10 Perfect Movies With One Glaring Flaw

1. You Can See The Helicopter In The Opening - The Shining

This is going to seem so bloody pernickety but because director Stanley Kubrick's obsession has become an enduring part of the legacy of his masterful, if loose, adaptation of Stephen King's novel's it just has to be mentioned.

The Shining opens with the camera hauntingly following a yellow VW driving along an isolated road. It's an unsettling opening to the film, with the music and gradual closing-in the car starting to build the film's intoxicating unease. It's not a perfect opening though; just in the corner of one shot before the titles roll, you can clearly see the shadow of the helicopter from which it's being filmed. That's just a goof, right? A mistake in filming that couldn't be corrected once it was discovered in editing. Well, yes, that's exactly what it is. But the fact that it exists in this film is a reputation altering flaw.

Since its mixed reaction upon release in 1980, The Shining has become a treasure trove of subtext, with so many theories about what the film really means thrown about that there's a documentary chronicling them. Room 237 brings a mixture of the believable (there's something in there about Native Americans) and the insane (it's Stanley Kubrick's confession for faking the moon landings), but what links them all is their reliance on Kubrick's perfectionism; everything, even the split-second images made in a fading shot transition, have a purpose. But that's all clearly not true; if it was how did the helicopter's shadow, a sign this is a work of fiction, make it into the film? Maybe it is just a horror movie.

Which other near-perfect movies have niggling flaws? Let us know your picks in the comments below.