5. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)

Gone With the Wind is filled with interesting characters, lavish settings, groundbreaking cinematography, and beautiful music. And yet, we think that the key to this film can be found in one person: Scarlett O'Hara.

Scarlett O'Hara is a bitch. She's spoiled, she uses her sexuality to connive men into doing her bidding, and she doesn't think twice about marrying a man for the sole reason of making another man jealous. And yet, Scarlett is the perfect anti-hero, saying and doing exactly the opposite of everyone else during the 1860s.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, Gone With the Wind takes place in the South before, during, and after the Civil War. Scarlett O'Hara (played by Vivien Leigh) lives on a massive plantation named Tara, and the Confederacy is just on the brink of going to war with the Yankees. Scarlett, however, couldn't care less about the war; she's much more interested in playing with men's emotions and choosing her own life. She eventually meets rakish war profiteer Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), and they naturally engage in a love-hate relationship full of witty insults.

The movie progresses along like the 4-hour soap opera that it is. Scarlett escapes the burning of Atlanta, survives the destruction of Tara, starts her own business, loses husbands . . . yet as she so famously points out, no matter how much tragedy she endures, "tomorrow is another day." In short, Scarlett is a survivor, and that's what we like about her.

Notes:

  • Made more money than any other film until The Sound of Music; some claim that it has sold more tickets than any other movie ever

  • Three directors worked on this film, all at different times

  • Nominated for 13 Academy Awards

  • Won 8 Academy Awards: Best Picture, Director, Actress (Leigh), Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel), Screenplay, Editing, Art Direction, Cinematography (it also won 2 special Academy Awards for its use of color, and its use of "coordinated equipment")

  • Hattie McDaniels Academy Award was the first ever to go to an African American

  • Placed #4 on the American Film Institute's "100 Greatest Movies" List