composed and performed the score.

Whether you've seen Deep Red or not, you've seen it imitated in countless movies in which a faceless killer slips on black leather gloves to do wrong.

Dolemite

A prime example of Blaxploitation and DIY filmmaking, Dolemite follows Rudy Ray Moore as a slick-talking con, fresh out of prison, who uses his private army of ladies of the night and extremely subpar kung-fu skills to mete out justice.

It spawned numerous sequels, even more parodies, and the terrific 2019 Eddie Murphy comedy Dolemite Is My Name, which gave Rudy Ray Moore his due not just as a comic figure, but an indie filmmaking icon.

Watching Dolemite is kind of like reading the Bible — you constantly stop and say "oh this is where that's from?"

Tommy

You can visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame... or just watch Tommy.

The Who's musical features a who's who (pun very much intended) of rock icons, from Eric Clapton to Tina Turner to Elton John to The Who's Roger Daultrey, who plays the titular "deaf dumb and blind kid [who] sure plays a mean pinball."

Other standouts include Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed, and Jack Nickolson, who also appears in another 1975 movie on this list.

Tommy is a real rarity: a time capsule of an era, yes, but also a production that still rocks and shocks.

The Stepford Wives

Even if you haven't seen the delightfully creepy Stepford Wives, you've heard someone referred to as one. Such is the cultural reach of the film, which stars the great Katharine Ross as a woman who relocates to a Connecticut community where the wives are weirdly subservient.

As an added plus, it's written by one of the all-time great screenwriters, William Goldman, who also wrote perhaps the best of all movies in which Katharine Ross appeared, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

It had a sequel and 2004 reboot, but we're actually kind of surprised it movie hasn't gotten a recent remake in light of the whole "trad wife" movement.

Nashville

Director Robert Altman's influence is very strong — just watch the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, who shadowed him on the set of 2006's Prairie Home Companion and dedicated his 2007 film There Will Be Blood to the master.

Altman perfected his naturalistic storytelling style with Nashville, which featured overlapping narratives, improvised dialogue, musical breaks, and a three-hour runtime. It also has a stupendous cast that includes Lily Tomlin, Ned Beatty, Scott Glenn, Keith Carradine, and Karen Black (pictured above).

Anderson's 1999 masterpiece Magnolia is arguably the best of the many films that took inspiration from Nashville, though maybe you can detect Atmanesque touches in Traffic, Babel, and many other great films.

Jaws

This is the other movie on this list — along with Barry Lyndon — that we think has a reasonable claim to being the best movie ever made.

It introduced the concept of the modern blockbuster, but it's true resonance is in the number of people scared to go to the beach — or even dip their toes into a pool — because of how flawlessly director Steven Spielberg played on our fears of the mysteries of the deep.

The mechanical shark kept malfunctioning, which fed into his masterful strategy of deploying the monster only strategically, and then finally unleashing it in, in glimpses, to horrifying effect.

Jaws is, of course, the reason that 1975 changed everything for movies. It was the highest-grossing film in movie history until it was displaced by Star Wars two years later, and led those with greenlight power to begin seeking mega hits instead of singles and doubles — perhaps to the detriment of thoughtful movies for grown-ups.

But Jaws is the rare movie that works for everyone. It works on a surface level, a just-below-the-surface level, and in terms of symbolism. Not a week goes by without some overly optimistic politician being compared to the foolish mayor of Amity Island.

If you liked this list, you might also like this list of the 12 Most Revolutionary Movies of 1976.

And we'd love for you to follow us for more stories like this.

Main image: Nashville. Paramount Pictures.

Editor's Note: Corrects final link and adds link to 1976 movies.

But the ones on this list won't be back, we can almost guarantee.

Here we go.

But First

It's easy (and hackneyed) to say SNL characters have gone soft. Comedy is always changing, getting both more and less sensitive: Some things that were once edgy, like making fun of the president, no longer raise an eyebrow. And some jokes, like broad stereotypes, get less funny when you meet more of the people being mocked, instead of seeing them as some distant, foreign "other."

But SNL characters have also changed in part because the ways of complaining about them have changed. For the first three or four decades of Saturday Night Live, viewer complaints about SNL characters or sketches were mostly relegated to NBC switchboards and letters that the general public didn’t read.

Now, complaints fly across social media, people tag advertisers, and there’s a snowball effect that many comedians — especially those on large corporate shows — would just as soon avoid. That’s why the following SNL characters probably wouldn’t fly today. Even if some of them are funny.

Chico Escuela

“Weekend Update” is an oft-used avenue for cast members to portray SNL characters who don’t work as well within the parameters of sketches. It’s one of the places Gilda Radner most thrived.

Like Radner, Garrett Morris was an original SNL cast member. One of his biggest SNL characters was Chico Escuela, a Dominican baseball player spoke with a broad Latin accent and had a limited grasp of English.

And… that was the joke. He’s one of the most beloved SNL characters for early fans of the show, but we can’t imagine him popping up now.

Uncle Roy

Before Christopher Walken or Alec Baldwin, there was Buck Henry. Though he was best known as a writer (an Oscar-winning one at that), Henry did a bit of acting, and between 1976 and 1980 he hosted Saturday Night Live a whopping 10 times. Henry was around so much, he even had some recurring SNL characters.

One of them was Uncle Roy. He definitely feels born out of the National Lampoon style of anything-goes comedy, and indeed one of the writers who contributed to Uncle Roy was Anne Beatts, a graduate of the magazine. The Lampoon ethos was that nothing was too dark.

All that is to say that the entire “game” of the Uncle Roy sketches is that he is a pedophile babysitter. The sketches were on the line even then, but today’s more sensitive audiences likely wouldn’t go for the Uncle Roy jokes. Nor would the safer SNL writers of today.

Garrett Morris, Headmaster of the New York School for the Hard of Hearing

Garrett Morris would deliver "News for the Hard of Hearing" by simply repeating what Weekend Update anchor Chevy Chase said, but really loud.

You can make the case that he isn't really a "character," since, obviously, he shares a name with SNL cast member Garrett Morris. But Chase would introduce him as the "headmaster of the New York School for the Hard of Hearing," which Morris was not, so we're calling him a character.

Also Read: SNL Gone Wild: 12 Behind the Scenes Stories of Saturday Night Live

The Samurai

Modern-day SNL is far more likely to mock cultural appropriation than to engage in it, and the joke of John Belushi's Samurai was how closely he mimicked Toshiro Mifune's character in Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo — while putting him in ridiculous situations like working as a hotel clerk, at a deli, or at a dry cleaner.

Interestingly, the Samurai is never mocked — he's extremely serious and competent, and the humor is in the juxtaposition between his skill and the very normal jobs he performs. Our personal favorite is the utterly surreal Samurai Night Fever, in which Belushi somehow does the Samurai and John Travolta at the same time, and O.J. Simpson plays his brother.

Is there any way this once-beloved character could still be on SNL? No, according to none other than SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels.

"There's almost nothing we did in the seventies that we would do now," Michaels is quoted as saying in Susan Morrison's excellent new biography, Lorne. "We couldn't do 'News for the Hard of Hearing, the Samurai, Uncle Roy."

The Bel-Airabs

“The Bel-Airabs” only recurred once, in part because all the cast members involved left after the 1979-80 season, which is when both sketches aired. It was a parody of The Beverly Hillbillies, which the core audience for SNL had likely either watched as kids or seen in reruns. There’s a reason why all those old sitcoms were turned into arch, meta movies in the 1990s.

The premise of “The Bel-Airabs” is that the fish-out-of-water California transplants are Arabic — they’re described as “paranoid” Arabs. And they’re broadly played by non-Arabs Don Novello, Bill Murray, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner.

After many movies that portrayed Arabic people are terrorists, people are much more thoughtful today in their portrayals. Which would make “The Bel-Airabs” a tough sell today as SNL characters go.

Also Read: The 15 Best SNL Characters of All Time

Havnagootiim Vishnuuerheer

Havnagootiim may not be distinctively remembered, but he actually appeared nine times total. They just happened to be spread across only the eighth and ninth seasons of the show. The name is some sweaty “Indian-ified” version of the phrase “Having a good time, wish you were here” and his look was something in the vein of Gandhi, or a Hare Krishna perhaps. That is to say, a broad caricature.

The SNL character would appear as an “enlightened master” of Hindu philosophy and would answer questions about life, the universe, and everything. It was just a “first thought, best thought” sketch with some nod to Indian mysticism. And, yes, Havnagootiim was played by a white guy, specifically Tim Kazurinsky.

Ching Chang

If we were putting together an all-time SNL cast, Dana Carvey would be in the mix. He excelled at the form. Wayne wouldn’t be half as good of a character without Garth. The Church Lady is an iconic SNL character. His Bush is perhaps the best (by which we mean funniest, not most accurate) presidential impression the show has ever had. No cast member bats 1.000, though, and that brings us to Ching Chang.

If you are not familiar with Ching Chang, but that name has you worried, yeah, it’s what you think. Ching Chang is one of the worst characters in SNL history. Carvey plays an Asian man in cringe-inducing makeup with a brutal accent as well. The sketches are mostly about Ching Chang’s love for his chickens, and how he wants them on Broadway.

You could have extracted some of the absurdist meat out of these sketches and turned them into something. But… we don’t see this one flying today.

Tonto

Credit where it is due: The comedic conceit of the Tonto, Tarzan, and Frankenstein sketches is funny. Tonto and Tarzan are two characters who speak succinctly and infrequently, whereas Frankenstein can barely speak at all, and mostly just growls and yells.

Bringing these three laconic characters, with idiosyncratic speech patterns together, and having them appear as a singing group or on a soap opera, was funny.

Phil Hartman was fun as Frankenstein, and there are no issues there. Kevin Nealon would play Tarzan, who is a wild man raised in the jungle by apes. He’s, you know, fully fictional in concept. Tonto, though, is an American Indian character. Saturday Night Live was accurately depicting how Tonto was depicted on The Lone Ranger, so maybe that could fly. But Jon Lovitz playing Tonto probably wouldn’t.

The Sensitive Unclothed Man

In two 1990s sketches, Rob Schneider plays a clothes-averse gentleman who doesn’t see the problem, whether at home or at the ballpark. It’s kind of whatever, but the way the sketches were filmed would almost assuredly not be replicated. Schneider was, purportedly, actually undressed while filming these sketches.

Maybe he had something covering him, but his backside was clearly visible a couple of times.

Plus, in these days of intimacy coordinators, it would be awkward to ask cast members or hosts to do a live sketch with someone not wearing anything.

Vinny Vedecci

The premise of the Vinny Vedecci sketches is very funny: Bill Hader plays an old-school Italian talk show host whose team perpetually books guests — like Robert De Niro — whom they erroneously assume can speak Italian. Chaos ensues.

So what’s the problem? Look, we’re not saying Vinny Vedecci is an SNL character who wouldn’t fly today — Bill Hader is saying that.

He has said an Italian woman told him that she disliked the character because he sounded like a gibberish version of her father, which made him lose his taste for playing him.

Gay Hitler

Many are squeamish about comedic portrayals of Adolf Hitler — it’s hard to find anything funny about a genocidal maniac who killed millions, and who many misguided souls still praise.

Though many greats, like Mel Brooks, a Jewish American who fought in World War II, have made great Hitler jokes, Chris Kattan’s take may not justify the shock value. He playsed Hitler as a Paul Lynde-esque gay man, and it’s mostly just broad mugging.

The modern SNL would like not consider the potential laughs worth the potential backlash.

Merv the Perv

Chris Parnell is an underrated Saturday Night Live cast member — in some ways an understated heir apparent to Phil Hartman. He was a utility player who didn’t do a ton of broad, one-note characters, and often would play deadpan to everybody else’s chaos.

But Parnell did get a couple recurring sketches, though. One of those is Merv the Perv. The Merv sketches were basically a clearing house for any raunchy, bad puns the writers could think of. Merv the Perv would show up to some place with a lot of women, deliver a series of puns to no avail, and then in the end rip his pants off to a chorus of “Oh, Merv!” from the ladies.

Merv debuted in 2002, over 20 years ago. It feels like, these days, a pitch for a character called “Merv the Perv” who says lewd things to women and then takes his pants off would probably be nixed the first time it was pitched.

Pat

Why Pat wouldn’t get the green light now is probably obvious. In a New York Times interview, Julia Sweeney recounted that her own daughter has told her, “It really feels like that character is just about making fun of someone where you can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman.”

Sweeney has wrestled with the portrayal of her most popular SNL character, including in her 2019 one-woman show Julia Sweeney: Older and Wider.

“I didn’t do that character to make anyone feel bad,” Sweeney told the Times. “On the other hand, I created a character and then people happened to look like that character. I’m not responsible if they take it negatively, either. So that’s a complicated situation.”

If you liked this list, you may also enjoy this list of the 13 Best SNL Sketches of All Time. And we hope you'll follow us for more stories like this.

Think we missed any SNL characters that wouldn’t fly today? Or disagree with us? Let us know in the comments.

Main image: SNL. NBC

This is ours.

Think we missed one? Let us know in the comments.

But First

But first, we aren't counting the animated movies, or movies where Batman makes a cameo, or where Batman is part of a team. That includes The Flash (above).

Even though we appreciated Michael Keaton in it, of course.

Now here's our list.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Okay, let's start our list with the worst. This is it, the worst Batman movie: a jumbled, CGI-addled mess that takes the dark and gritty thing way too far and feels like it's trying much to hard.

We like Ben Affleck as Batman, but the too-dense atmosphere didn't give him much room to maneuver. Everything about this movie feels labored and un-fun, starting with the title.

Maybe it shouldn't even be on the list of Batman movies since it's technically a sequel to the Superman movie Man of Steel. If you don't want to count it, we're just fine with that.

Batman & Robin (1997)

This one, on the other hand, tries too hard to be fun, packing in endless Mr. Freeze puns and silly costumes and excessive carnival-clown color. We love Arnold Schwarzenegger but this Batman movie isn't cool.

“When I say ‘Batman and Robin’ is a terrible film, I always go, ‘I was terrible in it,” George Clooney, who played Batman, told GQ recently. 

“Because I was, number one. But also because then it allows you the ability to say, ‘Having said I sucked in it, I can also say that none of these other elements worked either.’ You know? Lines like ‘Freeze, Freeze!’”

