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5. DR. STRANGELOVE OR: HOW I STOPPED LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB (1964, RCA/ Columbia, $19.95, B&W) Stanley Kubrick's nuclear black comedy is also the funniest assault ever made on the assumptions of the Cold War. With Sterling Hayden in his most memorable performance (as Gen. Jack D. Ripper) and Peter Sellers in three roles, including the Kissinger-like doctor of the title.
6. VERTIGO (1958, MCA, $19.95, PG) Vertigo cuts closer to the bone than any other Hitchcock thriller. James Stewart becomes obsessed with a woman he has been hired to follow, and his investigation of her death veers dangerously close to madness. MCA's video version beautifully preserves the original's dreamlike Technicolor intensity.
7. CHINATOWN (1974, Paramount, $19.95, R) Jack Nicholson investigates corruption and Faye Dunaway in '30s Los Angeles: On the surface, it's another of those trendy hardboiled-detective revamps that everybody made in the '70s. But director Roman Polanski took the genre so far into the dark that Hollywood has been backing away from its wor. SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (1941, MCA, $29.95, B&W) The inexplicably underrated Joel McCrea stars as a director of successful but silly Hollywood pictures. He yearns to make serious message movies and hits the road to see how the other half lives. The result? Not just the best movie ever about filmmakers, but the funniest and wisest of the great string of comedies by Preston Sturges.
9. THE GENERAL (1927, HBO, $39.99, B&W) Buster Keaton's hilarious meditation on the Civil War is, among other treasures, a Mathew Brady photograph come to life and one of the purest pieces of visual comedy ever committed to celluloid. Unlike a number of shoddy video versions, HBO's tape is struck from a pristine original print and comes with a fabulous orchestral score.
10. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942, Turner, $19.98, B&W or colorized) The Citizen Kane follow-up that turned Orson Welles from Boy Genius to Misunderstood Genius. Welles adapted Booth Tarkington's sprawling novel of a family's decline into an emotional epic, but the studio shortened the film into something much more prosaic. Still, Ambersons has moments that make other films seem klutzy.
11. BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967, Warner, $19.98) Warren Beatty is Clyde Barrow and Faye Dunaway, fondling a revolver, is Bonnie Parker. They rob banks. Audiences in 1967 were shocked by Bonnie and Clyde's slow-motion violence. Today's audiences may be more shocked by its tenderness.
12. TAXI DRIVER (1976, Goodtimes, $12.95, R) Martin Scorsese's merciless view of New York is too grim to be entirely realistic, but Robert De Niro's extraordinary portrayal of a deranged cabbie makes for an unforgettable experience. Jodie Foster is chillingly convincing as a teenybopper prostitute. Caveat: This budget reissue tape is of lower quality than the original RCA/Columbia version.
13. ANNIE HALL (1977, MGM/UA, $19.95, PG) Woody Allen's landmark comedy pits New York against Los Angeles more effectively than any film before or since, but he's most funny and incisive when he delves into the dangers of dating. Diane Keaton plays the perfect romantic foil to Allen's nebbish.
