2. The Big Lebowski
Count on the Coen Brothers to take a familiar premise and completely re-invent it just as they do in The Big Lebowski, which depicts the travails of Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), who is roughed up by two thugs who suggest that his wife owes money to a guy. They eventually realise they've got the wrong man, and after gathering his thoughts, The Dude decides to locate the other Lebowski to get compensation for the thugs urinating on his rug. The Big Lebowski refuses to compensate him, though decides that, given he has already had his identity mistaken and been beaten by the bad guys, that he should act as a courier for the ransom Lebowski needs to deliver to bring back his trophy wife, Bunny (Tara Reid). The Coens confess that the plot to their classic comedy is deliberately over-the-top and needlessly complicated, but what they've made is simple one of the most astonishingly funny and memorable movies of the 1990s, and one that even fostered its own religion - Dudeism.