Batman Forever (1995)

In our opinion, every movie on this list, from here on in, is enjoyable to watch.

Val Kilmer may not be an especially memorable Batman, but he's a Top 3 Bruce Wayne for sure. And Jim Carrey's Riddler makes lots of big choices we can't stay mad at for long. It's also cool and weird that Drew Barrymore and Nicole Kidman (above) are in it.

Tommy Lee Jones is a little too garishly cartoonish as Two-Face, and the actor doesn't seem to be enjoying himself, but oh well. We like this movie.

Batman Forever is one of the strangest Batman movies, and we appreciate that. It takes big batswings.

Batman (1966)

This movie is campy, ridiculous, cheap-looking, and an absolute charmer.

For the first years of our lives, Adam West was the Batman — cool, resolute, incorruptible. We didn't even pick up on the camp. It was beautiful to see him shine on the big screen.

We also love Burt Ward as Robin and the original onscreen rogue's gallery of bad guys, including Cesar Romero as a mustachioed joker, the great Frank Gorshin as The Riddler, and Lee Meriwether as Catwoman (we also love the other two 1960s Catwomen – Eartha Kitt and Julie Newmar). But we may love Burgess Meredith most of all for his take on the Penguin, who chews the scenery and that cigarette holder.

Also: The shark scene! We love this movie.

The Batman (2022)

Robert Pattinson may be the best Bruce Wayne/Batman besides Christian Bale — we love his broken, battered, disoriented take on the Caped Crusader as he struggles to decide who or what he really is. His identity crisis is the highlight of Matt Reeves' very 1970s-influenced take on Batman, which pays homage to conspiracy thrillers from Klute to All the President's Men.

Given all the work Reeves did to build a new Batworld in this movie — including with the introduction of Zoë  Kravitz's Catwoman and an unrecognizable Colin Farrell's Oswald Cobblebot — we can't wait to see what the sequels will yield.

And it brought us the much-acclaimed Penguin solo TV series.

Batman (1989)

Tim Burton deserves a lot of credit for tying together the two versions of Batman familiar to 1989 audiences: The campy one from the 1960s TV show and movie, and the gritty, tormented one who had emerged in the masterful 1980s DC Comics work of Frank Miller in The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One.

Jack Nicholson is one of the all-time greatest actors, but his Joker throws off the balance of the movie: He's too big, too distracting, not at all scary, and not as witty as he should be. We'll take Heath Ledger's dark deadpan over Nicholson's punning.

But look, this is a Batman movie with a killer score and Prince soundtrack, and it proved a fairly serious superhero movie could thrive. We're fans.

Batman Returns (1992)

After the success of Batman, Tim Burton went even more Tim Burton in this gothic Christmas story featuring a fantastic turn by Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. We also loved Christopher Walken hamming it up as ruthless businessman Max Shreck, and of Michael Gough as Alfred. But we find Danny DeVito's Penguin maybe too good — the character is so sad he's hard to watch.

If you grew up watching Michael Keaton in comedies like Mr. Mom and Johnny Dangerously, it was a little hard, in 1989, to get used to the idea of him playing Bruce Wayne and Batman. But by Batman Returns we had acclimated to the idea quite nicely, and loved him unreservedly in the cape and cowl.

Keaton and Burton were right all along about the casting — it just took us a little while to see the vision.

Batman Begins (2005)

Cards on the table: We think this and the following two movies are pretty close to being perfect.

Christopher Nolan offered the boldest-yet cinematic take on Batman: What if he were a real person? Nolan justifies every cartoonish element of the character, from his cape to his pointy ears, to explain precisely how a sad billionaire orphan could become a terrifying creature of the night.

Christian Bale is the best Bruce Wayne and the best Batman — he packed on unbelievable mass after going skeletal for The Machinist — and he manages to seem charming, brilliant, vulnerable and terrifying as no other actor has.

Cillian Murphy, who finally got a lead role in a Christopher Nolan movie with this year's Oppenheimer, is a perfect foil for Batman. His Scarecrow, like Batman, is intimately familiar with fear and tries to twist it to dark advantage just like Bruce Wayne does — but for the good of himself, rather than to save Gotham.

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

We understand the frustration with the very complicated plot of this final Nolan Batman film, and also the eye-rolling at the many switcheroos near the end, but also: Wow. From the heartstopping opening scene — Tom Hardy's Bane gets maybe the most impressive introduction of any movie character ever — to the devastating final moments, when Nolan really makes us believe, for a while, that something very sad has happened — this movie is completely engrossing.

Yes, it has some flaws — Why would Bane keep all those cops alive? — but we're willing to roll with them in the interest of the movie not going too dark. Bane is maybe tied with Heath Ledger's Joker for our all-time favorite villain, and we love the whole supporting cast. Michael Caine is the best Alfred, and this is his best movie in the role. Marion Cotillard is beguiling as the mysterious Miranda Tate. And Anne Hathaway is the all-time best Catwoman.

Yes, the movie feels dense, but when you watch it after Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, it's hard not to recognize how deftly it ties the trilogy together.

The Dark Knight (2008)

More than any other Christopher Nolan movie, The Dark Knight gets better with every watch. The obvious surface attraction is Heath Ledger's Oscar-winning performance as the Joker. But the more you watch it, the more you appreciate how beautifully crafted it is — from the money-laundering scheme to the surprisingly detailed legal plotting to the brilliance of the Joker's schemes.

"Do I really look like a guy with a plan?" Ledger's Joker asks Aaron Eckhart's two-faced Harvey Dent before things go absolutely crazy.

It's his biggest misdirect in the movie: The more times you watch it, the more you realize what a meticulous planner The Joker is, employing Sun Tzu tactics to almost outwit the World's Greatest Detective.

Liked This List of Batman Movies Ranked Worst to Best?

As a fan of Batman movies, you might also like this list of 7 Weird Things About the Batman and Robin Relationship That No One Likes to Talk About.

Main image: Batman. Warner Bros.

Of course, almost all TV shows eventually become cancelled TV shows — all good things must come to an end, right? So we're focusing on shows that lasted less than a season.

Ready? Here we go.

Michelle Pfeiffer

One of the more intriguing cancelled TV shows in sitcom history is the Animal House spinoff, Delta House.

It should have worked. Besides the obvious advantage of having Pfeiffer in the cast, it came from the Animal House writers and also had future teen movie icon John Hughes on the writing staff. Additionally, the actors who played Dean Wormer, Flounder, Hoover, and D-Day in Animal House reprised their roles as well.

Delta House couldn’t get John Belushi, so Bluto was replaced by his heretofore unmentioned brother Blotto, played by Josh Mostel.

Pfeiffer, of course, went on to become one of the biggest movie stars in the world, with a run of successes that has included Scarface, Married to the Mob, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Batman Returns, Age of Innocence, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, and many more films. She's a three-time Oscar nominee,

Halle Berry

Halle Berry started her career as a pageant contestant and model, so she brought life experience to the role of Emily Franklin in the sitcom Living Dolls (above), a spinoff of Who’s the Boss that aired for 13 episodes in 1989.

Of course, she didn't spend too much timing sweating the cancellation: She broke out as a film star in 1991’s Boomerang and had very strong ’90s, appearing in hit films and winning an Emmy and Golden Globe for the TV film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.

But the next decade was even better: She won her Best Actress Oscar for starring in 2001’s Monster’s Ball as a struggling widow.

Her recent films include John Wick 3: Parabellum. And the X-Men alum made her directorial debut with 2020’s Bruised, in which she also starred.

Dave Chappelle

Chappelle and Jim Breuer caught the eye of network executives when they guest starred on a 1995 episode of Home Improvement as two guys who appear together on Tool Time to ask Tim Taylor (Tim Allen) for some advice about their girlfriends.

They were rewarded with a spinoff series, Buddies. But after rehearsals, the show replaced Breuer with Christopher Gartin, and the vibe was off — the chemistry between real-life friends Chappelle and Breuer was nowhere to be found. Buddies lasted 13 episodes in 1996.

Chappelle and Breuer, by then a Saturday Night Live cast member, reunited in the 1998 comedy Half-Baked, and Chappelle went on to star on Chappelle's Show (co-created by Half Baked co-writer and real-life buddy Neal Brennan) and to become one of the biggest standup comedians of all time.

And Buddies joined the ranks of cancelled TV shows that perhaps didn't realize they had a future superstar on their hands.

Hilary Swank

Hilary Swank appeared on the sitcoms Evening Shade and Growing Pains before starring on her own sitcom, Camp Wilder, which ran for 20 episodes on ABC in the 1992-93 season.

Swank moved on fast from the cancellation: In 1992, she had made her film debut in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and she followed that up with a starring role in 1994's The Next Karate Kid and Beverly Hills, 90210.

But she was just getting started. She soon won her first Best Actress Oscar for 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry, which she followed up with another Best Actress Oscar for 2004’s Million Dollar Baby.

Her recent films include Ordinary Angels.

As cancelled TV shows go, Camp Wilder had a great eye for talent: The cast also included Jay Mohr and Jerry O'Connell, who, like Swank, have done quite well for themselves.

Margot Robbie

The 2011 season brought several 1960s-set TV shows, thanks to the success of Mad Men on AMC. Networks tried to get their own version of the smart, sexy and sophisticated cable phenomenon.

ABC shot its shot with Pan Am, centered around a team of flight attendants. The biggest name in the cast was Christina Ricci. But a lesser-known cast member was Margot Robbie, already a veteran of Australian TV.

Pan-Am lasted for 14 episodes. But Robbie soon became a movie star with her role in 2014's The Wolf of Wall Street, and went on to three Academy Award nominations and became one of the most successful actors and producers in Hollywood. Her greatest success so far is producing and starring in Barbie, the biggest hit of 2023.

We don't know why Pan Am failed to take off with audiences, but you can't blame the cast.

Amber Heard

Network TV's other big swing at a Mad Men-style '60s drama in the 2011 season was The Playboy Club, centered on a group of waitresses, or "Bunnies," at one of Playboy Enterprises' once-popular Playboy Clubs.

Long before she was known for an acrimonious parting with Johnny Depp, Amber Heard wore bunny ears to offer drinks and cigarettes — with a side of intrigue. The NBC show also starred Eddie Ciprian as a Don Draper-esque Playboy Club key-holder with shady connections, and Laura Benanti, Jenna Dewan and Naturi Naughton as Bunnies.

The Playboy Club lasted just seven episodes, but Heard went on to appear in films including Pineapple Express, Machete Kills, Magic Mike XXL and The Danish Girl, as well as the DC films Justice League, Aquaman, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

John Mulaney

John Mulaney's career is soaring now — he's one of our greatest comedians and the host of Netflix's Everybody's Live With John Mulaney.

But he hit a rare career setback with the Fox sitcom Mulaney, in which the comedian and former Saturday Night Live writer — not yet a household name — played a version of himself alongside an impressive supporting cast that included Elliott Gould and fellow SNL vets Martin Short and Nasim Pedrad.

The show was negatively compared to Seinfeld, but the real Mulaney obviously turned out OK, succeeding not just in standup and numerous television television shows, but also on Broadway, where he starred with friend Nick Kroll in Oh, Hello.

If you liked this list, you might also like this list of Classic Rock Songs Inspired by Movies We Love.

And we invite you to please follow us for more stories like this.

Main image: Margot Robbie in Pan Am. ABC

While George Lucas is best known as the creator of Star Wars, he also created Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, the academic archaeologist and part-time adventurer who spends his life traveling the globe in search of artifacts that belong in a museum.

He's tough, he's cantankerous, he's whip smart — and he's smart with a whip. Played by Harrison Ford (and River Phoenix, for a few minutes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), he may be the greatest action-adventure star Hollywood has ever produced.

In a gift from the movie gods, Lucas paired up with his good friend Steven Spielberg on the franchise, with Spielberg directing all but one of the Indiana Jones movies. When they're good, they're great. When they're not, well... they make the others look even greater.

Here are our ranking of all five Indiana Jones movies, from worst to best.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Just to be clear, we love Indiana Jones movies — in fact, we love them so much that we wish they'd stopped at three. Spielberg didn't direct 2023's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, but we imagine it would have been only slightly better if he had.

James Mangold, a top-tier director whose films include Logan and Walk the Line, took over for Spielberg, who only executive produced this one.

The problem with this film was just time, which comes for us all. Harrison Ford — one of the all-time best actors and movie stars — was pushing 80 during the production.

One of the charms of Indiana Jones movies is that he's always the underdog, getting beaten and battered while hilariously outnumbered. But Dial of Destiny just asked for too much suspension of disbelief, especially during an ill-advised CGI-heavy opening with Ford de-aged by decades (above).

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was the lowest-grossing Indiana Jones movie, earning about $384 million on a massive budget — Forbes estimated that it lost more than $100 million.

We also felt like the ending was just too much. This unfortunately made our list of sequels nobody needs to see.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

This movie is fine, but we expect from Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones should mean soaring highs, seemingly effortless deadpan humor, and introductions to fascinating mythologies, heavily tweaked for multiplex (or better yet, drive-in) consumption.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had a cool setting — we loved the homage to 1950s sci-fi movies and atomic age B films, best epitomized by the so-silly-it's-great scene in which a refrigerator helps Indy survive an atomic bomb.

We also like the cast. Cate Blanchett had the thankless task of being the main baddie, a KGB agent competing with Indy to get a telepathic crystal skull, located somewhere in Peru — a nice callback to the Peru-set first scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Harrison Ford was in fine form, and we were thrilled at the return of Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood. Shia LaBeouf was acceptable as Mutt Williams, though we wish he'd never joined the franchise at all given his grim outcome, revealed in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. And we liked the film's flirtation with handing the whole Indy legacy over to Mutt — before Indy himself nullifies that notion.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

As we mentioned above, we wish this film really had been the last crusade — the Indy franchise could have been a magnificent trilogy.

After a wild departure in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Last Crusade brought the franchise back to its core mission: Indiana Jones punching Nazis. We love it, and the addition of Sean Connery as Indy's dad, Henry, ratcheted things up to instant classic level.

Twists and surprises abound, and the conclusion — Indiana solving a series of deadly puzzles to find the Holy Grail — was masterful, and allowed the audience to play along instead of just watching Indy jump, roll, and crack his whip.

We absolutely love this movie, and the remaining two movies on our list.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

That's right: We think Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is better than Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. We love them both, mind you, but have a feeling a lot of people will grouse over our choice here, so let us explain.

