11 FULL METAL JACKET 1987 The late, great Stanley Kubrick originally thought he was making the ultimate war-is-hell movie, but in the end the film turns out to be a pitch-black comedy. Not everyone admires the result (critic David Thomson calls it "an abomination"), but it has become a true cult classic, and the fiercely scatological dialogue can be heard in bars and college dorms everywhere being repeated reverently by fans. Credit must go to R. Lee Ermey, a former real-life staff sergeant, whose obscene tirades set a new standard for trash talk. Key Scene The sniper's identity revealed: a true peek into the abyss. Best Line "You had best unfuck yourself or I will unscrew your head and shit down your neck!"
12 DR. NO 1962 The first and purest of the James Bond flicks, before the series turned cute and predictable. Sean Connery's 007 still has that scary edge of lethal ruthlessness. It's an edge he will never have again as the later films (and later Bonds) devolve into a family entertainment franchise. (And trust us, Vin Diesel is not the answer.) Key Scene What teenage boy ever forgets his first glimpse of Ursula Andress emerging from the breakers? Eat your heart out, Halle Berry. Best Line "That's a Smith and Wesson. You've had your six."
13 THE KILLER 1989 John Woo's signature film is a bullet ballet of male bonding. Chow Yun-Fat is a hit man whose code of honor poleaxes tough cop Danny Lee. Critics unfamiliar with the Chinese tradition of "sworn brotherhood" say the movie has a gay subtext. Crazy, right? Key Scene Lee cauterizes the killer's wound with gunpowder. Best Line "The only person who really knows me turns out to be a cop."
14 RAGING BULL 1980 Robert De Niro bulks up and lashes out as lowlife fifties antichamp Jake LaMotta, a jealous brute whose life's work was beating people to a pulp. Miraculously, Martin Scorsese makes it into an ode to the human spirit. Joe Pesci, as Jake's brother, makes punk poetry of Paul Schrader's fuck-encrusted dialogue. Key Scene The slo-mo fights, choreographed to the sound of exploding flashbulbs. Best Line "Did you fuck my wife?"
15 BULLITT 1968 The ultimate Steve McQueen, and a defining moment in guy movie history. He was the coolest star we ever had, and his minimalist charisma keeps winning converts with every passing year. A cop story set in San Francisco, Bullitt isn't driven by the script or the action -- it's just McQueen being McQueen. Taken as a whole, his career teaches us one fundamental truth: Real men should talk less and drive more. Key Scene The car chase, for sure, a witty trendsetter over SF's roller-coasting hills, with Steve the racing buff clearly visible behind the wheel of his 390 Mustang GT. Best Line "You work your side of the street and I'll work mine."
16 ENTER THE DRAGON 1973 There were kung fu killers with smoother moves, but no one had Bruce Lee's enraged magnetism. Before he sealed his legend by dying young, the savagely graceful actor explained his secret: "I am not acting. I am just doing my thing." Key Scene Battling the steel-clawed Han in an underground hall of mirrors. Best Line "Through long years of rigorous training, sacrifice, denial, pain, we forge our bodies in the fire of our will."
17 APOCALYPSE NOW 1979 How many people truly admire this Francis Ford Coppola-John Milius collaboration as a scathing indictment of the debacle in Vietnam? Damn few. The real reason the film keeps growing in stature is that it's a hallucinatory head trip, the war film to watch when you are baked and basted. Key Scene Helicopters attack to the tune of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries." Best Line "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning."
18 GOODFELLAS 1990 Half tragedy, half farce, Martin Scorsese's sadistic gangster classic is a heartfelt fantasy about joining the ultimate boys club. The best scenes are the social gatherings at nightclubs and backroom card games at which the made men savor their precarious status. Key Scene The zippy montage sequence depicting the coke-addled frenzy in which Henry Hill's house of cards finally collapses. Best Line "You think I'm funny?"
19 RESERVOIR DOGS 1992 Quentin Tarantino's ferociously black comedy about a botched bank job that goes horribly, violently bad has outlasted the nitpickers who dismissed it as a derivative video geek's greatest-hits anthology with attitude. The borrowed building blocks are much less important than the inspired embellishments. The peerless ensemble cast (led by Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, and Steve Buscemi) make a full-course meal of some of the crudest (and funniest) tough-guy backchat ever written. Early on, the distributor suggested removing the horrific ear-cutting scene, but Tarantino balked. "If violence is part of your palette," he said later, "you have to be free to go where your heart takes you." Key Scene We're all ears. Best Line "Mr. Brown? That sounds too much like Mr. Shit."
20 FIGHT CLUB 1999 The crude message -- we prove our manhood by learning how to take a punch -- works best when Brad Pitt and Edward Norton are recklessly acting it out rather than simply jawing about it. They almost make you believe it. Key Scene The sucking-on-the-gun shot, a truly shocking sight. Best Line "First rule of Fight Club: You do not talk about Fight Club."