Casablanca

Wartime propaganda that outlived its war. Michael Curtiz's film exists to argue that American neutrality was untenable, and it makes the case through a cynic - Rick Blaine, who insists he sticks his neck out for nobody and spends the picture proving otherwise. What preserves it is the refusal of a neat ending: Rick puts Ilsa on the plane with her husband, gets nothing for it, and walks off into the fog beside a corrupt police captain. The romance works because it is denied. Shot on Warner Bros. soundstages with a largely European emigre cast, many of them genuine refugees, it premiered in New York in November 1942 but went into general release in January 1943 - which is why it took Best Picture at the 1944 ceremony. Three Oscars, including Director for Curtiz.