More than almost any other movie ever, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a thrill ride from start to finish. Even when it lets up for a little bit of exposition in the dinner scene, there's some classic Indiana Jones movie distraction — namely the hideous food served at Pankot Palace.

That scene has drawn some criticism for suggesting that the people of fictional Pankot — and by extension, people who look like them — are in some way backward. But consider, if you will, the possibility that the savvy people of the palace are in fact messing with their Western guests and their cultural biases. It gives the movie another layer of fun.

The PG-rated movie was so scary it helped inspire the PG-13 rating, and even Raiders screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan found it to be excessive, once calling the film "very ugly and mean-spirited."

Oh well. We're with Quentin Tarantino on loving Temple of Doom. He calls it his favorite Steven Spielberg film, along with Jaws.

And that climactic Temple of Doom bridge sequence, above? Incredibly good.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Again, this is one of the best movies ever made — a classic that never gets old. In fact, its adherence to the adventuring serials of the 1930s and '40s made it feel steeped in film history from the start, giving it a mix of kitsch and Golden Age Hollywood charm that no other movie has ever replicated.

It breaks rules from the beginning — for the first few minutes, you might think Alfred Molina is the star of the film — and the romance between Indy and Marion is convincing, entrancing, and very easy to root for.

The action sequences are as good as those in any movie, especially when you consider that in 1981, all the effects were practical — but the coolest fight in the movie is the one Indy avoids by simply shooting a master swordsman.

The film also has a wonderful exploration of science versus faith, and has, for our money, maybe the best ending of any movie. The fate of the Ark is dry, understated, and a great joke about government bureaucracy.

If you liked this list of Indiana Jones movies ranked, you may also like our list of All 11 Star Wars Movies Ranked.

And please follow us for more stories like this.

Main image: Kate Capshaw and Harrison Ford in a publicity image for Indiana Jones and The Temple Of Doom. Paramount.

As America marked its bicentennial, revolution was once again in the air, as stars of the screen rejected the status quo.

It was a peak time for daring movies that broke rules and didn't care. Happy 50th anniversary to these 12 essential movies of 1976.

Network

In the ultimate rejection of the powers that be, longtime news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) has a righteous crashout and urges everyone in America to go to their windows and scream "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore."

What were they so mad about? Take your pick: government corruption, inflation, Vietnam, crime... Network is most mad at complacency, and the sense of learned helplessness that comes from watching a constant stream of bad news. Wonder what that's like?

Finch posthumously won Best Actor, Faye Dunaway (pictured above) won Best Actress, Beatrice Straight won Best Supporting Actress, and Paddy Chayefksy won for best original screenplay — in a pretty incredible year for screenplays.

Carrie

Carrie remains one of the most affecting horror movies of all time — at least for anyone who's ever attended high school.

Sissy Spacek is both vulnerable and terrifying as Carrie, a meek outsider harboring secret, astonishing rage — and power to back it up.

It was the first big hit for director Brian De Palma, and perhaps more importantly the first film to unleash the box office power of Stephen King adaptions.

Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver feels more prescient than we'd like in this age of angry young men and assassinations. Robert De Niro is explosive as Travis Bickle, an unhinged loner obsessed with a campaign worker (Cybill Shepherd) and determined to clean up the mean streets of New York City.

A simpler movie would take Bickle's side (in the vein of Death Wish), or condemn him. But Taxi Driver director Martin Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader refuse to do anything the easy way, or make Taxi Driver a cozy ride for the audience.

In the film's fascinating finale, Bickle frees the exploited young Iris (Jodie Foster) from her horrible fate, and makes us re-evaluate everything we thought about the movie up until that point.

Rocky

Downer endings became something of a given in the early 1970s, but screenwriter-star Sylvester Stallone decided it was time for American movie heroes to start winning again.

The Academy agreed: Rocky won Best Picture, and John G. Avildsen won best director. Stallone was nominated for best original screenplay, but the award went to the aforementioned Chayefksy for Network.

Hey, Rocky doesn't win against Apollo Creed either — but like Stallone, he wins massively just by getting his moment in the ring. Rocky set the stage for Stallone to become one of the biggest stars of the next 50 years.

It also managed to earn more than 100 times its budget.

All the President's Men

Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman play Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, two tireless reporters for The Washington Post who figure out what really happened in the Watergate break-in — and help bring down President Richard Nixon in the process.

This is the rare 50-year-old movie that still feels intensely alive, thanks to the fly-on-the-wall direction of the great Alan J. Pakula, master of conspiracy thrillers, and a crackling script by William Goldman that brought us the phrase "follow the money."

It's a good axiom that still rings true.

Marathon Man

Amazingly, All the President's Men was one of two 1976 movies that paired screenwriter William Goldman with acting powerhouse Dustin Hoffman.

Marathon Man, Goldman's adaptation of his own 1974 novel, is an incredibly tense thriller about "Babe" Levy (Hoffman), a long-distance runner who becomes mixed up in a plot by a Nazi war criminal (Laurence Olivier) to retrieve stolen diamonds.

it's most memorable for scariest dentistry scene in any movie, including Little Shop of Horrors, courtesy of director John Schlesinger.

Harlan County, USA

The '70s had a slew of good films about life in rural America, but none cut to the truth as bluntly as Barbara Kopple's Harlan County, USA. It's as much of a rallying call as Network, but it's all true.

The documentary follows a bitter, brutal 13-month coal miners' strike against the Brookside Mine in Harlan County, Kentucky, and shows what happens when tough working Americans face off with a company committed to its bottom line.

Kopple spent much of her twenties with the miners, documenting their fight to unionize in a world of pickup trucks, shotguns, and backbreaking work. The film earned the Oscar for Best Documentary.

The Bad News Bears

The Bad News Bears broke the movie rule that kids are sweet and innocent.

Led by burnout Morris Buttermaker (Walter Matthau), the young ballplayers on the Bears weren't great athletes and definitely weren't good sports.

And like Rocky, they didn't win at the end — but even coming as close to winning as they did was a huge victory. The Bad News Bears is also maybe the only movie where a grown-up buying beer for kids is part of a happy ending.

The Omen

Speaking of bad kids: The Omen is about a sweet-faced boy (Harvey Spencer Stephens) who turns out to be the antichrist.

Directed by Richard Donner, just before he made Superman, the film works extremely well by taking everything very seriously. The cast is stocked with great actors, like Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, playing it completely straight.

It followed a cinematic fascinating with the devil nicely set up by Rosemary's Baby (1969) and The Exorcist (1972.) And like those classics, it remains chilling.

Assault on Precinct 13

This grim, grimy action film also deserves a place in horror movie history, even though it isn't horror — it was the second film by John Carpenter, just before he had explosive success with the horror masterpiece Halloween.

Carpenter not only wrote and directed Assault on Precinct 13, but also composed the score and edited it, demonstrating his intense work ethic and boundless creativity. It was also a breakthrough for indie filmmaking: Carpenter agreed to make it on a shoestring budget of just $100,000, in exchange for creative control.

The film reflected the decade's well-placed anxiety about urban crime, but had a very Carpenter twist: The hero is a police officer (Austin Stoker, above) who stands up to a biker gang to protect a police precinct. But he's aided by a convict — played by Darwin Joston — who is on his way to death row.

King Kong

The remake of the original 1933 King Kong has nowhere near the enduring power of the original, but it is an excellent time capsule of the mid-'70s.

Written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., known for the Batman TV show and the political thrillers The Parallax View and Three Days of the Condor, it casts a greedy oil company as the villains and culminates in a battle atop the then-new World Trade Center.

It also made a movie star of Jessica Lange, who was a little-known model at the time of her casting, and added to the stardom of Jeff Bridges.

Logan's Run

Logan's Run took the '60s maxim of not trusting anyone over 30 to the extreme — it takes place in a futuristic world in which everyone is reincarnated when they turn 30.

But a select group of runners learn that, in fact, those young reincarnates are actually killed to ensure everyone else has plenty of resources.

The daring Logan (Michael York) and Jessica 6 (Jenny Agutter) try to flee their domed city, and to change everything in the process. Logan's Run has a great concept and a very cool retro-future look that would be eclipsed, a year later, by the even more influential aesthetics of another sci-fi adventure.

Main image: Jessica Lange and a friend in King Kong. Paramount Pictures.

Some of them also happen to be among the best movies of all time.

Here we go.

But First, Let's Talk About Box Office vs Return on Investment

Among the highest-grossing films of all time you’ll find megahits like Avatar and Avengers: Endgame. They movies made billions of dollars worldwide.

But those numbers are less impressive when you consider the costs to make them. Endgame, for example, reportedly cost somewhere between $350 and $400 million to make.

These very profitable movies that earned more than 100 times their budget at the box office started by thinking small.

Mad Max (1979)

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, is currently struggling at the box office despite high marks from people who've actually gone to see it. (It has earned $32 million in the worst Memorial Day Weekend box office in decades — not counting in 2020, when theaters were mostly closed.)

But the first film in the series, 1979's Mad Max, was a clear box-office triumph. Made on the cheap, for the equivalent of $250,000 in U.S. currency, the Australian dystopian action drama earned $100 million — 400 times its budget.

It not only introduced a young Mel Gibson to a mass audience, but spawned one of the most enduring of all film franchises.

Halloween (1978)

We could have done a list just of horror films that qualified for this list. Halloween is already the second, and there will be a couple more we felt we should include, but we aimed for variety. That being said, Halloween had to be included, because John Carpenter helped change horror movies. Also, it still rips as far as horror movies go.

The idea that Halloween invented the slasher film has been bandied about by some in the past, which isn’t true. Bob Clark’s Black Christmas predates it, as do some Italian horror films. Halloween did popularize the genre in America, though, and did help codify some of the elements.

Also, it made a ton of money. Carpenter’s film cost something around $300,000 to make, but it would end up making $70 million worldwide, easily making our list of movies that earned 100 times their budget at the box office. In fact, it made more than 200 times its budget. That's a profitable movie.

Super Size Me (2004)

Many hit documentaries could make this list of list of movies that made 100 times their budget, as documentaries don’t tend to cost a lot of money. To represent the genre, we’re going with one of the most-famous docs, and also one that provided particular bang for the buck. That would be Super Size Me, by Morgan Spurlock, who tragically died of cancer last year at just 53.

Helping to popularize the “stunt documentary” subgenre, Spurlock ate only McDonald’s for a month to see what it did to his health. It got a lot of people talking, changed some minds about fast food, and basically ended the Super Size option at McDonald’s, and similar options elsewhere. Oh, and it made a ton of money.

Off of a budget of $65,000, it earned $22 million.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is both a proto-slasher and a proto-found footage horror movie. It was positioned as being based on a true story, though it wasn’t, as a criticism of sensationalistic “if it bleeds, it leads” news of the era. On top of that, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is arguably a top-10 movie title of all-time, and the tagline, “Who will survive and what will be left of them?” is also an all-timer.

Tobe Hooper’s film was made on the cheap, which you can do when your biggest special effect is, you know, a chainsaw. The movie was made for less than $140,000, with some estimates as low as $80,000.

It would make $30.9 million, a huge return on that investment, and influence generations of horror directors to come. A very profitable movie that would inspire a wide range of films, from Pearl to Alien.

And it's on our list of the Top 1970s Horror Movies, Ranked by Box Office.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

These days, a phenomenon like The Blair Witch Project would be almost impossible, and the social media chatter around such a movie would be largely unbearable. It’s not the first found-footage horror film, but it helped take the concept to new heights commercially and bolstered a doubling down on the style going forward.

All the marketing posited that The Blair Witch Project was a documentary, not a work of fiction. The actors, all unknown, were posited as real missing/presumed dead. It helped that the internet was starting to grow significantly in 1999, helping to market the movie as well. In time, it would become clear that it was a work of fiction, though in truth the whole “witch” part should have been a giveaway.

Nevertheless, the phenomenon brought in $248.6 million worldwide off of a budget that came in under $1 million.

Friday the 13th (1980)

What if you took the lessons of Halloween, but turned them into something nastier and more prurient? Well, you don’t get a stone-cold classic, but you do get a bit hit — and another of those horror movies that made 100 times their budget.

Friday the 13th became the foremost slasher series in the United States, never artistically minded, but always delivering what it promised.

Kudos to director Sean S. Cunningham, who bought an ad in Variety in 1979 basically telling studios, “Hey, did you like Halloween? Then check out what I’ve got cooking!” You probably know by now that Jason Vorhees isn’t the killer in the first movie, and that a young Kevin Bacon had a role. What you may not know is that Friday the 13th was made for $550,000 and made $59.8 million.

American Graffiti (1973)

Star Wars made George Lucas an icon. That movie birthed an empire (in multiple ways) and made $775.4 million on a budget of $11 million. How did Lucas help earn the chance to bring his space opera to life, though? Because, a few years earlier, he had another big success in American Graffiti.

Laying the groundwork for Happy Days, American Graffiti is a coming-of-age tale set in 1962. It’s built upon driving around in cars, trying to get some sexual action going, and listening to Wolfman Jack. In the cast you will find, among others, Ron Howard and Richard Dreyfuss, plus a small role for a carpenter named Harrison Ford. American Graffiti struck a chord with audiences. Made for only $770,000 it made $140 million, and also earned five Oscar nominations.

So yeah, that’s how Lucas got to make Star Wars — by breaking out by making one of the rare movies that made 100 times their budget at the box office.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

The title Napoleon Dynamite could have turned people off. You could say that about the unusual aesthetic as well, or the cast of largely unknowns, or… a lot of data points seemed to point to Napoleon Dynamite being a total shrug.

Instead, it became one of the foremost cult classics of the 2000s — and one of the comedy movies that made 100 times their budget.

Jared Hess shot the film in his native Idaho, and cast his college buddy Jon Heder in the lead role. It made $46.1 million worldwide — astonishing for a quirky film that cost $400,000 to make.

Paranormal Activity (2009)

Alright, one last horror film. We wanted to include Paranormal Activity because it basically built the career of producer Jason Blum, and also kicked off a series of imitators trying to make a ton of money off of basically no budget. It’s with Paranormal Activity that studios seemed to really recognize that horror fans are less picky than fans of other genres, and that the movies tend to be fairly cheap to make.

It’s a found footage movie shot with a stationary home video camera. Seriously, it could not be more lo-fi. Oren Peli’s initial production cost a mere $15,000, though once Paramount signed on they asked for a bit of a glow up, and a new ending, that cost $215,000.

