Sherlock Jr.

Buster Keaton's most ingenious film — and at 45 minutes, possibly the most perfectly constructed comedy ever made. Keaton plays a movie projectionist who dreams of being a detective. When he falls asleep in the booth, he literally walks into the film on screen, and the movie becomes a playground of impossible gags: backgrounds change around him mid-scene, he leaps through a window and lands in a completely different setting, reality bends to the logic of cinema itself. It's a film about film, decades before anyone used the term "meta." The motorcycle chase alone — Keaton perched on the handlebars of a riderless bike hurtling through traffic — would secure its place in history. That he conceived, choreographed, and performed every stunt himself is almost beyond belief.