20 Movies That Are Flawed Masterpieces

18. Cloud Atlas (2012)

Without a doubt, Cloud Atlas is one of the most ambitious movies ever made. In fact, you'd have to be a little bit mad to even think you could pull it off, given that it plot involves dozens of characters spread across six different time frames, all of which are completely different from one another. What's more, the Wachowski siblings - those of The Matrix fame - decide to cast the same actors in multiple parts, further adding to the head-spinning nature of it all. So the movie itself is, of course, a total and utter mess... but what a crazy, wonderful, brilliant and visually stunning mess it is!

Cloud Atlas had "ill-judged" written all over it, and yet it's hard to look away because the movie is rendered with such affection for its source material (the original novel was written by David Mitchell). It's tough not to laugh at Tom Hanks wearing bad prosthetics, but it's tougher not to awe at the sheer insanity of it all. As a tribute to the imagination, to adaptations in general, to the notion of storytelling, and to the Wachowski's willingness to create something as weird and unruly as Cloud Atlas, there will surely come a time when people in the future will gaze upon at this movie and declare it to be a masterpiece. A flawed masterpiece, mind you - but a masterpiece nonetheless.