4. THE LAST LAUGH

An instructive fable for the current recessionary times: director F.W. Murnau's 1924 silent-film masterpiece about an aging doorman who loses his sense of self when he's relieved of his job. Considered the high point of German expressionism, Last Laugh is, for contemporary purposes, a supremely entertaining film about how work defines our lives, and how people are exploited by those who provide their labor. Beyond this, the performance by Emil Jannings is tremendously moving — delicate and never merely self-pitying.