Sorry it took so long, but so many of my shortlist choices are gone (Fight Club, Seven Samurai, Vertigo, Alien, Aliens, Full Metal Jacket, Zoolander, Holy Grail, Rocky Horror...) and on the other hand outside my shortlist there's still tons of choices... Just too much to choose from. But here goes. A classic of black comedy and political satire.
For our
4th pick and something overall, team
Selfmade Heroes is happy to choose
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) in the
best picture category (BAFTA).
"You can't fight in here, this is the War Room."
Originally designed to become a serious political thriller, before Stanley Kubrick came to see the movie in a new light:
"My idea of doing it as a nightmare comedy came in the early weeks of working on the screenplay. I found that in trying to put meat on the bones and to imagine the scenes fully, one had to keep leaving out of it things which were either absurd or paradoxical, in order to keep it from being funny; and these things seemed to be close to the heart of the scenes in question."
If you've ever wanted to see a movie that's at the same time dark and intelligent and yet funny to the point of downright silliness, beautifully shot, magnificently acted and directed by one the greatest in movie history, this is the one.
Peter Sellers in his triple-role is of course the most memorable actor, but Sterling Haydens as the mad general Jack D. Ripper, Georce C. Scott as almost equally bonkers general "Buck" Turgidson and Slim Pickens (who by the way wasn't told this was a comedy before shooting was finished) as major "King" Kong create such a delightfully cracked image of military might that it's impossible to imagine the movie without them.
This is a combination of two scenes, where a mad general outlines his idea for starting a nuclear war against Soviet Union and the basic reason for it.
A scene from the very end of the movie, outlining Dr. Strangelove's plan for the survival of the "human race", or at least the American side of it during a nuclear war; evacuation into mine shafts.
(EDIT: changed the last scene into a longer version)