Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder is the most audacious Hollywood satire since The Player — a film that eviscerates the movie industry's vanity, narcissism, and self-importance with such surgical precision that it is almost miraculous it got made at all. Ben Stiller directed, co-wrote, and starred in a movie about actors so disconnected from reality that they do not realize they have wandered into an actual war zone.

Robert Downey Jr.'s Kirk Lazarus — an Australian method actor who undergoes pigmentation surgery to play a Black character — is the most dangerous performance in modern comedy. It works only because the film's target is not Black people but the obscene lengths white actors will go to for awards. Downey was nominated for an Oscar for a performance about an actor who would do anything for an Oscar. The meta-layers are infinite.

Tom Cruise's uncredited Les Grossman — a bald, fat, profane studio executive who dances to Flo Rida — is the most shocking cameo in comedy history. Nobody knew it was Cruise. The reveal that the biggest action star in the world could play a repulsive, rage-filled producer with that level of commitment redefined what audiences thought Cruise was capable of. The film's satire of Hollywood ego has only grown more relevant as the industry has grown more self-congratulatory.