The Quitter (2005)

Cranky. Insecure. Patently average. Harvey Pekar is quite possibly the first Everyman schlub to infiltrate the medium of superheroes, and The Quitter is the origin story of how the man (immortalized in 2003's side-achingly clever movie American Splendor) fumbled his way into it. Who'd have thought the file clerk by profession was a childhood football champ? Or that he was notorious in his Cleveland neighborhood for picking — and then winning — fights? The brilliance of Quitter rests in how Pekar unironically exposes the tragedy of missed opportunities and the general ridiculousness of human behavior.