Even so, Paranormal Activity was a horror hit, making $194.2 million and generating several sequels. It’s like the scary poster child for movies that made 100 times their budget.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

This George Romero zombie classic is the gold standard model for other low-budget horror movies. Shot in black and white for less than $125,000 with an unknown cast — but an incredible concept, and still captivating atmospherics — it went on to earn more than $30 million.

It's one of the most-imitated of all films, both in its setup and its financial model. It's easily one of the most profitable movies. It's not just on our list of movies that made more than 100 times its budget at the box office — it could be on a list of movies that nearly 250 times its budget.

Once (2007)

The power of a song. Once became an unexpected hit thanks to the soundtrack, specifically the song “Falling Slowly.” The movie, set in Ireland, follows two unnamed musicians who meet, make music, and seemingly fall in unrequited love. Among the songs they write in the film is “Falling Slowly.”

That song would go on to win Best Original Song at the Oscars. It would rise to 61 on the Billboard Hot 100. Once only cost $150,000 to make, as it is quite a small story (with big emotions). The film made $23.3 million, but will also always have that Academy Award.

It’s falling slowly…. onto our list of profitable movies that made 100 times their budget.

Rocky (1976)

Speaking of the Academy Awards, we end with, fittingly, an underdog story. That is true of Rocky Balboa, but also the movie Rocky. Sylvester Stallone would go on to be one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and the Rocky sequels would get so over-the-top Rocky basically ends the Cold War in the fourth one. Back in the mid-1970s, though, Stallone was a struggling actor. He wrote Rocky, hoping to earn a nice role for himself, the journey there was as notable as the Italian Stallion’s.

First, ABC bought it to turn it into a made-for-TV movie, but they wanted to hire writers for rewrites, so Stallone’s Lords of Flatbush co-star Henry Winkler used his Happy Days cache to manage to get them to sell him the rights back. Stallone took it to United Artists, which wanted to make it, but as a vehicle for an established star. Stallone and his agents said he would star or nobody would.

The studio said fine, but in turn only gave the film a budget of about $1 million. Cut to Rocky winning Best Picture for 1976 while making $225 million at the box office.

Yo, Adrian: He made one of the most profitable movies of all time, and one of the most beloved. It also launched two very successful franchises: Not just the Rocky franchise, but the spinoff Creed franchise.

If you liked this list of very profitable movies that earned 100 times their budget at the box office, you might also like this list of killer animal movies that used real animals. Some of them were made on quite tight budgets.

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Main image: Friday the 13th. Paramount.

Editor's Note: Adds link to MSN profile.

They were sad, but made sense.

Spoilers follow.

Eddard Stark on Game of Thones

"The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword," Eddard (Ned) Stark once said.
He was right, but his killers took a different, cowardly approach.

Though an absolute shock (for people who hadn't read the books), the death of Ned (Sean Bean) skillfully set the table for all the carnage to come: If the hero of Game of Thrones could die, anyone could die. We kept watching through splayed fingers, hoping that at least the occasional wedding episode would provide a respite from the horrors.

Nope!

Walter White on Breaking Bad

No one could be that sad for Walter White: His fate felt sealed from the very first episode of Breaking Bad. He also did countless awful things.

Despite that, he went out on top by killing his enemies, freeing Jesse, leaving his family set for life, and scaring the hell out of his friends-turned-betrayers Elliott and Gretchen. Walt had nothing left to prove, and his feels like one of the most logical TV deaths, and least tragic.

Rita Bennett on Dexter

Rita (Julie Benz) was married to a serial killer who targets serial killers, and he made the dire mistake in the spectacular fourth season of Dexter of leaving her unprotected as he went to war with the Trinity Killer (an outstanding John Lithgow).

Rita really never had a chance. It's kind of surprising she survived as long as she did.

Tony Soprano on The Sopranos

We can speak frankly here, right? We're all adults. Tony Soprano died at Holsten's. And if he didn't (but he did) he would have died soon after, at the hands of some other Members-Only jacketed gunman. Live by the sword and gun, die by the sword and the gun.

Sopranos creator David Chase more or less confirmed Tony Soprano died, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, 15 years after the Sopranos finale aired: "What was annoying was how many people wanted to see Tony killed. That bothered me," he said.

Look, we all have to go sometime, and there are worse ways to end it than eating onion rings and listening to Journey with people you love. Tony Soprano had one of the more peaceful TV deaths, in a way.

And while we miss James Gandolfini, we enjoyed seeing his son — Michael Gandolfini — play a young Tony Soprano in The Many Saints of Newark.

Everyone on Six Feet Under (Tie)

The whole show was about death, and dealing with death, so of course Six Feet Under was going to end with some death — but Lord, what a breathtaking montage of death.

Still maybe the best, most emotional ending of any TV show, and also, oddly enough, the most logical.

And we're leveled by the Sia song, "Breathe Me," that accompanies the final sequence.

Gale Boetticher on Breaking Bad

For a meth maker, Gale (David Costabile) was sweet and naive.

When Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) put him directly in Walter White's path, his death became assured, setting off a spectacular cat-and-mouse fight between Walt and Gus in Season 4 of Breaking Bad that could have easily gone the other way.

That's why Fring's death isn't on this list of the most coldly logical TV deaths: He could have easily won as lost.

Adriana LaCerva on The Sopranos

Adriana is gone, but her flawless style lives on.

Again, there's an unwritten rule of TV deaths that the most innocent person among a lot of terrifying people is going to die prematurely. Adriana (Drea de Matteo) was a good person, money-laundering and some other stuff aside, and the FBI rather ruthlessly exploited her love for a weak man. Her death was heartbreaking, but made sense within the world of The Sopranos.

Also: Her last name means "the doe" in Italian, and the show kills her in the woods. This is, to us, one of the most heartbreaking TV deaths.

Christopher Moltisanti on The Sopranos

With his addiction issues, hotheadedness and general unreliability, Chrissy (Michael Imperioli) made it impossible for Tony not to whack him. And after he allowed what happened to Adriana, we weren't that sorry to see him go.

Why does The Sopranos get three different entries in our list of the most coldly logical TV deaths? Maybe because it's the best-written TV show ever, and handled logical deaths as well as it handled everything else.

At least we still get to enjoy Imperioli in roles like his great one on Season 2 of The White Lotus.

Eddie Munson on Stranger Things

We should have known something was up when Eddie (Joseph Quinn) arrived on Stranger Things in Season 4 and quickly established himself as the most charismatic and sympathetic metalhead in town.

He courageously stood up to Vecna to save his new friends, sacrificing himself in the process, which was such an Eddie thing to do.

Joseph Quinn has moved on to even bigger things — he recently starred in Marvel's Fantastic Four.

Joffrey on Game of Thrones

In the harsh world of Game of Thrones, cruel despots tend to thrive — at least for a while.

Joffrey seemed to have plot armor as one of the main antagonists of the series, and because of his youth. But Game of Thrones loved to subvert expectations, so killing him off was actually the last thing many viewers expected.

Which made it the most logical thing for the show to do.

Logan Roy on Succession

The great one almost died in the very first episode of the show, and in a way, it's sad that he didn't — when Succession started, Logan Roy (Bryan Cox) was on at least decent terms with all of his children.

By his final appearance, he treated them like chess pieces he considered unclean. His final acts were to skip one son's wedding while ordering another to do his dirty work — for fun.

His death joins the pantheon of the most logical TV deaths — and yet it was still one of the most surprising, thanks to the extraordinary writing on Succession, which also pulled off one of TV's greatest finales.

Barry Berkman on Barry

It's not a total shocker that a hired killer with countless enemies would die at the end of his show. But his manner of death was a huge "wow" — to quote Barry (Bill Hader) himself.

And it's also impressive that Barry star and co-creator Bill Hader would give up a character he could have kept going for many more seasons, or in reunions or reboots. It's a testament to his incredible creativity that he would rather go on to other things.

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Main image: Game of Thrones. HBO

What do they all have in common? Low budgets, great concepts, and no stars — because the concept is that star.

Of course, one of the films on this list did turn its lead actress into a major star.

Let's begin.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

George Romero's zombie horror classic was shot in black and white near Pittsburgh for less than $125,000, with an unknown cast.

People had made zombie films before, but Romero's had an eerie sensibility, taut storytelling, and zero camp — it felt almost like a post apocalyptic, fly-on-the-wall documentary, which is one of the reasons it's still so watchable today.

It earned earn more than $30 million — more than 200 times its budget — and inspired a reboot, sequels, and countless imitators.

Indie filmmaking doesn't get much more more successful than this.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre also benefitted from playing it straight — there's a very eerie sense that everything onscreen is really happening, or could really happen.

Tobe Hooper made his film for less than $140,000, and it went on to earn $30.9 million. You can see its influence in countless films since, including X and Alien.

It's also getting renewed attention lately thanks to the hit Netflix series Monster: The Ed Gein Story, since real-life Wisconsin killer Ed Gein helped inspire Leatherface, the main villain of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Gein also inspired the villains of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 Psycho and 1991's The Silence of the Lambs. And while both are very profitable classics, neither was as profitable as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which made well over 200 times its budget.

Halloween (1978)

Halloween is the sole film on this list that shot one of its leads to stardom — Jamie Lee Curtis is still going strong today, and recently won her first Oscar for her supporting role in Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Then-couple John Carpenter and Debra Hill collaborated on the tight, haunting script for Halloween, set in an all-American town named for Hill's own birthplace, the charming Philadelphia suburb of Haddonfield, New Jersey. The result is one of the scariest horror movies of the 1970s — or any decade.

Halloween went on to earn $70 million worldwide, and to spawn a film franchise totaling a lucky 13 films in all, including Halloween Ends, which Jamie Lee Curtis has promised will be the last time she plays Laurie Strode.

We'll see about that.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

In the early days of widespread internet usage, people were genuinely confused about whether The Blair Witch project was a real documentary or a found-footage fictional story. The found-footage approach to filmmaking was still fresh, which made The Blair Witch Project all the more terrifying.

Constrained by their tight budget, the filmmakers made the brilliant decision to leave a lot of things out — or to imply them. The scariest scene in The Blair Witch Project, for our money, is just a guy standing in a corner, filled with guilt and shame,

Shot in Maryland for less than $1 million, it brought in $248.6 million. The Blair Witch Project spawned multiple attempts at recapturing the dark magic of the original, but almost no film ever has.

Paranormal Activity (2007)

Another triumph of found-footage horror, Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity unfolds via stationary home video camera footage. Originally shot for $15,000, it was acquired by Paramount, which added $200,000 to the budget to heighten the scares and add a new ending.

That investment paid off: Paranormal Activity earned $194.2 million, and spawned several sequels.

You can see the influence of Paranormal Activity on a great many horror films, including the excellent recent Weapons, which features almost hypnotic Ring camera and CCTV footage of children running away... somewhere. We don't want to spoil the movie. But if you want a very scary preview, watch this.

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Main image: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Bryanston Distributing Company.

Editor's Note: Corrects spacing in Chain Saw; corrects main image.

The films catch her in all her greatness, and showcase her underrated acting skills, as well. Think we missed one? Let us know in the comments.

And now, some of our favorite Marilyn Monroe movies.

All About Eve (1950)

Marilyn Monroe, who was born Norma Jeane Mortenson in 1926, has a small but crucial role in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's brilliant showbiz satire.

Bette Davis plays a Broadway star who won't give up the spotlight, and Anne Baxter is Eve Harrington, a shrewd manipulator ready to take her place.

Monroe only appears in a couple of scenes as Claudia Casswell, but her luminescence is impossible to miss. Mankiewicz said in the 1972 book More About All About Eve that Monroe was cast because of a "a breathlessness and sort-of glued on innocence about her that I found appealing."

When the great Marilyn Monroe isn't the best part of a movie, you know you're watching a classic.

Niagara (1953)

Though Monroe would come to be known for a whispery comic persona, Niagara, one of the first films in which she was the lead, showcased her dramatic skills.

Monroe holds the camera like few performers before or since in this curious noir about a woman (Monroe) plotting to murder her husband so she can run away with her lover.

Unlike most noirs of the era, notable for slinky black and white, Niagara was shot in three-strip Technicolor. The glorious color makes Monroe's radiance pop all the more, and provides a disquieting disconnect with the dark subject matter.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)

In a very different performance than the one she delivers in Niagara, Monroe is at perhaps her most iconic: Her performance of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in an elegant pink dress has been often imitated, including by Madonna in her "Material Girl" video.

Directed by Howard Hawks, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes finds Monroe showcasing not only her comic timing, but ability to truly sell a song.

Her character, Lorelei Lee, is very stereotypical, sure. But Monroe plays her with a wink, imbuing the entire film with an added layer of wit and charm.

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Some Like It Hot is not only one of the best Marilyn Monroe movies, but one of the best films of all time.

Monroe's success onscreen often depended on her collaborators, and she was working with the best on Some Like It Hot. Billy Wilder produced, co-wrote and directed the film, and Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon starred opposite Monroe who disguise themselves as women to escape Chicago mobsters.

The juxtaposition of Monroe's inimitable feminine wiles and Curtis and Lemmon's misfired attempts at playing women raises the comic stakes considerably.

The American Film Institute ranks it as the greatest comedy movie of all time.

The Misfits (1961)

The final film that Monroe completed is also, for our money, her best.

The actress exudes decency and vulnerability in The Misfits, written by her then-husband, Arthur Miller, and directed by John Huston.

Monroe plays Roslyn Taber, a recently divorced woman who gets entangled with aging cowboy Gaylord Langland (Clark Gable), rodeo rider Perce Howland (Montgomery Clift) and mechanic Guido (Eli Wallach) while staying in Reno.

The film was not just the last one Monroe finished — she died in 1962, while working on Something's Got to Give — but also the last for Gable. (He had seen footage of the film, and agreed with people who said it was his best work.)

The Misfits was released on February 1, 1961, on what would have been Gable's 60th birthday. It was initially a box office disappointment, but soon proved to a classic. And it is monument to the talent and potential of Monroe, who was just 36 when she died.

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Cinema's obsession with time travel makes perfect sense, given that movies may be the closest most of us will ever get to it: The filmmakers of the past told stories for the audiences of the future. As the gap between creation and audience grows, so does every film's value as an artifact of its time.

