Singin' in the Rain

Director: Stanley Donen

1952 / 103min / 35mm

A prime candidate for greatest movie musical of all time, Donen and Kelly’s meta-marvel sets its scene at the tail end of the silent film era, as Hollywood’s biggest stars are all in a tizzy about the looming threat of unemployment with the arrival of “the talkies.” Kelly’s muscular athleticism as a dancer was never put to better use than in his role as arrogant movie star Don Lockwood—scrambling to save Monumental Pictures mega-production The Dueling Cavalier by turning it into a musical—but every bit his show-stopping equal are Donald O’Connor as piano man Cosmo Brown, a delightful Debbie Reynolds as up-and-coming dance girl Kathy Selden, and an Oscar-nominated Jean Hagen as vindictive, banshee-voiced superstar Lina Lamont.