Steamboat Bill, Jr.

Buster Keaton's last great independent film — and the one with the most jaw-dropping stunt in all of silent cinema. Keaton plays the effete, college-educated son of a rough-hewn steamboat captain, returning home to a Mississippi river town where he's useless on the docks, hopeless in his father's eyes, and head-over-heels for the daughter of his father's business rival. The cyclone sequence that climaxes the film is one of the most extraordinary things ever committed to celluloid: an entire town is demolished around Keaton as he searches for his beloved, climaxing with the famous moment when the facade of a two-story building falls directly on top of him — and he survives only because he's standing exactly where the open window passes over him. Real building. No trick shot. No safety wire. Genius.