As people and places disappear, films can become our best ways to remember them, and experience something like immersion in times we may remember only faintly, if at all.

So in a way, all movies are time travel movies. But the following films are explicitly about people starting in one time, and traveling to another.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)

If you think It's a Wonderful Life isn't a time travel movie, we would ask: How is it not? The dark Christmas classic from Frank Capra follows George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart at his best) revisiting his past — or rather an alternate version of his life in which he was never born.

Rather than going back and changing the past, George has to endure the present — and in doing so, shape the future. Just like all of us do every day.

As popular as the multiverse concept is today, it's notable that It's a Wonderful Life hit on it long, long ago. Credit goes to Capra and co-writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, as well as Philip Van Doren Stern, who wrote the story upon which It's a Wonderful Life was based.

The Time Machine (1960)

No discussion of time travel is complete without bowing to H.G. Wells' 1895 novel The Time Machine, one of the most influential stories of all.

George Pal's adaptation of the novel presents a two-caste future in which humans have evolved into Eloi and Morlocks. The passive, vegetarian Eloi seem to have it good: They live a pleasant, idyllic existence — above ground, no less.

It all seems very nice until we realize the Eloi (including Yvette Mimieaux as Weena, above) are basically veal for the Morlocks, the scrappy, resentful subterraneans who emerge occasionally from their caves to feed on their pampered cousins.

The Time Machine is a great time travel movie, and inspired many others on this list., sometimes quite overtly. But it's also a provocative, still-relevant piece of social commentary.

La Jetée (1962)

Chris Marker's La Jetée explains to audiences that it is "the story of a man marked by an image of his childhood" — a violent image he witnessed "sometime before the outbreak of World War III."

He comes to understand it only by experiencing it again and again, in a time loop that the short film illustrates almost entirely illustrated in still photos. His link to the past is a memory of a woman (played by Hélène Châtelain, above) he once encountered on the observation platform, or jetty, of Paris' Orly Airport.

Between its deliberate repetition, black-and-white photography and unsettling setting — we are watching the past's vision of our own possible future, which feels simultaneously dated and far beyond us — La Jetée is hypnotic.

Time After Time (1979)

Nicholas Meyers' Time After Time has one of the best setups of any film. Pointedly inspired by The Time Machine, it begins in Victorian London, where Jack the Ripper (aka Dr. John Leslie Stevenson, played by David Warner) has just struck again.

He joins a gathering at the home of his friend H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell), who unveils a time machine he's a bit apprehensive about using.

When the police close in, Stevenson flees to the future in the time machine — and H.G. follows him. They end up in 1979 San Francisco, where fish-out-of-water Stevenson adapts swimmingly to the violence of the (then) modern age, while gentle H.G. tries to stop him from killing again.

He's aided by bank employee Amy (Mary Steenburgen), who becomes Jack's target. Things build to kind of a disappointing climax, but there's so much thoughtfulness and delight along the way that it's silly to linger on it.

And in a sweet behind-the-scenes ending, Steenburgen and McDowell fell in love and were married for a decade.

The Terminator (1984)

When the low-budget Terminator emerged in 1984, some people dismissed it as a dumb, violent shoot-'em-up about a killer robot.

While it's undeniably one of the best killer robot movies ever made, it also offers one of the coolest takes on how time travel works.

In the world of The Terminator, time travel is like an inevitable loop that transgresses calendar years: Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) is sent back in time to save Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) so she can give birth to her son John, the savior of humankind in a dark, robot-infested future. But he also ends up fathering John — who, in turn, is the one who sends him back in time.

Brilliant.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Yes, we're going with two Terminator movies, because the inevitable-loop concept ramps up to another level when we learn in T2 that the arrival of Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800 in the first Terminator was the cause of the Judgment Day that sparks the A.I. takeover.

In short, the last remaining piece of technology from the T-800's final battle against Sarah and John becomes crucial to Cyberdyne, the company that creates SkyNet, which quickly makes things very tough for humanity.

The past creates the future which creates the past which creates the future. At least, that's how it goes in The Terminator.

The next time travel movie on our list has a different theory about it all works.

Back to the Future (1985)

One of the most flat-out entertaining movies ever, Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future embraces the geekiness of time travel and makes it as goofily cool as possible — while grounding everything in a very human story.

1980s teen Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels back to the 1950s thanks to a time traveling DeLorean built by his mentor, Doc Brown (Christopher LLoyd). But upon arrival, Marty prevents a crucial meeting of his young parents (Crispin Glover and Lea Thompson).

Worse, his mom develops a crush on him — which is a huge problem for many reasons. But it's arguably most troubling because in the Back to the Future school of time travel, nothing is inevitable, even Marty's existence. If he can't get his parents together, he and his siblings will never be born.

Things get more complicated (and occasionally even more fun) in Back to the Future 2, in which Marty is propelled into the future, and back to the past — and has to avoid running into himself. And Back to the Future 3 goes for pure Western thrills.

Diehard fans of time travel movies will note that in the latter, Mary Steenbergen plays a character in a similar situation to the one her character faced in the aforementioned Time After Time.

Groundhog Day (1993)

Harold Ramis' masterpiece stars his Ghostbusters castmate Bill Murray as a weatherman cursed to repeat the same holiday again and again. It enlivened the time travel movie genre and popularized the time-loop format. It's also another of the best movies ever made.

Screenwriter Danny Rubin, who was steeped in Anne Rice's vampire novels, became interested in the idea of immortality, and of repeating the same day over and over again. He and Ramis turned his original script into a meditation on life itself, and how all of us have the choice, each time the alarm goes off, to make each day a grinding re-enactment of the one before, or to take it in an entirely new direction.

Assemble enough of those decisions together, and you've completed a lifetime.

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

In the first Austin Powers film, 1997's Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Mike Myers' swinging '60s spy is frozen in 1967 and thawed out in the '90s.

In the sequel, Austin must travel back — this time to 1969 — to match wits with Dr. Evil (also Myers) who has stolen Austin's mojo. The ramifications of crossing paths with his (frozen) past self causes Austin to go cross-eyed — but the wise Basil Exposition gives him some advice.

"I suggest you don't worry about this sort of thing and just enjoy yourself," he says.

Then he and Myers turn smilingly to the audience, as Basil adds, "That goes for you all, too."

Thus freed from thinking about the space-time continuum, we're able to just enjoy Austin returning to the past to dance and fight alongside Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham.)

Midnight in Paris (2011)

Woody Allen's beguiling Midnight in Paris skips any concern about how time travel works in favor of charm. Owen Wilson's character, who is having trouble with his fiancée (Rachel McAdams), travels back in time simply by stepping inside a 1920s car each night at midnight.

It transports him to glorious 1920s Paris, where he mingles with the likes of Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll), F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston), Zelda Fitzgerald (Alison Pill), Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody) and Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates). He also becomes captivated by Adriana, Picasso's mistress, played by Marion Cotillard.

Instead of a new take on how time travel works, Midnight in Paris lays out a universal truth: Some people will always prefer to live in the past.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

This Tom Cruise-Emily Blunt gem takes the Groundhog Day concept into the realm of action and sci-fi. But it's also funny, in a different way than Groundhog Day.

Cruise plays against type as a man who, like Murray in Groundhog Day, must re-live the same day again and again. But Cruise, known for playing ultra-competent heroes like Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible films and Pete "Maverick" Mitchell in Top Gun, goes against type by portraying a bit of a bumbler.

He's a PR man who dies in a series of darkly amusing ways under the tutelage of Blunt's experienced super soldier, Sergeant Rita Vrataski.

The film was a box office disappointment, but has gained much respect since its initial release. Based on the Hiroshi Sakurazaka novel All You Need Is Kill, it was almost given director Doug Liman's preferred title, Live Die Repeat, which became the film's tagline.

Spoiler Warning: The next and final film on this list isn't obviously a time travel movie until its incredible ending.

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Like we said, the presence of this film on this list is a spoiler — we're sorry. Then again, the original Planet of the Apes has been out for 57 years, so you've had time to see it.

What's coolest about Planet of the Apes is that for almost its entire running time, you don't realize you're watching a time travel movie. It just seems like a nightmarish sci-fi film in which a trio of astronauts led by Charlton Heston's George Taylor crash-land on a planet ruled by apes. They treat humans — including Nova (Linda Harrison) — like animals.

Then we get to one of the greatest movie twist endings of all time, and realize the astronauts never left the planet earth.

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Main image: A publicity still from Planet of the Apes. 20th Century Fox.

Here are 12 examples.

Think we missed one? Let us know in the comments.

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

If you're saying "Breakfast at Tiffany's?," yes: Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Though the film glosses over the rougher elements of Truman Capote's novella, it makes clear that Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn), an enduring symbol of glamour and elegance, is doing sneaky things on the side.

Capote said that Holly Golightly was not "precisely" a sex worker, but was more like an "American geisha": "She had no job but accompanied expense-account men to the best restaurants and night clubs, with the understanding that her escort was obligated to give her some sort of gift, perhaps jewelry or a check ... if she felt like it, she might take her escort home for the night."

At one point she explains that "any gentleman with the slightest chic will give a girl a $50 bill for the powder room."

Never on Sunday (1960)

This Greek film stars Melina Mercouri as Ilya, a free-spirited woman of the night who finds her way of life challenged by classical scholar Homer (Jules Dassin, who also wrote and directed the film). He tries to steer her toward his version of morality as she tries to loosen him up.

Oh, and that thing she never does on Sunday?

You guessed it.

Irma la Douce (1963)

The Apartment stars Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, director Billy Wilder and screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond reunited for this farcical rom-com in which Lemmon plays a policeman who becomes infatuated with lovable lady of the evening Irma (MacLaine), and resolves to rescue her via a comedically complex series of misrepresentations.

The film goes for laughs more than The Apartment, a classic that explored some similar themes.

Belle de Jour (1967)

This French romantic drama stars the impossibly glamorous Catherine Deneuve as Séverine, a married woman who begins working at a high-class brothel to investigate her own curiosity.

After initial reluctance, she begins to find excitement and thrills in her new life, and even her relationship with her husband improves.

This being a movie made in 1967, of course bad things happen — but not necessarily because of her new line of work. Problems arise when Marcel (Pierre Clémenti), with whom she initially has an exciting affair, turns jealous and violent.

The Happy H--ker (1975)

The title says it all. Based on Xaviera Hollander's bestselling memoir, this comedy stars Lynn Redgrave as a worker in the Dutch consulate who quits to pursue a much more lucrative line of work.

New York Times critic Vincent Canby called it "a cheerfully amoral New York comedy about greed and lust in the land of opportunity" and "a witty work."

The lead character runs into lots of problems, sure, but she charms her way out of all of them. The film spawned two sequels.

Night Shift (1982)

Night Shift is another movie that uses prostitution as a metaphor for capitalism, this Ron Howard comedy features Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton as Chuck and Bill, two likable New York City morgue workers. But they're soon turned on to exciting new opportunities by Belinda (Shelly Long), Chuck's prostitute neighbor. Soon they've turned the morgue into a party pad/brothel.

The movie presents sex work as a good arrangement for everyone — until cops and rival pimps take offense. And Shelly doesn't want to quit her job, and points out to Chuck that being a pimp is in no way superior to being a sex worker.

The film also makes the case that there's nothing innately wrong with sex work — it's the cops and violence that are the problem. Which brings us to the convenient solution in the next film on our list.

The Best Little Wh-rehouse in Texas (1982)

This very sex-positive Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton film portrays an idyllic relationship between a madame (Dolly Parton) and sheriff (Burt Reynolds.)

He allows her business to flourish, seeing her version of sex work as a victimless crime. Things only get messy when some local do-gooding opportunists start protesting.

The film offers a version of sex work in which police would protect, rather than prosecute, sex workers, who would control their own fates. That's pretty forward-thinking for 1982.

Trading Places (1983)

Jamie Lee Curtis' sex worker character, Ophelia, is maybe the most likable character in Trading Places, a rags-to-riches/riches-to-rags comedy based on Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.

Though the film pulls no punches about the rough life led by Ophelia, it ultimately presents an optimistic vision of the world — like that of Pretty Woman — in which a random encounter on the mean streets can eventually lead to a life of luxury.

By the end of the movie, Ophelia is living the good life in a tropical paradise with Louis (Dan Aykroyd) and Billy Ray (Eddie Murphy).

Doctor Detroit (1983)

Doctor Detroit is Dan Aykroyd's other 1983 movie that prominently features the world's oldest profession.

Dan Aykroyd plays a nerdy professor who, through a comedic chain of events, replaces Howard Hessman's pimp character, to the delight of his glamorous employees.

Soon he adopts the persona of a metal-fisted weirdo named Doctor Detroit who will do anything to protect the ladies — and even leads them in a show-stopping dance number with James Brown.

One of the ladies is played by Donna Dixon (to the right of Aykroyd, above). After she and Aykroyd met onset, they were married for decades. But in the movie, Aykroyd's character marries another of the women in his crew, played by Fran Drescher.

Risky Business (1983)

A great capitalism-metaphor movie, Risky Business suggests that the wholesome-looking Lana (Rebecca De Mornay) is very much in control of her destiny, and even has real feelings for her young client, Joel (Tom Cruise, not a bad-looking guy) — with whom she starts a pop-up brothel.

Of course, it's complicated. Though initially presented as an object of desire, Lana is a compelling and very smart character.

"I wanted to maintain her dignity, regardless if she’s having sex for money," De Mornay said in a recent interview with TheWrap. "She maintained some source of integrity and soul... I wanted to present the underdog who was reduced to having to be a prostitute, exploited in our capitalist system, trying to get by as best she could without the cushion of having a family of money and connections.”

If you just remember Risky Business for Tom Cruise dancing to Bob Seger in his underwear, you might want to give it a second watch. It's an excellent movie.

Pretty Woman (1990)

No movie sugarcoats the realities of sex work more than Pretty Woman, in which Julia Robert's lovable Vivian is rescued from a street corner by the very wealthy Edward (Richard Gere) for a few days of no-strings-attached fun that of course turn into a life-changing love affair for both of them.

Obviously, that's not how it always works out. Even the writer of the movie, J.F. Lawton, had planned for it to be a much grittier story before director Garry Marshall gave it a Disney makeover. (The original version was called $3,000, which is of course the amount Edward offers to pay Viv for her company for the week.)

