Gone with the Wind

1939

Victor Fleming's Civil War epic runs nearly four hours, took ten Academy Awards, and remains the highest grossing film ever released once ticket prices are adjusted for inflation. Vivien Leigh plays Scarlett O'Hara, a Georgia plantation daughter who survives war and ruin by becoming someone her own family barely recognizes, opposite Clark Gable as Rhett Butler. Olivia de Havilland and Leslie Howard fill out the corners of the romance, and Hattie McDaniel became the first Black performer to win an Academy Award for her supporting role. Its romanticized picture of the antebellum South has been contested for decades, and the rights holder now presents the film with that context attached.