Titanic

1997

James Cameron spent more on this than anyone had ever spent on a film, then held the record for the highest grossing movie in the world for the next twelve years. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet play Jack and Rose, a steerage artist and a first-class passenger already sold into a marriage she does not want. Billy Zane plays the fiance, Kathy Bates plays Molly Brown, and Gloria Stuart bookends the film as Rose at 101. The disaster is real history and the romance is the vehicle Cameron built to make an audience feel it.