10 Movies Way Better Than They Had Any Right To Be

It may have spawned a five-movie franchise that has earned over $4.5bn at the box office and firmly entrenched Captain Jack Sparrow at the forefront of popular culture, but when Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was first announced fifteen years ago, there were more than a few sceptics.

For one, it was based on a theme park ride, hardly a source of great creative inspiration for blockbuster movies. Secondly, the catastrophic failure of Cutthroat Island in 1995 was still relatively fresh in the memory and spending $140m on a pirate movie ran the very real risk of backfiring spectacularly.

Then there was the talent involved. Director Gore Verbinski had never worked with a budget of this size before, writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio's recent output included critical duds like Godzilla and the cast was led by Johnny Depp, the quirky face of American independent cinema, a supporting actor from Lord of the Rings who was billed tenth in that movie's credits and the eighteen year-old female star of Bend It Like Beckham.

Despite having so much working against it from an outsider's point of view, Curse of the Black Pearl was a breath of fresh air for blockbuster cinema in the summer of 2003. Old-fashioned escapist entertainment of the highest caliber, the movie was a non-stop rollercoaster ride of action and classic swashbuckling, and would go on to earn over $650m at the box office.