Kelly's Heroes (1970)
When Private Kelly (Clint Eastwood) discovers the existence of a cache of gold in a bank vault 30 miles behind enemy lines, he enlists a rag-tag bunch of outsiders and misfits to liberate it including a hippyish tank commander (Donald Sutherland), a motormouth sergeant (Don Rickles) and an unwilling master sergeant (Telly Savalas). It's a caper which turns into a bleak treatise on the horrors of war and back again, and also inspired a really, really good Black Grape song.
Ran (1985)
King Lear, but make it feudal Japan. Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece (well, one of his masterpieces) was the most expensive Japanese film ever made when it was released in 1985, and it's still arguably the most ambitious. When an ageing lord decides to divide up his kingdom between his three sons, fraternal jealousy quickly pits brother against brother, and then, against father. Though