West Side Story (1961)
Well, this is a tough one... Whereas many of the songs in West Side Story are widely recognizable (thanks to an excellent work by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim ), not so many people have actually watched the movie. In fact, Ebert himself finishes his Great Movie review by saying that this is a film that comes short of its full potential. So why did he give West Side Story its 5th star by including it in that selective list? The dancing itself, says he. Well, I respectfully disagree... The movie spans a 2-day interval, telling the doomed love story of the Puerto Rican immigrant Maria ( Natalie Wood ) and a local guy, named Tony ( Richard Beymer ). It so happens that Tony was a founding member of the Jets, whose rival gang so happens to be the Sharks, whose leader is Maria's brother Bernardo ( George Chakiris ) -- thus setting the stage for one of many adaptations of Shakespeare 's Romeo and Juliet . As far as adaptations go, I would say this is a pretty good...