Casablanca

Like Citizen Kane and Gone with the Wind, this 1942 classic has been dissected to within an inch of its life. The reason Casablanca endures is that it's a timeless love story wrapped inside a gripping wartime thriller, written with such wit and meaning that it's still quoted (and misquoted) decades later. Humphrey Bogart gives a career-best performance as Rick, the cynical, expat nightclub owner, whose seemingly apolitical stance is rocked by the appearance of Resistance leader Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) and Ilsa Lund (the luminous Ingrid Bergman). Ilsa is Rick's old flame - cue misty-eyed flashbacks of their time together in Paris and requests for Dooley Wilson to play As Time Goes By. Memorable support comes from Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt and Claude Rains, and Max Steiner's score is superb, but the final credit must go to director Michael Curtiz, who pieces it all together with verve, symbolism and torrid emotion. It may never carry the same impact as it did for post-Pearl Harbor Americans, but it still transfixes, from the first rounding up of the "usual suspects".