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Fri 16 October 2026 20:15, UK
If you ask 100 people to name the greatest movie ever made, you’ll get a lot of different answers. However, if you asked Kurt Russell and Michael Caine, you’d only get one.
There’s no such thing as a consensus pick for the finest feature to have ever existed, but there are a certain handful of titles that will always be there or thereabouts. You don’t have to agree, since all art is subjective, after all, but you’ll still be well aware of the usual suspects.
Whether it’s Citizen Kane, the first two chapters in the Godfather trilogy, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shawshank Redemption, Seven Samurai, Gone with the Wind, or any of the other films that can make a case, the conversation simply doesn’t happen without a few familiar flicks being taken into account.
As for Russell and Caine, they don’t rock the boat too much. The star of The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes and the reigning king of the cult classic may not have too many credits to his name that are in with a shout at being named among cinema’s all-time greats, but what he does have that very few actors can ever lay claim to is a filmography overflowing with beloved, B-tier favourites and adored gems.
Caine, meanwhile, knows a thing or two about being in a good movie, and with two Academy Award wins to his name, he also knows a thing or two about acting his heart out in them. Naturally, since Russell is the youngest of the two, with the spring chicken having been born in 1951, it’s not a recent picture.
Instead, since he considers it the most emotionally satisfying ever made, with the greatest dialogue ever written, and unfolding against the backdrop of the greatest romance in big-screen history, John Carpenter’s muse will never budge on Casablanca being the ultimate example of cinematic excellence.
His counterpart, who took his name from Humphrey Bogart’s The Caine Mutiny, might be a touch biased towards his favourite actor of all time, but since ‘Bogie’ had plenty of films to choose from, it’s not as if he had the blinders on when he echoed Russell’s sentiment and also declared Michael Curtiz’s masterpiece as the top dog.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
Having been old enough to watch it the first time around, when Caine saw Casablanca for the first time, he was completely and utterly mesmerised, knowing then and there that he’d seen something that few films could ever hope to top. In 1942, he thought it was the greatest ever, “And to this day,” he pointed out, “It still is.”
Again, it’s hardly out-of-the-box thinking to call something that’s widely accepted as one of the best movies of all time the best movie of all time, but try to tell either of them anything different, and neither Russell nor Caine will consider giving you the time of day.
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