“There are no Vivians,” Marian Hatcher, a sex-trafficking survivor who now works at the Cook County Sheriff's Office, told Time. “There are no women who are being rescued by a Prince Charming like Richard Gere."

True Romance (1993)

We love True Romance, written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott, but at least one element of it is pure Hollywood fantasy: After just four days on the job, Alabama (Patricia Arquette) meets and falls in love with her third customer, the sweet and handsome Clarence (Christian Slater).

Better still, an apparition of Elvis Presley (Val Kilmer) appears — and instructs Clarence to go confront Alabama's evil, racially confused pimp (Gary Oldman) — and Clarence ends up killing him. Thus begins a true romance.

Is this the most realistic movie? Maybe not, but we're truly in love with it.

Liked This List of Movies About the World's Oldest Profession That Sugarcoat Things Quite a Bit?

You might also like this list of movies about the world's oldest profession that don't sugarcoat things.

You might also like this wholesome gallery of Rad '80s Movies That Only Cool Kids Remember.

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Main image: Risky Business.

Editor's Note: Corrects main image, adds photo credits.

These aren't the highest-grossing comedy movies — but they are some of the comedies that got the best return on investment, turning small budgets into huge returns.

Here we go.

Pink Flamingos (1972)

John Waters' second film is an uproarious cult-classic celebration of all things trash, and opened the door to more Waters' cult camp classics.

Made for a mere $12,000, it earned at least $2 million, though some estimates place its earnings much higher.

It was followed by two more films in what Waters calls his Trash Trilogy: 1974's Female Trouble and 1977's Desperate Living.

American Graffiti (1973)

Made for only $770,000, George Lucas' American Graffiti made $140 million — more than 100 times its budget — and also earned five Oscar nominations.

Playing on audiences' nostalgia, and benefitting from the charisma of then-young actors Ron Howard, Harrison Ford, and Cindy Williams — as well as one of the best movie soundtracks ever — the film tapped into Lucas' teenage years racing cars in Modesto, California.

The success of American Graffiti cleared the way for Lucas to make another hit movie you may have heard of.

Blazing Saddles (1974)

Mel Brooks' classic Western sendup arrived when his career was in a bit of a lull. He wrote in his 2020 memoir All About Me! that the two movies he made before Blazing Saddes, The Producers and The Twelve Chairs, "together didn’t make me enough money to buy a new car.”

But he could buy plenty of cars after 1974. Not only did Blazing Saddles earn roughly $120 million on a budget of less than $3 million, but he scored again that year with Young Frankenstein, which was only slightly less successful than Blazing Saddles.

Blazing Saddles was not just a box office hit, but a creative success: AFI named it the sixth-funniest comedy of all time.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

Made for about $1.4 million, and based on Richard O'Brien's hit stage musical, The Rocky Horror Picture Show was a bomb upon release.

But then a 20th Century Fox executive hit on an interesting notion — why not release the oddball musical horror comedy in midnight screenings?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show went on to become the longest-running theatrical release in history, as Richard O'Brien's son, Linus O'Brien, recounts in the excellent new documentary Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show celebrated its 50th anniversary last month, still plays across the world, and has earned more than $166 million and counting.

Airplane (1980)

Following the explosive success of The Kentucky Fried Movie, which they wrote, the comedy trio of David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker insisted on directing their next film — and the result was one of the funniest movies ever made. (AFI placed it 10th on its list of funniest comedy movies, behind Blazing Saddles, among others.)

Airplane! was made for under $4 million, and went on to make $171 million, including in re-release.

The ZAZ team proved they could make hits, and went on to create the Naked Gun franchise, among other successes. They're responsible for not only some of the most profitable comedies, but some of the best, and few can match their output.

Porky's (1982)

One of those '80s comedies that just doesn't care who it offends, Porky's was a massive hit for genre-hopping director Bob Clark, whose very diverse resume also includes Black Christmas, A Christmas Story, and Baby Geniuses.

Made for under $5 million, Porky's earned an astonishing $160 million at the box office, and was the sixth-highest-grossing film of 1982.

It's no surprise it pigged out with two sequels.

Crocodile Dundee (1986)

Prior to the smashing success of Crocodile Dundee, star and co-writer Paul Hogan was mostly unknown to American audiences who hadn't seen his Benny Hill-esque The Paul Hogan Show.

But Hogan was suddenly everywhere in 1986 thanks to his tightly budgeted story of an Outback adventurer who is transferred to New York City, where he delivers the soon-to-be-unforgettable line, "That's not a knife — that's a knife."

The film earned a whopping $328 million on a budget of under $9 million. That's a hit.

The Full Monty (1997)

One of the UK's most profitable comedies, The Full Monty is the story of six unemployed men — four of them ex-steelworkers — who decide to form a Chippendale's-style act to make money.

They don't make as much as the movie did — on a $3.5 million budget, it scored a formidable $258 million.

A critical as well as box-office success, it was the highest-grossing film in the UK until it was replaced by another 1997 film, Titanic.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002)

Perhaps the most profitable comedy of all time, and one of the greatest indie success stories ever, My Big Fat Greek Wedding was written by star Nia Vardalos and made for $5 million. It went on to earn a big fat $369 million, an astonishing return by any measure.

It was also a critical hit, and earned Vardolos and Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

The IFC Films release unsurprisingly spawned two sequels and a sitcom, and became the model for countless indie rom-coms to come, none of which have matched its success.

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Jared Hess shot the wonderfully off-kilter Napoleon Dynamite in his native Idaho for a mere $400,000, and cast his college buddy Jon Heder in the lead. It went on to make $46.1 million worldwide, and many fans are still rocking "Vote for Pedro" shirts or talking about how their lips are chapped real bad.

The film thrived on its dry aesthetics and fantastic performances by mostly talented unknowns, becoming one of the most profitable comedies ever — and one of the most endearing.

And Hess is still making huge hits — albeit with bigger budgets. His latest, the videogame adaptation A Minecraft Movie, has earned nearly a billion dollars on a $150 million budget. That's very impressive, even if Napoleon Dynamite had an even better ROI.

Juno (2007)

Before Juno, unwanted teen pregnancies were usually the stuff of dramas and after school specials.

But screenwriter Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman managed a mix of drama, comedy, and heart that resonated with audiences and earned more than $230 million on a budget of less than $8 million.

The film's success was especially gratifying because Cody had feared that its subject matter and frankness would prevent it from ever being released. Many distributors did indeed balk at Juno before Fox Searchlight took a risk, which paid off handsomely.

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Main image: Crocodile Dundee. Paramount.

For our money, it's one of the following — presented in no particular order. And if you disagree, please let us know in the comments.

Let's fly.

The Dark Knight (2008)

This is the most obvious choice — a jittery, chilling morality play in which everyone does everything right, anchored by Christian Bale as the best Batman and Heath Ledger in an Oscar-winning role as one of the best-ever screen villains, a mastermind posing as a clown.

One could argue this doesn't belong on a list of superhero movies, since no one has super powers... but that's part of what we love about The Dark Knight.

It's a very street-level superhero movie, where the stakes feel real and the risks palpable.

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) learns that with great power comes not just great responsibility, but great sacrifice, as he realizes that his role as Spider-Man endangers the love of his life, Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst).

Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) is one of the all-time best spider villains, and the highlight of the whole film comes in a truly marvelous sequence in which New York City saves Spidey, for a change. The most romantic of all superhero movies, except for the last one on our list.

Sony made an inspired choice when they hired Sam Raimi to direct the first Spider-Man movies, and he nailed it — he brought the very Peter Parkeresque scrappiness of his Evil Dead franchise to an at-the-time unproven property, recognizing that Spider-Man is as much about heart as heroics. And sometimes heart and heroics are the same thing.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

After an astonishing opening that promises anything could happen, Infinity War invests in character development as much as action before ending on a cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers.

Its sequel, Avengers: Endgame, not only resolves that cliffhanger but also pays off more than a decade of Marvel superhero movie storylines.

Watching Infinity War and Endgame back to back, it's hard not to feel like you're revisiting the high water mark of the MCU. Hopefully Kevin Feige and company can recapture the greatness of the late 2010s with Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, which will bring back some of our old favorites.

X2: X-Men United (2003)

2003’s X-Men 2 far improves on the original from the first scene: It starts with Nightcrawler (Alan Cumming) operatically invading the Oval Office, and never slows.

The fight between Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Lady Deathstryke (Kelly Hu) feels far more grounded and high-stakes than terrible CGI fights that would ruin so many superhero movies in the years to come, and Brian Cox is menacingly flawless as Col. William Stryker, a very believable nemesis to our favorite band of mutants.

Fox seemed timid about the first X-Men, since superhero movies seemed a little niche at the time of its release. But X2 stays truer to the Chris Claremont X-Men comics, and soars as a result.

And we're thrilled that Cumming will be back as Nightcrawler in Avengers: Doomsday.

Logan (2017)

A break-all-the-rules story of sacrifice, loss, and one loner's struggle to get through centuries on this planet doing more good than harm.

Director James Mangold proved once and for all that comic book movies aren't just for kids with a metaphorical story of aging as gracefully as you can.

Mangold returned to the theme of an aging action hero in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. But honestly, we prefer Logan.

Black Panther (2018)

The world-building is stellar and acting top-notch throughout. Michael B. Jordan plays perhaps the MCU's best villain ever, and Chadwick Boseman delivered a beautiful turn as a king torn between his people and the people of the world in this Best Picture nominee from Ryan Coogler.

It's kind of stunning that both Black Panther and Infinity War were released just months apart — 2018 was quite a year for Marvel, and superhero movies in general.

And that's before we even get to the next super movie on our list.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse (2018)

Breaking with every kind of staid tradition, this boldly experimental, utterly gorgeous animated film is a loving, awe-inspiring homage to decades of Spider-mythology and an optimistic look ahead at what comic book movies — and their young fans — can aspire to be.

It's incredible how many spider friends — and villains — the movie fits in, making it all look effortless. It's a movie you can watch dozens of times, catching something new on each viewing.

We just wish its often-fantastic sequel, Across the Spider-Verse, hadn't ended on such a tough cliffhanger.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

A fairly faithful screen adaptation of one of Christopher Claremont's most iconic storylines from the comics, though it puts Logan (Hugh Jackman) center stage instead of Kitty Pryde and ambitiously melds the X-Men movies of the 2000s and their prequels of the 2010s.

Long before the many movie metaverses made time travel or alternate realities feel exhausting, this X-Men film had what was then a fresh and thrilling take.

Blade (1998)

Blade isn't perfect, but it expanded everyone's idea of what a superhero movie could be by pulling from one of Marvel's lesser-known heroes: a vampire hunter who wears a leather jacket instead of a cape or tights.

Blade opened the door to the reality that Marvel could have as much or even more success with its second-tier or forgotten characters, like Ant-Man or the Guardians of the Galaxy, than it could with heroes we had seen onscreen before.

And of course Wesley Snipes is awesome in the lead role, and delivers the classic line, Some mother----er's are always trying to ice skate uphill."

The Incredibles (2004)

Pixar's The Incredibles is both a great family superhero movie and a dark deconstruction of superhero tropes — note that Mr. Incredible bails out on the business because of legal threats, not because of bad guys.

The animation is groundbreaking and stellar, combining dynamic character design with Art Deco touches that harken back to the days of Batman and Superman. It's funny, it's sweeping, it's curiously dark. The grainy black-and-white rescue segment takes it to a daring new level. It's a super movie in every way.

Superman (1978)

The film that started it all. Its earnestness and total reliance on practical effects — as well as stellar performances and moving love story between Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) and Supes make it feel more charming and inspiring with each passing year.

Christopher Reeve will always be our Superman, and, as we mentioned, it's the most romantic superhero movie.

We have high hopes for the upcoming James Gunn take on Superman — and are especially excited to meet Krypto, Superman's dog.

Superman (2025)

While the original Superman made us believe a man can fly, James Gunn's version brings him back to earth.

For decades, the knock on Superman as a character was that he was just too powerful, which makes him hard to root for. But Gunn focuses on his outsider status — he's an alien after all — and imagines him as a person desperately trying to assimilate into a society he loves, where many people wish he would just go away.

The movie also makes the most straitlaced of all superheroes the most punk rock, by imbuing him with a radical hope.

And we love his dog.

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Main image: X-Men. 20th Century Fox.

Here are 13 classic cars that turned up in classic movies.

How do we define classic? It's in the eye of the beholder. So if you think we missed anything, let us know in the comments. Many drivers of these beautiful cars ask their mechanic, "how much do brake pads cost to install?”.

The 1963 Aston Martin DB5 in Goldfinger

Let's start with perhaps the most iconic of all classic cars in film: The modified Aston Martin DB5 that James Bond (Sean Connery) first drove in 1964's Goldfinger. What was modified? Well, for one thing, the original DB5 didn't include a Browning .30 caliber machine gun in each fender or wheel-hub mounted tire-slashers.

A fully restored Goldfinger Aston Martin DB5 sold for $6.4 million in 2019, and auction house RM Sotheby's said it included such features as "hydraulic over-rider rams on the bumpers, a Browning .30 caliber machine gun in each fender, wheel-hub mounted tire-slashers, a raising rear bullet-proof screen, an in-dash radar tracking scope, oil, caltrop and smoke screen dispensers, revolving license plates, and a passenger-seat ejection system."

And yes, Sotheby's guaranteed "all gadgets in fully functioning order."

The Lamborghini Miura in The Italian Job

In a joyous moment for fans of classic cars — and classic movies — Lamborghini announced in 2019 that the Miura featured in the opening of the The Italian Job, with chassis #3586, had been rediscovered.

Lamborghini said that collector Fritz Kaiser, from Liechtenstein, purchased the long-missing car in 2018, and that Lamborghini's restoration program, called Polo Storico, soon went to work bringing it back to its former glory.

The 1966 Alfa Romeo 1600 Duetto Spider in The Graduate

The 1966 Alfa Romeo 1600 Duetto Spider was already a classic by the release of The Graduate in 1967.

Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) had the perfect convertible for squiring his girlfriend (Katherine Ross) around town.

And he could simply put the top up when sneaking around with her mom, played by Anne Bankroft.

The 1958 Chevrolet Impala in American Grafitti

American Grafitti is full of jaw-droppingly beautiful classic cars, but for our money the prettiest of them all was the 1958 Chevrolet Impala driven by Steve Bolander (Ron Howard).

It left the street racing to others.

