13The Big Lebowski (1998)

Similar to other films on this list – Duck Soup, Office Space, and Harold and Maude – The Big Lebowski was not embraced as a classic when it hit theaters, its genius was rediscovered on home video, almost as if it had originally been censored by the authorities. Wisely, the Coen brothers have not rushed in to goad over or even much claim ownership of the idol worship. The story’s anti-hero is a counter-culture relic (“The Dude”) and his bowling league teammate Walter Sobchak, a Vietnam vet for whom the war is still raging. They get swept into a Philip Marlowe noir, but set during the Gulf War, and narrated by a cowboy out of the Old West – an omniscient presence who introduces the action of the story thusly: “Sometimes there’s a man, and I’m talking about the Dude here, sometimes there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place.”