The General – (Buster Keaton/Clyde Bruckman, 1926)
"You can't have a 'best of all time' list without Buster Keaton on it, so I guess it's The General, his train movie. He's just amazing. I've been through all his movies: The Cameraman, which was his first MGM picture, Steamboat Bill... The stunt effects in Steamboat Bill! I watched that scene over and over where the side of the house falls on him and he's standing right under the window. He risked his life for that shot, y'know? so you've got to give him some credit! But The General is a wonderful story about him and a train and it has some of the greatest action sequences ever. It's hard to believe that these were made in the early 20s. He takes this massive steam locomotive across a bridge and it collapses and you actually witness a real steam engine plummeting into a river and exploding. Stunning stuff!"