The film also made clear that the love of spaceships George Lucas displayed in the Star Wars saga was rooted in his years growing up as a gearhead in Modesto, California. It's maybe the most car-obsessed of all classic movies of the 1970s.

The 1958 Plymouth Fury in Christine

1958 was an awfully good year for beautiful cars, wan't it? John Carpenter''s 1983 Stephen King adaptation Christine — based on the novel of the same name, which came out the same year — cobbled together a lot of cars to make the killer car used in the film.

Christine killed a lot of people, sure, but always looked very pretty doing so, and beautiful cars can get away with anything.

You can debate which of the classic cars on this list is the most beautiful, but there's no question that Christine is the deadliest.

The 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429 in John Wick

Speaking of killer cars: A chance encounter between John Wick (Keanu Reeves) and a mobster's son who admires Wick's 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429 ends up getting a whole lot of people killed.

Also: The car used in John Wick isn't a real Boss 429. It's another type of car that will also turn up later on this list, albeit for a different year.

Does John Wick belong on a list of classic movies? Yes.

The Modena GT Spyder in Ferris Bueller's Day Off

That beautiful vintage "Ferrari" that gets taken out for a joyride and destroyed in Ferris Bueller's Day Off wasn't really a Ferrari. The movie used three 1985 Modena GT Spyders, built by Modena Design and Development in California.

Why didn't the film use a real Ferrari? Because reportedly, only 56 of the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California purportedly featured in the film were ever made. Destroying one would have been absurdly expensive, and a crime against classic cars.

The Tucker 48 in Tucker a Man and His Dream

Released 40 years after the unveiling of the Tucker sedan, the largely forgotten 1988 Francis Ford Coppola drama Tucker: A Man and His Dream belongs on any list of classic movies that favors quality over popularity.

Tucker told the true story of attempts by the forward-thinking Preston Tucker (Jeff Bridges) to independently make a revolutionary lines of safe, easy to repair, and — obviously — beautiful cars. Get expert Porsche repair Portland at Trafton’s Foreign Auto, where performance, quality, and customer satisfaction come first.

Unfortunately, the Big 3 automakers and Tucker's own shortsighted board of directors foil his dream of futuristic, beautiful cars, and only about 50 Tucker 48 automobiles were ever built. But the film at least renewed interest and appreciation in one of the most gorgeous cars of all time.

Coppola had long been fascinated by Tucker's tale — and perhaps saw parallels with his own struggle to make new and beautiful things within the studio system. (The Godfather director's company, American Zoetrope, had recently filed for bankruptcy after a string of failures.) — But Coppola's friend George Lucas urged him to tell Tucker's story, and became an executive producer of Tucker: The Man and His Dream.

The film was a box-office disappointment, but, like the Tucker, has many admirers all these decades later.

The 1928 Rolls-Royce Phantom I in The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby describes Jay Gatsby's car as having a "rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns." Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory, we started to town."

The book was written in 1925, but the 1974 Robert Redford film came close enough with a gorgeous Rolls-Royce Phantom I built in Springfield, Massachusetts, once a hub of Rolls-Royce manufacturing.

The 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback in Bulitt

No list of classic cars in movies would be complete without the most iconic car in film (with the possible exception of James Bond's Aston Martin): the 1968 Ford Mustang fastback in brooding green, driven very fast and well through the dizzying streets of San Francisco by Steve McQueen in Bullitt.

The film has a long, storied history: One of the two cars used in the film spend years in a Mexican junkyard, and the other was recently sold to a mystery buyer for $3.74 million.

The 1970 Chevy Nova in Death Proof

Death Proof is Quentin Tarantino's homage to grindhouse carsploitation classics of the 1970s, and features a serial killer named Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) who has modified his 1970 into a killing machine that is "death proof" for the person behind the wheel. Mike gets a thrill from killing women behind the wheel.

His Nova had the license plate JJZ-109, an homage to Steve McQueen's 1968 Ford Mustang GT fastback in Bulitt. The film, which Tarantino has called his worst (though in his defense, it's supposed to be trashy fun, and delivers) featured four Novas behind the scenes. To make the car look even meaner under the hood, the Death Proof team reportedly upgraded the Nova's 350 cubic inch V8 engine by adding a TH350 transmission, 650 Edelbrock carburetor, and shocks with a JAZ 12-gallon fuel cell.

As lovingly, horrifically shot in Death Proof, the Nova is one of the most menacing and beautiful classic cars of all.

The 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1 in Death Proof

Mary Elizabeth Winsted in Death Proof. Miramax

The car driven by Stuntman Mike's quarry isn't so bad, either: The black-and-yellow Ford Mustang is very similar to the vehicles used in Alexandre Aja's High Tension, and as "Eleanor" in the 1974 Gone in 60 Seconds.

If you want any more movie references, it also matches the colors in The Bride's signature yellow and black in Tarantino's Kill Bill. Her yellow-and-black jumpsuit in Kill Bill is based on the ski suit worn by Bruce Lee in Game of Death, purchased for him by Rosemary's Baby director Roman Polanski on a trip to Gstaad, Switzerland. And to get even more referential, the hero of Death Proof is Zoë  Bell, Uma Thurman's stuntwoman in Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2.

Also: John Wick's Boss 429 was actually a Mach 1, securing its reputation as one of the most beautiful classic cars in classic movies. Look, we obviously have a weakness for Mustangs.

And if you don't think Death Proof belongs on a list of classic movies... maybe watch it again?

Eleanor in Gone in Sixty Seconds

Speaking of Eleanor, here's the 1971 Ford Mustang Sportsroof featured in the 1974 film Gone in 60 Seconds — which was redressed as a 1973 Mustang. "Eleanor" was the code name for four different cars used in the beloved H.B. Halicki film, about an insurance investigator who steals cars on the side.

Gone in 60 Seconds was also a triumph of indie filmmaking: Halicki shot it for a reported $150,000, and it went on to make $40 million — enough to buy a lot of classic cars and secure it a place on any list of classic movies.

Liked Our List of 13 Classic Cars in Classic Movies?

You might also enjoy this list of Movie Motorcycles to Make Your Heart Go Vroom.

It has plenty of classic bikes, and of course classic movies.

Main image: A publicity image of Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Death Proof. Miramax.

We aren't just talking about movies in which someone is seduced. There are lots and lots of movies about seduction that are not, in themselves, seductive. A seductive movie is subtle.

Seductive movies draw you in like a warm bath... then changes the temperature. By the times it's gotten too hot (or too cold) you're in, and find yourself unable to get out. The movie has seduced you.

Some of these movies are about seduction, sure. But some aren't. You'll see what we mean in this list of the most seductive movies we've ever seen.

Double Indemnity (1944)

The most seductive movie ever made about insurance, Double Indemnity starts absolutely cracking from the moment Fred MacMurray queries Barbara Stanwyck about her anklet — and gets a lecture about local traffic laws.

It's one of those magical moments where one characters seduces another and the movie seduces its audience. We wonder if anyone wonders if he'd do anything for her after that point.

Notorious (1946)

One of Alfred Hitchcock's best (and shortest) films, Notorious is the story of Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), the daughter of a German spy. When American agent Devlin (Cary Grant) asks her to go undercover, he — and we — must constantly question her loyalties.

What makes the movie so seductive is that all the plot machinations depend on Alicia's character, and Hitchcock and Bergman don't make her easy to love. Which only makes us love her more, and terrified of the heartbreak that feels inevitable.

Start watching Notorious and you won't leave it until it leaves you.

Contempt (1963)

Contempt is about seduction, but also about falling out of love. Its visuals, and especially its music, are so engrossing that it's a very hard movie to stop watching once you've started.

Paul Javal (Michel Piccoli) is invited by a swaggering American movie producer Jeremiah Prokosch (Jack Palance) to write a new adaptation of the Odyssey for a German director (Fritz Lang, playing himself).

But Prokosch has his eye on Javal's stunning wife, Camille (Brigitte Bardot), who is quickly losing interest in her husband. Georges Delerue's "Theme de Camille" is so passionate and engrossing that Martin Scorsese used it in Casino, where it provides a kind of cinematic shorthand for the crumbling marriage of Robert De Niro's Sam "Ace" Rothstein and his wife, Ginger (Sharon Stone).

American Gigolo (1980)

Richard Gere's Julian is undoubtedly seductive — he's the gigolo of the title, after all — but what's even more seductive is the movie's bracing, early '80s SoCal aesthetic. Giorgio Moroder's score tells us to unclutch our pearls and get with the program as writer-director Paul Schrader masterfully speeds us through the moral desert.

The movie hooks us completely, makes us question all our loyalties, shames us, and then turns all sincere at the end. Or is it just another of Julian's lines?

In the Mood for Love (2000)

One of the most gorgeously shot movies ever made, Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love isn't so much a love story as an out-of-love story between two people — played by Tony Leung and (Maggie Cheung — who realize their spouses are having an affair.

The setting alone — 1962 Hong Kong — feels impossibly romantic. And the melancholic misery of the leads is strangely intoxicating.

Lost in Translation (2003)

Sofia Coppola's hypnotic Lost in Translation should not work. Very little happens, the plot is slight, and even the instigating incident — the first meeting of Scarlett Johansson's Charlotte and Bill Murray's Bob — is murky. (Do they first meet in the bar? Or the elevator? They aren't sure.) Also, are we really supposed to sympathize with two people who can't find anything to do while staying in a luxury hotel in magical Tokyo?

And yet it all works. Every tiny gesture takes on heartstopping importance, and the exquisite soundtrack imbues every moment with hope, passion or loss, often all at the same time. What feels like a seduction story turns out to be a much better story about the small comfort of friendship in a foreign land. You're overwhelmed with feeling at the end, even wondering what just happened.

It's not only on this list of the most seductive movies we've seen, but is also on our list of Excellent Movies Where Not Much Happens.

Match Point (2005)

A Woody Allen movie that feels different from every other Woody Allen movie, Match Point invites you to embrace the coolly amoral worldview of its protagonist, Chris (Jonathan Rhys Myers), an ex-tennis pro who marries into a wealthy family but finds his new status threatened by an affair with his brother-in-law's girlfriend, Nola (Scarlett Johansson, who had had an excellent run of seductive movies about seduction).

You feel every temptation Chris does, even as you know he's objectively wrong. And knowing all the things you know about Allen, you wonder if Chris' worldview in any way reflects the filmmakers, especially since Allen is too great a director to let you off the hook with cheap moralizing.

Last Days of Disco (1998)

During the difficult shoot for his excellent 1994 film Barcelona, director Whit Stillman found rare joy in a scene of young women dancing at a disco, and wondered: Why can't this be a whole movie?

The result was Last Days of Disco, which turns out to be about much more. It's about the dance between dreams and commerce, who you want to date versus who you do, and what kind of dog you want to be.

The totally beguiling cast (let by Chloe Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale and the wildly underrated Chris Eigeman) are transfixing, and the soundtrack is as pleasing to the ear as Whitman's pitch-perfect dialogue.

Red Rocket (2021)

The sad, seedy, very funny story of Mikey Sabre, a man on the outs from the adult entertainment industry who sees a 17-year-old named Strawberry (Suzannah Son, actually 26) as his ticket back in.

While Mikey tries to win over Strawberry, director Sean Baker's stellar DIY filmmaking wins us over, too. We know that since Mikey is the boyishly handsome lead character of the movie, facing incredible odds, we're supposed to root for him. Can he be redeemed?

We slowly realize that almost any outcome is going to be incredibly destructive for someone... but by then Red Rocket has hooked us.

The Worst Person in the World (2021)

What seems like a story of Millennial malaise turns into a Gen X reckoning in this at-first apparently confectionary story of a talented by adrift young woman named Julie (Renate Reinsve, excellent) who suddenly finds herself very much over her head.

It's a sheer pleasure, until it becomes something much deeper — and director Joachim Trier and his co-writer, Eskil Vogt, have a light, deft hand in navigating a very surprising journey.

Hit Man (2024)

Director Richard Linklater does romance better than almost anyone — watch Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and/or Before Midnight. And Glen Powell is wildly adept at leading-man charm. They combine their talents as co-writers of this Netflix knockout, based on the true story of Gary Johnson, a professor who moonlights as a fake hit man to help cops catch people looking to have someone killed.

Gary's job is seducing people into thinking he's a real hit man — so cops can catch them on tape. It's all fun and games until he meets Maddy (Ariana Arjona), a woman who wants her controlling husband dead. Soon he's the one being seduced.

And so are we. The movie is relentlessly charming and agreeable, always staying a step or two ahead of us. It has the remarkable quality of being totally escapist and deeply philosophical.

Wild Things (1998)

We love the unrelenting, unapologetic pulpiness of Wild Things, about two high schoolers (Neve Campbell and Denise Richards, above) who accuse a teacher (Matt Dillon) of graphic misconduct — but only as part of a complicated con.

Wild Things almost encourages the audience to feel smugly superior to its tabloid subject matter — then outsmarts you again and again, in the best seductive noir tradition.

It has so many twists and turns you find yourself Everglades-deep in its world of unrepentant, glorious tawdriness. It's a lot of fun. Kevin Bacon is outstanding as a complicated cop, and Bill Murray has one of his most fun roles as a sleazy lawyer.

Like This List of the Most Seductive Movies We've Ever Seen?

Think we forgot one? Let us know in the comments.

And you might also like this list of the Strangest Movies We've Ever Seen.

Main image: Lost in Translation. Focus Features

Bardot came to represent a changing France and changing world: In her 91 years, Bardot was a film star, singer, animal rights activist, and a hero of both the left and right.

Her career helped introduce the French New Wave film movement to a global audience, and introduced a new spirit of freedom, openness and beauty in global cinema.

Here are her 10 best films.

And God Created Woman (1956)

This French film is the movie that made Brigitte Bardot an international sensation.

Directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim, it was originally released under its French title, Et Dieu... créa la femme, and follows young Juliette (Bardot) an 18-year-old who stirs up attention everywhere she goes in Saint-Tropez. Her supposed hedonism includes — brace yourself! — dancing barefoot.

It became the highest-grossing foreign film ever released in the United States, earning $4 million.

In 1999, director Peter Bogdanovich credited the film with "breaking French cinema out of us art houses and into the mainstream," which also kicked open the doors for the French New Wave.

Babette Goes to War (1959)

By 1958, Bardot was the highest-paid actress in France, with nothing to prove.

Babette Goes to War (Babette s'en va-t-en guerre) was notable for highlighting her comic chops, and for being the first of the starring vehicles in which she did not appear disrobed.

Set in 1940, it's shot beautifully in French CinemaScope, and tells the story of a young Frenchwoman who inadvertently gets involved in preventing Germany's invasion of England.

The Truth (1960)

The Truth — aka La Verité — is much darker than the Brigitte Bardot movies that came before.

Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, it tells the story of Dominique (Bardot), who is put on trial after surviving an attempted murder-suicide pact that ends in the death of her lover. Dominque's story is told in flashbacks as she stands trial.

The film was even more famous for the near-tragedy offscreen: Bardot reputedly attempted suicide during the production, leading the New York Times to report at the time of its release, "probably no film in recent years, at least in France, has been subjected to so much advanced attention."

The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, called it "an amazing picture, a tour de force from all concerned" adding that it is "at once immoral, amoral and strangely moral."

The film ended up being the biggest box office success of Bardot's career, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

A Very Private Affair (1962)

It's hard not to see Louis Malle's — aka Vie privée — as mirroring Bardot's own struggles.

It tells the story of a glamorous icon named Jill (Bardot) who draws intense scrutiny from the paparazzi and struggles with the pressures of fame. It offers a very dark take on stars' efforts to live and love outside of the spotlight. Her affairs, of course, are anything but private.

The film is worth seeing just to see Bardot paired with  Marcello Mastroianni.

Contempt (1963)

For our money, the best film on this list — and one of the best films ever made. If you have time for only one Brigitte Bardot movie, watch this one.

A French New Wave classic, aka Le Mépris, this Jean-Luc Godard masterpieces stars Bardot as Camille, the bored wife of Paul, a screenwriter hired by Fritz Lang (playing himself) to adapt The Odyssey.

Arrogant American film producer Jerry Prokosch (a ravenous Jack Palance) invites Paul and Camille to visit his home, but only has room in his convertible for one passenger. Camille takes it, setting off a cycle of jealousy and despair.

The film takes a road trip to one of the most beautiful locations ever captured on film, Capri, Italy. We wish we could say things end happily in that coastal paradise.

The Ravishing Idiot (1964)

Another movie worth watching for the fascinating pairing of its leads, this Cold War comedy, aka Une ravissante idiote, pairs Bardot with Psycho star Anthony Perkins.

Perkins plays a Soviet spy who relies on his new partner, Bardot's Penelope Lightfeather, as they cavort across Europe, trying to outwit counterintelligence agents.

To give you a sense of Bardot's following at the time, it was also released in the U.S. as Agent 38-24-36.

Viva Maria (1965)

Bardot worked again with director Louis Malle on this very '60s movie that paired her with Jean Moreau. They played two women, both named Maria, who become early 20th Century revolutionaries and folk heroes.

It was seen as fairly subversive at the time, as it was seen as a nod to the student protests of the era.

Turner Classic Movies has explained that Malle wanted to subvert the tropes of buddy movies — including by making the buddies movies.

Whatever its politics, Viva Maria looks gorgeous. The costumes were the work of Pierre Cardin.

Masculin-Feminin (1966)

Brigitte Bardot only has a cameo in this Jean-Luc Godard film, making an uncredited appearance as an actress.

But it's one of the lovely surprises in a film that delights in blending fantasy and cold hard reality.

It's also nice to see Bardot in a loose, fun, endlessly unpredictable Godard film after the heartbreak of Contempt.

Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman (1973)

Bardot reunited with ex-husband Roger Vadim for this drama, their fifth film together, which is known in French as Don Juan ou Si Don Juan était une femme...

It's another film in which Bardo subverts expectations with a gender switch: She plays Jean, a woman who believes she has been reincarnated as Don Juan, the legendary Spanish lover.

It notably pairs Bardot with Jane Birkin, famous for films like Blow Up and La Piscine.

The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot (1973)

Also known by the even longer French title L'histoire très bonne et très joyeuse de Colinot Trousse-Chemise, this curious comedy follows a man whose happiness is interrupted by the kidnapping of his fiancee.

His search for her leads him on many thrilling adventures, including a meeting with Arabelle, who turns his life around by being played by Brigitte Bardot.

Bardot vowed that this would be her final film, and she held fast to that vow, exiting the film industry at the age of 39.

If you like this list, we'd love for you to follow us for more stories like this.

Main image: Brigitte Bardot in Contempt. Marceau-Cocinor.

Editor's Note: Corrects main image.

We aren't talking about movies with an X rating, which are their own category. And we aren't talking about movies like Serpico, The French Connection and Mean Streets that depict sleaze but are, you know, classy about it.

We're talking about movies that ruthlessly shock and pander for the sake of good clean — or not so clean — thrills. So here we go.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

A gloriously shameless movie (starting with that title) that uses ickiness to its great advantage. It's one of the most effective and captivating horror movies ever made thanks to its hardcore atmosphere, oozing with sex and violence.

Filled with the sounds of animals and buzzing flies, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre makes clear from the start that it has no limits, even before we hear the first rev of Leatherface's chainsaw.

Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS (1975)

lsa, She Wolf of the S.S. affects high-minded ideals with a ridiculous opening card (see above), but it's all just an excuse to tell the story of Ilsa, an evil Nazi warden who wants to prove women are better at suffering than men, and should therefore be allowed to fight for Hitler.

Of course, she proves this through a series of "experiments" on women who are scantily clad, at best. Let's all say it together now: "They couldn't make this today."

A Canadian film by director Don Edmonds, it managed to get reviewed by Gene Siskel, who called it "the most degenerate picture I have seen to play downtown." We can't tell if that's a thumbs up or thumbs down.

The Driller Killer (1979)

Abel Ferrara has made some straight-up classics — including King of New York and Bad Lieutenant — but the Bronx-born director cut his teeth with The Driller Killer. (His debut was an adult motion picture in which he also performed.)

Ferrara also appeared in The Driller Killer (above) about a New York City artist who deals with his urban angst by going on a killing spree with a power tool.

The film made it onto the United Kingdom's list of "video nasties" criticized for their extreme content.

Dolemite (1975)

Look, we love Dolemite, but when the hero of the movie is a pimp, you're watching a sleazy movie.

Rudy Ray Moore's endlessly entertaining Blaxploitation icon sprang from his filthy standup comedy routines: He passed on stories of a streetwise hustler named Dolemite who explained, "Dolemite is my name and f---ing up motherf---ers is my game."

Dolemite was also a triumph of DIY, indie moviemaking — as spelled out in the recent Dolemite Is My Name, starring Eddie Murphy.

Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973)

Widely regarded as one of the best exploitation movies ever made, this Swedish film by director Bo Arne Vibenius stars Christina Lindberg as as a mute woman who endures a series of unbelievable traumas — which Vibenius isn't shy about showing onscreen.

She eventually finds herself a double-barrel shotgun and goes on a revenge mission that she — and her targets — very much deserve.

The Last House on the Left (1972)

We hate this movie, because it's so incredible effective. One of the most shameless 1970s movies of all, it has a handmade quality that makes it violence and cruelty feel all the more real.

Director Wes Craven made his debut with Last House on the Left — a story of abduction, brutality and vengeance, scored by eerie hippie music — before going on to create the classic Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream horror franchises. With all due respect to those films, they aren't remotely as scary as Last House on the Left.

Salo (1975)

Inspired by the writings of Marquis de Sade, this film by Pier Paolo Pasolini is about a group of fascists who round up a group of adolescents and do horrible things to them for 120 days. Just make a list of things that gross you out, and we promise they're in Salo.

Interestingly, Abel Ferrara, who you may remember from our Driller Killer entry, made a movie about Pasolini in 2014 about his life around the time he was making Salo.

It stars the great Willem Dafoe, a good friend and frequent collaborator of Ferrara's.

Saturday Night Fever (1977)

You probably remember the disco, but not the desperation.

Saturday Night Fever is a nuanced and gritty character study of Tony Manero (John Travolta, above) that unflinchingly depicts racism and sexual violence. Tony is deeply flawed, and no hero by today's standards, but the movie tries to win back our affection for him by the end.

For such a successful film, it's a very sleazy movie and a rough watch — but the dancing is fantastic, at least.

Piranha (1978)

One of many killer-animals movies rushed to the screen after the blockbuster success of Jaws, Piranha — unlike, say, Orca, to use one example — made no pretense of respectability. And we respect that.

A Roger Corman production through and through, this movie existed to show swimmers get attacked by toothy fish, and we love that. It's the epitome of a B movie.

But it was also important to the careers of some great filmmakers, including Corman: Six years after Piranha, Joe Dante went on to direct the massive hit Gremlins. And Piranha co-writer John Sayles would go on to make films including Eight Men Out and The Secret of Roan Inish.

The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977)

A movie we both love and respect, The Kentucky Fried Movie is a sendup of grindhouse and sleaze that is also, itself, pretty sleazy — but in a good way. It leaves no joke unturned, and parody-movie sendups go waaay further than necessary to satirize the things they're satirizing.

The Kentucky Fried Movie is one of funniest of all sleazy movies, and it led to more mainstream, less sleazy success for director John Landis and writers David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker, who would later go on to make Airplane.

Caligula (1979)

When Penthouse founder Bob Guccione set out to make a mainstream movie, the result was Caligula — a story of the indulgent Roman emperor with big names attached.

Led by rather fearless Clockwork Orange veteran Malcolm McDowell, the film stars Teresa Ann Savoy (above), as well as Helen Mirren and Peter O'Toole. But what it's best known for is its over-the-top sex scenes.

It was written by the very respected Gore Vidal, who disavowed it after director Tinto Brass substantially altered his script.

Liked Our List of Shameless 1970s Movies?

If you liked this, you might also like our list of Gen X Movie Stars Gone Too Soon.

And you might also like this behind the scenes look at The Kentucky Fried Movie.

Main image: The Kentucky Fried Movie. United Film Distribution Company

Mia and Tia (Cars, 2006)

There's no other way to say it: the twin Mazda Miatas who literally flash their headlights at Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) early in Cars are groupies.

When Lightning disappears, they start hanging around the awful Chick Hicks.

So they're not only groupies, but groupies who have terrible taste.

The Toy Story Casting Couch (Toy Story 2, 1999)

Someone at Pixar has a thing for twins.

A "blooper reel" that ran during the end credits of Toy Story 2 was edited in the #MeToo era to remove a joke where sleazy prospector Stinky Pete (voiced by Kelsey Grammar), accosts two twin Barbies — and takes the hand of one — while promising, “Y’know, I’m sure I could get you a part in Toy Story 3.”  

Barbie, of course, went on to have one of the top-grossing movies of all time. Stinky Pete, not so much.

No Bears in San Francisco (Inside Out, 2015)

Inside Out, which follows all the emotions in a young girl's head as her family moves to the Bay Area, features one character insisting, "There are no bears in San Francisco."

Another character chimes in: "I saw a really hairy guy. He looked like a bear."

Sally's Lower Back Tattoo (Cars, 2006)

Lightning McQueen realizes his love interest, a Porsche Carrera named Sally, has a bit of a wild side when he sees her rear pinstriping — the car equivalent of a lower-back tattoo.

You can disagree with the notion that lower back tattoos signify anything, but the joke was common enough around the time of Cars' release that it also popped up in a different Owen Wilson movie, 2005's The Wedding Crashers.

Hostile Takeover Bank (Cars, 2006)

Not all Pixar jokes for adults are risqué.

Cars did a cute bit of social commentary by making HTB — aka Hostile Takeover Bank — the sponsor of Lightning McQueen's greatest rival, the previously mentioned Chick Hicks. He's a notorious bad sport who will do anything to take over a lead. Or a bank, we guess.

This is our favorite joke in Cars — and we love Cars.

Buzz Lightyear's Erect Wings (Toy Story 2, 1999)

Yow. When Buzz Lightyear is so, um, impressed by cowgirl Jessie's acrobatics that his wings schwing to full attention.

This is one of those Pixar jokes so silly and well-executed that it's impossible to get upset about.

Proctology (Cars, 2006)

Cars is both a sweet kids' movie and a gentle rumination on aging, with all that it entails.

While many kids movies enlist bathroom humor, Cars includes a very different kind of joke about bodily functions.

In one of the saddest moments in the franchise, Lightning McQueen barges in on the sheriff (Michael Wallis) as he receives the car equivalent of a trip to the proctologist, courtesy of Doc Hudson (Paul Newman).

12-Step Sharks Meeting (Finding Nemo, 2003)

12-step groups in the style of AA meetings are a cornerstone of dramas, from Fight Club to 28 Days.

But they don't turn up in many kids movies, with the exception of Finding Nemo, where Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) accidentally finds her way into a movie where a group of sharks, led by Bruce (Barry Humphries) try to curb their bloodthirsty addictions.

Darkest of all, the sharks relapse during the meeting.

Laser Envy (Toy Story, 1995)

When Woody (Tom Hanks) seems jealous of Buzz Lightyear's superior firepower, Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles) quips that he has "laser envy."

See also: Pixar jokes for Freudians.

Life's a Beach (Cars 3, 2017)

Lightning McQueen's new trainer, Cruz Ramirez, makes a comment that only people who remember the old Life Alert commercials will recognize as a throwback. Cruz asks, "You're old — what if you fall on this beach and can't get up?"

She's sneakily referring to the often-mocked ad where an older person comically cries out, "I've fallen and I can't get up!"

But the risque part of the joke is Lightning's response: "Life's a beach and then you drive." Kind of sounds like an old saying, doesn't?

Stripper Music (Turning Red, 2022)

The parents in Turning Red are not fans of the boy band 4*Town.

Several tell their daughters they can't go to the group's concert, and Abbys says that her mom refers to 4*Town songs as "stripper music." (She doesn't understand what that means or see what's wrong with it.)

We aren't prudes, but... weird joke for a kids' movie.

Little, Little... (Ratatouille, 2007)

In Ratatouille, Linguine (Lou Romano) struggles to explain to his colleage, Collette (Janeane Garofalo), that a little rat named Remy gives him instructions on how to make his delicious food.

First, as he struggles with the word "rat," she thinks he's confessing to a rash. But he objects.

"No," he stammers, holding his fingers about an inch apart. "I have this tiny, little, little..."

She ever so quickly glances down at his pants, before he concludes: "a tiny chef who tells me what to do!"

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All images from Pixar.